Diet Busters

A couple of things I really want to order, but won't. My secret evil plan is to send enormous amounts to my fellow Biggest Loser competitors...but I won't really do that either.



Fat Daddy Cupcakes. A layered cupcake in a jar. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?! They have a variety of flavors like Red Velvet Revolution, Vanilla Dream, The Classic (chocolate cake/vanilla frosting), Sweet Nikki (butter cake with buttercream frosting), Captain Carrot Cake, Lime Christie (lime and raspberry), and most promising of all, PMS Cake (AKA Chocolate Overload, shown in the picture above)! You can see all their offerings in their Etsy shop.

And...



Spoon Fudge. Fudge in a jar that you eat with a spoon. Apart from plain Chocolate, they have Chocolate Orange, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Chocolate Lavender, Hot Chocolate Chili, and more. See it all here.

Sick Sick Sick

Eric was gone on business the whole week before Valentine's Day. He came back sick - body aches, fever, hacking cough, head congestion. Classic symptoms of the flu. A few of his coworkers who had been on the trip had it and had shared it with him. I was really sympathetic for the first couple of days - I made him soup, I gave him medicine, I brought him juice and wiped his head with a damp cloth - a regular Florence Nightingale. Then it started to get old and I began muttering things inside my head about how he's a big baby when he's sick and how when I get sick (which is almost never!) I still manage to get up and take care of everyone and I don't whine about it all day long.

Then Sawyer got sick. And then I got sick. And I take it all back. I feel absolutely terrible. Just putting dishes in the dishwasher last night was enough to make me collapse with fatigue. I can't stop coughing and my head is swimming with pain. I'm producing so much phlegm that I don't know how I have any left in me. It sucks, and I am moaning about it just as much as Eric did, if not more.

Thankfully Eric was able to take the week off from work so he can help with Sawyer (who seems to be feeling a lot better than we are.) We've been taking naps in shifts and taking turns with meals. Without Eric here there's no way I would be able to rest as much as I have, so I'm very grateful for his help. Remind me of this next time I accuse him of whining.

What Type of Music?

Another fun but essentially useless quiz (who doesn't know what type of music they like?) The cool part about this one is that the questions have nothing to do with music - they take aspects of your personality and guess as to what your musical taste will be. Mine was dead on.

Which Type of Music Should You Listen To?
	You should listen to Folk Music. You are sweet and kind, and would rather solve problems than cause them. However, your highly-defined sensitivity may come off as too touchy-feely to some.
	You should listen to Alternative Rock. You never like to do what everyone else does. If your way is better, who cares if it's popular? In fact, your uniqueness is fast garnering you some increasingly passionate fans!
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

While we're waiting for The Office to come back...

Enjoy this classic moment from the UK version. During a day of customer service training, David Brent performs songs he wrote as lead singer of the band "Foregone Conclusion." They could've been big.

Happy Valentine's Day

Eric is out of town today (actually, he's been gone all week) so I'm feeling lonely. Especially since it's Valentine's Day. So I was even more excited than usual to get a delivery from ProFlowers today.

I know it's cliché, but I love, LOVE getting flowers. Eric has always been wonderful about indulging me that way. When we were dating I'd often come home from class to find a bouquet on my bed with a note. After we got married, the flowers kind of tapered off (and interestingly, the farting increased) but I complained and he listened. Nagging really does work! A healthy relationship is all about asking for what you want and need (and ignoring the farting.)

Then to top things off, I got my box from the Soap Dish Chocolate Swap this afternoon. A whole USPS flat rate box full of chocolate.

I may have to spend Valentine's Day alone (for the second year in a row!) but I will have chocolate and Lost to console me.

It's official!

The WGA strike is over! TV Guide announced today that The Office is expected to air six new episodes starting in late April. And Lost is back in production! After the eight episodes already scheduled to air, there will be a four week hiatus, followed by five additional episodes to finish up the season. The time slot for the last five will be Thursdays at 10 pm, after Grey's Anatomy, so when your DVR cuts off the ending of Grey's, don't worry - it will be on the beginning of Lost.

Primary Day

I braved the cold this morning to do my civic duty and vote. I have to admit I get all Mr. Smith Goes to Washington every time I head to the polls. Especially today, looking at a ballot on which the two most likely Democratic candidates are a woman and an African American. This election was historic for me personally because it was my first time voting for a Democrat. I'm a moderate* and have usually fallen to the right of center when it came time to vote, but this year I can't get behind either of the viable Republican candidates. (McCain scares me, and Katy does a great job of describing how I feel about Huckabee.) In the end, I picked the only candidate who wasn't "old Washington" - Obama.

They've announced that so far Obama is winning Virginia by a landslide. Several of the ladies at our church play group this morning said they voted for him for the same reasons I did. It looks like McCain has won too, although at this point by a smaller margin. Maryland is keeping the polls open until 9:30 tonight because of the ice storm we're having and some major roads being shut down.

*A great article about how being a moderate does not mean you can't make up your mind.

No more strike?

They must have listened to me - Michael Eisner of CNBC says the strike is over. Although no official statement has been released, he claims a verbal deal has been made and will be put into writing over the weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Good Weekend

This weekend is going to be good. Tonight is Lost. Tomorrow night is Matchbox Twenty. And on Saturday I get to hang out with Andrea all day! It doesn't get much better than that.

Adding to my good mood - today I put up shelves for all my soaping supplies in the kitchen, and it is going to make my life so much easier to have all the ingredients in one organized place. Now I just need to get Eric to bring my Columbus Foods delivery upstairs (50 lbs each of coconut oil, palm oil, and palm kernel flakes, plus 10 lbs of mango butter, shea butter and castor oil) and I can get soaping!

I really really really miss The Office

This is a message for the people involved in the WGA strike: END IT, PLEASE! (I even asked nicely!)

Despite the fact that this is my third post in a row about TV, I don't actually watch that much. But there are a few shows I really love. The Office is one. And since the WGA strike started, I really really miss it. I fell in love with the UK version a few years ago and was very skeptical of the US version when it started. The pilot was not great, and I thought the show was doomed to never live up to its predecessor. Thankfully, I was seriously mistaken. I love this show even more than the original, I think because Michael Scott is a good deal more likable than David Brent. Yeah, he's an idiot, but you can see that he has good (although often misguided) intentions and he has a heart.

This might be my favorite Office moment of all time.

Found...and Lost!

Yesterday was my thirtieth birthday. It was a really nice day, despite the evidence that I am rapidly aging and my life is at least one third of the way over (as my dad so lovingly pointed out.) I started out the day by finding my iPod, which has been missing for the past week. It was in a bag I had already checked a couple of times. I think it was the universe's birthday gift to me. My sister Megan took me to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch, then Eric came home early from work (with flowers!) We got takeout from Outback and spent a quiet evening at home.

If the universe's gift to me was my iPod, ABC's gift to me was the season premiere of LOST! The plan was to watch it together after dinner, but Eric was so tired that he fell asleep with Sawyer at 8:00. As much as I love Eric's company there was no way I was going to wait until the next night to watch it (and it's a good thing I didn't, because he just got called into work tonight so I would have had to wait until tomorrow!) So I watched it by myself. I got completely freaked out by the part where Hurley is in the jungle and sees Jacob's cabin. But man, what a great episode! As always, there were a few answers, but a lot more questions. I've spent way too much time today reading on lost-forum.com and trying to figure out what the heck is going on. (Lost Media has a great summary that clarifies a few key points, by the way.)

I love the device of using the flash-forwards, but presenting them backwards, so we're moving from the future towards the present moment. It's a brilliant way to create suspense. I was totally proud of myself when I immediately knew the one driving the car was Hurley - I recognized the car from season three. If I hadn't just watched it, there's no way I would have remembered that, but still - any time I guess right about this show I feel proud.

One cool thing I found out on the boards today: the man Hurley saw in the rocking chair in the cabin was Christian Shepard, Jack's father. It's too dark to really tell but someone took a screencap of it and adjusted the lighting and it's very clear that it's him. Of course, this being the creepy island where crazy stuff happens, that doesn't mean that he's alive, or real, just that Hurley saw him. (Screencap from Screencaps and Easter Eggs)


The big question at the end of this episode: Who are the Oceanic Six? We know Jack, Kate and Hurley left the island somehow. So who are the other three? And why did they agree to leave everyone else behind? It seems that after getting rescued they lied and claimed to be the only survivors of the crash, and this is what is wracking Hurley and Jack with so much guilt. Why would their silence be a condition of rescue? My guess (and hope!) is that we'll continue to see the flash-forwards (going backwards) until we get to the point of the rescue and find out what happened. Next week can't come fast enough.