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A Change in the Tide

February 4, 2016 in Mindpieces | Permalink

ocean-waves

Things are pretty great right now. I haven’t found a unicorn yet. But I have stopped looking for one because I now have a Sam.

Sam: noun – a nerdy, amazing, intelligent guy who is sweet and caring and makes me want to be a better me

I have one. And he is awesome. He’s fun and cute and enjoys spending time with me. It has been almost 2 months since I met him, but it feels like I have known him so much longer. We both know the other’s quirks and preferences for most things already. He has no problem with my OCD or ADD tendencies, as he has them himself. We get along great and I see him almost every day. He’s loyal and dedicated and pushes me to do better and be healthier. Sometimes he says something annoying, but I can never stay mad at him for long. Overall, it’s going really well, so much so that he’s meeting my parents on Saturday at the birthday celebration for my mom. It got pushed off this year because of the blizzard.

Sam has me reading this book called The Feeling Good Handbook. I just started it last night. It’s about cognitive behavior therapy and is supposed to help me change my thoughts to change how I look at my life to make me less stressed and depressed. So far I haven’t gotten into it much, maybe 12 pages or so. But there are little exercises and test-ish things that gauge your reactions to things and measure how you’re doing, I think. I got to the first exercise when Sam showed up last night, so I haven’t gotten to do it yet. But I will. He made me promise to at least give it a chance and read through the first 2 chapters, which is about 50 pages. And I can’t break the very first promise I’ve made to him. I just don’t know how long it’ll take me to get through 50 pages. My schedule has been crazy for awhile now.

I’ve started exercising again and trying to eat better. The eating is kind of getting away from me, but I’ve been working out about 2-3 days a week. I hope to increase that over time. I recently got a Kinect for my Xbox One, both Just Dance 2015 and 2016, downloaded Xbox Fitness for free, and Dance Central Spotlight came with the Kinect. So I’ve been using a variety of things to work out recently. I even did about 70 minutes on Saturday because I worked out before Girls’ Day started and then again with the girls, dancing and having a blast. I want to get to the point where I’m working out almost every day, even if it’s for 10 minutes sometimes. It’s still something.

For the past week or so, I’ve been thinking on the concept of owning a house in a year. With Sam and Lila, it would work. But we all decided it wasn’t the best move for financial reasons, and I’ve put the dream to rest for now. In a few years though, who knows? I’m not going to give up hope, but I will give in to living in the same apartment for a few years to save money. Lila is a pretty awesome roommate and person, so that’s going well. Sam even said he’d move into the apartment too, once we’ve been dating for a good amount of time, of course. That would help save even more money. And then we could save up the downpayment for an even better house than the one we were looking at.

Work is going great too. We launched the site mid-January and then last week I made it more compatible with mobile and kind of more web 2.0 styled. Feel free to go check it out and such. And if your company needs data storage solutions – whether that’s backup, private cloud, or a full storage solution – we can help you. 🙂

 

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Catch-Up Time

July 1, 2015 in Mindpieces | Permalink

So it’s been awhile since I posted anything at all. I suppose I should recap the last 8 months…

I stopped Nutrisystem because it was actually making me sick. I had lost about 19 pounds total on the program. I have since gained most of it back. I had hoped that eating healthier and more homemade stuff would keep the weight off, but alas and alack.

In March, Babylon and I moved in together. It may seem a little fast but we’ve known each other for 5 years now so there weren’t many surprises. We got a brand new 2 bedroom apartment and it’s fantastic. It’s not on the ground floor, so there’s fewer bugs that wander inside, and there are zero children running up to the patio, as it’s a balcony and it backs to a bunch of trees. It’s also controlled access for the most part, so I don’t get as many random unwanted visitors at the door.

I’ve been making about 80% of the meals we eat every week. Some are from scratch, some are semi-homemade, but it’s all been delicious. GatheredTable has been really great with helping that too. They send me new recipes and meal ideas all the time and it’s been pretty inspiring.

Oh and in a few weeks, late July, I’ll officially be an aunt to a lovely little nephew. My brother and his wife haven’t announced the name yet, but I’m so excited. I’ve been buying everything I see that has foxes on it, not only because the nursery is orange, but also because foxes are awesome. At the baby shower, I gave them a box, with many foxes, and some baby socks. Also, Dr. Seuss books, including Green Eggs and Ham and Fox in Socks. 

Babylon and my anniversary is the 4th and my birthday is next week. I bought myself a new 1TB Xbox One with a bunch of games as an early birthday present. I’ve been mostly playing Neverwinter though. I’m already level 55. Out of 60. And I’ve put way too much money into it, considering it’s a free to play game. But it’s awesome.

I’ve been working on the Carbon Saw stuff recently and I think I’m going to launch a new Indiegogo campaign soon for the new Dr. Voodoo game. Through the awesomeness of Udemy,  I’m trying to learn Swift and also WordPress coding to be able to create the game and make the site better. Carbon Saw is also officially an LLC now. It feels awesome to finally be doing something with my ideas.

I’ve been working freelance recently with a woman who is trying to preserve her family history into a book. It’s a pretty fun project and it’s helping me pay my bills so that’s always good.

I’m still doing tutoring on Saturdays too. It’s been more scarce because of the school year ending, but I’m supposed to see my student this Saturday. Hoping that actually happens.

This week, I’m at camp teaching animation to young children. We’re doing hand drawn on paper and stop motion with cameras and maybe some computer animation later with Scratch. It’s been fun but exhausting. And some of the kids are trouble, but most are pretty good. A few are really good at drawing and are picking up on the basic principles of animation pretty well. So that’s cool.

Well, it’s time for me to take the kids outside for a bit. Most are at the pool today, but a couple stayed behind with me to do more work and have fun with animation stuffs. I made a little video today for stop motion too. You can see it here. It’s a small tip of the hat to America for legalizing gay marriage and taking another step toward equality in this country. Go America!

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Nutrisystem: Week 11 Review

September 9, 2014 in Mindpieces | Permalink

New foods I tried this week:
– turkey and stuffing: kinda salty, not bad though
– fettuccine alfredo: tasty, but could use a meat

Wednesday I was on diet and went to the gym. Gotta work on those 3 pounds I gained during La Festa. But I gained 6 last year, so that’s an improvement.

Thursday I was on diet and hung out with Babylon. We worked out a few issues that were bugging us recently and it made me feel so much better about things. Like a weight was lifted off me. So much better… also, 4.4 net pounds lost according to the morning’s weigh in.

Friday I was on mostly diet and went to the gym.

Saturday I was partially on diet and went with Red to get a pedicure and sushi. Then I hung out with Babylon.

Sunday was D&D and also a cheat day. Then Babylon and I had our third real date at a great BBQ place. And now it’s all sorts of official and such. Yay! Smiles for miles.

Monday I was mostly on diet, except for BBQ leftovers. Also, late shift for only the one day. Lost 7 pounds so far. Back down past the pre-La Festa weight.

Tuesday I was on diet until dinner and got my allergy shots. Watched the Apple Live Event. Super excited for the iPhone 6. The apple watch looks silly though.

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Barnes and Un-Noble

October 30, 2013 in Mindpieces | Permalink

Seriously? The Nook Glowlight?! Now they’re just copying Amazon. Ridiculous. And it’s the same price as the Kindle too. With optional smart covers, just like Kindle. Now I definitely will never like Barnes and Noble. Amazon is and always will be my book venue of choice.

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Phone vs. Phone

November 30, 2012 in Mindpieces | Permalink

 

image from gadgetreview.com

Recently I’ve been having a war within myself about something that seems stupid and shallow from any outside viewpoint. It has no good reasoning and is absolutely preposterous, and yet I can’t change my viewpoint on it. It’s based on the iPhone versus the Samsung S3, or really any non-iPhone.

Basically, Spike has been wanting a new phone. Though really he just wants to be on Verizon instead of AT&T. But since he’s switching, he needs to trade in his iPhone 4S for something else. He doesn’t want the iPhone 5 so he’s going non-iPhone. The Samsung Galaxy S3. At first I was confused as to why he would make that choice. But after a lot of talking, it made a bit of sense. And he wanted to try something new. He’s totally entitled to that. Better a new phone than a new girlfriend, I suppose. Sigh.

Finally we talked details and I told him that objectively I agree with his reasoning to get the S3. I don’t like it. I’m totally unhappy about it. But it’s his decision and it’s his phone. And I’m not gonna be the girl that says “if you don’t do what I want, I’ll break up with you” because that’s just asinine.

So today he went and bought the S3. It marks the end of iMessaging with him, or potentially playing games together, and completely destroys any hope of FaceTiming each other to say goodnight or something. I don’t like texting with my phone when I’m at work and iMessage alleviated that problem. Since it is on my computer, I just type on my keyboard like normal and it doesn’t take as long. I know we can use Skype instead and that’s good, but it’s not as good. It also means that whenever I finally get my app done for iTunes, he won’t be able to play it on his phone. He’ll have to use his iPad at home. A small thing, but still.

I’m terrified that it’ll create a technological wedge in the relationship and eventually tear us apart. Not that the iPhone is the only thing holding us together, because I’ll love him regardless of his phone. I just worry about these things. Maybe it’s just me being paranoid, I don’t know. What I do know is that I was very upset and a bit shaky when he first told me in a serious way that he wanted to make the switch. I couldn’t control it.

One of my big things that I look for in a boyfriend is a love of Apple products, which includes using an iPhone. It’s weird. It’s shallow. It might be a little crazy. But I’ve never gotten along with people better than I do with iPhone people. My closest friends and coworkers use iPhones or at least Macs. He’ll still have an iPad and a MacBook Pro, but it’s not the same. I’m a techno-snob I guess. To me, dating a guy without an iPhone is like dating a guy who doesn’t eat chocolate. Or something. You get the point. I just know that I am automatically attracted to men that have iPhones. Or it certainly adds to any attraction that had been there in the first place. It’s one of the things that pulled me to Spike. He’s an Apple guy. He likes Apple products and uses them everyday. I absolutely loved that about him. I thought he was more of an Apple enthusiast than he actually is, but that’s okay. Fanaticism is not a requirement. Just knowing and admitting that Apple is better than Windows is good enough.

Anyway, he says he’ll try out the S3 for awhile and if he doesn’t like it, then maybe he’ll switch to an iPhone again. I don’t even know which way I want it to go.

Really, I just want him to be happy.

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