...8-9-10 Ready or not, here I come!

Today I played a game of hide and seek with The Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean. It's here for the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean 4.
It was hanging out at Barbers Point since February, but I never got around to going. I thought I wouldn't be allowed to, or that it would be hard to find, so I never went. On Saturday, at a dive shop on the way to the shooting range, people were talking about how it recently moved. Therefore I decided to find it.

I got directions from Maddy who had noticed that is was now very close to where she lives. She told me it was near the Windward Mall so I that into my garmin and went on my way. Once at the mall, I stayed on Kam Hwy since it's the only road that stays along the water. Well, at least on that part of the island. It was only another 10 or so minutes before we found the pearl! I was tempted to stop at a the Friends of Heeia State Park to see if I could see if from there, but had passed the parking lot before I decided. Almost instantly the Pearl graced the horizon. It was RIGHT THERE. So we looked for parking. It's docked at a local boat docking area, but if someone parks there who isn't allowed there, they will be towed. We saw a lot of people getting towed. I turned around in the parking lot and parked along the street.

 

 The "A" is Windward Mall

The view from a little beach on the side of the road.

The closest you can get to it! I liked seeing the details.

Cannonball hole!

I usually hate skulls on clothing and skeletons in general, but these are such neat details!

 Chinaman's Hat is the little island on the far right.

Hawaiian Humane Society

Bear with me, I'm currently watching Legend of the Seeker so my distraction might make me forget what I was typing.

I was about to title this Humane Society, but this specific one is not connected to the Humane Society of the United States. I started volunteering the HHS in April. It gives me something to do with my time since I can't find a job. At least it's useful. I mainly work with the cats but recently started helping with the small animals as well. A few weeks ago I was on my way to the Cat House and noticed that all the bunnies' and guinea pigs' cages were gross. Poor things. I decided to spend the day cleaning them so they didn't have to live in filth. It was fun to play with each bunny though. They're so cute and soft!

I've been looking at their website and watching the job postings. I found one that I could actually do and went for it. It was in admissions so I volunteered there for two days to see what they did. It was a good experience. I learned more about the shelter, including where things are and how things work. I didn't realize how much I knew until someone asked me about something the other day and I knew the answer. It was exciting, haha.

I had an interview on July 1st. It was a preliminary interview that led to a second interview in front of a panel of people. This one was specifically about the position. It went well. I answered everything honestly. It's a tough job though so I ended up not getting it. Besides dealing with animals, a large workload, and sad people, you also have to deal with mean people who are upset about an animal being gone or taken away from them. There are various other situations that can involve mean people. I assume I didn't get the position because of that. While I would do well in the compassionate part, I'm not very tough.

Oh well. At least I had the shot and got the experience out of it. I asked if they would keep me in mind in case another position opened up. We shall see how that goes.

While I was volunteering yesterday I talked with the Volunteer Coordinator. She asked if I would be interested in becoming a mentor. This is basically an elevated volunteer position, so no money is involved. I can't seem to find anything that actually pays me. Either way, it seems like a good thing. I'll check out a meeting about what they do, etc. It'll be good on a resume, if anything. It also might help me move up to get a paid position there eventually. I would be helping new volunteers learn what they need to do and be there if they have questions. It's a small leadership role. It could be fun. I like working there afterall.

Well, that's what's been going on. I have had a few job interviews but that's the only time it got somewhere or was a hopeful job. One of them expected ridiculous things. It was a front desk job and basically told me that while I'll probably only be schedule 8 hrs a week they don't want me to have another job because they want me to be available to come in whenever they ask. So 8 hrs a week, on call the entire week AND they expect me to not have another job. That's just ridiculous. If they don't call me in and I only work the 8 hours a week, there's no way I'd make a useful amount of money. I just think their expectations are stupid.

And that's that.
Not much else has gone on. Just gym, volunteering, errands, and cleaning. Oh fun fun.

Fruit Dip

8 oz Cream Cheese (technically Weight Watchers Cream Cheese)

1/4 Cup Marshmallow Fluff

3 Tbsps sugar free Raspberry Preserves (I used Polamer)

= Tasty fruit dip! 2 tbsps = serving. Apx 12 servings.

Green Smoothie!

Hey there!

On Friday, the day after my birthday, I recieved a birthday card from Momma, one from my Grandparents, and something from Jill. They all contained things that I get to go shopping with. I love having reasons so go shopping!

The first thing I went after was a good blender. Unfortunately the one Mom got me a few years back has trouble crushing ice (contrary to what it claims) and the motor has started to make that motor dying, burning smell which is never good. It was time for a new blender.

John and I went out and got the 12-speed Oster blender with Food Processor attachment. I have been contemplating on a food processor, so a two-in-one is always good. Especially when considering storage space! This blender works very well and even has an easy clean option where, unless I'm blending dairy, eggs, chicken, or other contaminating things, all I need to do is poor in 3 cups of warm water with detergent and turn it on for 15 seconds and voila! Well, I have to rinse it, but for someone with no dishwater it's pretty fantastic.

It was cheaper at the Nex....
However this looks just as good!


I tried out a Green Smoothie. I tired making it before with the old blender, and it was tasty but it's a lot better with the crushed ice. I want you to read the following, if you're interested in a very healthy and very tasty smoothie, because I'm pretty excited about this one.

While at Weight Watchers, one of the woman told us that she researched the crazy green drink that Iron Man drank. Turned out it was a Green Smoothie and she explained how she made it and all the different bits of it. It's basically a fruit smoothie mixed with SPINACH. The spinach however has no taste. I was skeptical but wanted to try it, and it's awesome. I'm drinking one right now and I love it. I get 3 serving of fruit and 2-3 servings of veggies! I'm pretty much set for the whole day! And, for weight watchers, it only covers 4 points.

My current recipe:

1/2 Skim Milk - this can be replaced by water, soy milk, almond milk, or fruit juice
1 Banana
1 Cup Strawberries - I used frozen, but only because my fresh are being used for something els
2-3 Cups Spinach Leaves (the salad kind)
6 Ice Cubes
2-3 packets of Truvia - I like sweet...

It's wonderful! The woman who told us about it said she made it with a wedge of melon and something else. Haha. You can use any fruit. Bananas have more WW points for one serving, but I love what they do to smoothies so I'm sticking with those.

You may be skeptical, and it may look gross, but I would definitely suggest it.

And on that note... I'm finally losing weight! I've lost apx 9 lbs since I got home. It's great to FINALLY see the scale going down. Though, my pants keep slipping down, that gets annoying. haha

Birthday

I'm very behind in this blog. I apologize. I've realized that if I try to backtrack I'll probably just put it off longer or just get more behind! Either way, I know the majority of people who read this WENT to Michael's wedding, or don't know him well, so I hope that skipping that entry won't be a problem. :-). It was very beautiful though. It went well. I have pictures up on Picasa, so feel free to stalk.

Thursday was my birthday. I'm now 23! It's weird. When I go to PA, I feel old and boring but here in HI I feel really young haha. I guess it all depends on the situation.

The actual birthday was incredibly boring, which I expect. What was I going to do? I spent the day doing what I usually do. Cleaning, organizing, procrastinating, etc. Around 3 I hiked up to the guard gate to pick up an incredibly beautiful bouquet of giant white lilies! John had ordered them. I think he did it quickly because he realized his gift wasn't getting delivered in time. Haha, I haven't mentioned that suspicion to him. They're beautiful though so I don't care why I have them. They just make me happy.

At first I thought the only gift that arrived on time was the one from Vicki, John's mom. She sent two boxes a few weeks ago, and they came in Friday the week before. One was full of hand-me-down cake decorating supplies from John's grandmother. I need a reason to bake a cake! haha. I want to play.

The other had gifts. They turned out to be these incredibly beautiful tea cups. They don't have any labels, but they look suspiciously like the Kathy Ireland things that I have been admiring for quite some time. I absolutely adore them. One is a peacock, which looks amazing when on it's saucer and the other has two fishes. It's very koi-like. It fits well with Hawaii and all the asian inspired things :-).
















In the middle of the day, a box from Amazon arrived. It was a gift from Momma and it came perfectly on time. :-) It was great. There was a Josh Turner cd in there, my 4th one! I love his voice. This was along with a box of cake decorating things that I had wanted and an ipod holder for the gym that I pretty much needed. That latter got used the very next day :-). I'm very glad to have that now!

At the end of the day, Cayley came over. She bought brownie mix and came over to make me brownies for my birthday. They were delicious! She insisted on putting candles in a brownie so I can  blow them out. It was very sweet of her. She stayed for a while and we watched a movie on TV. John showed up around 9. It sounds late but 1.) He generally comes home around that time these days and 2.) He had duty that night so him coming home at all was unexpected and therefore exciting.


















The birthday ended well..

Yesterday John and I semi-celebrated my birthday again. We went to Oceanarium. I love that place. I, of course, had plenty of crab legs and made good choices about what else I ate! I didn't eat too much over my limit. :-). We also went to a going away party for a few guys in his division. There are 5 guys renting out a home in Kaneohe for $5000 a month. That place is HUGE. The maste bedroom was just 40 sq feet smaller than our entire apartment. It was very awesome. Though I don't think I'd like to live in it. That at this point in time. I couldn't imagine being in that gigantic place alone for most of the time. It would feel much more lonely than this apt feels.

Anyways. We ended the day with the movie. At first I wasn't too sure if I wanted to go. We've been seeing a lot of movies since we hate going downtown on weekend nights and that makes movies the only option. I did decide on going because I've been wanting to see Despicable Me. I'm SO glad we did! That movie was wonderful and made me smile a lot. I'm very glad I decided on going. Yay! It's definitely worth a trip to the theatre to see this movie.

Back!

So, I didn't intend on having the last post be at the top for this long. I wanted to update when I got home and push the other one down so it didn't get THAT much attention, haha. I need to get my 2nd External HD attached to my computer so I can get the wedding pictures up. I know you want to see them, and I know I need to send copies to Kristin.


I got back to HI on June 14th. The next morning it was apx 6 am, I was still very sick, and jet lagged. And it was 6 am. Well this may have been the day after, but that's not that important. Well I made hot tea for my sickness and accidentally spilled some on my laptop. Not a lot got on it, so I didn't think it was a big deal. Well it ended up ruining my keyboard and touch pad so I had to send my laptop in to get fixed. They fixed it and about a week later (including the apx 2 days of shipping there and back) I got it back. It was nice and quick, only when I got it back the network connection wasn't there. It couldn't find anything network related or an IP address, etc. I'm not THAT computer literate so I can't completely explain. Either way it was a new problem that I didn't cause and I had to send it back. I just got her back this past weekend (July 2nd) and it was set back to factory settings. This normally wouldn't matter because I have it backed up. Right? Right? Nope. I had it backed up onto my laptop, but that was erased as well. I was afraid of that so I decided to back it up to my external. I was still partially mad(as in crazy not angry)/jet lagged when I did this. I ended up accidentally agreeing to let it reformat my external, which erased EVERYTHING I already had on there. This is the external I use very often so it's all my projects and photos. So I stopped it immediately to increase the possibility of saving the info. Soooo no backup.

I'm starting all over. It's really not too bad. I have the documents I saved from my desktop, so I can get to those. I just have to reinstall programs and drivers and that's no fun.

Hopefully we can restore my external. I had a friend try through John's computer but it kept freezing. Now that my laptop is back, we're going to try again.

fingers crossed!

So yeah. That's where I've been