204 - Overindulging and Awards

I got more awards! First the Love Link award from Terry at A Writer of Wrongs, a great blog (with a very clever title) that is equal parts writer's journal, slice of life, and Molly Ringwald fan club. Terry is such a diehard writer that he even managed to injure his writing fingers! To receive this award I must pass it on to five more blogs, and post this:

"You have received a LOVE LINK, now it's your turn to pass it on. Pick 5 special blog friends/readers/or non-blogging friends to link to and post about in addition to the person who LOVE-LINKED you; don't forget to add this notice to your post. This paragraph links you to Womenslifelink.com (where it all started) because we want to know how far the love spreads and to how many. So, please come and leave a comment to tell us who you are and that you received a LOVE LINK from a friend."

I'm going to give them out to blogs I started reading within the last couple of months or so ("couple" being a relative term)... in no particular order:

1. Ms. Anthropy

2. Hissyfits & Halos

3. Redhead Ranting

4. The Girl Next Door Grows Up

5. I think it's Interesting (ASBLACKASOBAMA) - By the way, I take back my comment about Taylor Swift... I finally figured it out -- she's not flat... it's the band... they're really making her look bad. And Stevie Nicks... hmph... you'd think a professional singer with that many years under her belt would be more professional... how they have hidden her lack of talent for so long I'll never know...

And a second award from Kato, whom I'm sure you all know is one of my favorite people/bloggers. She gave me the One Lovely Blog Award, and I get to hand that over to one more blog. So this one goes to Joe (The Shadow of My Life), because he is one lovely blogger (and also a fellow Texan, yee-haw ya'll!).

Gosh, that's a big award... I tried to make it smaller and it blew up on me...



Well, it didn't ever get warm enough for me to open the windows, but yesterday was still a beautiful day.

I'm a little embarassed to admit how obsessive anal OCD happy it makes me when I can get rid of clutter. Any little scrap of paper that I can get toss, even going so far as to cut a recipe out of a page and be able to throw the rest of that page away, makes me feel so much better. It even transfers to intagible things like my spam folder... I check it to make sure no blogspot comments, or other valuable email I may want, is in there, then I empty it. It's a small rush.

On the other hand, I'm learning to finish things before I throw them out. Instead of leaving the last little bit of toothpaste in the tube, or the last few squirts of liquid soap in the container, I now use it all up. See, I look forward to opening up the next new container so much that it's hard for me to stop myself from using the new thing before finishing the old one... It's an ongoing story in my life... Carries on to more than just toiletries, unfortunately. But I'm learning not to tire of things so easily...

That said, I have been using the most wonderful soap... I got it at the Renaissance Festival a couple of years ago and am just now using it because I'm such a soap whore that I have a drawer full of the stuff... I can't help myself. I'm a very scent-sual woman. ;) Anyway, it is olive oil based and smells wonderful, but most of all, it has a nice lather to it... so luxurious... If you're looking for a good soap to add to your collection, you can find it at http://soapmagic.com/. I've used Angel, and am currently using Arabian Spice... both are wonderful and generously sized... about twice the size of a store-bought bar of soap. (And no, I am in no way affiliated with these people, I only wish they were bribing me!).

Random commercial-driven comment: I like Kirstie Alley, but wtf? "Life. Lick it." What the hell does that even mean?

I finally got around to trying agave nectar as a sugar substitute. It is a liquid rather than a granular sugar (did the 'nectar' part give that away?), but it tastes good. Almost like honey... I had my doubts... I mean, agave turns into a nice tequila... but a sweetener? I put it in my water this evening, with a couple of packets of True Lime... makes a nice limeade-type beverage. And apparently it's good for regulating blood sugar, doesn't cause an insulin spike like regular sugar. All in all I'm glad I tried it. I could even see adding some vanilla extract to it to make a flavored syrup, and adding that to a coke instead of going to Sonic and getting a Route-44 vanilla coke (I know, the coke part is bad, but if I do it this way it's a little healthier, right? Smaller portion, adding a healthier syrup... okay, I'm fooling myself... but not you...). And I can add it to my chocolate almond milk so that it will actually taste good! Yea!

And last, a final thought for the day... getting paid to pee (and/or poop as the case may be)... Yes folks, your employer not only provides you with 'low cost' health insurance and a paycheck -- if you take advantage of it, they will also pay you for your bodily waste as well. And they provide soap, water and towels. So the next time you start to think about how much you hate your job, think about this -- maybe your just not availing yourself of all the many benefits of working for somebody else.