Back to Basics

Ah friends, it has been a while as per always, for my posting and there are just a few things that have happened in the time that I have been absent. There have been some holidays, some traveling (including a FANTASTIC trip to finally see my dearest friends for life in Chicago), and of course some RPG'ing.  Which brings me to the topic of this post...it seems to me that the majority of these posts from the past few months have been dealing mostly with my roleplaying games and so I think the main focus of my blog will be dealing with roleplaying games more exclusively.  Of course when I have a crappy day or have something really exciting to talk about I won't hold back on my few readers, but it just seems like roleplaying has been taking over my life (and I LOVE IT).

I have also decided that I would love to showcase my deep dark hobby of miniature painting on here and as soon as I can get some great pictures taken, I will post those as well.  I figure that it will give me a chance to showcase things and God forbid anyone comment a chance to learn more techniques/have a ego boost or decline (let's keep with the positives though haha).

For the next time, sit tight my little rp'ers I have many a story about my characters!

Maelstrom

So I have been thinking about my character for a while and still haven't found the perfect way to play her.  I do think however that I am going to hold off from making her evil for awhile....for now at least.  But our DM said something during the game that got me thinking.  He mentioned that he was surprised I hadn't found the correlation between my favorite character on BSG and their parent.  Of course when he said that everyone thought he was talking about Adama and Lee, but I immediately knew who he was going for- Starbuck and her mother.  During lunch today I took to listening over the episode of BSG (and today's post title) "Maelstom", to see if that would give me any clues as to how I should play my character.  After watching and even during there really was a strong representation of these two characters that I was able to see in my character and her mother.  Both are strong female characters and even in the episode Kara's mother says something along the lines of, "I am working to make you better and stronger, to fulfill your destiny."  Of course in the time all Kara can think about is how her mother is never proud of her accomplishments or what she has already done, but can only think of ways that she has failed.  In our game, I have felt the same way during interactions with my character's mother and have acted in the same way as Kara even (which I honestly feel is the way a normal person would act).  So from this episode I think I have a better understanding of her role and what might lie ahead for her in this game.

 In the meantime, she is still kind of going crazy after losing her boyfriend a few days ago.  I like to think of her in the crazy Kara stage now, very Chaotic Neutral in her actions, withdrawn from her friends, and stuff like that.  I am thinking that there will be a time when she breaks down and will just unload everything on someone (and I have in mind who that would be) and then work from there to "rebuild" her personality.  I am definitely not changing her to a good alignment, but maybe just a more friendly CN (we'll just see how it goes).  If this game and her storyline is going to be anything like the show, she needs to get her shit together and prepare for her destiny...

When is enough really enough??....

So I have to admit something, in my head when I wrote out my title, I said it in Carrie Bradshaw's voice.  As much as this blog is super nerdy, I have to say that I am really a girly girl and abso-fucking-lutely (get that reference??) love Sex in the City.  But enough of my digressions....(or is it??? No really it is..)

The topic at hand today, the one I have been thinking about and dealing with the past few days deals with a much more serious topic.  Well and let's be honest, when I say serious I of course mean in my fake little world of role playing.  Here's the skinny....on Sunday during our game my character's boyfriend died yet again.  Just for those keeping track, that is twice in a month period.  And now I really don't have anyway to get him back. I mean she already bargained his life for her soul with a deity and after you do that, really where do you have to go from there?!?!  My thought is really no where, unless I wanted to abandon my party and become an evil bandit (which actually I do want to, but I didn't want to be a huge dickbag) and have him come back that way.  Now I have to do some thinking about how my character is going to change and evolve.  The whole point of going through certain things is so that you can play your character through potentially tough situations not only in terms of combat, but just general situations (*salutes*) as well.  I think it would be ridiculous to play a character who went through terrible things, or really positive things, and didn't evolve.  I mean it's just like how people are now.  Put someone in a traumatic experience over and over and they are going to get messed up. Just in case someone hasn't really been keeping up with this character, let me tell you what has happened to her in the past MONTH...
   1. A party member died
   2. Her mom broke her jaw because said party member died
   3. Her boyfriend dies
   4. She sells her soul to an evil deity to get him to come back
   5. She tells her mom that her boyfriend died and she gave up her soul and her mother beats her unconcious
   6. Her mother abandons her
  7. She was poisoned and physically mutilated
  8. Her boyfriend dies again
   9. She is taken prisoner
-I would also like to add that she has been constantly berated by older NPCs for her decision and also has been knocked unconscious several times during combat thus almost resulting in her death.

I am really at a loss for how to play her now...should she be super possessive of the people in her party or should she become withdrawn and keep to herself.  Also, she is currently Chaotic Neutral alignment and has bordered on evil a few times, which is a reason why I don't think that she can just buck up and see the good (if there is any) in these situations.  She also doesn't have any decent role models that are within the good alignment because all the people she knows that are good are huge ass hats to her.  I really feel stuck with how to play, because obviously I don't want to retire her.  I made a plan that had her boyfriend lived throughout this situation then they could have run away and become evil pirates, but instead he died and she is sticking with the party.  She has never had anything positive happen to her in the game (I mean nothing...if there are cute guys they just fawn over the other girls in the party and not pay attention to her), so really there is nothing to hold her back from going down the evil drain.  Then I have to think about though, if I move her to evil which evil-Chaotc or Neutral evil??  Both are obviously bad, but I personally consider Chaotic evil to be worse (for a good example think Joffrey from Game of Thrones, the Joke from Batman, or Loki from Avengers) than Neutral Evil (Cersei from Game of thrones or the Emperor from Star Wars).  I mean both are pretty awful examples, but those are within the steps of alignment dropping she could take.  I have thought about it and obviously I am not going to kill the party (well unless they get in my way and then she might and that would only be in an extreme case), but other than that there really aren't many things that she wouldn't do or hasn't thought about doing. I think it is just an overall not great situation to be in with a character and I wish that it would be easier to figure out what I am going to do with her.  Should I keep her current alignment? Should I change to evil?  Is there another option I am not thinking about??? 

SUCCESS!!

It might be minor, but I have finally thwarted the evils of stock blog backgrounds.  Yes I know my blog is neither shabby nor chic; let's be honest it's really just shitty and craptastic, but I have finally done something that isn't courtesy of Google/Blogspot.  Your eyes can thank me later...

PS. For any grammar Nazis from the last post please take note that I used the correct form of "your/you're".

You're welcome... ;)

The Loss of Old Friends, New Adventures, and the What's What in My Life...

Okay okay....I'll admit it, I'm awful and if my blog were a baby I am pretty sure it would either be taken away by CPS or it would be dead in a corner somewhere.  Maybe a little too graphic...but in any I think it gets the point across. So what have I been doing so much that makes me sooo busy I can't tend to my little blog??  Well nothing really...I mean I did start a new game and have been obsessed on playing Borderlands (Danny is making me play the first before I can play the second one) and have just been painting my little heart out on those miniatures.  Some of you (well who am I kidding...probably none of you) might have been wondering what happened with that ole Dragon Age game I was playing.  Well let me tell you something about how I play RP games like that...I will run around and talk to everyone in the city and go into every building and break open every pot just to make sure I don't miss anything.  Danny often makes fun of me because I tend to spend 20 hrs in the beginning section of the game that you are supposed to leave after you reach level 5 or whatever.  So apparently my OCD in that aspect should have made it easy to meet new party members and such; I mean I almost had to murder a town to get a criminal out of prison and yet I managed to completely fail miserably at this one mission.  Allegedly you are suppose to either pick up this girl in a tavern or make friends with a mage and they will be a healer for your party and help you when you have to beat these bad ass evil mages at the top of a tower.  This bitch must have lived in the one damn tavern I didn't check because I missed meeting her...then the other old broad that can help you?  Well let's just say I pissed her off and she came at me with all the unholy magic wielded by those damn dirty mages and therefore I had to kill her.  I pretty much ended up with party of fighters that couldn't beat a super wizard. Danny even tried to beat the boss and he couldn't do it with my shitty party...which for anyone who knows my husband, is quite the feat for him not to do.  In the end my party is stuck in the top of a tower like some locked away princess duking it out with some mages that are going to spank the shit out of them and probably turn them into goats...

On a happier note though, I did start Borderlands.  I am currently playing a Siren (because she's pretty okay?!  I admit I am vain when it comes to video game characters and only play things that I find visual appealing to look at...I mean I figure if I'm going to have to look and listen to this chick for 40+ hrs, she might as well be easy on the eyes, so get off my back!)  I digress....so anyway, so far it is going pretty well, everything is a solo mission for I can't screw up not meeting the right people haha.  I'm just hoping the rest of the world of Pandora is more exciting than where I am, because I can only kill skags and bandits for so long without losing touch with humanity...plus I am sure the desert is doing nothing for my character's sweet sweet clothes and hair.  I hope for more updates that don't end so negatively as the last....

In real life news, I have been "commissioned" for my first miniature piece!!  I put commissioned in quotes because I think technically you are supposed to get paid when someone asks you do a piece, but I'm not...I'm just doing it because I love to and honestly I don't know if I am good enough to charge people yet.  I think I have to master eyes a bit more, because let's be honest, no one wants a elf ranger that has a lazy eye and looks half retarded.  So this guy is free except for the fact my colleague had to buy the figurine.  This should hopefully turn out to be a pretty cool little dude though....it is for a colleague who doesn't play, but wanted something bad ass that is Mizzou themed.  The figurine we went with is a dwarf with a hammer (or axe?) and a shield and is riding a bear (or in the words of my colleague "a manbearpig"...).  So hopefully when that comes in I can get it painted and maybe put some pictures up here so this thing is a little more pleasant to cast one's gaze upon. 

PS. I hate ending my sentences in a preposition, but I just couldn't find a way around it in that last sentence, so please don't murder me you grammar Nazis!!!

Blog Fail

Yes I have been neglecting my blog and yes I have thought about it in the past several weeks.  I can come up with a million different excuses ranging from I didn't have time to we didn't play any games, so I had nothing to write about and whilst those would all be true statements, it doesn't justify the hurt and torment I have caused the ten people who have looked at my blog in the past month.  To you 10 people, I apologize.  I want to spice up the format and add some stuff....so I think I might take some time and do that soon(ish)....

Nervous tummy....

So today is game day and that means the outcome of a big fight, serious talks with characters, and hopefully some fun. Downside of all of this is that it also means my anxiety is in high gear and I have a nervous tummy that relates to the constant feeling of throwing up. My thoughts and deepest nerd prayers go to the dice gods in the hopes they grant our party with max damage, crits, and crit confirms...

Decisions of life, death, and the afterworld....

Let me begin by first say that this has nothing to do with the real human condition, a real human soul or life or death. This is dealing with our fictional game characters. My question to anyone that reads this is...what would your character do for love in their world? Of course it is a fictional world and I control my character, but you have to think of how your character acts, her alignment, past feelings/emotions, etc. when making a major decision. This is something that I had to do for my character this past weekend. My in-game boyfriend died, which was depressing enough, but then we get the option to bring him back, his god (so lovingly called the "Bitch Queen") will only do so if there is a trade/arrangement made. This arrangement is that my character has to give up her soul in order to get him back. So just a quick aside for anyone who doesn't know-in our game deities and the afterworld are a HUGE deal! Our characters all know that their gods actually do exist and see their actions. Likewise, if you die and don't have a god, then your soul can be brokered out to other gods or can walk the fade plane for all eternity. For each god, their afterlife is different, for a good natured god (which there are many and also many evil gods) the afterlife can be eternal peace. For my character, since she is an elf, the afterlife would be eternity of being with family, being able to hunt, etc. (which would be pretty sweet). So back to the main point...my character has to make the decision as to if she loves the other character enough to give up her soul to this god. What's the afterlife like for this god you might ask? Well of you have seen Pirates of the Caribbean and the Flying Dutchman part....that's pretty much it. You are stuck on a ship, constantly fighting and dying, and never really getting eternal peace. Granted my character is chaotic neutral aligned-so she loves to kill and fight and everything, but still not ideal for all eternity. The decision I made was hard but based on her actions and background (her father died when she was young and her mother has never forgiven herself-which accounts for my character's extreme upbringing) she agreed to the decision. When her boyfriend comes back to life though he is different. Our DM decided to mess with us and made it so for half the time he was there he was her personal attendant...only in an intimate way. So he comes back after having constant relations with his god (who has a charisma of 29 compared to my character's 12) and turns out he doesn't really feel the same way about my character as before. Now this could just be a temporary thing because I'm sure that being brought back to life isn't the most relaxing thing, so I find myself acting like the people in the movie "The Vow". I have to make my in-game boyfriend love me again. Now my character has to deal with all these consequences...do I tell my mother (who is going to beat my ass), should I tell my cleric/holy friends, and to what limits do I go to win back his love?? This question I pose again to you my readers....what would you do??

Frustrations

Besides my job and other related subjects, there are a few things that frustrate me.  One is when you are playing a game and a storyline goes awry or you are placed in a situation that seems unbeatable.  This happened on both occasions with my Dragon Age game.  The first part is that when I play a game, especially one that is a RPG, is that I will try and do all the side quests as best I can and am very indecisive on what actions I make.  But what happens is if the side quests are too long then I get tired and just move on.  So point of the story is that I spent several hours running through this town and I got to a point where I was growing tired of the people of Lothring, so I decided to leave.  Well it turns out, after having several conversations with friends, that I completely missed picking up one of the best party members (for story and play purposes).  So now I am stuck in the Mage tower (which I always messed up because I pissed of the person who is suppose to be the healer in the party) and I can't go back to pick up the bard...ugh!  Which leads to the second part of my frustrations, since I didn't pick up either of those characters, it was darn near impossible to beat the boss in the Mage tower.  From what I had heard it was suppose to be a few try thing and then be able to beat it, but not with my party.  It took me over an hour of just trying and then Danny had to come in (as much as I hate to admit it) and help me out.  After he played for 30 mins, it was finally by stroke of luck that he managed to win.  Needless to say after that experience I was ready to quit the game.  Of course I am not going to just quit because I do love playing it so much, but I am finding that I have a shorter attention span.  Most of the other games that I have played and finished are multi hour games, like I would say over 10, but not much more than that.  I found that after playing DA for over 14 hrs now, I am barely scratching the surface...which is kinda overwhelming to think that I have another 40-60 hrs left before I finish. 

Another thing that I find frustrating is when some best friends for life live too far away and it puts a damper on our weekend plans... ;)  But for real, it does suck a lot because there are just so many times when I need a dirty martini and some BSG time and they just aren't here.  On a positive note though, Danny and I are going to plan a trip up to see them and can't wait!!  The idea of going, one to a place I have never been, two seeing their AMAZING apartment, and three seeing them, makes me so happy and really just overthrows any of the frustrations I have.

Checking in and Pancake boobs

Really there are so many places I could take this title, albeit all my ideas right now involve a Cracker Barrel porn, but the real message of the title is checking in on here more often and a new pastime. On the first part, I need to check on my blossoming little blog more, I realize if this were a plant it would have been dead long ago. I am going to try and post more than just once every month or two weeks. This should be easy since BlogSpot has this fancy new app and I can blog from my phone-take that pretentious bloggers in Starbucks (not referring to anyone I know though ;) ), I'll be blogging from anywhere, work, car, home, the possibilities are endless! Along with checking in more an blogging more frequently I need to check for comments. My lovely friend had commented and my being a jackface didn't respond for like a month. Sorry about that!!!

But now on to the second and more intriguing part of the title-pancake boobs. So last might after being brutally rebuffed and not allowed to play Halo, I sulked my way upstairs to play my own game. Since another friend wasn't online *cough 'was playin Diablo 3' cough* I decided to start just a regular game. I looked through our compilation ad remembered that Danny had mentioned that I might like Dragon Age since it's pretty much just D&D on tv. So I popped it in and started making my character. Of course I picked an Elf because I am of the higher races and not the normal ole humans haha (Although the Elves history is a little less than glamorous in this game). And went for a warrior for my class. Pretty much I made my Pathfinder character to a tee. So far I really like it and it really is just like D&D in that you get skills sets, feats, and you can put points in which stats you want to be better. The play of the game is pretty good so far in terms of difficulty, number of enemies during an encounter, and the usefulness of your party members. The thing I don't like though about the game, my character never actually talks; in the beginning you pick a voice type and get to choose your conversations, but you never hear your character talk-kinda annoying. The second thing is that every woman has weird pancake boobs. Now I know this doesn't interfere with actually game play, but it is really distracting when there is a group of 4 women and all you can think about are shortstacks of pancakes. But overall I think it's really great and hopefully I can continue on in my adventures!

A Game of Obsession

As many of my posts tell, there are several obsessions that I have...anime, Korean food (really anything Asian related), RPGs, and most recently "Game of Thrones". I posted a few posts back about reading and how it was pretty awesome but now I am half way through the second and caught up on the show and I have to say it is amazing. Of course the whole production of it is good as HBO backs it, but George RR Martin has a fantastic habit when it comes to his characters. The first being if you love a character, expect them to die. Second being if you liked them in the first book/season, be prepared to hate them in the second and following. I have found this to be true for the majority of characters that you are introduced to. There are several characters that you will always love and always hate but everyone else switches up their alignment eventually. And the great thing about it is that you don't even mind when you end up loving a character you hated in the first season. Everything is so seamlessly written that it doesn't seem forced or anything. So all in all it's great for reading, granted it isn't going to be a quick read, but definitely worth it.

Ps. "Cabin in the Woods" was awesome as was "Avengers". I fully plan on watching the latter several more times.

A Dark Day Indeed...

Tis the darkest of days for sure and not just in respect tithe gloomy and overcast weather. News happen to fall upon my ears that there shall be no questing or adventuring this Sunday and that my bloodlust wouldn't be quenched until possibly two weeks from now. Therefore I have decided to quell my thirst with a movie (Cabin in the Woods) and drinking with my companions. I will try to post some more on how that is. On another note , I have been reading "Game of Thrones" and I must say to anyone who enjoys the show, you HAVE to read the books!! So far the series follows it pretty closely but the books are just so amazing!

Anyway, I have to give props to my third follower, my dearest friend Megan!! She is pretty much awesome and one half of my friend for life duo and turns out she has her own blog. And you should read it (only if you aren't Megan, because she is fully aware of what is on there).

Here is the link:

http://meganligeti.com/

The Morning After and Deep Thoughts

One day after our game and I still have to wait another 6 days for the next one...sometimes this waiting thing is just the worst!  Well in case our game yesterday went really well.  We happened upon this small remote village, made friends with the locals through the healing powers of my companions and then my character and her love interest managed to make a well for the townsfolk.  We even managed to stave off a creature of the outerplanes and fight a group of bandits which my character delightfully beheaded (I'm chaotic neutral so it was a joyful experience ;) ).  Then of course the best part, we all got to level 2..whooo!!!  So all in all I would say that you could consider it to be a successful game for all. 

On a similar note, while playing there were a few things that I realized/pondered deeply about.  The first being that apparently all my characters are evil bitches.  My first beloved character was a Tiefling, which is a mix between a human and a demon and had a neutral good alignment...so honestly not too terrible in terms of what she would do as a character.  Except for maybe my special ability was that I could dominant another character of the same or lower level and make them be my slave, but you know other than that pretty harmless and not too awful.  This character however is fantastic to play and has my a firm believer that if you can't play an evil aligned character, you should always play a chaotic neutral character.  With my current character my actions are deemed based on how events affect her and her own personal beliefs...for example; the band of robbers we fought, besides the fact that I got to kill two of them outright, we kept one to figure out where the rest were located.  Upon hearing that the captured had been raping and pillaging, my character was all up for killing him, because per my alignment, he did something bad and therefore should reap his punishment.  It was also brought to my attention from my companions (out of game) that I should play in an evil game because apparently my characters aren't all about fluffy kittens and rainbows.  So I started thinking and I have come to the conclusion that everyone should be forced to role play at some point in their life.  I honestly think it makes me a more normal person and if nothing else is a great way to get some pent up anger out.  I mean think about, in real life you definitely can't go around and arm wrestle with nail boards, cut off fingers, or unmercifully murder an enemy (well I mean you can, but you have WAY bigger problems to deal with if you do and I don't condone that), but in game you can get all that out...pissed about work-kill an orc, don't have enough money-go on a quest for all the gold and loot the shit out of everything.  I really think that it would help as a therapeutic option for people.  Obviously you have to be able to invest the time and effort into the game, but other than that it's cheap and a great way to socialize and work some stress out of your life.  Hmmm...new professional calling anyone???

Spring Cleaning

Ah my fellow readers, now has come the glorious time of year that feeds my OCD...spring and with it, spring cleaning.  Let me delve into this a bit more, I love cleaning and if I could, I would clean all the time and trade my job for cleaning.  So in the tradition of cleaning everything up, I decided to clean up the blog.  Hopefully the few people/one person who reads this will find it visually appealing. :)

PS.  New game on Sunday that we will be playing and so far I am in love with my character.  My hope is that Monday I will have time to recap the adventures, the booty, and the glory.

Regularity

And not the kind that is induced by eating roughage and prunes.  I like to have a lot of regularity in my life in terms of a routine and everything, now don't get me wrong, I love some spontaneity in my life and have often said "let's make it an adventure" (but that's mostly referring to being prepared when I get lost whilst driving).  But there is something that makes me little crazed brain very comforted when I have a routine.  Honestly I can tell you that every day I do the same thing: hit the snooze button twice, lay in bed for 10 tens after that, brush my teeth and check facebook at the same time, get dressed, do my hair, then my makeup, and leave for work.  When I get to work the routine continues and for the most part it doesn't bother me.  I usually can figure out if I forgot something because everything will fall out of my routine and then I can easily fix it before it potentially causes more problems.  But here's the thing, while I love my routine and it enhances my already growing OCD, I do wish that I could have some awesome adventures.  I would love to grab Danny and pack a weekend bag and get in the car and drive or go to the airport and just pick a place and go, that would be amazing, but alas no such thing has happened (probably because I have to plan and worry about things too much).  I frequently think about what I would like to do within the next 1, 5, and 10 years and definitely the above fits into these, preferably the one year time frame.  I got the chance to talk to some friend's siblings and they were discussing how they were able to go South Korea and teach and just experience all these wonderful things and it really hit me that I don't have any amazing stories or life experiences.  Granted not everyone will and some people might be definitely okay with that, but not me, I want to go places and see things and have great life experiences.  I want to be able to tell the children that I don't want, all the awesome things that Danny and I did when we were young.  So here I go, I am proclaiming this to my rando page viewers....I am going to have an adventure and make life experiences and it will be the best!!

My secret obsession....

Hi, my name is ______ and I have an addiction to...RPGs, and I don't mean like Fallout or Final Fantasy, I mean good ole nerdy RPGs where we literally sit in a basement, roll out a mat, get our figurines, and spend all day rolling d20s.  It's true I am sad (but just ever so slightly) to admit.  But let me explain how this started.  So my friends and Danny's friends have always played D&D and I always thought it was awful and boring and just didn't understand how they could spend so much time and waste their day (usually a good 8 hrs of it anyway) on playing one game that didn't have a board, cards, or a tv attached to it.  Well last year as our old friends graduated and moved away we gained a new group of friends, who oddly enough enjoyed all the nerdy games that Danny had played.  Of course there was instant bonding and ever since then they are people I consider to be very best friends.  As things are always changing (see previous post for more info) part of our little group got married and sadly enough moved away.  While we are very happy for the new life changes they are encountering, we of course miss the hell out of them and had to find a new routine.  You see these weren't ordinary hang out every once in a while friends, these were every weekend and sometimes all weekend hanging out with friends, so Danny and I found we had a lot so free time after their move.  But as our group got smaller, we also got to hang out with more friends from our other good friends and they all played D&D.  We were asked to play in a campaign and I figured what the heck, I had a good time playing at my friend's bachelor party so why not give it a try on a full scale campaign.  Danny helped me with my character and our friend the DM (Dungeon Master for those who don't play) helped to make my character a bit more interesting than just a stock person.  Armed and ready for my first campaign I ever so nervously started playing.  The first session was just like the first time having sex...awkward yet exciting.  I had no idea what I was doing and am surprised no one killed me then so that they didn't have answer all my questions.  But everyone soldiered on and I survived that time.  We play every other week and after the first time I couldn't wait to play again and see what would happen with all our characters and mostly try to figure out if I could survive and hold my own against the guys.  So to fast track all this, because I'm sure all you anon readers are bored or have gone to the next blog, we have been playing for several weeks and Danny and I even joined another group to play an Aliens themed campaign.  That's right, every weekend we now have a RPG in which to partake, but I still find a void.  I joke with Danny about this, but I am dead serious in reality...I am ready to quit my job and play every day.  If someone would pay me to I would, heck if it's a fetish that someone has I would gladly hook up a webcam and for $9.99 a min you too can watch me play my tiefling rogue ;).  But anyway I know the first step is admission, so there it is....Hi, my name is Nicole and I'm a D&D addict.

Ch-ch-changes

Just like the song, in case anyone wanted to sing that in their head while reading this...actually I hope that no one reads this as I don't have any followers.  Although blogspot tells me that apparently something has viewed my blog and it lives in Alaska, the US, and a state that I can't tell from the teenie tiny map is either the Middle East or the Mediterranean.  In any case, this post is about changes.  So many changes have happened from when I started this blog and there are more things that I wish would change.  I am still at the same job I was when I quit writing routinely on here, albeit in a different position.  I wouldn't say that I have a passion for my job anymore, in fact there is hardly anything there to be passionate about.  I would say that it takes a certain person to love mortgages.  But no matter...I realized that I have come to that point in my life when things should be changing and normally I don't particularly like change (aside from the occasional change of hair color) as I have routines that need to be kept-but that's really the OCD talking.  Right now though, I could really use some change.  I see how friends are growing up and getting careers, buying houses, and having babies.  Believe me, if you knew me, you would know babies are the last thing that I would ever want, but all the other changes are things that I have been waiting for what seems like forever.  I am ready to have a job that challenges me and is one that I can consider a career and not have to be slightly embarrassed that I am doing.  I would love to say that at least my job is easy and I don't have to think during the day...but that's just the problem, my job is literally too easy and doesn't require any thinking at all.  I wouldn't be joking to say that I could teach anyone (and I mean anyone) to do my job and within the day they would be be able to do it completely.  I feel any talent or skills I have are completely wasted and ultimately I feel like a failure.  What about new jobs you say?  Well on that front I average putting out anywhere from 5-10 (or sometimes more) applications a month and have yet to hear back from any of them.  Of course my dream job would be working at a local university or college or even any school...just really anything to get back into education.  I know most people would steer clear of educational jobs if you are looking to make more money, but when you get paid as little as I do, pretty much anything is an improvement.

So until that day comes when my phone rings for an interview, it's off to looking and hoping and praying for some changes....

Welcome Back

So it has definitely been a while since my last post, but hey when you don't have thousands of followers to disappoint, it's hard to keep the blogging going. So even though I haven't been blogging about cooking, I have still been cooking, so for anyone who might come across this and read and fear that I have been emaciated for not cooking (or morbidly obese for eating out) worry not my friends for I have still been cooking and may in time put some of the things up here. But I felt that the reason why I didn't blog as much was because I was limiting myself to just cooking as a topic. Sure I love cooking, but I love lots of other things...or hate lots of things and would equally like to blog on those topics. So I decided that I would try this out and blog more in the hopes that it calms some of the crazy within me ;) ....