Mmmmm....

I've decided to try a new hobby. Baking. So far I've really only made one thing but that's only because I can't have more than one dessert in my house at one time. I'm already eating this cake* for breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, late night snack (what? Don't act like that's too much snacking.) Here is me trying to fit the entire cake into my mouth...

it didn't work. Which is why I'm forced to eat it sliver by sliver (calories don't count if you don't put the cake on a plate) until it's gone. There is not very much left. I figure I will easily finish the rest of it today which means tomorrow I can bake something else just in time for my sisters to get here. (Yahoo! Sisters!)

Anyhow, I am now on the hunt for my next recipe to try and I'm getting a little annoyed. Why do so many desserts have to be tainted with walnuts? I know I could probably just leave them out but I judge things based on how they look, and if there is a picture of a dessert with walnuts in it I just keep on moving. Nuts are not welcome in my desserts, they don't belong there and I get irritated when people try to force me to have some protein with my sweets.

I'm not a picky eater. In terms of foods I don't like it's now down to: beets. I think they taste like dirt, I don't care how pretty they are I won't eat them. That's it. Just beets, otherwise I'm really easy to please and will try anything (as long as it's not burn my taste-buds off spicy.) However when it comes to dessert I am very picky. I don't like chocolate ice cream, hot fudge, cookie dough ice cream, any sort of anything with nuts in it, carrot cake (again-don't try to disguise something healthy as a treat), or anything cherry flavored. See? Kinda picky, but if I'm going to indulge in dessert then I feel it's okay to be picky about what deciding what to eat.

I'm on the hunt...I'm sure I'll let you know what I make, and if you want some of it you'd better be quick about it.

*This cake is a white cake with added bonus yumminess of instant vanilla pudding, 7-up, and other cake stuff. It's also a homemade frosting, which looks more like a glaze because I got impatient (what, me? impatient? never.) and tried to frost the cake before it was completely cool.

Awe Crap She did it again

I am having a very hard time this morning reconciling the fact that one of my very favorite things (Glee) is going to be featuring one of my least favorite things (Britney Spears). I've never been a Britney fan in fact I'll admit, I really can't stand her. When I was dancing for the Lumberjax we learned a routine to "Womanizer" and I just couldn't get behind dancing to one of her songs, so I didn't. Anytime that routine was performed I sat it out, trying to just focus on the cute girls dancing and not the bad synthesized voice blaring out the speakers.

I've successfully avoided her for the most part until now. I know it's still a week away but I'm already feeling very conflicted. On the one hand, I REALLY don't want to watch Britney; on the other hand I'm positive the Glee kids will sing her songs better than she ever did. On the one hand, Britney makes my skin crawl; on the other hand I'm sure Sue will have some priceless one liners that I don't want to miss. The list of pros and cons is longer than that, but I think you get the idea; I take Glee way too seriously, I just can't help it.

A day in the life

I procrastinate. Did you know that about me already? I'm sure you did, it's really no surprise. I have every intention at the start of anything to be all over it, not wait until the last minute, be super organized and prepared. I don't know what goes wrong, it's almost as if thinking about it doesn't matter at all.

Let's take, for example, today. I have been telling myself ALL summer that I need to be reviewing French. Did I? Absolutely not. I am going to be starting my second year of French in one week and I would like to start it feeling like I took the first year of French and actually learned something from it. I now am going to have to somehow review an entire years worth of learning into one week! I've split the book into sections and have given myself a certain number of chapters to review each day so I can be done by the weekend. And yet, what am I doing? Writing on the internet about how I need to be studying. Why? Because that seemed like a lot more fun. Fun always wins out for a procrastinator.

I justify my behavior by telling myself that I actually work best under pressure. But to be honest I don't really know if that is true or not because it's the only way I've ever done things. All my choreography gets done at the last minute, the papers I write usually aren't finished until minutes before class - allowing just enough time to print, laundry isn't done until I absolutely can't find anything clean (I will never run out of underwear I have about a trillion pairs), packing doesn't get finished until it's practically time for departure...I think you get the idea.

This seems to work for me though. People seem to like my choreography (unless everyone has gotten together and agreed to lie to me), my papers almost always come back with an A at the top, and as far as I know I've never been the "stinky girl in class."

Some people were meant to be organized, I am not one of those people. Often I wish I were but it's just so much easier to be who I am.

Things that make you go...

I am not very good at making decisions. Especially when I have more than two or three options. If someone says to me..."what do you want to do?" I have no idea where to start with that. When the possibilities are endless I have no idea where to begin; I mean, what DON'T I want to do? I work much better if someone gives me choices like..."what do you want to do? Go to the zoo, or go see a movie?" I can think those options through weigh them out and come up with a decision in a timely manner.

So, today when given the task of picking a place to have lunch I turned to my "decision maker helper" - citysearch. I went to the category "lunch spot" and a lot of good options came up but....so did 7-11. Seriously citysearch? Isn't 7-11 for like gum, soda, or maybe lunch if you happen to be walking by one at the exact time you realize you are starving and will die if you don't get something to eat in the next 45seconds?

I think someone would question my sanity if I got back to them after being asked "Where do you want to go to lunch" with "Well, I was thinking 7-11 sounded good, want to meet there?" Even I know that's a bad decision.

Raw

I have a lot of insecurities. A lot. Some of them have been the same since I was 15 years old. I am now 31 and every day moving closer to 32. I think most of the time I try to present myself as a secure, self-confident girlwoman, but the fact is most of the time I'm just trying to convince myself hoping that one day it'll stick.

Every once in a while I get to have a moment that brings me closer to actually believing the things I tell myself over and over in hopes that repetition makes habit. But those moments are usually few and far between and the insecurities have such a hold on me that they easily trample down any feelings of security fairly easily.

So, in an effort to get them out there, in the hopes that acknowledging them will make them less scary here they are. My dirty little insecurities (this won't be pretty):

I worry that I am not good enough at the things I love to do. That my choreography is boring, I worry that people will stop coming to my classes to go to someone else's instead, that maybe the only reason they come to mine is because it works with their schedule, but they'd actually rather be at someone else's class instead.

I worry that even though I love to write and sometimes feel like I just HAVE to write or my mind will explode, I'm not nearly as good at getting my thoughts from head to paper/computer as most other people and my words fall flat, uninteresting and lifeless.

I worry that my friends are only my friends because I won't let them go. That maybe if I stopped making an effort they would gladly move on to find more interesting/fun people to replace me.

I worry that I took a wrong turn somewhere and the dreams I've had of my life and my happily ever after were at the end of different road. But this is not a "choose your own adventure" I can't just start my book over and try a different route this time.

Sometimes it's the little things...

...like hearing your boyfriend on the phone giving his home address to someone and having it be the same as yours

...or a really delicious glass of wine, that also didn't break the bank...
that make me happy.