Cake, colors, cake, and the beach. And more cake.

Made coq au vin with my extra nasty wine. Sort of. Didn't have mushrooms, or bacon, or pearl onions, so I used regular onion and added carrots. Baked a cake at the same time, too, so I hope the cake doesn't taste like onions and wine!
I was thinking of all kinds of stuff to write here all day, and I was like, I'm gonna have to leave some of this stuff out or it'll be the longest blog ever. Aaaaand now I can't think of ANY of what I was gonna say. Except maybe this whole "what do I want to do with my life" thing...which I really don't feel like tackling now. I'd rather just eat cake. We got the new 2012 Wilton yearbook in today (cake decorating book). The cover is ridiculously cute and I want to make that cake! Except it's all tiers and fondant and blah blah... I don't do that. I don't even like fondant. I don't know why anybody would want it on their cake. Yeah, it looks gorgeous, but it tastes like crap. Why would you want to put something nasty on top of one of the best foods ever invented? Seriously though, look at this thing: mmmmm.... can't get the pic to show down here, it's at the top. Now everyone will be confused that there's a pic of a cake and then I'm talking about chicken first. *shrug*
Things I should know and don't:
The correct order of all the eras..like Jurassic, Paleolithic, Triassic, ...I don't even remember any more than that, let alone where they go.
How to spell restaurant. Thank goodness for spell check. Why is this word so hard for me?
The 9's of the multiplication table. Jessy's told me a trick to it a billion times, but I never remember.
The U.S. presidents.
Lots of other stuff.

Why is Funfetti cake so much better than other cake? (apparently fixated on cake) It's just little colored sprinkles in the batter. I love colors though. Which is why I like knitting. That and the idea that I can take a single string and somehow loop it until it's a piece of fabric....crazy. Anyway, it's weird how visually oriented I am. I'm twice as likely to buy something if it's a color I like. I'll pick something curvy over something angular every time. When I add in my head, I make little dots in my mind, in the shapes that the symbols are in on playing cards. Or at least I think they are. Maybe it's more like domino dots. I dunno. I don't play cards often. Hopefully you get the point though. I see the numbers in shapes... or arrangements of dots... whatever.
I don't quite understand the appeal of the beach. If somebody said to me, "Hey, let's go to the beach on your weekend off and I'll pay for everything," I'd be like, "Well heck yeah!!!" But if I was gonna plan and fund a vacation myself, that's the last place I'd probably go. Scary powerful water that's all murky with fish and weird stuff swimming in it.. yuck. Sometimes the waves are hard to deal with. Sand gets in EVERYthing. The salt water makes my skin feel weird and itch sometimes. And there are screaming children everywhere, running around, throwing balls and frisbees and stuff. I'm not a big fan of children. For reasons I will probably discuss in a later blog. So. What's the appeal? Getting sunburned whilst wearing a piece of spandex/lycra in front of complete strangers while their children leave no moment silent. I'd rather go to a city and swim in the hotel pool after seeing some museums and shopping. Or maybe go hiking. Or visit a cave. Or go to DisneyWorld, or a zoo, or aquarium, or ...oooh, actually I'd go to the ocean if I could go on a boat! I like boats.
Ok, this is getting too long for one post. Nobody will read it all!

Hot Dogs, Caffeine, & Grammar

Feeling like this is gonna be a really boring post, but what the heck, I'm gonna write anyway. Not a lot to say. I'm pretty fried mentally. Apparently I need more than 8 hours of sleep a night to be atop my game, and I've had naught but 6-8 every day for at least 3 weeks, even when I have days off for some reason. I'm turning into a caffeine junkie. Ok, not really, just 1 cup of coffee every morning, which is way way way less than a lot of people I know, but a ton for me personally. And I don't drink pop. The carbonation kind of hurts my throat and the sugar and corn syrup leave me feeling like crap. Which is ironic considering how much candy and chocolate and cake I can consume and have no adverse affects at all...except maybe an extra pound on my butt!
I'm making hot dogs, Kraft mac & cheese, and salad for dinner. Eh, not the best, but it'll do. I have a love/hate relationship with hot dogs. If I have a craving for them & they're done right (grilled is best! boiled I won't touch) they're the best food in the world, especially with coleslaw on them. But if I'm eating them because I have to, because I don't have time for anything else, or it's all we have in the house, they're the worst and I, for some reason, get really angry & resentful that I have to eat them. lol I have anger issues! I hide them well, cuz I don't want people to think I'm a bitch, but they're there! Just ask my mom or my husband. The poor souls. They're the two people I love most in the world, and because of that they have to put up with my temper minus the glossy finish and choke hold I put on it for other people. Wrong of me, yes, but I know they won't hate me for letting go.
I'm really annoyed with myself for all the grammar and spelling errors I've found when reading over these posts a second time. I was always great with grammar and spelling in school, so why am I making all these stupid mistakes now and not catching them before I hit post? Maybe my mind is moving too fast for my fingers to keep up with. Or maybe my mind if moving too fast for my mind to keep up with. lol As if that made sense. I've also noticed that I don't break things into paragraphs, and often use sentence fragments. Which I guess is because that's more how I talk out loud, which is what this is after all, me talking to myself.
I love Bacos. What is the point of salad without them? Bacos, croutons & dressing are the best part of salad, bread and condiments are the best part of a sandwich. I've been known to complain there's too much meat on a sandwich & not enough bread or mayo. My husband thinks I'm insane. He'll just eat a pile of lunch meat sans anything else if given the chance.
Well, I think I've run out of things to chat to myself about, so see ya later all you lovely people who cared enough to look into my mind & read this!

Why men should watch chic flicks

If a girl wants to watch a chic flick with her man, he should jump on the opportunity. "What?!?!" you say? lol Well, here's why:
1) He gets brownie points for watching a movie she knows is not his favorite kind just to make her happy.
2) Some optimistic part of her is probably going to hope that he is actually sensitive enough to actually LIKE this kind of thing, meaning that he might be sensitive and compassionate in his relationship with her.
3) At least with me, as long as I like the hero of a romantic movie, romantic comedy, whatever, my husband gets credit for whatever wonderful deeds the hero does for his lady in the movie. Somehow my brain goes, "aaawww look what he did for her! She is so lucky to have a man that would do that! I bet my man would do that for me if it came down to it. I have the best man ever!!" Illogical, I know. But that's how it works. So basically my husband gets full credit without actually having to DO anything except be in the room at the time.
4) As a result of the movie and the aforementioned 3 points, she is likely to feel mushy and romantic after the movie is over, leading to cuddles, kisses, and probably sex, which we all know men try so hard to get more of. This is an easy score for said man.

Important note: if the guy sits through the movie but makes a complaint, or criticizes the movie, he loses all brownie points, credit, and chances at nookie.

Literature & News

I am a librarian's daughter and I think it's somehow in my genes to love reading. Most people who come to my house comment on how many books I own. I'm pretty choosey about what I read though. I don't like violence, drugs, scandals, or generally sad things. I figure there's enough of that in real life, and books are my escape...why would I want to escape to a place that's just as bad or worse? I do like the occasional sad/tragic story, but it has to be beautiful and sad, or intriguing and sad. Like Pan's Labyrinth (not that that's a book), or ...well, I'm tired and can't think of another example right now. Anyway, I try to stay away from sad or weighty things, unless they're very very good. I'd say most of my books are fantasy and fairy tales, with a few classics, non-fiction, manga, and romance thrown in. I have a large collection of plays, but hardly ever read them. Some fav. series: Fablehaven, The Edge Chronicles, Princess Diaries, The Giver and it's sequels, Wicked Lovely, and some really old books by an author nobody's ever heard of but me, Myrtle Reed. I intentionally avoid best sellers, because I like to feel as if I "discovered" the book myself. On the flip side though, I feel compelled to read the real classics, simply because they ARE classics, even if I don't think I'll like them, it makes me feel more cultured or something. lol This is why I own Moby Dick but have never made it past the first chapter. I feel that a romance makes a book 10x more interesting, and if there isn't one at all I tend to think badly of the book as a whole. With a few exceptions, of course. If the man involved in the romance is a strong, noble, hero type, so much the better. But my need for romance does not cross over, somehow, to actual Romance novels, you know, the kind with a brawny guy on the cover with a woman clinging to his leg. No thank you. The only true romance novels I can stomach are Nora Roberts', which I love. I tend to stick to the young adult categories, because it seems like adult books are usually laden with violence, sex scenes that are not done nicely, drugs, etc. What is this about, anyway? Do adults not want to be happy? If it's just a fluff-type story do we feel like we're wasting our time? Seems no worse than sit-coms! This kind of falls into line with how I don't understand why people enjoy reading or watching the news. Why do you want to learn about all this terrible stuff going on? Most people don't hear about a fire in their town on the evening news and then drive over there to try to help the people out. So why do we use other peoples' misfortune as, essentially, entertainment? I seem to be in the minority with this view though, cuz when I tell people I don't watch the news or read newspapers they look at me like, "How do you LIVE without the news?!" lol But I feel I am much happier without knowing about the 20 car pile up on the highway, the house fire that killed 3, the bird flu that's going to kill us all, etc. As of yet I haven't missed anything that caused my life to end, so I am unconcerned.

What is "Normal"?

Thanks to everyone reading for all the great feedback here and on Facebook about the posts I made yesterday. I was worried that I would end up regretting writing that stuff, but everyone seems to be reacting positively, so, Yay! I should probably say though, that if you're expecting me to tackle big subjects like that on a daily basis in my blog, you're going to be disappointed! Like today, I have no deep philosophical ramblings to share.
Went for a PAP smear this morning. Oh the joy. :( Why do doctors always expect you to know things? When was your last period? I don't keep track. I have no idea. I just know if I feel like it's been a long time between periods, and then I start to get nervous. lol And they always tell me my blood pressure numbers, like I have any clue at all what those mean! If I have a pain, rate the pain on a scale of 1-10. I HATE this! What if my 10 is not the same as someone else's 10? Does this matter? Am I just way over-thinking this? If there's been basically nothing wrong with you your whole life you might think that the flu would rate as a 10. But if you've gone through childbirth with no painkillers, or, say, had a limb chopped off, maybe had your legs crushed... you'd see it differently, wouldn't you? What if there's a pain that you've had since you were born... is it possible that you might not even realize you are in pain, since you've never not had the pain? Maybe you'd just think "this is how everyone feels." The Dr's office had a show on in the waiting room, & they were talking about ringing in the ears, and they played a sound, saying this is what it sounds like. & I was like...dude.. I'm pretty sure I hear that now and then, but not as loud! Do I have ringing in my ears then? Do I need to tell someone about this? I find it very hard to tell what is normal and what is abnormal, because nobody tells you what other folks are like. How do you know if you have an anxiety disorder if nobody else tells you how much anxiety they feel on a daily basis? And most people won't tell you exactly, cuz we don't wanna sound like whiny cry-babies and make our friends listen to us complain, beyond the occasional sisterly bitch-fest that goodness knows we all need. How do you know if your sex life is normal when you only get the details of a handful of close friends for a reference? I'm personally not afraid to share intimate details about sex with pretty much anyone interested enough to ask, but there's only one friend I have who really knows what goes on with me and I think I know a fair bit about her details. And it's always a bit scary too, isn't it? You don't want to say "We do ____" and have your friend look at you like you're weird, or have them act like it's all cool and then go tell Susie, "Janet said she does ___ with her husband! How weird is that?!" And there are social stigmas attached to so many things. And some of it is stuff that we all do, we just don't talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about poo, nobody wants to admit if they pick their nose when they're home alone. Personally, I have no issues with nose picking, as long as you're not wiping it on something and as long as you wash your hands immediately. Obviously nobody wants to find your boogers on the arm of the couch or anything, and nobody wants you spreading germs around. Masturbation. There's a big one! Everyone's so scared to talk about it! Men less so than women, I think. Are there really people out there who have honestly and truly never done it, or do lots of people just claim they've never done it cuz it's generally considered a negative thing? I remember in high school it was a HUGE deal if you confided in the wrong person and it got out to the rest of the school. I remember one girl getting made fun of cuz she told a friend she played around with her curling iron. And so we all keep our mouths shut, carefully hide anything that we worry people might reject. I think that whatever you wanna do is fine as long as your not hurting anybody or doing something without the consent of whoever else is involved. I may not want to try it myself, I may not even understand the appeal, but if other people do, go for it!
Well, I don't feel like this is a neat, tied-up ending, but I can't think of anything else to say, so I guess I'm just gonna leave it at that. Hope I didn't gross anybody out! lol

Putting it "Out There"

I have a huge fear of making my opinions and beliefs known. I hate getting people riled up, and I take it very personally if someone disagrees with me in an aggressive manner. I do not like it at all, and I generally end up crying over it. I think that what one person believes is right is not necessarily what is right for everyone, and I do not like it when people try to tell people what they should think, believe, and do. In a abstract example, my Dad loves visiting Spanish Missions, but all I can feel when I see, visit, or read about them, is depression, over all the people who died or were oppressed by these missionaries coming in trying to force their beliefs onto others. Not that I don't understand that the missionaries thought they were doing what was right, and I respect them for their bravery in entering a new world of dangers and obstacles. Anyway. When I was younger I was, as I self-diagnose myself in retrospect, a sufferer of social anxiety in the extreme. To the point where if I was walking down the street and a classmate I wasn't close friends with said hi I would pretend I hadn't heard them, cuz I was scared. Scared of what, I don't know. That I'd do something to embarrass myself. That they were only saying hi to make fun of me somehow....I don't know. I worried about the stupidest things, like if my butt looked big, or swayed funny when I was walking up the stairs in front of classmates. If I had to give a speech in front of a class I was shaking like a leaf the whole time. I still get this way in large crowds, and sometimes have to mentally pep-talk myself before I will say something to somebody, even if I know them well, and I often regret whatever it was I said anyway. I think and re-think almost everything that I do and say, constantly berate myself for stupid things that I have let myself do and say, and worry about things that I know I shouldn't. I never make my opinions known on "big" subjects, such as politics, etc, sometimes because it doesn't matter enough to me to put myself on the line for the scolding that many people feel the need to dish out, and sometimes because I am not confident enough in my knowledge of the subject but I don't care to do the necessary research to appear knowledgeable on the subject. The only reason I have blogged today about religion, abortion, etc, is because I am a bit tipsy, which makes me braver, and I will probably regret it in the morning, especially if anyone gives me negative feedback. I cannot stand to have people mad at me. I almost always will bow and grovel and apologize until they seem to no longer be angry. I just can't handle thinking that somebody out there is upset with me. Guess I'm just weak like that. So I usually keep to myself, just listen to other peoples' opinions and only offer up safe things to say, after thinking them over once or twice. So these blogs have actually been rather difficult for me to get up the gumption to post. One of my facebook friends thanked me for sharing my opinions and beliefs, even though she says she does not agree with everything I have said. This really means the world to me. I can't tell you how much. I feel validated and respected, and it is a great feeling. A great big thank you to Destiny Pittman. I know you probably didn't think you were doing a big thing, but what you said was really important to me.

Wine

I really wish wines were more user-friendly. I have found that there are not a lot of wines that I really enjoy. The ones that I do are usually very sweet, dessert type wines. And yes I have trouble remembering which is which in spelling between desert and dessert, and I have had 2 glasses of wine before this particular moment in time, which officially puts me past the point of caring enough to go look it up so I don't look stupid. Who's gonna read this anyway?!? lol
So, the point is, I feel it is hard to find a good sweet wine without having a good knowledge of wines in advance. I know anything from Arbor Mist I like, but it has a very low alcohol content, which can be either a good or bad thing, depending. But if I try to buy Yellow Tail, for example, or any other wine brand, I ALWAYS chose wrong! What I'm drinking right now is Yellow Tail Cheraz-Cabernet. And it's horrid. I chose it because it said it had blackberry in it, so it thought, berries, sweet, ok. Not so. I looked it up online, post-purchase, and it's at the very driest, heaviest side of their chart. I've had to add sugar in great abundance to make it drinkable. So my question is, why do they not mark a scale of sweetness on wine bottles? This would be a HUGE help to me. Everyone just seems to assume that I am a wine expert.
We went to Olive Garden a couple weeks ago and Jessy and I tried some kind of wine with a really long name that I tried to remember but haven't. It was amazing. But it was something I'd never heard of before, which probably means I can't get it for $10 from Kroger or CVS! lol Which is about my price limit. Seems like there's a very limited selection, all the same kinds of wine in different brands available in supermarkets and such, which is quite frustrating, since I don't seem to like most of them. On the whole I guess even though I like the image of sitting around savoring a glass of good wine, I'm better off sticking with cheap, tried and true Arbor Mist, or Seagram's Jamaican Me Happy, or Absolut vodka!

Abortion

oookay. I realize I'm in dangerous territory here, cuz I don't like to get folks riled up, start fights, have people preach at me, etc. I have no intention of saying that I am absolutely correct or that everyone should believe as I do. But none-the-less, here are my thoughts, such as they are, on the subject.

I woke up the other morning & must've been dreaming something weird, cuz even though I was dead tired I was thinking about the topic of abortion. ....weird. I don't agree with the act of abortion as a general concept. If you are old enough to conceive a child I think you are old enough to think it through and use protection effectively. And if you do so there is not likely to be a reason to seek an abortion, although I admit there are circumstances where misfortune might occur, such as that .01% chance that your condom is defective, or the thing slips off, or you thought you had a great guy but as soon as he found out you were pregnant he ditched you like a broken-down car on the side of the road and you're now faced with the prospect of single mother-hood. Not good. At any rate, the one reason that I can see as the best for keeping abortion legal is rape. If a woman is raped and gets pregnant from that, I personally could not possible ask her to carry and/or raise that child if she didn't want to. To keep the kid and have a 24/7 reminder of one of the very worst experiences of your entire life is, I think, too much to ask any woman to bear. Especially if it would make her a single mom, in some ways effectively ruining her life, possibly her career, and making it much harder for her to find her own true love with a child already in tow, and all through no fault of her own. And even to carry the child and then give it up for adoption would cause huge amounts of mental damage, not to mention the physical pain, and also the uncertainty and inadequacy and abandonment that the child would feel knowing that its mother gave it up, and especially if the child knew WHY it had been given up. In my mind at least, this set of circumstances outweighs what many people consider to be murder of an innocent life. I see their point, but this is how I would feel if it happened to me, so this is what I believe in for the sake of women whom it has actually happened to, if they so chose to take this option. What seems unfortunate to me is that there is no way to make it an option to women in these extreme circumstances but not to everyone else, when the others might have just had poor judgement. As far as I know (which isn't very far!) there is no quick and easy way to prove that a woman was raped, and I understand abortions must take place within a certain window of time after fertilization occurs. So I don't know of a way to say who was raped and who wasn't, other than just taking the woman's word for it, and we all know people lie. So it would seem that abortion must remain an option for everyone if these few unfortunate women are to be spared an undeserved fate. Is it worth it in the broad scope of the universe? I don't know. I think if I was a rape victim myself I would say yes. But it's hard to tell without being in that position yourself, isn't it? I also think there is a slight argument for children being better off unborn than born to a parent who does not wan them, who would beat them or mistreat them, etc. Although I admit I feel this is a much shakier argument than the rape circumstance, because I think many people have overcome a rough childhood and gone on to become great people. So, these are my thoughts, which I do not in any way claim to be right, only my own humble opinions.

You Should'ers

Sometimes I get a bit fed up with people saying "You should____." You should give to this that & the other charity. You should quit your job and devote your life to saving an animal or helping starving folks etc. You should only buy organic produce from local farmers. You should not use this product because it's bad for the environment, or destroys habitat for __insert endangered animal here___. You should only buy certified Fair Trade products. You should care about politics and research them to the best of your ability. You should write a letter to your congressman about ____. You should sign this petition to end ____. You should recycle. You should only buy products that are recyclable. You should exercise X amount of hours a week, doing this specific regamine. You shouldn't eat meat because it's cruel to animals and hard on the environment. You should shorten your showers and put bricks in your toilet tank to conserve water. You should volunteer at a soup kitchen or become a leader for a youth program. You should clean the ____ in your house every ___ days. You should change your toothbrush every month or 3 months or whatever it is. You should invest in quality clothes that fit your figure and always wear makeup and style your hair. You should have sex with your spouse this many times a week. You should eat this cuz it's good for you. You shouldn't eat this cuz it's bad for you. You shouldn't buy seafood cuz the oceans are over-fished and other animals are killed needlessly in commercial fishing nets. You should eat lots of fish cuz it has omega 3 fatty acids. AND THIS ISN"T EVEN ALL I CAN THINK OF!!!! GOOD GOD PEOPLE! I can't do all this stuff! NOBODY could do all this stuff! Not that they're not all good points and not that the people telling you this don't necessarily mean well, but GEEZ!

Religion

First of all, the following are just my own personal thoughts and experiences, not intended to annoy anyone, not intended to be any semblance of a guide, not intended to do anything, except let me think.

I was raised by a Catholic dad and a Methodist mom. Although my mom just kind of fell into the Methodist church for lack of a church that was completely in line with her views. I had First Communion, Baptism, blah blah blah, the whole 9 yards growing up, and had to go to church every Sunday, and sometimes on Wednesdays. But it all seemed empty to me. Many (not all) of the church folks seemed hypocritical to me, there were all these rules that didn't really make sense, and it seemed to me a contradiction for the Bible to say we need to help our fellow man but folks build giant ornate, ridiculously expensive churches instead of helping to feed folks who are starving in other countries. And then there are all the monstrous things that people have done in the name of religion. Wars, witch hunts, Spanish Inquisition, corrupt church leaders, false relics, etc etc. Hard to come to terms with. I was always told to say my prayers, but when I prayed I just felt like I was talking to nothing, or just myself. The God described in the Bible didn't seem like the type of personality that I would or could love.
When I went to college I took some psychology classes, and one or two on Hinduism and other religions of the world. The psychology classes presented lots of theories about why humans have religion, and most of them seemed to say that we're just plain too afraid of death being a finality. They say we developed religions to keep ourselves sane and to stop us from being so depressed with our lives that we commit suicide. This made a lot of sense to me. The only reason I kept pursuing religion before this was fear of what it would mean if I didn't, ie either eternal damnation or just a ceasing of being, and never getting to see my loved ones again. Although, as a side point, I always had issues with one passage in the Bible that says something about old relationships on earth not being remembered in heaven, like if you get there you wouldn't remember your husband or your mom, and you'd just spend all your time worshiping God. What fun is that?!?!
And I've also asked myself billions of times how we know our religion is correct. I say we as in generally Christian America. The Greeks were sure their religion was right. The Egyptians were sure about theirs. Hindu, Jews, Muslims, Mormans, Buddhists, everybody is so SURE they're willing to die for their beliefs. So many people just believe whatever their parents believe and don't explore other options for themselves. Sometimes their churches teach them that even learning about other religions can invite the devil to corrupt their faith. How do you know you have the right one if you know nothing about the others?
And the things that religions ask you to swallow seem crazy to me. Water into wine, someone being swallowed by a whale, fish and loaves to feed a ton of people? I think it's Islam (could be wrong) that says their great prophet abandoned his wife and child (there's a great role model, btw, and I think Buddha abandoned his wife and kid too) left them in the middle of nowhere, and the woman set down her baby, walked back and forth in a straight line between 2 hills like 7 times looking for water, and finally God put water in her path & saved her and the baby. Really? First of all, how bright was that lady to keep looking in the same place for water over and over again? & another thing, why did God bother to create the rest of the planets and stars and moons and galaxies etc etc etc? If the whole point of creation was, basically, us, then why bother with all that other stuff? In the book Ishmael, it's suggested that religion is basically the result of our fear and our feelings of self importance. Of course all the world was created just for mankind. Of course everything in the world is for us to use as we choose. Nevermind if we destroy the planet and billions of other creatures, just as long as we're happy. The planet wasn't made for them, it was made for us.
Basically, I already had a hard time making peace with religion, it just didn't ring true for me, and college made me think, "Yeah, this can't be right." And it was a really really scary thing, that I struggled with for a long time, and still worry "what if I'm wrong" sometimes. I don't want to go to hell if there is one. I don't want to be reincarnated as a slug. I don't want to just die and that's it. I don't want to think that I will never see my grandparents again. This is all terrifying stuff. But I have yet to see, hear, or experience anything that has remotely convinced me that there really is some all-powerful being out there, be it the Christian God or someone else. In a way I wish that I could make myself believe. But for now at least, I'm not going to pretend to follow something that I don't really believe is there just because I'm scared of the opposite prospects.