Talking and Driving

So Louisiana has finally join the rest of the world (or I guess just several states), and has banned talking on cell phones while driving. It's not that I don't understand the law. I do agree that it makes senese and makes driving safer and everything. But still, I am not a fan.

Even though I don't have a long comute (30 mins on a bad day, less than 10 on a good time), I get easily bored while driving. Listening to music only does so much. And normally once I get in the car, and turn out onto the street after work, the first thing I want to do is call someone. It isn't neccessarily the best time to talk to people, and half the time I can't get in touch with someone. But just the fact that it takes time to dial and whatnot eats up most of my time. And then then of course when someone does answer, I have entertainment untill I get home.

But no longer as of January 1st. I guess this isn't the end all, and I can easily buy a hand free headset, but even so... As silly as it sounds it makes me sad, and wish I could still talk on my cell.

The King of Smoothies

So I went to Smoothie King on my lunch break today (part of my New Year's resolution to lose weight by eating less crap). Almost every time I go to Smoothie King there is maybe 1 person there, maybe. There was a case when I went on a Saturday and there was a family of 5 there. I want to say there were 3 employees working then, so all in all did not take that long at all. But that was probably my longest weight there, until today...

First as I'm parking I see a guy walk inside and immediately walk out. I heard him say something to the person in his car that there was a long line, and people waiting all on the sides. So as I walk in there's an older woman walking out. I held the door open for her since she was carrying about 8 smoothies. Yes, there was the problem right there...

I walk into the store and there's 4 people in line waiting to order smoothies and 4 people waiting for the smoothies they've already ordered. And there was one person working, all by him lonesome. What must have happened is that lady came in and ordered her 8 smoothies. And people still came in while he had to make all 8 smoothies, so things were a little backed up.

He would like take 3 people's orders, then put two smoothies in the blenders, take out a smoothie that had finished blending, charge someone, take out another smoothie that had finished, and then have to go back to the line to take orders. And since he was so backed up, people kept coming in and the line never got shorter! Obviously it must have at some point, but I have no idea how long the guy was going crazy like that.

Here's the worst part about it though. What looked like the health inspector was there too! When I first got that it looked like the employee was talking to the health inspector and was simultaneously on the phone with his manager. He then gave his cell to the health inspector, so I'm guessing she could talk to the manager. Then of course later on see was back behind the counter, pulling things out from under the sink, running the water (maybe to see how hot it could get?). It was completely ridiculous. I think I got back to work with only 4 minutes left of my hour, when going to smoothie king normally takes only 20 minutes!

How do you say it?

The boy's niece said my name for the first time yesterday. Well... it wasn't quite my name. It kinda of sounded like, "Shosha." But she did say it twice and was looking right at me. So it totally counts.

It's funny, I always expected her at some point down the line to actually be able to say my name, but I wasn't sure how it would happen. It just seems like such a hard and complicated word for a baby to say.

Last year, on one of the first days of after school care one of the mother's asked me my name. I said it was, "Miss Shoshanah," to which she replied, "Oh, he's never going to get that. How about Miss S." Surprisingly, within a few weeks her 5-year-old was able to say it just fine. Most of the kids were actually. (Which really makes me wonder how easily other kids picked up my name when I was younger) There were of coarse some kids that didn't quite get it. Two girls who called me, "Miss Kashanah." But honestly, as long as it somewhat resembled my name, I would respond.

That's actually caused me some problems. As I remember saying in high, "You could probably say Banana and I'd think you were saying my name." That's probably why I always think people are whispering about. I'm just assuming they're saying my name, when really it's nowhere near that!

The New Bachelor

The new season of the Bachelor started tonight. I was so excited! I love Jason! I loved him from the start on the last season of the Bachelorette. It's funny watching it thinking how I could be in that situation. "I would totally be able to move to Seattle, I've already lived in California, Maryland, and Louisiana!" or "I love kids! I've spent most of my summers working at camps and I ran an after-school center last year!" Then I do a little reality check and think, o yeah... I am in a relationship. I don't think the boy would be very happy with that. But in my next life... I am so signing up to be on the Bachelor!

But speaking of the show before it started, I thought to myself, "I bet they will have some single moms!" And of course they did! Obvious yes I know. I really liked Megan. She totally seemed like a lacrosse coach too. And the mom whose husband died. Ok, I guess I kinda like all the moms! :) But I couldn't tell if the other girls made it.... did they? Anyone pay attention? Hmmm who else? I liked Melissa, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. I didn't really like the Asian girl. I don't remember what exactly it was, but she said something, and I thought to myself, "Oh no!" And the Shannon girl, the kinda stalker-ish one, so would have been me! lol.

So here's to Jason and the new season! Hopefully they last longer than Deanna and Jesse!

Apartment Hunting

Last Tuesday the Boy went to a bunch of apartments hoping to find one to move into. It's something I've been wanting us to do together, bus since he is always working (7 days a week when he's in school), this is a bit of a problem. I don't really want to go look at apartments myself. Thankfully, since school is out for winter break he went to look a bunch of places. He had narrowed it down to a few, and I made the final pick.

So today I was supposed to go to our #1 and sign a lease. I was ridiculously nervous. I just hate putting myself in new situations where I don't know what to expect. So after stopping by my office to grab my last two paychecks from my desk, I went by the complex. Got there, nervous of course, and went into the office. Was like, "Uhhh I want to sign a lease" Turns out it didn't quite work that way.

The girl did remember the Boy, and was able to find a card he filled out showing interest. She said they didn't have any of the apartments we wanted opening up. But there were apartments that had been damaged by Hurricane Gustav. They were being remodeled and were supposed to be finish by the end of January or early February. If we decided to apply in hopes of getting one of those, we'd each have to fill out an application (and of course each pay an application fee). Each app had a page that our former place of living had to fill out and our current employer. Which kinda sucks because the Boy doesn't really have a former living place and I didn't have the best of relationship per se with my last apartment complex. And of course not knowing exactly when we would get an apartment kinda sucks. So yeah, overall not the best of a situation. Hopefully it all works out eventually

My love affair with coffee

I went to Starbucks today and they were officially out of Gingersnap Lattes. Which means no Gingersnap Lattes until next year. I had to make do with a Pumpkin Spice Latte instead, and I'm sure in a few weeks I'll have to go back to Vanilla Lattes. It's funny because Gingersnap lattes (or Gingerbread Lattes as they used to be called) were really the first coffee drink I ever really drank.

It was freshmen year at college and a bunch of soccer girls and me all went on a Starbucks run. This was before a Starbucks was built across the street from our college, so we had drive a bit further, I think to one in a Barnes & Nobles. Up until this point I had only drank Frapicinos from Starbucks. But this was Maryland in the middle of winter, and there was snow on the ground and it was freezing outside. So a frapicino was pretty much out of the question. I was always a fan of ginger and of gingerbread, so I figured why not? First sip, I pretty much fell in love.

I had had coffee before. My parents had let me have cups before, but I never really enjoyed it. This was the first time I had actually really enjoyed it. I didn't start drinking it religiously then. It wasn't till I spent a month in France.

The summer before my Sr. year at college I spent 3 weeks, studying abroad in Avignon, in the south of France. I stayed with a host family, and they served coffee every morning. I would put sugar and a little cream in each cup, and it slowly started to grow on me. By the end of the trip I was even able to drink cups of strait espresso! (with a little sugar of course)

When I started Sr. year of college my parents bought me a coffee maker for my dorm. It was a little pod coffee maker that made individual cups of coffee. While at this point I would have enjoyed having the cups of coffee I made with cream, I didn't have a refrigerator at first. And I had to make do with just sugar. While eventually I did get a fridge, it seemed a little silly to buy cream, when it would prob go bad before I drank it, and drinking coffee with just sugar was just fine.

Today I would love to go to Starbucks every morning. Unfortunately, I don't always have the time (or money). So most days I wind up drinking the coffee at work. While it's not the best quality, with a little bit of sugar I'm able to enjoy it!

New Year's Eve

I practically slept through New Years last night. I am only 24 and I was barely able to to stay up till midnight. Oy.

The night started off pretty well. I got off work early and we headed over to one of the Boy's friend's house to watch the LSU game. I wasn't really sure what to expect. Like who all was going to be there, what the atmosphere was going to be like, which made deciding what to wear a little difficult. Fortunately, since there was an LSU game on, wearing an LSU shirt (one from Victoria's Secret) was pretty much a no-brainier. But I also wore jeans, and shoes, and make-up that would work if we decided to go out after the game.

So we get to his friend's house (or really his friend's girlfriend's house I guess). Now he is the same age as the boy, so about 4 years older than me. His friend's girlfriend girlfriend, is about 10 years older than the two guys. So about 14 years older than me. Her son was there before he went out for the night. He was 19. So only 5 years younger than me. So I was closer in age to the son, than the mom who I'm supposed to be socializing with. One of their friends also came over. Also 14 years older than me. She brought her twin sons who were 11. Again, only 13 years younger than me. I'm much more in the middle here. The girlfriend's daughter showed up, she was 8. Yes! I was 16 years older than here! Finally I was closer to the parent than the kid.

So to summarize the situation was a little awkward at first. His friend bbq-ed, so we had hamburgers to eat while watching the game. (In which LSU absolutely decimated Georgia Tech, so that was good) It's really hard for me to socialize with people I don't know that well (Esp with the bit of awkwardness I already pointed out) but by the end of the night I felt I was being talkative, and sociable, and that they might have actually liked me. A big part of this was my liquid courage. I drank about 2 Bacardi Watermelons. I felt a little awkward drinking at first, but his friend was drinking rum and coke, and the 19-year-old had left, so I did wind up feeling comfortable eventually.

But the game did eventually end. They were planning on going out meeting up with a bunch of people. I kinda assumed all night we were going to go out with everybody else all night, but when it was finally brought up, the Boy said he didn't want to go out. Which I do understand. He already wasn't feeling well, and going out to a bar and inhaling smoke all night wasn't going to help. (The fact that you can still smoke in bars here is something else entirely, last year they did at least ban smoking in restaurants.) So if we had gone out I would have felt completely guilty, but still I would have enjoyed it...

We got back to the house around 10:15 and watched TV. It was a little disappointing the lack of New Year's Eve programming that was one. There was like 2 or 3 specials but all of which started at 11 or 11:30. When I was younger I remember there being a whole lot more programming on during NYE. I think I was passed out on the couch by 11:15 though. The Boy woke me up for a New Year's Kiss, and then I went back to sleep on the couch for about an hour or so, until he woke me up and had me get in bed.

So the night started out promising, and ended not necessarily disappointing, but definitely different than expected.

Here's to 2009!