Books, Food, and Shoes

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

These past few weeks, I've been occupied with school. I'm learning lots of grammar and sentence structure from that Business English course, and many hours are spent on the computer for my MS Access course (the teacher likes to assign homework). The MS Word course would be better if I wasn't having a problem with either the text or my computer as I try to complete the current assignment. I'm looking forward to the HR Management course that is starting on Monday. It's not about enhancing my job skills, but creating new ones too. I hope to be able to apply to HR jobs, too, soon.

Food has been great. I went to dinner with Carolyn at Greens in the city. It was the most money I've spent on a meal in a long time, but I have no complaints otherwise. The food was yummy! I enjoyed everything that I ordered, and that can be a rare occurance... Went to have Thai food for Louis' (and Lamar's) birthday. Not being too hungry for dinner as I had a late lunch, I ordered an appitizer of the chicken skewers with the peanut sauce. I was surprised at the amount of skewers I received and found myself full. It was a nice surprise.

The hardest part about food is that it's Lent. I gave up snacking. It sounds small, but I was doing it a lot. I was snacking as I worked on the computer all day and at night. It was worse at night because it was all about chocolate. I got so much chocolate for my birthday and I was having a piece or two almost every night. Yes, I could have froze it all, but 1) it would have been fair game to any sweettooth that crossed the Maloon threashold, 2) it's not as good when you defrost it. So, after going "cold turkey" I had to adjust my diet a little so that I had a sweet, preferably chocolate, with my meals so that withdrawl headaches would go away. Seriously, it was bad, people. I was bad. I'm doing better now, and all that's left is a craving for chocolate. I'm getting so good at this that I didn't eat any chocolate on Valentine's Day. None. I'm saving the plastic-wrapped box of See's truffles for Easter. For dessert on the "holiday", I made a non-chocoalte and semi-healthy item: fresh fruit and a whipped cream dip a la Lauren. And, before y'all get on me for breaking my snacking rule, I don't considering dessert "snacking". It's part of a celebration. Valentine's Day and birthdays need not worry.

Speaking of Valentine's Day/Our Anniversary, Phillip and I enjoyed an evening "in". We got take-out from Black Angus and were very pleased with our dinner. Not only did we get the entire meal we wanted, but we didn't have to wait in the crazy-ass mob that Phillip said engulfed the restaurant. I'm sure we ate before most of those people even had a shot at being seated! :>) After some mushy couple-time that y'all don't get the details of, we fed my only TV show obsession by watching the newest episode of "Lost". Since Phillip is just as addicted to the show, there were no problems here. The episodes all have been really good this season so far! It was a wonderful night: great boyfriend, great food, great night together. :>)

What else has been going on? Not much.

I bought some new walking shoes. I want to start walking again to add some exercise and stress relief to my life. I was looking into a way to get rid of my old shoes when I remembered that they can be recycled, and not just tossed in the trash. The questions then became: how and where? Appearently, San Mateo was holding a collection for one of their projects, but that is closed now. They provided a link to sporting good stores that would take them. All of the stores are sponsored by a Nike program, believe it or not. They take apart your shoes to make new soles for new shoes and, more importantly, to make running tracks and play equipment and whatnot. Very cool. I sent out an email to a lot of people that live in the area to see if they have anything to donate. If I mised you and you wanna participate, please let me know.