命は冒険

Wow, it's been way too long since I last updated. I forgot all about this lj for a couple weeks, sorry.

So let's see... Ah yes, a major thing that happened (at least major to me). I finally beat Persona 3 FES, a PS2 game I've been playing for almost exactly one year now. It took me a total of 150 some hours, and 6 tries to defeat the final boss, which was really difficult. But I did it. I'm happy, because now maybe I'll start doing this more often, and finally kick my habit of starting games and never finishing. Hopefully they won't all take a year though, wow. That was one good game though, I'm really glad I played it.

I think I'm really getting some leg muscle these days. I walk to work twice a day, two hour long walks, and I walk pretty fast. It's good for me, I think, though it does make my feet hurt. That wears off after I sit down a minute, though.

Watchmen is almost out on DVD~ Just 15 more days and I can finally watch that awesome movie again. I read the comic, which was surprisingly good, so I'm extra excited to see the movie again and compare them with a little more knowledge of how it all started. From what I can remember though, they did a really good job adapting it to a movie form, and we all know how rare that is.

That's about it for now. I'm craving watermelon, and steak. Maybe I'll go get some later.

Hey all~

First off, give a happy birthday to my awesome husband (he's 22 now, as of the 5th). We didn't do much, but I did get him the movie Casino Royale, the collector's edition, and I also made him an appropriately themed cake for said movie.



The only other real news I have is that I've finally gotten into making a bento everyday for lunch. A bento is a Japanese lunch box which can contain virtually anything; the thing that makes it a bento is the variety of ingredients, and the amount of vegetables or rice. For example, Brandon's bento today is 1/3 rice, 1/3 stir-fried peppers and onions, and 1/3 lemon chicken nuggets (hand made). Go here to learn about bento in depth (this is the site I use to come up with bento menus). Bento are a great for a number of things. They help with portion control, first of all, since you can only pack so much into one container, so if you want to eat less or more in a day, just change the container size. They also help with getting more variety in the diet, since the usual bento has 1-4 different vegetables, rice or bread of some sort, and some kind of protein like tofu, egg, or meat in it. They've been great practice for me as far as cooking goes, too, so I'm also learning a lot about basic food preparation. And lastly, they are quite cheap if you plan your weekly lunches right. Once you buy some stock ingredients and get those out of the way (things like rice, tofu, and sauces) then it stays pretty cheap until you need to stock up again, which won't be for a while.

So yeah, that's what I've been up to every morning. Just a whole lotta cooking, and a lot of fun. That's all for now.

Awesome! We finished moving everything in as of Saturday. Thanks to everyone for all the help; thanks to the smaller runs with the already boxed up stuff everyone helped us with over the weeks, the move went extremely well. It was still definitely hard work though - we moved heavy stuff like couches and desks and more boxes from 8:00am to about 7:00pm. We just missed the storm that blew in, too, luckily. And I managed not to trip and scrape my knee again, yay. We're all still tired from it though, and really really sore. I could barely hold a pen by the end of it!

There's still a lot to do though. We have to unpack now, which is about 2/3 done, and we have to change our address on a bunch of stuff, transfer our internet service, clean up the old apartment and turn in our keys, and get some stuff like wall bracers for the shelves in our new apartment. At least it's more fun though.

Today was my first day of walking to work from the new place. It took about an hour, but it wasn't so bad. At least it's a nice walk by trees and flowers and such, although there's a couple stretches where there's no sidewalk, which isn't so nice.

Once everything is unpacked and sorted, things are going to be so awesome. First there's the Sailor Moon marathon that Liz and I are going to have, and then I'm finally going to beat Persona 3 FES. I'm going to start on my costume for Colossal Con as well, which is an anime convention in Ohio that I'll be going to in June. I'm going to cosplay as female Ranma from Ranma 1/2 - I've been meaning to do that one for a long time. Oh, I'm also going to visit Liz's mom and her boyfriend out in Wisconsin at the end of May. That's going to be really fun. They have a greenhouse, a bunch of animals, and huuuuge woods all over the place. I can't wait to go!

Alright, I think that's about everything. Oh! Thank you muchly for the card, Mamere & Papa, and thanks again to Dad for the easter present as well. Love you guys ^_^

I made dinner the other day, using a new recipe that called for me to soak/cook some vegetables in vinegar and sugar and some other stuff. I was skeptical, but thought I'd give it a shot.

That was -the- grossest thing I have had in years. I bit into a green bean and vinegar flavour oozed out of it. I was just starting to think vinegar might be useful, but after that, I simply refuse to use it again for anything besides easter egg dying. Never again, you foul liquid! You have once again become my least favourite liquid, even more than Dayquil!!

On another note, once summer vacation starts, I'm going to come and bother you for a while, dad. I'll also be abducting Linz for a bit of it. I do believe it's time for a Prince of Tennis marathon. I'm talking anime, movie, musicals, the awesome OVA, and the even more awesome fan disc. Get ready to freak out, kohai! Seigaku, FIGHT-O!

Just to let people know, I went to the doctor, and they said the lumps were nothing more than benign fatty tumors, like the kind a lot of dogs get, and a surprising amount of people get, too. They don't hurt and they aren't dangerous, but they will almost definitely never go away, which isn't too troublesome. She said to keep checking on them to make sure they don't grow or spread, and I should be fine. She also prescribed that I take calcium supplements, due to a slight misalignment in my shoulders, to make sure I don't suffer from bone mass deficiency. It's really, really important, I can't stress how important it is, for all females to make sure they get enough calcium and vitamin D. Any females reading this, please consider getting some vitamin supplements for calcium and D; it's like, $4 a bottle. Stop reading and go do it, now.

That aside, things are pretty calm at the moment, but it's going to be beyond busy within the next couple days. All my final projects are about to begin, papers, speeches, etc. We (Brandon, Liz and I) also signed a lease for a new apartment, and will be moving to it towards the end of April. We spent a long time deciding whether we wanted to move or not, but enough was enough, and we knew we'd either move to a different room in the same apartment complex, or a different complex altogether. Our neighbors have just been too much, with the constant parties and loud music, and the suspiciously drug-like smell coming up from the floor, so we talked to the management and asked to be moved. They never got back to us about it, and we heard from a co-worker of Liz's who also lived at the same complex as us that they had the same situation, with the bad neighbors, drug smell, and lack of action by the management. After hearing that, and after the lack of response from the management, it was just too much, so we found ourselves a new place. While the walk to EMU just became a 40 minute walk, the upside is that the rent is cheaper, the management waaayy more responsible, there's a fitness center and a pool, and now we're close enough to walk to the grocery store, as well as most other things in town, which is good, since we no longer have a car.

So basically, our plan is to gradually move in over the month of April (we got 6 weeks free rent, so we already technically live there, which makes the move in a lot easier), while still living here at our current apartment. We've had several friends offer to help out, since we don't have a car to move things with now, and that's been really appreciated. We're going to get a lot of stuff packed this Friday, and hopefully get a good amount of stuff moved this weekend. Our new apartment is called Aspen Chase, and it should be easier for guests to find, which is nice. Oh yeah, it's also a lot safer than our current apartment; it's a gated community and is in a better part of town, which will be a nice change of pace from our place which has been broken into twice now (not our apartment personally, but the building itself and our neighbors inside).

I think I'll cut it off here for now; my hands are getting tired from all the typing, ha ha. Oh yeah, to the very few people who read this, please tell any family members you want to that I still update it, so that they know to check it. It's a really convenient way for me to stay in touch with you guys, rather than several lengthy phone calls where I update each person on the same things over and over (not that I don't like talking to my family, but you know what I mean :p ). Anyways, have a great day, and enjoy the snow.

Lots and lots of stuff happening again. Some good, some bad, but mostly good. I've been working with Liz on some of my homework lately for my Literary Analysis class. I've never been even remotely decent at analyzing literature, so this class has been really difficult. So she's checking over my papers and helping me make them more focused and coherent, and it's raised my number grade by 2 points on a 10 point scale; very nice! I also have lots of speeches in my speech class, a research paper I'm just starting, and lots of reading of textbooks.

On the good side though, I've had good chunks of time in between the work to do things like clean my room, reorganize the kitchen, and completely rework how I write the grocery list so that now I can keep track of how much things are, how often we get them, how much we'll have left over to use in other dinners, etc. all in a nice convenient spreadsheet. Having a clean house has been the most satisfying though, it makes me feel a lot less crowded.

One other thing that's not so good though. About a week ago, we noticed that I have a bunch of really weird knots in my back, right on top of the pelvic bone on the right side mostly. We assumed they were just normal muscle knots, but then I went to a friend's house and asked them about it, and one of the parent's there said it was probably either a cyst, like her daughter has on her elbow, or a fatty tumor, kind of how like a dog gets when they get older. She recommended I go to a doctor, and maybe even get an ultrasound. So yeah, this whole thing came out of nowhere. I also have some persistent but slight back pain/tension on the right side of the spine on the lower back, just above those bumps. I asked them about that too, and they said something about a nerve there, but I can't remember the name of it, it was a long name, maybe starting with C.

I'll be going to a doctor soon about it, hopefully this week, and we'll see what they have to say. On a completely unrelated note, I finally made pancakes without burning them, spilling them, or making them a foot and a half in diameter. Yay for breakfast foods~

Herb season is almost here! I'm looking into good spots where I can pick herbs legally and safe from pesticides. I can't wait to get started.

That's about all I have for now. Back to my astronomy homework (I learned that it'll be a full moon on my birthday next year!)

Man, I really really want to just sit on my couch and read for like, 12 hours straight. Especially since I discovered a particularly delicious way to make Chai tea, partially thanks to the most awesome little mixer device my dad gave mt (I love that thing!). I feel a little stressed out from school. Nothing too bad, just enough to make me say "Can't I just stay home?"

There's a new club at our school now. It's the Harry Potter Book Club and Reading Group, also known as The 5th House. Liz and I joined and went to the very first meeting the Friday before last. It was a lot of fun, and there's a lot of big plans underway for all sorts of club activities, such as a Winter Ball in mid-March. I'm really looking forward to that; especially since it's dress robes only, and the design I drew up for a robe is looking pretty spiffy. There's also going to be a Muggle Quidditch team, which means that I'm soon going to be running around playing a more complicated version of dodge ball while holding a broom between my legs. I've always wanted to play, and lo, here is my chance! There are even matches held with other colleges, which means we could really make something of this.

Anyways, time to get back to work, yet again. Hope everyone is doing well. And also, thank you so much for the card, Mamere, it was most definitely well timed. Hope to see everyone soon, especially with the weather picking up like this!

I don't have a whole lot of time to write this one, but I just wanted to drop a line saying I'm feeling a lot better now. Yes, for the third time in one month, I was sick again. This last time it was the flu, and it hit really hard. Brandon caught it too, and was even sicker than I was. We had a fever for about 5 days; after the third day, we both went to the doctor, thinking maybe it was something more serious, but it turned out we were fine. Too bad we still had to pay the doctor fee, and also miss out on a week of work, further lowering our financial standing. Such is life, at times.

Anyways, I'm back on my feet and keeping plenty busy with all the make up homework I have to do from last week! I have to write 3 papers today, and read about 6 chapters total from all my different textbooks. Hopefully I can get it all done.

Edit - I tried a new theme for a while, but I decided the more I looked at it, the more I grew to hate and resent how not-green it was. So here's some green again.

I had great success drawing a few days ago. Liz and I had a drawing day, and after several hours of producing nothing but sketches, I got really frustrated and metaphorically attacked my paper with a drawing, producing a sketch that I'm absolutely delighted with. It's this right here:



I also overcame my fear of public speaking yesterday, to my great surprise. We had to do an introduction speech in my speech class, you see, and use 3 artifacts that help describe who we are (like a book or some car keys). I had my three and had my speech all ready, but then about 10 minutes before class, I decided that my speech didn't tell anything about who I was, and that it was just a description of how I obtained these 3 things. And so once again I was frustrated with my work, but because of it something better came out. I mentally ripped up my speech, and made up a new one on the spot, lightly based off the old one, and I feel like it was a million times better. I was still nervous and suffered from blushing and shaking, but I was so focused on trying to sound better than the old speech I'd written that I didn't pay it a second thought! So yeah, I'm pretty happy about this.

And here's a picture that I really like, for everyone's enjoyment.

So the start of the new semester is here, and winter break is all gone and used up. It was a good break, but I wish I hadn't gotten sick three separate times during the whole thing. I managed to start out with stomach flu, leaving me immobilized for a day and a half, then moved on to my period, which comes with cramping and general aching, and after that I finished up with a throat cold, with my tonsils so swollen I could hardly swallow warm water.

But! I'm all better now, and just in time for classes to start. I now work exclusively in the main office of the library, and I also made sure to take one less class than last semester, along with working a couple less hours, so this time around I shouldn't be nearly as pressed for activities and free time.

Also, to everyone reading this who gave a gift, thank you all very much for your wonderful christmas presents, Brandon and I really appreciated, and enjoyed, each one.

Anyways, here's to a new year of school, drawing, and lots of fun!

I did it! I'm finished with all my finals at last! I just emailed my last paper to my professor a moment ago, and I'm so glad to do it.

Here's what my list of fun stuff to do over break is looking like:
Work on an 18" X 24" picture and hopefully finish
Beat Atelier Iris
Beat Sonic Unleashed
Start a fantasy/horror RolePlay with some friends online
Have a gaming party
Read Peter Pan in Scarlet
Read Moor Child
Read Tales of the Beetle Bard
Read Blue Moon
Make stuff with herbs
Make biscotti
Make chocolate Mousse
Make coffee cake
And more

I'll be happily busy over this winter break! It's time to relax and make stuff!

Well, it's been a little while, hasn't it?

Right now, I'm in the midst of finals, with my last one being on Monday. It's been a crazy busy weekend, I have a ton of homework and I already used up my Saturday. I went out Christmas shopping, then did grocery shopping for the week, and then looked at some mice that a friend of Liz's is going to give to me. That's right, I'm getting mice! They may not be rats, but they are very well trained and surprisingly calm; I'm very excited to take them home this Wednesday, it's been way too long since I've had a pet around.

As for homework, this is what my day looks like today:
>Finish my 4-7 page Linguistics paper on the creation of constructed language
>Start (and hopefully finish) my 2-3 page reflection paper
>Study 3 chapters (all of which are mercifully short) for my Macroeconomics final on Monday
>Do worksheets for 3 Japanese video assignments
>Take 3 Japanese tests online

I'm really hoping I can finish this all today. If not, I have a little bit of time tomorrow, but not much. Wish me luck and pray for me if you can everyone, I'll be needing it!

Not too much new stuff at the moment I suppose. Just been working a lot and studying a lot.

November is National... I forget the official title, but it essentially is National Writing Month. It's a nice little thing, gives you an excuse to start any ideas you've had that you've always been putting off. I'm going to try to shell out a short story if I can that I've been thinking about since high school.

Having a midnight shift and then working the next morning at 8am really sucks. :<

The advertisements on this site are a little outdated now. I'm looking at this one here that says "Will you vote for Obama in 2008? Get a T-shirt!" A little late now guys :p

Also:

I just replayed a game I used to like a lot as a kid called Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil for the PS2. No sooner do I beat it than I find out that they're remaking the first Klonoa game for the Wii with updated graphics and other little extras. I'm really excited for it; it comes out on December 4th, and you can bet there's no way I'll be missing that game.

Other than that, I've just been studying a lot. I can't believe the semester's already half over. I have so many projects that out teachers have even begun explaining the details too that are due in only another month...

Also, Happy Halloween everyone! Halloween will always be my favourite holiday of the year. What could be better than a day where jumping out at children and scaring them, or offering them candy when you've never met them before is perfectly legal? I jest~

Scare lots of tiny children everyone! Their screams are your candy! Muhahahaa!

I went to Michael's today and got some more glass bottles. I got two tall ones and one short one that's triangular shaped; they're so cool looking X3 I also picked up some cloves, and then some cinnamon sticks and honey from an apple orchard we went too, along with Elderberry jam~ I'm really excited to make this one kind of tea that my stepmom Christine made for me once. I think it was like...
1 small saucepan of water, boiling
2-3 cinnamon sticks
3-5 cloves
tea ball/bag of spearmint (optional)
honey, too taste

She just boiled it all together and added honey at the end, it was delicious; I really liked the way the cinnamon tasted in it.

So, Kevin is my stepdad, since he married my mom. Then my mom passed away, and after some years he married Christine, who had no previous relation to me. So, does that make Christine my stepmom, or my step-stepmom or something? And then what about Kristin, who married my dad, and is also my stepmom now. Can you have two stepmoms, or is there some weird technical thing about that?

So I tried steamed dandelion greens the other day; that has got to be some of the worst stuff I've ever tasted. I will never eat that, ever, again.

I also tried pickling cattails. The recipe I used seems to have been flawed. I thought so from the start when it asked me to boil olive oil, water, and vinegar together, but I decided to trust it. Low and behold I now have a jar of cattails that are smelly and vinegary on bottom and slimy and oily on top. I'm quite afraid to eat them...

I am having success with seed harvesting though. I picked some cat mint a while ago, and got some of the dead flower heads. I have enough seeds to cover the whole living room with cat mint plant snow I think. I'll plant some indoors under our new sun lamp, and then plant the rest outside when spring comes, just kind of here and there on rood sides. I also have some spearmint seeds from my stepdad's house.

Lately I've been having a hard time sleeping, so I made my own blend of relaxing tea, and it worked like a charm. It was:
2 cups boiling water
2 tea bags of chamomile (the kind I have is very mild)
1 Tbsp dried spearmint
1.5 Tbsp dried cat mint

It tasted pretty good, though next time I think I'll add more spearmint, less chamomile, and more cat mint. I like my mint tea minty. Brandon made an interesting observation about the herbs, actually. He described spearmint as 'cool mint', and cat mint as 'warm mint'. I think that's a pretty accurate way of putting it, personally. Cat mint works wonders for relaxing you, too; apparently they used to just chew on it in the old times, in order to relax hyper kids or sick people.

Lastly, my basil vinegar is finished, strained, and rebottled. I even put a sprig of lavender in it to make it look nice, dye it slightly purple, and add a sweet, dusty flavour to it. It smells like pickles.

I'll be using my lj to keep track of where I find what plants, too, so that I know where to look again next year. You guys can ignore these posts, they won't be very interesting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Found today:
Wild Ginseng - Hollywood Video Store route, house with long line of trees, opposite side of the road than normal.
Cat Mint - Behind gas station in rock bed, several clusters' worth.
Feverfew - Same as cat mint; not sure if actual feverfew or not.
Acorns - Same as wild ginseng; significantly less tannin than longer acorns at the 4-way cross on campus, also fresher/less maggots.
Found this week:
Echinacea - Fields on campus.
Red Clover - Fields on campus, field next to apartments, etc.
Dandelions - Field next to apartments.
Puff Balls (psn) - Woods by field next to apartments.

My little sister's birthday is tomorrow! She's turning 5 years old, and she's just so damn cute X3 I can't believe how fast she's growing though; I wish I lived at home so I could see her and the rest of my family more often. I really feel like I'm missing out on a lot of family experiences sometimes.

I have a macroeconomics test tomorrow, and I still have to study a lot for it, but my head is so clouded, I just can't comprehend what I'm reading until I've read it 4 times each... I'll be up very late tonight, it seems. Maybe even an all nighter.

While taking a movie back to the store today, I paid closer attention to what kinds of plants are growing around people's houses. I managed to finally find some cat mint, possibly some feverfew, and even some wild ginseng! That one's really rare, I'm quite excited about harvesting it when I go back for it tomorrow. I took a look at the red clover that I'd put in a container the other day, and I knew it wasn't quite dry all the way, but so far no mold. However, there's the most peculiar fruity/citrusy smell coming from it. I don't know if it's supposed to smell like fruit, or it that means it rotten or something. Maybe you know, Mason? I dunno.

Atelier Iris is a lot of fun, along with Atelier MEA. Alchemy is just way too interesting~ It works too, since when I play those games, they make me want to study, so it's like a... what was it... symbiotic relationship? I think it was that one.

I had a power bar today for the first time; it was more like a power paste than a power bar. It didn't taste all that bad, but it looked like a tongue, and was really sticky and hard to get out of the wrapper. Like melted laffy taffy or something.

Anyways, back to macroeconomics. Mason, if you read this, will you give me sarah's lj name thing?

I can't believe how many ways there are to use plants. I just bottled some of the red clover I'd been drying in my closet; I can't wait to make tea with it. My dandelions are almost dried too. Dandelions are the perfect example of how we overlook plants and their uses. You can use every part of the dandelion; roots, leaves, stem and flowers. It has really good medicinal properties, and the leaves, when steamed, are an excellent replacement for spinach. So instead of buying it, just go out and pick some!

After many hours, my room is finally becoming clean again. I got around to putting pictures in all the nice frames we got from our wedding day. They look very spiffy on the bookshelf.

That's about all I have today. It's a tiny post, but I'm trying to get in the habit of updating this, so just think of it as the placebo pill of my journal. I'd like to hang out sometime, by the way, though I have a terribly hectic schedule this semester.

Alas, back to my homework.

I felt bad with how outdated this is, so I thought I'd throw some stuff up here just to make it look nice again.

So I'm married now, and things are going good. There's been tiffs here and there, mostly just with clashes in our upbringings and our therefore different living styles. But overall, we're closer than ever and loving it all.

I've been studying plants and berries again, and have been trying my hand at foraging. So far I've had some small success, and it's been a lot of fun, and very educational. Mostly I just find red clover and dandelions, but I did snag some echinacea the other day. I tried collecting acorns, but I did it to late in the season, so they were all rotten and maggot-filled inside. I'm drying the clover and dandelions now in my closet to make tea with later, and I'm going to try going out to the woods soon to find something else. It's amazing all the health benefits there are to herbs, and how easy they are to get ahold of if you know what to look for.

School and work are going good, though I'm a little overwhelmed with my schedule. I'm taking 15 credits hours (5 classes) and working 29 hours a week. I was fine with this kind of busy schedule in my freshman year, but now that I'm married and have more of a social life, it's proven to be too much for me. This semester will be tough, but at least I know not to do it for winter semester now.

Anyways, I better get back to cleaning my room. We're doing a big cleaning today and putting stuff in the storage rooms to make more space. Better study environment that way, too.

peace,
greenalchemist