Eat Pray Love

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I have to admit that this is not the most stimulating or interesting book I've ever encountered. Although I did get all the way through it, it took a lot determination and allowing myself to skim. I read it mostly because I wanted to see the movie when it comes out so I figured I'd read the book. It does contain good life lessons and some fun stories but as the back of the book says, it is a depressed woman's story to find herself. It's depressing at times, uplifting at others. It did end well, its a true story so I'm glad this woman found love and learned to be comfortable in her own skin.
I don't know if I can recommend this book to others. I tried peer pressuring my mom to try to read it (she'd already given up on it once) and she just couldn't do it. All I can say is that I hope the movie brings some life into the story.

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26th Birthday!

Thursday
My office celebrated my birthday on Thursday since most of the staff don't work on Friday. The girls were talking about Barbie cakes a while back and I had mentioned that I've never had one before. The way birthdays work at the office is that the person who has a birthday before yours, brings a treat for your birthday. Michelle's birthday was Monday so she brought for my birthday, this has occurred for the past several years since we have both worked there a while. She usually brings me Better than sex cake because I love it, but this year she went all out and constructed me a Barbie/Better than sex cake. It was freaking awesome!

Thanks Michelle!

I sent a picture to Mike because I was so excited about this awesome Barbie/Better than sex cake, He says, "That's random, why did they shove a Barbie in your cake?" So for those of you who havent seen Barbie cakes before or dont understand them, the cake portion of this is suppose to be here dress. He still thought it was weird after my explanation, but I still love it!

Thursday night was spent with my Dad, my step mom was out of town so we went on a little Daddy-Daughter date. I cant recall the last time we were hanging out, just us, but it was a lot of fun! I meant to get a picture but forgot with all the catching up we were doing. My Dad is so cute and chivalrous, he opens and closes my car door and the door to the restaurant. I mention this to Mike, he use to do that for me, why do they ever stop I wonder? Never the less, my Dad and I had a fun dinner.

Friday (the actual real big day)
I worked my tail off at work. Fridays are busy, I have to pull back patients and take care of all the phone calls, I'm working two peoples jobs. Needless to say I was running! My mom surprised me at work with balloons and flowers and we hung out for a minute. Friday is our short day at work, we close at noon. I typically have to stay late to get all my work done though, and this Friday at about 2:10 I decided I'd had enough, everyone else was already gone, so I left too. All of my patients got what they needed of course but I have a lot of charting to do when I return to my desk Monday morning. No worries, Today is my Birthday, I thought to myself, I shouldn't have to slave away at work anymore! So I went home, only to find a bigger mess (this I will explain later in its own post, I'll just say it was poo, lots of dog poo and it was NOT fun). I finally got a quick lunch and decided to take a nap. Then I got up after tossing and turning (I don't know how people nap during the day, I struggle getting all the way asleep) went to shower and get ready. I didn't want some big grandiose birthday, I didnt really want to do anything at all really, but we were planning Tepanyaki for dinner (nice and low-key), which was not the hour-long wait for a table I was expecting. It was great actually, we got a table as soon as we walked in! woohoo!


Todd and Mom


Mom and me

I like to drink Sake when I come here, so we had a small Sake, which was about 2 shots for me, one for Todd, and one for Mike. I'm feeling pretty good, Mike tells me I need to slow down! So I leave it at my two shots, enjoy delicious dinner and fantastic company.
As we're leaving, Mike starts peer pressuring Todd and my Mom to come look at our deck, which is odd to me because there hasn't been any progress on it since the last time they looked at our deck, but whatever, they can come hang out.

My parents, Mike and I arrive home.. There is an odd truck parked on the street in front of our house but the neighbors keep odd company so I figured it belonged a visitor of theirs. We get to the door and Mike unlocks it then says something like "Ladies first" (since I had told him about how much I like doors open for me and that my dad does it).. so I walk in first (still not thinking any of this is weird) and there are a ton of people in my kitchen yelling "SURPRISE!"
Now, me being the crazy person I am, am thinking to myself "Damn! why didn't I clean my house today instead of taking an (unsuccessful) nap!" Oh well, there's nothing I can do about it now. I guess this is why Mike told me to slow down, so I could continue to drink with my friends, and not pee myself when I walked in the door.


Me and Ang. I don't have an abnormally big head but that tiara was way too small, and yes she made me wear it and the boa.




My little Mac and me


Mahjong is probably one of my favorite games ever! So we had to play a few games.

Then it was on to the Foosball..

Me and JJ
against Justin and Alex


Vivian was our cheerleader!


This is an example of one of the areas that I would've cleaned, can you see all the dust on the foosball table? Gross!


This is Mindy, she found herself some big boobies, as usual with bigger boobs, she's getting harassed!


Don't worry! We didn't let him drink it!


Huka anyone?

By this time of the night us girls were exhausted!


But the boys were carrying on with the decorations..


I've only ever had 1 other surprise birthday party in my life, when I was 16. I'm clueless, I don't expect it at all! It's probably easy for the planners of my surprise parties, because I don't catch on to anything!
I do have to say that this was probably the funnest birthday I've ever had! Thanks to Mike and my sister and whoever had a hand in planning and executing this, It was the best!
As Parker told me though, Thank goodness we only have birthdays once a year. We spent the day Saturday recovering on the couches in the front room watching movies feeling like poo. Thank goodness birthdays only come once a year!

Early Birthday

My Birthday is this week so we did a little early celebrating today since I only get to see Kristin once a week as she only works with me on Wednesdays.
We decided to go to lunch at Rumbi. I love Rumbi. I would go there and eat the rice bowls all the time if Mike liked it more (well if he liked it at all..because he doesn't). We actually had a list of places to go for lunch and couldn't decided. So we picked the top 4 and put them on papers, crumpled them up and drew one out and ended up getting Rumbi (even though Linda was going to make us go there anyway! :)


This is us: Linda, Fabi, Kristin, and me. It was delicious! Thanks Kristin!

New Glasses

I've had my current pair of glasses for roughly 8 years. I mostly wear them at night while reading or watching tv in bed or rare days when my eyes are irritated or dry(never more than a few hours). About a month ago I attempted to drive with these glasses and had a scary realization that prescription of my glasses was drastically different from my current contact prescription. I couldn't see more that half a car's length away from me. I was terrified. Thank goodness Mike and one of our friend's was in the car with me to help navigate us to our destination and back.
So After this discovery I decided that it was time for new glasses.I should have known they weren't helping me much, my prescription gets worse every year I go to the eye doctor. I am slowly going blind. So these glasses are at least 4 prescriptions old. My mom and I have been patients of Walmart vision center for several years, I know it sounds ghetto but Dr Baker is the most awesome eye doctor ever! We love him! So we go to Walmart vision center every two years to see him. Well Walmart being the monster it is advertised having super inexpensive glasses so I thought since my prescription is there anyway, I might as well buy from them.
Here's what I got.

Just Kidding!

Don't these glasses look like Olive from the movie "Little Miss Sunshine"? Seriously though, I probably tried on every pair of glasses TWICE before finally making a decision.
Here's what I got:

So now if you see me operating a motor vehicle in glasses, you can rest assured that I can actually see!

PS My boss says I look smart in glasses & my boyfriend thinks I look hot in glasses... SO what do I look like without them?
An Ugly retard!?

New Roommate!

I have a new roommate! Well, he's not really new, he's been here for a while... I just haven't had time to blog.

This is Nick

He is a friend that Mike and Parker met online in the world of computer games. He's gone on vacation with us, come to visit, Mike and Parker have gone to visit him, we've known him for a while and he's a pretty normal individual. (I just have to emphasize this because if I just say that we found him on the internet it makes him sound creepy). He is nice and pretty clean (which you all know is a selling point for roommates) and he helps out around the house. He is having some delay in finding a job, but other than that I don't think we could have found for a better roommate.

He lived in Reno then moved back east to Virginia to stay with relatives last year. We've been talking to him for some time about living here with us and he was planning on moving, but the actual move kept getting delayed. So on spring break (March) Mike flew out there and they drove back together along with Nick's 2 cats.

This is Shino, "warrior princess"


And this is Moe, overtaking one of Ando's beds.


We had to find a safe place for kitty food and kitty poop so the cat bowls and cat box stay in our storage room with this awesome gate to block Ando out, but still lets the cats get through.
(This dang gate is ridiculously high, I can't tell you how many bruises I sustained climbing over it to do laundry, but I do think I'm getting better at my high stepping abilities.)

Can you see Ando on the other side? He hates this gate. He sticks his whole head through the cat hole to follow me or the cats but his head is about all that will fit, I'm pretty sure it will get stuck one day. (Don't worry, I will take pics and blog about this incident when it occurs, it will be worth a good laugh).

As most of you know I love cats. Cats get a bad rep. And the bullshit excuse that "I'm allergic to cats" doesn't fly in my book. Take some zyrtec and get over it, lots of people with allergies OWN cats so that cant be an excuse for not liking cats. I'll admit that cats can be stuck up. They do what they want, when they want to do it. I think that's why most people don't like cats. But if you take the time to get to know them, they are great. They are smart and interactive. I play with these cats all the time.
Moe and Shino are a little out of control, or maybe I've just forgot how much cats are into Everything:

• I had a bowl of cheese on the counter and Shino decided to eat my cheese right out of the bowl
  
• Moe is constantly flinging water out of the toilet when the seat gets left up
• Shino was flipping items off my desk so Ando could (and did) chew them up
• Moe was drinking water out of a cup on my dresser the other day (his whole head was inside the cup) Don't worry he had 3 full water bowls accessible to him in the house, but for some reason wanted MY water
  
• Moe was exploring my closet in my home office this weekend and accidentally got locked in (for several hours)
  
• Moe was feeling more hungry than usual and ripped open his bag of cat food and was helping himself to as much as he liked (as the cat food spilled out all over the floor)

It is hard because they aren't my cats so they don't really like me the way my cats at my mom's house do because I didn't raise them but they are slowly warming up to me.
Our house is slowly becoming pet central. Parker is getting a dog soon. We have Ando and the 2 cats and ever since the Super Pet Adoption I've been itching to get another dog. So we'll have to see what happens in the next few months and what new pets that brings us!