New Thing #74: Beautiful Venetian Lady

New Thing #73: Mud face

I put Lush's Cupcake mud mask on and it freaked me out when I looked the mirror. This is one of my lamer posts because I was sooooo stressed out at work this week with the banquet and all. But hopefully you'll forgive me :)

New Thing #73: Fundraising Banquet

Since I've been hired at the Y, I've been planning on this fundraising banquet. I've done the invitations, collected all the RSVPs, planned the table hosts role, printed and written the programs, been the photographer for the evening, ordered the flowers, talked to the the caterer, printed off nametags, and I'm sure done other stuff too. But anyways, tonight was the night. So today, I was partly in charge of making a Y fundraising banquet run smoothly. I really enjoyed it. It went very smoothly. We had about 200 people show up and hopefully everyone felt in the giving mood.

New Thing #72: 14 Hands

Kevin is in town until Thursday, so we went out to a nice dinner at a restaurant downtown we had never been to before. I went and ate dinner at Palamino. It was too expensive for this day and age but the food was very good. We had a $20 off coupon so the night only cost us like $40 with two alcoholic drinks each and entrees. I got the caesar salad and it was delicious. It reminded me of all the good times Kevin and I spent at Hard Rock Cafes around Europe. I think we went to like 10 Hard Rocks when we were craving good ole American cuisine.

New Thing #71: Are you there God? It's me Margaret.

I was paged over the Wal-mart intercom that my car was ready. I went to a Tire & Lube center to get my oil changed and when Kevin and I were shopping, I got paged that my car was ready for pick-up. It was awesome! They said my name and everything :P I've never been paged before or had my name said over a loudspeaker. Unless it was Todd asking me if the flags were finished.

New Thing #70: New Drink

I'm not much for creamy alcoholic drinks but when I was out with Kevin at Coach's (the local dive bar) I tried a mudslide. It was pretty good. By the end of the drink I was feeling a little "ugh" but it was very nice and refreshing at the beginning. We watched our videos from Ireland when he got back from Louisiana today and we drank Irish Coffees during that trip and I wanted something sort of like that but with no caffeine. It was a good night. Plus I beat Kevin 3 times at pool with still leaving at least 4 of my own balls on the table. He kept hitting the 8-ball in or scratching. Normally I'm not that bad at pool but I was the winner in either event, LOL!

New Thing #69: Chanoyu

I went to the Japanese Gardens and participated in an authentic Tea Ceremony demonstration. I had known that on the third saturday of summer months, the Japanese Garden held a tea ceremony. I came to the garden an hour-and-a-half early and walked around and the sun started to come out. All the trees were changing color and the garden was highlighted with the reds and yellows of fall. Then when the ceremony started at 2 pm, I volunteered to participate in the tea ceremony. I was one of two people picked! It was awesome. You had to pick the bowl up a certain way and bow a certain way and drink a certain way: I LOVE all that stuff. I wish Americans cared more for ritual and ceremony. Normally a tea ceremony would last four-and-a-half hours but ours took 45 minutes. We ate sweets prior to drinking the matcha tea. It was wisked until foamy and I really enjoyed the whole experience.

I am going to take this further then this post today. I invite you to do the same if the Japanese tea ceremony is something that interests you. http://www.issoantea.com/ I have a neat children's book that tells how to do it at home. But the tea ceremony (or the Chanoyu) isn't ONLY about the tea itself but rather the art of kimono, the art of flower arranging, the art of Japanese cuisine (sweets are served prior to tea), the art of calligraphy, Japanese gardens and architecture, and tea etiquette. The woman who served me the tea had been studying this for 27 years! That's so amazing.

New Thing #68: Fun with Mom

Kinda like "Fun with Dick and Jane."

I drove down and visited my mom at her home late last night. Today I picked up some Taco Bell for us and we chatted practically all day long. Among other topics, We talked about plans to cut down on expenditures for the next 6 months. It was really nice to talk to my mom about money matters.

New Thing #67: A Real Gusher

It just seems to be how my life has been going this week. I've been crying a lot lately but I've realized something very important: If shows or books or series DID NOT end, then there would never be any room for NEW wonderful creations. And I suppose, as long as it ends in a way that pleases me, then I shouldn't be sad. I should be happy because, unlike the real world, good triumphed over evil and the guy always got the girl.

But, speaking of "gushing" (with tears, emotion, etc.) my car ran out of windshield wiper fluid so I got to go to the automotive section in a store, buy more fluid, get under the hood of my car, and add more. So today's new thing is I added my own windshield wiper fluid to my car.

New Thing #66: Thai Bye

I ate dinner with Cassandra at Thai Kitchen. I had the pad thai-- it was pretty bad because I normally like pad thai. Needless to say, I'm not going to that restaurant again.

I feel like I've been coming down with something. I've been feeling listless and depressed. I took some wellness formula herbal supplements. I drank a warm cup of milk with cocoa powder and marshmallows before bed. Hopefully that will help put me to sleep. It's taken me like an hour and a half to fall asleep the past few nights.

New Thing #65: Revelation #1

I was emotionally unable to complete a new thing activity today but I realized something about myself instead that I believe should count. I just got so torn up about getting to the end of the "Avatar: The Last Airbender" series that I couldn't stop thinking about it and I lay awake tossing and turning and not feeling well the next day. I have always liked how imaginative I am: How I get so involved with books and movies, etc. I just hate how it bothers me if the story line doesn't move in a way that pleases me. I suppose that is normal with anyone. But, I feel that it especially affects my day negatively or positively depending on how the fictional plot goes. I cried when Harry Potter ended. I cried when the Pirates movies ended. Today I cried over the Avatar TV series, and I can't help asking myself "why?"

I realized that If good stories never ended then there would be no room for new stories to enjoy. And that should be consoling me because at least the ending of Avatar and Harry Potter satisfied me. And I'm always on the look out for new adventures in the Land of Make Believe.

New Thing #64: Earth, Air, Fire, Water

I watched the entire second season of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" in one day. I absolutely love it and it makes me feel so happy. But I'll be disappointed when the series ends when Aang meets the Fire Lord. UGH! I can't take the suspense.

New Thing #63: Tea con chicas

I spent a nice lazy sunday just chilling around the house doing random projects and crafts. This evening, my old roommate Katherine and her mom popped over to my apartment for tea. They were driving back to Kirkland after visiting her aunt in Albany. I served Katherine and her mom tea and showed them my apartment and we chatted about old times. It was so nice to catch up. I should get up to Washington one of these days to visit her.

New Thing #62: Hisssssss

I made a door snake to improve insulation. I bought like five pounds of red kidney beans and sewed a neat snake with button eyes and a red felt tongue. I remember growing up we had a green upholstery fabric snake that we'd use in winter and it was filled loosely enough that we could drape it over the doorknob when it wasn't put down. I remember this one time we were staying in a hotel and I was sleeping on the floor and my parents were in the bed and there was a draft under the door and someone had to jam their jacket underneath it to keep me warm. After that moment, I always regarded the friendly green door snake as a means to keep warmth in the house.

New Thing #61: Definitely, maybe

I had been meaning to do this for awhile, but for the past two nights Kevin's friend's wife has invited me over to dinner. I'd been eating over at Laura's because Larry is away hunting deer so I was busy. But it finally worked out and we met up to grab some dinner and then watched a movie ("Definitely, Maybe") and we girl talked for like two hours afterward. I went over to Jessica's house for a movie following dinner. We ate sandwiches and soup near the fire at the Pannera Bread store. Doug got home really late and I left at that point to give them some time together. It was so nice to get to know her better.

New Thing #60: Dinner party

I went over to Vanessa's house where she made me and two other friends dinner. It was a fantastic evening we talked politics mostly and that was really fun! We ate pasta and salad and cheese and drank sake and watched the Palin video on youtube about "What does the VP do?" I love having intelligent friends that have opinions and who I really enjoy hanging out with.

New Thing #59: Paper Cuts

I was asked at work to assist the Human Resources department with there filing. They have MANY filing cabinets and since they relocated to a new section of the building, their new stuff has just been piling up! So, they hired me to put all the clutter away. I have SOOO many paper cuts on my fingers from alphabetizing folders all day long. I don't mind that kind of work. It makes the day FLY by. But I feel more tired when I come home, that's for sure! Today I helped out the HR department by doing a ton of filing. I think it's going to take me 2-3 more days to get them caught up. The boxes of loose papers I am avoiding because it will be difficult to find the specific folder they have to go in... Sigh. I am very VERY thankful for the extra hours before the end of the year!

New Thing #58: Clean Coal: Fact or Fiction?

I researched clean coal technology. A good place to start is the wikipedia entry for clean coal technology.

http://www.coal-is-dirty.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4468076.stm

I don't really know which to believe. I mean I understand that in the clean coal making process, the coal will still create waste -- it just won't be causing global warming anymore. It will be buried underground which seems like just another way we'd be poisoning our planet and possibly our water supplies could be affected by long-term exposure to the "impurities" in the coal. (Most of this is from the Greenpeace point of view) The other thing though is that we HAVE to remove ourself from foreign oil in our manufacturing processes and our energy consumption. But I wish we would go straight to wind or solar farms rather then coal or nuclear power. And that's what I have to say about that. Please feel free to make your own conclusions and comment below.

New Thing #57: health help

I registered at my health insurance web-site to get points and awards for healthy living. Every 50,000 points, you get a $25 giftcard. I browsed the site for an hour and already earned 8,000 points just reading news feeds, message boards, and signing up for reminder emails to eat healthy and exercise. Sometimes I want to get healthier but I don't have any place to start. Sure I can browse the Food Network and get healthy recipes but sometimes choice is a problem for me. It's nice to have help laying it all out if I am feeling unable to make a decision.

New Thing #56: Yearbooked Myself

Me in 1952

Me in 1960

Me in 1968

Me in 1974

Me in 1996

I used the site Yearbook Yourself to put me in some selections of yearbook pages. You should totally try this. Word to the wise, once you save one picture, you can't scroll through the rest, so make sure you look at them all first and see which ones you like and THEN go through and start saving them. http://www.yearbookyourself.com/

New Thing #55: Bad

I "practiced" forging a signature on documents. Don't worry, purely scientific research.

New Thing #54: Another Cynthia

I went to Dante's Caffe Italiano to see my friend's coworker's band, Another Cynthia. They did pretty good. I think I've actually seen them before in NE, but I couldn't remember the name of the place. There music was very familiar to me. Then Cassandra and I went dancing at Barbati's Pan. Ugh, I'm feeling it the next morning. Blarg!

New Thing #53: Gone Baby Gone

I sold some CDs for money. I took about 30 of my CDs down to a used CD store and got rid of them. They really didn't give me very much... I got $4 for a Disturbed CD and $1 for Justin Timberlake (really!!!??) but I only got a losy total of $3 for the rest of the (doing math...) 28 give or take CDs. But now they are sitting on someone else's shelf and since they are all ripped to my iTunes library, I'm glad I got rid of them.

New Thing #52: Just a Movie

I went and watched "Burn After Reading" at the movie theater. It was a weird comedy and it was too dark for me.