Many Exciting Things!

Many exciting things happened today and I feel the need to blog about it.

Number 1: We had a HUGE earthquake today at school. Magnitude was 7.2 which is pretty dang big. The news said that because of the earthquake a tsunami is now coming to the east coast. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/08/japan.quake/index.html Here is a link to read about it on CNN. Says they could feel it all the way in Tokyo which is over 250 miles away. It shook for about 2-3 minutes. I was singing graduation songs with my kids and during the middle of a song I stopped and said, "Is this an earthquake?" Then all the kids stopped and we crouched down and had our very first earthquake at school... it just had to be the largest one too!

Number 2: Today I had a parent/teacher conference with one of my student's mothers. She was so cute and kept talking about how sad she was that I'm leaving. She even got teary eyed and asked me to please come back and teach here again. She said she notices how her son always gets very close to my face when he talks to me. Apparantly he comes home and talks about how "beautiful" and "cute" I am every day. Then she said "I wish my son was older because I would want you to be his bride" hahahaha So then I started cracking up and she did too and she said, "Now I'm all sweaty because maybe I shouldn't have said that" hahaha. I could not stop laughing and blushing because I was so embarrassed. If only he was 20 years older... jk.

Number 3: On a sad note, my external hard drive decided to break today thus, losing all my pictures from college, china, post college, and many pictures from Japan. I hate technology. I'm praying that it will come back to life. After all my computer from college broke and I lost all my pictures from college. Then almost 2 years later it came back to life and I recovered them. Technology miracles can happen!

Number 4: I come home 3 weeks from tomorrow!!!

Number 5: Today I decided to try Shirataki noodles. Those are the noodles that are in many asian soups... not to be confused with rice or ramen noodles. I was reading some recipes the other night (my usual nightly ritual) and came across shirataki noodles. Apparantly they only have about 20 calories for a 4 oz serving. So I decided I better like these and be able to substitute in pasta dishes. At first I was unsure then I took a giant bite and almost vomited it up because the texture was so chewy and disgusting. If I hadn't been eating lunch with a Japanese person I would have spit it out and maybe up chucked. Instead I swallowed and threw the rest away. Tonight, I made a new recipe using them for lunch tomorrow so I'll let you know how go number two goes. Hopefully much better. I'm determined to like them even if they do smell like fish.

Food, Food, Food!

Those of you who know me well know that I think about food approximately 100% of the time I'm awake... I even dream about it, no lie! So it should come as no surprise to you that I'm finally blogging about my gluttony. My sisters and I all enjoy talking about food with each other. Maybe too much because it's been known to get on people's nerves. Since we all love food so much naturally we also enjoy talking about our weight. I mean, none of us are trying to be a future contestant of the biggest loser here so if we think about food 100% of the time then we also need to spend at least 50% of time thinking about our weight. HA! It may be annoying to some... ok most but we just can't help it.

Before I even eat my breakfast I'm thinking about lunch and dinner. I like to know for sure what I'm going to be eating. It truly stresses me out when we make last minute plans to go out to eat. I've planned my day around my meals and what I eat when so I can't just be making last minute changes like that! It's crazy talk! Unlike many of my friends and family I prefer to eat a bigger lunch and a light dinner. I don't like feeling full at night and that sure makes having a social life hard. I wish being social didn't revolve so much on going out to eat... I guess that should just make me more motivated to throw my own dinner parties where I can control what's being served... control freak? maybe. :)

When I got home from work today I immediately started reading my food blogs (I'm not even going to tell you how many of them I read daily... it's embarrassing). Then I looked at the clock and OH NO! 2 1/2 hours had gone by. I'm not kidding! So I thought... well it's as good as time as any to start blogging about food. I mean, I'm fully committed to food. That will never change. Sometimes I even eat it 3 times a day!!! *gasp* and so why not blog about what I love most.

I have something I need to get off my chest: I just counted and I've saved over 450 recipes this year on different food sites. How can I even cook all those? I've decided to make a goal for next year: Cook at least 2 new recipes every week. Now I haven't admitted to you yet that those goals I made for my 25th year of life... I didn't do! I started it and then gave up. So I'm counting on you to keep me accountable! Mom, Grammy, Jenny - that's you! (I think you are the only 3 that read this!) The question is when to start: When I get home, when I move into my new apartment, or on my birthday? When I first get home I'll be living with mom and dad till June.. and I just don't know if I can compete with mom's cooking. I mean how do you compete with cooking perfection? It's too hard. Not to mention I'm practically a vegetarian these days and I don't think it's fair to make everyone else eat that way when I cook. I think I can count on one hand how many times I've had meat since August... and none of those times were more than a bite or two. I just don't like it. Red Meat = EWWW! Anything from a pig = vom! Chicken = eh. Turkey = I don't remember... it's been over a year! And fish = don't even go there. So what are your thoughts? When should I start?