What to Eat, Sometimes...

I love when reading other blogs gives me ideas for new posts of my own. I was reading Kaila over at Shooting-A-Bird and her post about what a boy eats just made me laugh out loud. It reminded me exactly of the Penguin's picky eating. Her son, the Great White Lizard Hunter and the Penguin are both picky eaters with the added quality of randomness thrown in. I mean it is not necessarily the food that is the problem but rather the form of the food or the combinations.

I present to you some fine examples of just how random the Penguin's eating habits are.

Nacho Cheese: Yes
Jalapenos on Nachos: No
A bowl of Queso: Yes
Queso with Jalapenos in it: Sure, probably won't even notice them
A Cheeseburger: No Way!
Cheese on a Taco: Not even!
Cheese on a Sandwich or Wrap: Nope!
Cheese Steak sandwich from Waffle House: 1 Slice of Cheese
Cheesy Potato Skins: Yes
Cheese on a Baked Potato: Not really
Sour Cream on my Scalloped Potatoes: Has to have it!
Sour Cream on a Baked Potato: Not so much
Sour Cream on Potato Skins: Definitely
Sour Cream on a Taco: No Way
Stuffed Potato's with lots of Sour Cream and Cheese: Awesome!
Mac & Cheese: Not really
Pasta Alfredo: Loves It!
Raw Broccoli: Yes, Please!
Raw Cauliflower: With Ranch!
Cooked Broccoli or Cauliflower: No Way
Raw and Cooked Onions: Yes
Raw and Cooked Bell Peppers: Raw Please

Okay I am tired of thinking of these, but I am sure you get the point by now. My Penguin is a picky eater to say the least. I remember when I first met him how confused I was by the randomness that applied to consuming cheese. But eventually I figured it out, sort of. I have to say he is at least open to trying new things. Even if that means he will not order it for himself, but rather take a bite of mine. During our first few months together I kept trying to get him to go out and eat pasta with me but was never successful. Then one day at Chili's I tried the Pasta Alfredo. He took a bite and liked it so much he ended up eating more of my meal than I did. When I met him he also did not eat sour cream, but obviously that has grown on him too.

I think that I am now starting to understand why he is so picky about things. It is not necessarily the food, but the texture. He likes raw vegetables but not cooked ones because then they are mushy. He likes cheese and sour cream but not on a sandwich or anything like that. And honestly I get the texture thing. I don't mind eating chips and a sandwich together but do not even try to put lettuce on my sandwich that still has the crunchy part in it. I do not care what people say, the white/core part of lettuce is bitter and too crunchy for me. Texture is definitely something I understand. So I suppose we all have our preferences when it comes to food. Though some people are a little weirder than others...

Anyway, that was my randomness for the day. It may be a little difficult to find foods for picky eaters, but it is possible. If someone served you your favorite foods rather than something you refuse to eat, won't you be happy? I know I get frustrated when someone close to me, who I know I have told numerous times about my dislike for something, offers and/or serves it to me anyways. And conversely when someone remembers my dislike for a certain food or drink I am quite flattered. So while learning and remembering someone's food preferences can be difficult, it's worth it to make them feel comfortable. I think that we all try to remember the likes and dislikes of our loved ones.

So happy Love Thursday everyone, I hope someone out there loves you enough to remember the things you hate.

Love Flowers!

This made me smile today!

One thing you should know about the Penguin is that he is a very practical person. He likes things to make sense. Flowers do not make sense to the Penguin. According to him they are a waste because all they do is die and you have to throw them out. Why give someone something that will only last a few days and then die? I tried to explain that it doesn't matter that they die, it matters how they make a person feel. But you know he has a pretty good point with the whole dying thing. Anyhoo, I have come to expect that the penguin does not give nonsensical gifts but instead prefers things that are tangible. But every now and then he does something that makes no sense at all, and I love him for it. (The first flower he ever gave me was a fake rose from the grocery store, a little bent, with the price tag still attached. I had asked him to pick up parmesan cheese for dinner and he was on his motorcycle so he had to put it in his backpack. So of course he chose this night to get me a flower, a fake one so that it would never die of course!, and so he had to bend it to get it to fit in his backpack. And I loved it! It is still on my table at home.) But anyway the point was that a few weeks ago we were out of town and visiting some friends of his. We were all out dancing when I suddenly noticed the Penguin was not beside me anymore. He snuck back up behind me and put a single rose in front of me. I turned around and smiled. He never does things like this, but he is a gentleman after all. So of course there was not only one rose but three, one for each lady there. And he succeeded in his mission to make all of us smile and make all of us feel special. These were not the freshest roses, the temperature was quite cold, we had no place to put them, nor water to put them in, and we had to carry them around the rest of the night. So by all measures this was something that did not make much sense. But he did it anyway because he knew we would like it. And I did like it. I liked it a lot. So much that even though I forgot the rose on the dashboard of the car overnight and through the next day, that I put it in my car to take home with me rather than throwing it away. I think leaving it in the car all day dried it out super fast and it did not mold or anything. So I still have it, it still makes no sense at all, and it still makes me smile!

Happy Love Thursday Everyone!

Do Bee Do Bee Dooo

I was sitting in my cube at work this afternoon and I looked over to see this,

(Well okay, not specifically this stuffed penguin, but this one was as close as I could find to the one I have without taking my own picture and I am lazy like that.)

And I bet you might be wondering why exactly I have a stuffed penguin in my cube. The answer to that is simple. We had this really fun class at work a few weeks ago and we all got to take a stuffed animal home with us. All the stuffed animals were marine life, to support the theme of the class, and I picked the penguin. He was by far the cutest one there. He is also really soft and cuddly. I have yet to take him home with me so he currently resides in a raised file tray in the corner of my cube. And honestly I think he might stay here. He makes me smile when I see him.

He makes me smile for a few reasons actually. The first is obviously that he is so cute and cuddly. The way the orange is sewn onto his beak makes him look like he is smiling. The second reason is a little more personal. I smile because the penguin also reminds me of my boyfriend. Odd you say? Not really. And no he does not resemble a penguin, thank goodness. (Though I am not so sure resembling a penguin would actually be bad. I have no intention of offending anyone who's significant other actually looks like a penguin, I am sure they are quite handsome.) The penguin reminds me of him because lately he has taken up the habit of saying Do Bee Do Bee Dooo, you know like that Bud Ice Penguin.

Oh come on you remember him, I know you do. He was in some super bowl commercials a few years back. You remember the Bud Ice Penguin right? If not, watch that video the link brings you to. (Yes, I suck and could not get the embed thing to work, deal with it, follow the link.)

Actually now I am starting to make myself feel old, which should not be possible. Apparently the Bud Ice Penguin was in super bowl commercials in 1996! I would have never guessed it was over 10 years ago. But I guess the good part is that since I feel old, you don't have to. So no one else gets to feel old because these commercials are from over a decade ago, everyone just gets to laugh at me for being so silly. Ha ha ha ha. All better right!?! I thought so. Also I thought I remembered the Bud Ice Penguin being cuter. I did not remember that in those commercials the penguin was scary and evil and plotting to steal the Bud Ice. The commercials kind of give me the heeby-jeebies. Okay so maybe I shouldn't have looked up those commercials and just kept my flawed but oh-so-much-better memory in my head. Sorry for planting evil Bud Ice Penguin memories in your head too.

Rainbows and butterflies and kittens and puppies and chocolate and shopping and money.....

There all better.

Okay so the cute, cuddly, soft, stuffed penguin in my cube reminds me of my wonderful, handsome, adorable boyfriend. Yes, that is much better. The penguin reminds me of him because he has taken to saying Do Bee Do Bee Dooo. He says it quite randomly, almost like a filler. He says it when our phone conversations stall. He says it while we are watching TV and a commercial comes on. He says it when we are riding in the car and not talking. Basically anywhere there is a lull he might unexpectedly burst out in Do Bee Do Bee Dooos. And it is quite silly and adorable. And it makes me laugh. And it makes me smile. I love the randomness of it. And it makes me love him more.

So today the penguin makes me smile because it reminds me of my boyfriend being silly and trying to make me happy. Happy Love Thursday everyone! I hope you all find something to make you smile today.

P.S. I am also happy because I have the day off tomorrow.

P.P.S. I think I figured out R's new name! From now on he will be referred to as the Penguin. Now if only I could settle on one for myself...

Express Yourself!

Presentation is everything. So are first impressions. Therefore it seems like a good idea to present yourself in the best way you can. It shocks me sometimes that there is so much ignorance about the fact that what you say or do reflects upon you. How can you not see that certain things will reflect negatively upon you and other's perception of you?

Today I encountered a really good example of this. It is performance appraisal time at work and we are all having to write up our goals and accomplishments. Our bosses see our written explanations of what we have accomplished this year and use that to evaluate us. Therefore you would think that everyone would try to make themselves look good right? You would want to come across as polished and professional. You would use this as an opportunity to convey the fact that you are a valuable asset to the company. You want to keep your job and get a big bonus. Yet, I noticed that some people did not take this seriously. There were a few people who just threw some words onto the form and expected it to be enough. Our immediate supervisor has been nice enough to give us advice on how to do this, in other words do this and this and this to make it look good. Then in turn we make her look good too. I find it amazing that people just do not listen and choose to ignore her advice. I know of one person that the boss has told at least 3 times to make their goals better and proofread it properly. Today when the boss told them yet again to proofread their goals they came to me and asked me to make corrections for them. I was expecting to help make the sentences sound better and was amazed to see the amount of grammatical errors in such a small amount of writing. Did this person not even realize how this made them look? Are their grammatical skills that bad that they cannot put words in the correct tense? Do they not understand what "use complete sentences" means? Do the honestly think words are spelled that way? Did they honestly think this was acceptable? I was in shock. This was a person who is very good at their job and for the most part puts off a professional aire (I so do not know if that is the proper way to spell that). I could not believe that their writing skills could be so poor. How can you ever expect to get far in a job when your writing and speaking skills reflect negatively on your education? I am not saying that you need to have attended an Ivy League school, shoot you don't even need to have finished high school to know how to present yourself. Somewhere along the way you will learn how to act properly. You will figure out how to make yourself presentable and make yourself look good to others. Sure you can talk in slang with friends and you can write improperly in certain mediums. But there is a time and place for that, and there is a time and place to present yourself well. If you never learn that fact then you will never get very far in life because there will always be people looking down upon your for your inappropriate actions. Even if you can talk and write well, if you choose to be lazy and your work shows errors, no one else knows if it you being lazy or if you actually thought things were okay. Either way you gave a bad impression and people lose respect for you. It has become so simple to make yourself look good in writing. We have spell-check and grammar-check and you should use them. Even if your English is not perfect you should be able to form a complete sentence with prepositions and all. You have to be able to get your point across. Throwing words on the page will not do that.

It always takes me by surprise when I realize some people do not even realize that they are presenting themselves poorly. And while I do not say that there is anything wrong with the person they are, what their culture is, or how they choose to act, they should know that certain actions are not always appropriate. That they are ignorant to how they might be perceived by others just baffles me.

I am very grateful to my parents for teaching me the proper way to act. I am grateful they saw fit to educate me well. For the record one parent has a high school diploma and the other does not even have that much. But you never would have known it. They knew how to present themselves, and they always made sure I did too. When I was friends with a few people from our small town and began talking with an accent my parents let me know how ignorant I sounded when I talked that way. And I learned from it, to this day no one can tell where I am from because I do not have an accent and speak properly.

To me there was just no question that you should be educated. I worked my way through college and grad school and did what I needed to, because that was just the right thing to do. It has paid off for me. I feel that while I am still young I have the foundation and this allows me to present myself accordingly. I have been approached by elders and supervisors for help with preparing presentations. I have been asked to help edit and proofread documents. I feel quite honored that a superior would ask this of me and trust that I will make us both look good. My goals and accomplishments were never returned to me for any corrections and I was actually complimented on them. Yet, I do not see anything extraordinary about this. everyone should be able to present themselves well and have others trust in them.

So on Love Thursday I want to thank my parents for helping to make me the person I am and for helping me realize that there is a time and a place for everything. I would have never made it this far without their guidance.

Back to Nature

I like pretty pictures.

You like pretty pictures too right?

I thought so. Everyone likes pretty pictures.

I wanted to talk about how soothing nature is and how much I love it. I wanted to talk about my recent camping trips and how much I have enjoyed them. I wanted to say something special about how it feels to be out in nature and how relaxing it can be. Things about how beautiful it all is and how your troubles seem to not be quite so important anymore. But for some reason my words today are not working well enough to be able to describe my feelings to you like I want them to.

So, maybe I should just show you instead. Here are some pictures from some of my most recent camping trips. We went to North Toledo Bend State Park and Hodges Gardens State Park. Those links are to the Reserve America website because they had pictures but the Louisiana State Parks website has good information too. If you live within a reasonable distance I recommend you making a visit to Hodges Gardens. It was created by A.J. Hodges and he did some really neat things. He made his own botanical gardens with numerous waterfalls and built his house on an island in the lake. R agrees that this has been his favorite place we have been camping together thus far. We visited the gift shop before touring the gardens and noticed someone who had signed in said they got engaged there that weekend. While we were walking in the gardens we noticed a rock with a heart and some familiar initials and a really recent date and guessed that it was the same couple who got engaged. While I do not necessarily condone the defacing of property, it was kind of nice to think of getting engaged in such a wonderful place. So I want to to just enjoy some pretty pictures. Relax and imagine yourself there or wherever your favorite places to be in nature are.

Happy Cows or Laughing Cows?

Do you remember those commercials about how great cheese comes from Happy Cows? You know the Happy Cows from California? Well I always thought they were kind of silly, but fun to watch. So anyway the real reason I am asking is that I recently tried some cheese that made me think of this slogan. I mean this cheese is soooo good it has to come from Happy Cows, right? I think so. And I think you will too. Or maybe you already do...

Have you tried these?

They are absolutely yummy! AND they come in their own nifty little travel pouches! But the best thing about them other than portability is the taste. Some serious yum was infused into these little cheeses. And aren't they just the cutest! They fit right in the palm of your hand! But the taste! It is one of those things that makes your mouth water when you think about the taste. They are these little white cheese rounds with a slight tang. But they are really creamy too. So you take a bite and salivate due to the tanginess and then moan because of the melt-in-your-mouthness of them. And if you didn't eat the whole thing in one bite (which is entirely possible since they are tiny like that and some people just might pop in the whole thing all at once, not me, but some people, you know those other people) then you just want to take another bite! As yummy as I imagine a whole little cheese wheel would be I much prefer to take as many little nibbles as I can to be able to really enjoy the flavors. What? I do have some self control! Well, okay, the first bite may not be as tiny as the rest but jeez the expectation is just too much sometimes. And honestly up till this point I really have not popped the whole thing in my mouth at one time, but that's not to say that I won't do it in the future now that I have thought about it. But it would not be a tragedy, because they are tiny. So tiny that they have very few calories, something like 70 for one of the regular wheels and 50 for the light. So not a whole lot of guilt can come from the urge to eat more than one. And did I mention that they are baby cheese and really tiny? Well they are and they have this red wax protective shell on them so they are super portable. And the shell is really easy to peel off due to the pull strip which breaks the shell right in half. Well except for a little part where the halves are still connected and it then looks like a red Pacman. Think about how cool your kids would be if you packed Pacman cheese in their lunch! I wish this cheese had been around for my school lunches. This is my kind of cheese! And I am really not sure if it comes from the Happy Cows in California but I do know it comes from the Laughing Cow people. Oh, drat, I got curious and turns out that the Babybel people are actually a french company based out of Paris. But their main USA address is in Illinois. Maybe they import some Happy Cows from California though. Or maybe the Happy Cows and Laughing Cows are really twins. Who knows? All I really know is that I am glad I found these wonderful little cheese rounds. They make my mouth happy! Go, go, go, go, go to your store and get some to try today! I promise if you like cheese you will not regret this!

Let the Love Begin

Tradition, what makes us want to follow it and never break it?

Well in the short time I have been reading blogs I have discovered that many of the people I read most often tend to participate in what is known as Love Thursday. There are plenty of other traditions in the blogosphere such as Works For Me Wednesday and the like. Yet, the only one I have been really drawn to is Love Thursday. The funny part about traditions is that lots of people do them because that is just what you are supposed to do without knowing why. I tend to question the whys and what-fors a lot, it's just who I am. I am often thinking about things and wondering how they work, how they are made, or who was the first person to think of something. But then again there are some things I just do out of habit, or tradition and never question why. I am sure we all have some funny stories about traditions and the truth behind them.

I remember going to the grocery store with my boyfriend before we were dating and having an argument about the milk. We had bought some ice cream and milk and a few other things. As we walked out to my car to load up everything we got into an argument about where to put things. I remember him popping the trunk to load things. As he was putting things in I kept out the milk and told him we would put it on the floor of the passenger's side of the car. He asked why and all I could really say was that the floor is where I had always put the milk. He thought it would be in the way in his feet and wanted to know the reason behind putting the milk on the floor rather than the trunk with everything else. I told him that's what my mom had always done and that's just how I do it too. But he wanted to know WHY? What was the reason for it? I realized I had never questioned it and had just always put the milk there. He was starting to make me mad, and when he makes me mad I get irrational and cannot think straight or formulate answers very quickly. So for every reason I started to come up with he would immediately tell me that my reason still didn't make a whole lot of sense and he didn't see why we couldn't just put the milk in the trunk. I told him I had no idea why my mother did this and was only trying to come up with potential reasons. Of course since I was flustered already and just kind of talking my way through things I wasn't really coming up with anything good enough to prove to him why it couldn't just go in the trunk. I was saying how the milk sweats and it would make the things in the trunk yucky with condensation and it would be better on the floor. Plus there is air conditioning in the car and not in the trunk and you can keep the milk cooler by keeping it in the car on the floor near the ac vent. And my main reason and I really do think this was my mother's reason was, what if it starts to leak or something. If it was on the floor near you you could see it and do something about it; if it was in the trunk you wouldn't know and it would get all over everything. But none of this was good enough for him. If it was on the floor it would still sweat and then just get all over his legs. And if it leaks then it is still all over everything and I am driving and there is still nothing I can do about it. Blah Blah Blah. Point is he made me so mad that he questioned me and how I do things and was basically telling me my way was just stupid and I was really mad. He was really mad because I couldn't formulate and answer in a normal amount of time because I was mad. So he told me to just put the dang milk in his feet and lets just go home, and I told him no to put it in the freaking trunk. I don't remember where it went but I know we went home mad. And as I was calming down I could think better so I kept coming up with more answers all the way home until he got really mad and just told me to drop it.

I guess if he hadn't made me so mad I might have seen the sense in his questions then. Honestly I never really had anyone ride in my car with me so it was never a problem before for me to put my groceries on the passenger's side floor because there were no legs and feet to worry about. And I had just never questioned my mother's reasoning behind it but I knew I didn't want the milk sweating and condensating all over other things in my trunk. (Yes, I make up words like condensating because I think they describe the situation better than being grammatically correct, get over it.) But it sweating and condensating on the floor of my car was no different really I suppose. So it really wasn't that big of a deal to change my habit/tradition and put the darn milk in the trunk with everything else. It so shouldn't have turned into such a huge argument. But he made me feel like he thought my tradition was stupid and that my mother was silly for doing it and I was silly for doing it too. And I had to justify it! Only I couldn't really other than saying that's just the way I want to do it.

So I guess what I am really wondering today is what makes us hold on so firmly to traditions that make no sense but that we have never even bothered to question? I once heard about a woman who always cut the ends of the pot roast off before cooking it. Her new husband asked her why and she said that her mother and her grandmother had always done it that way. She called the mother, who called the grandmother to find out why it started because surely it was just an old technique to make the meat more tender and flavorful. The answer they got was that the roast would not fit in the pan unless the grandmother cut the ends off so that's why she did it. So, since they had never questioned why and just done things as their mothers' had, they had been cutting off the ends of roasts for years for absolutely no reason. Granted cutting the roast did no harm either, there was just no real reason to do it.

As I have admitted I am usually one to question things. But sometimes I just don't, and I really am not sure why. What makes some things different from others? Why does it bother me that some people follow pointless traditions while I follow some of my own? When you actually sit down to reason things out you realize that your tradition and habitual way of doing something might not always have a reason behind it. So why do we hold so fiercely to our ideas of the way things should be? The only thing I can come up with is that some traditions are so mindless and we are so set in our ways that the repetition and simplicity of not having to question something is just comforting. I mean nothing says that everyone has to put up our Christmas Trees or Menorahs or whatever traditional holiday items your family uses on the same day at the same time right? Yet each family has certain ideas of what time is right for them and they make a tradition and follow it year after year. And there is really no problem with some children opening presents on Christmas Eve and others on Christmas Morning. So why do we find it odd when other families do not celebrate the way we do? I think tradition is comforting. I know I take some comfort in the ease with which I just know what to do sometimes and I just know the way things should be and how I just know what others are expecting of me. That's not to say it stops me from doing things my way just because I know others will disagree, because it most certainly does not. But I think a certain degree of tradition and habits are comforting for everyone.

So in the sense of tradition I think I will participate in Love Thursday, even though I don't really know why it happens or why it started. And I am not promising to be faithful and only post blogs about love on Thursdays. I will be a rebel and post blogs about love on any day I so choose, and Thursday posts will not always be Love Thursday posts. But that is okay by me. I just want to have some sense of tradition here and I think Love Thursday is a good one. It is one that will make me think about things I love and what makes me happy and makes my heart sing. I think that is a really good tradition to start. So from now on I plan on thinking about things that make me happy and sharing them with you in the hopes that I can make you a little happier too. Traditions are good for sharing the love and happiness! And I suppose I started a tradition with talking about tradition, ironic much?