Cupcakes are Carbs Too

That's right. I ate a cupcake as my carb portion with some ham on valentine's day. K's mom brought us over some cupcakes and chocolate-dipped strawberries for valentine's day. Of course, that counted as a free meal, I just thought it was funny..."Ooh, cupcakes! Hmmm, I have to have a protein with this..." LOL.

I've come down with some crud again. This time I think its pollen-related. Even so, I decided no working out for me until I feel completely 100% better. So, I'm just taking it easy until then, still eating healthful food.

The new game is just stunning graphically. My elf went to the elf city for the first time yesterday, and all I can say is wOw!! It really is incredible. They did a fantastic job on the visuals. You can check out some screenshots of the locations here, and specifically I was in Lethe Nurae last night. That's just one little portion of the city, its actually HUGE.

K made a dwarf in my game to try it out and he liked the game as well, so I installed it on his computer and bought him a licence key for it. He had fun playing it last night, and now he's doing Calculus, and will be all weekend most likely.

Those classes he's taking, Calc1 and Physics sure are doing a number to his free time, but he's doing so great with it. I'm really proud of his dedication. Most people would have given up in frustration with the time consumed already, but he's still plugging along. I think he actually likes it too...LOL.

In all seriousness though, I'm so happy that we've come to a place in our lives that he's going to go to school to get the degree he really, truly wants. God is so good to us that he put us in a situation where we can do that.

New Baubles

I got a new game to try out. I was getting sort of bored I suppose with City of Heroes. I log in and not really know what I wanted to play, etc. So I decided I wanted to try something a little more fantasy based. I did some research and I came up with Sony Online Entertainment's new game called Vanguard:Saga of Heroes.

I've really been enjoying the new game so far. Its very immersive. There are I think 15 or 17 different races and about as many classes that you can choose to be. The neat thing was, I made a dark elf, and based on the quests I was given and the way the NPCs talked to me, the character felt like a bad guy (as dark elves should be). Then I made a wood elf and I got to heal wolf pups as one of my quests. Too cool. I'm also looking forward to trying out the crafting and diplomacy stuff. So far I've just done the adventuring, and I also haven't grouped with anyone yet. I'm still trying to get the hang of things, its a lot different than I'm used to. And I still don't know what mana, energy, and all that stuff are for. But I'll get it sorted out. Truthfully I'm sort of glad I don't know enough about the mechanics to be min-maxing yet.

So, maybe the game will get old after a couple of months, I don't know. But it is very well done graphically, and so far I've been very happy with the characters and quests I've tried out.

Doggy is doing good, the bump started to swell back up somewhat, but she didn't have any skin irritation like I was afraid she would.

K is always busy doing homework! But he's doing good in school so that's worth the time and effort spent. He's got another Physics test this week...its funny, he asks me for help, and I have a hard time with it because its been so long since I took Physics. I just take a little while to remember all the concepts, and I think he expects me to just be able to rattle them off and tell him if what he's doing is correct. I'm sharp, but my memory isn't that good! LOL.

I'm not going to post a total meal plan for this week, but I will post my menu of dinners:

-Pork Roast with White Beans and Cranberries
-Slow-Cooker Chicken with Peppers (this one really could not get any easier, 3 ingredients in the slow cooker)
-Pork Chops with Brussel Sprouts and Wild Rice
-Chicken-Avocado Soft Tacos
-Italian Lentil Soup with Beef
-Mediterranean Stuffed Peppers

Leave a comment if you want a recipe!

Also, the air conditioner is broken at the gym (eeks!!). Funny thing is, we didn't even notice it until last night, since it has been pleasantly cool for a while. Its been broken for a MONTH! I'm sure they're trying to get it fixed, but its a government base, so, eh...I'm not going to hold my breath. Summer before last the A/C in my building at work was broken for 2 1/2 months before they fixed it.

The funny thing was, last night it was hot and soooo humid that everything was absolutely COVERED in water from condensation. I actually had to use a towel and dry the floor under the squat rack because I was afraid it would make me slip while I was squatting. And we got so hot. I was just unbelievable. It made me feel like "a real man". LOL.

So, between the heat, and the beating I gave my legs last night, they were really tired. I tried to step over something to spot K on his bicep curls, and my hamstring actually cramped up when I curled my leg under me. And then, when I stepped back out of where I was standing, I hit a plate with my foot. Apparently it wasn't on the rack very well and it came crashing down onto my other foot. 45 pounds dropping onto the top of your foot when you can barely stand anyway is so fun, let me tell you. I felt very graceful.

Always about the dog...

She has had this little bump on her side for a long time, maybe a year. We took her to the vet when it first showed up and he said it was most likely a little fatty deposit and nothing to worry about. He said he would remove it if we wanted him to, but he really didn't think that was necessary. In retrospect, I wonder why he didn't offer to do a needle biopsy. Its non-invasive and would have determined immediately the nature of the bump.

Anyway, its been there for a long time, it never went down (he said it might). K had looked at it before and said it looked like there was a little puncture to it, but we couldn't tell if it was dirt or what, because it was dark.

Well, I was sitting outside on the deck with the dog today, just petting her, and I looked at the bump and the little dark spot was still there, and it looked like it was protruding a little. Now, that's strange I thought. You may want to stop reading here if you're squeamish or likely to get grossed out.

So I put a little bit of pressure on it. Not much, just a bit. It apparently was some kind of large cyst. A bunch of yellowish cheesy looking stuff came out of it. I mean like a LOT. Even when the bump seemed flat, it never had blood come out, so I pressed it again gently and stuff STILL came out! So gross. She didn't act like it hurt her or anything. She never whimpered, or bit at me, or tried to get away or anything.

Now I'm all worried, what could this be? I looked it up online, and the page I found that tells all about the different kind of cysts dogs can have all say this about them: Don't squeeze it! It can cause a severe allergic reaction!

Well, CRAP! I've already done it now, I'm a terrible dog-mom. And the vet said it was just a fatty deposit? Last time I checked nasty infection doesn't come out of fatty deposits. I called the vet. Apparently they take a nice long lunch, until 2 pm. I left a message. I'm going to ask about it when they call me back. But I feel bad that I did something I wasn't supposed to do, I feel bad that she had that infection under her skin for a YEAR and I didn't do anything, since I took the vet's word on it, and I am worried that now she's going to get all caterpillar-swollen again and break out in hives or something.

And she's just a dog. Le Sigh. Its going to be really bad when I have actual human children.

Desktop

I made a desktop wallpaper for K. Took maybe 30 min, I'm happy with the way it came out. I might tweak the light in the bottom corner a bit, I'm not sure that I like that. Other than that though, I'm quite pleased.

Confession: I didn't go running today. I was going to, but decided that just getting over a cold, running outside, where the high was 37 today, wasn't a good idea. I also ate a salad from taco bell (eep!). But, I decided no more free meals til next week for me. AFTER I weigh and measure next week, lol. I didn't do that this weekend since I had a (ahem) large piece of very free paradise pie last night.

Sniffle

We went out to Chili's last night for a free meal. I had lettuce wraps and a Chocolate Paradise Pie. Hey, protien and carb portion, right? Anyway, I decided to try Dustin's technique of shooting from the hip and decided my camera's shutter speed is just too fast. It turned out kinda cool anyway though. Thanks for the tip, Dustin!

I've had a bit of a cold. I guess standing out in the windy cold drizzle will do that to you. Honestly, there has been something going around work, so I think that I came down with whatever it was. BUT, I kept popping Esther Cs and Airbornes so it didn't hit me that hard. I took some cold medicine and slept yesterday afternoon.

Because of this I haven't worked out since Wednesday. But the good news is, I think I'm feeling good enough to where sprinting today shouldn't cause a relapse. But ohhh, its been so much fun to sit home and play with GIMP and City of Heroes.

But I know I've got to get back to working out, so I'm going to sprint here today. Yay for running outside! My hamstrings will thank me tomorrow (Har Har...). The only bad thing is I don't yet have a belt clip for my iPod. I think I'm going to order one from iFrogz. One of the girls in the office got one, and they're really cute. You can even get a custom picture put on the wheel cover, and she got one of the pictures of her hubby on their honeymoon put on there. Too Cute!