Work - You're like a lingering bad cough

Dear Work,


I don't hate you, but I don't love you either. I'm pretty indifferent about you, but I feel like I can only handle so much of work or work-related stuff. However, you have been following me everywhere I go lately.


Luckily, I am no longer working the crazy 50-55 hours work weeks anymore with you. Since my coworker has come back from maternity leave, things have calmed down a bit. I've made a goal recently to leave you on time. 5:30PM on and weekends should be MY time, not yours. 


When I am away from you though, you somehow constantly find a way to remind me of you:
-I am home watching TV while I workout and see your gold commercial. 
-As I am flipping through a magazine, I land on a spread that has your vendor's advertisement.
-When I am doing errands on the weekend, I hear our radio ad in the car from least three times on different stations. 


The worst though, was that you ask someone to call me during the weekend to go into work because the sales floor is busy. Work, give me a break. Are you kidding me that you want me to go in on my time, not get any additional pay, and just take some comp time off later?! (Which sucker fell for that one?)


I just want to do my work and go home on time. Please stop haunting me like that. I want my non-work hours to be my time. I don't appreciate me being constantly reminded of you. Thank you.


Sincerely, 
-AW 

McDonald's Monopoly

I'm usually not one that cares too much about eating fast food. I don't dislike it, but just that I rarely go get fast food because it's never one of those places I think about getting food at when I'm hungry. However, when McDonald's has their Monopoly game, that's a different story. I'm a TOTAL sucker for that game! I know that the chances of winning anything (besides food) is near slim to none, but for some reason, I still like playing and collecting the pieces. It's a good feeling to know you won something, even if it's just the 1 in 4 chances of winning food. My usual self that doesn't care for fast food would intentionally think about going to McDonald's for food just to get play pieces.


This year, I didn't realize that their Monopoly promotion had started earlier than last year, so I've only gotten McDonald's twice for their promo. I got some Chicken McNuggets yesterday, but was quite disappointed to find out that they put the darn nuggets in a regular box and not a Monopoly one with the game pieces to peel!!!! (I did, however, find out that McDonald's now has a spicy buffalo sauce for their McNuggets and it's oh-so-good!! It tastes exactly as the real buffalo wing sauce--and it's actually spicy unlike other foods that claim "spicy" but isn't at all)


Since I'm trying to stick to my budget though, I guess that's it for now, McDonald's Monopoly. Until next year!!~~~

Self-Challenge: $10/day

So, it's only halfway through the month, but I'm close to blowing this month's spending budget already. It doesn't even seem like I did a whole lot so far this month. I was gone five days on a work trip with most of the food being provided. It's so surprising how quickly a few dinners/lunches, Walmart runs, a trip to Trader Joe's (when I was in the mainland), and an unexpected $300 expense can quickly add up. Then again, I'm not surprised about Walmart. They ALWAYS get me. I go in having a list of a few things to buy, but end up buying more than I intended. 


Now as a challenge to my self, I'm going to try to spend $10/day for the rest of the month so I won't be going over-budget. I'm not sure if that's actually doable, but we'll see. The weekdays aren't too hard, however, weekends could be dangerous.  I usually bring home lunch and don't usually go out during the weekdays. I don't really "need" anything from Walmart at the moment, except possibly some sewing notions for my Halloween costume. 


Silver lining: A $100 gift card from my work trip for food that I hadn't used. 


However, Day 1 has been a major fail.... 


-Office Depot: $50 - Totally ran out of black ink for my printer. Also bought a SD card for my camera I've been wanting--(Forgot $20 rewards certificate at home.) :(  
-Lunch: $0 - Friend treated
-Starbucks: $0 - Used my Starbucks gift card
-Ross: $41, but used the gift card, so technically $0 - Went in looking for a black tank top, but unnecessarily bought two pairs of shoes. How do I justify this purchase? I really can't..... (unless saying that they were "nice" or that I got a great deal counts)
-Target: $11, but used the gift card, so $0 - Found a plain black tank top for my costume.


Currently down $50 and only about $48 on gift card remaining.  :(

Don Quijote love

I think Don Quijote tops my list as favorite Asian (grocery) store to go to. (Walmart: I heart you too, but you just don't offer the variety of Asian food that DQ does). Don Quijote has a lot of variety and the price is reasonable for most things. I would say that Chinatown is THE place to go to get Asian groceries and veggies for cheap, however, I dislike going to Chinatown for groceries. It less convenient for me in terms of hours and parking, it's crowded, smells, and the worse is there's a lot of homeless people around there. 

I knew they had a lot of different noodles (dry and fresh), sake, snacks, Asian beverages, etc. However, today I see some new interesting finds as I was browsing through the aisles. In the Asian dessert aisle, I find a big section dedicated to just jelly, puddings, etc..... All different types of jelly flavors including the usual almond tofu and mango pudding to coffee and green tea jelly!!! It was my first time seeing coffee jelly mix in a store, and I just couldn't resist buying it. They even had packages of crepe and shortcake mix there, which I found interesting. Usually people just mix the batter themselves, so it's neat to see that someone already conveniently packaged it for you. 

Upon walking by the frozen food aisles, I had to check out what stuff they had available for shabu shabu. Some of the interesting finds in that section was that I saw they had frozen custard buns, lobster balls, and  miscellaneous Japanese variety packs for shabu shabu. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any shabu shabu/spicy hot pot base at DQ. Guess it's back to Chinatown for that one when I do shabu shabu. 

Back on the Pavement

I've been trying to keep up with my exercising, and today I got back into running the route I did when I trained for the Great Aloha Run. It's been a good half a year since I've gone on this route (from Ala Moana Beach Park to the zoo) , but it was good run. The view of the sunset was great, though, it did get dark very quickly. The five miles run seems to pass by so quickly when you have such a nice view to look at. The only thing I dislike about the route is that it's always a game of dodging the many people that are on the beach and walking the streets of Waikiki. I wish there was a nice, well lit place to go jogging around that was nearby work or where I live.... 

Overdue

So... It's been five months since my last post and obviously I'm overdue for one. I blame my lack of updating to the insane work schedule previously and laziness.


Things on my mind at the moment:
-OMG. My room looks like a frickin' pigsty. Good thing hardly anyone ever comes over.
-AW: Keep exercising. Don't let the momentum stop.
-How is it humanly possible to balance work life, social life, healthy lifestyle, and having leisure time (for reading, watching TV, cooking, etc) all into 24 hours?
-Damn.. I haven't gone on a photography adventure for a while. Gotta make up for it one day after the LA trip disappointment
-Need to write more frequently. Poor blog has been neglected.