In which I tease you with photos of sweets and books.

I don’t know about you, but when life stresses me out – and it has been doing that a lot lately – I find the best way to unwind is by spending a little money on things that make me happy. Well, all right, I’ll come clean; I spent more than a little, but today’s retail therapy did wonders to me. Wonders I tell you. With the overwhelming amount of work at the office, my recent escapade of paranoia, and my still-persistent headaches, it was nice to go out and have fun… and celebrate my recent Freshly Pressed status (I may sound all casual about it now but I was squealing my head off when I found out!).

So yes, retail therapy! What is it without sweets? If you’re on a diet the following pictures may be bad for you. I should know. I’m on a diet. But I do not regret what I ate! No, every single dish was completely worth it. I took my sister with me and between the two of us we shared three desserts, the first being a delectable (and extremely rich) Nutella pie.

I have never eaten so much Nutella in one sitting!

I like math.

Whenever someone disses math and I end up defending it, I get funny looks. A lot of funny looks. The fact that I like math makes me seem abnormal to others, and there are some who say, “What is even there to like about math? Of all the subjects you could’ve picked for a favourite…”

I like math for the problem solving aspect of it. Complex things were always fun for me – I liked working to get to the proper solution, even if it took me hours. I remember that one time I sat working for two hours straight to get a two-digit answer. It sounds bad, yes, but when I put the pen down and rested back in my chair, I felt absolutely elated. When I found out that I had been the only one to get to the solution, I was glowing with pride.

Why did I feel compelled to talk about math of all things? Well because of the common misconception that liking things most people dislike (or vice versa) doesn’t make you normal.

Don’t mess with my pizza.

That’s just wrong on so many levels. Pizza is the kind of sustenance that you need to get right. You just can’t give the client something they didn’t order and expect them to go along with it! I was craving pizza today, and even though I have some ready-made pizza dough at home that I could’ve layered with some toppings and stuck in the oven, there’s something “special” about ordering a pizza and having it delivered to your home steaming and ready for eating.

I went with an extra cheesy Margherita and waited impatiently until it arrived. When the delivery boy, I snatched it a little too eagerly out of his hands, paid him and sent him off on his way. It was just me and my pizza! I got a tall glass of Pepsi and opened the box, only to be met with disappointment.

What was supposed to be a large Margherita ended up being a vegetarian pizza that looked anything but large. The next few moments were spent in contemplation. I could:

a) call the pizza place and demand a new pizza.

b) call the pizza place, demand a refund and make my own pizza.

c) just settle for my vegetarian pizza.

Facebook keeps asking what’s on my mind.

This yummy dessert is stuffed with Nutella. Absolutely to-die-for. (Photo Credit: http://krispykreme.co.uk)

Well, Facebook, I’m not in my best of spirits I can tell you that. There have been ups and downs, occasional bursts of fun and escape from reality, and frequent headfirst collisions with the hard reality… no cushions. Sometimes I wish I could go back a few years, when I only had to worry about grades and weekend plans.

You can say that this is a status update of sorts. Or maybe a sort of mini-journal entry. Either way, so as not to bore you with all the details of my mundane life, I’m going to write about a few select highlights. One important such highlight is that this weekend I indulged in my first chocolatey treat in weeks – a chocolate dreamcake doughnut from Krispy Kreme. I had been planning to hold out a bit longer on chocolate, but really, who can resist a KK doughnut? Plus, I do believe I earned it. I’ve stuck to my diet and exercise throughout this period and lost more than 15 pounds, which is excellent if you take into consideration that I only started three weeks ago!

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” – the White Queen, Alice in Wonderland.

The White Queen knows what she’s talking about, that really is a good habit to practice. On days that are exceptionally bleak, it helps to have some positives to hold on to during the day. I don’t usually have breakfast, so let’s pretend the White Queen said lunch instead of breakfast, shall we?

1. The day will come when I don’t have to wake up at ungodly hours of the morning. It’s no secret that I love to sleep, and who doesn’t really? The thing I dread the most about my day job is dragging myself out of my warm bed when sleep still has a vice-grip on me. It’s very unlikely, but I do dream of the day when I’m leading a cosy enough life that allows me to stay in bed however long I want. One can dream.

I am quitting chocolate.

Photo Credit: http://toomanyposts.wordpress.com

I can hear shrieks of “The world is coming to an end!” and “We’re doomed!”, and like you I understand the gravity of the situation and recognize its serious implications, but I assure you there’s no need to worry. This is not permanent, and I fully intend to resume my duties as a chocoholic and connoisseur of all things sweet in a couple of weeks’ time. I have done this before, albeit it being for 10 days, and everything turned out fine.

I have not been blackmailed or challenged or threatened at gunpoint; no, I have simply realised that my chocolate consumption – which has increased in the last couple of months due to all the stress at work – has caused me to gain a few undesirable pounds that I would really like to lose.

A day of sweet, sweet indulgence.

I love food. I’m the type to experiment with all kinds of meals and sweets, and people usually ask me for recommendations when we go out to eat. However, I don’t really have an absolute favourite dish. I like many things… shrimps, lasagna, mushroom steak, cookies, brownies… but if you asked me to name my favourite kind of food, I couldn’t tell you. Yes, yes, I do love chocolate, but even then I couldn’t tell you my favourite brand/kind.

I did come close to asking for seconds yesterday though. This has been a particularly stressful week in which I even had to work overtime, so I decided to reward myself on Friday with some sweets. An exceptionally bad week requires an exceptionally good treat, so I didn’t hold back.

The greatest thing since sliced bread.

I love bread as much as the next person, though I admit I don’t see why it should set the bar for all inventions from 1928 until now. There have been many great inventions since that year (such as mobile phones and the internet!), but to be fair to sliced bread, I’m going to stick to the food category.  So let’s step back through time – there’s a nasty war between 1939 and 1945 that you might want to avoid – and see what other fantastic foods have been invented since sliced bread.

In 1940, the delicious candy known as Mike and Ike was first introduced. Now I don’t know about you, but I have yet to come across any jelly beans that taste better than this. They’re extremely chewy and full of flavour. I especially love the Berry Blast, Jolly Joes and Zours varieties, and it’s not uncommon for me to consume family packs in one sitting!

Would you like coffee with your sugar?

The common impression is that the writers’ drink of choice is coffee, and that is probably true; surveys do show that writers/editors are among the top coffee consumers. I don’t know what that says about writers as a whole, haha… that we’re all sleep-deprived, perhaps? One Brian Andreas put it, “I don’t really like coffee, she said, but I don’t really like it when my head hits my desk when I fall asleep either.” 

I think I’d be the only one left standing in my work place if that should ever happen.

I’m probably a minority here. I don’t hate coffee and do drink it occasionally… though mostly out of necessity and usually with TONNES of sugar. My writing drink of choice would be tea, iced tea or fruit juice… and even those I don’t drink often. I usually find drinks, especially hot drinks, distracting when I’m writing, because they force me take my hands away from the keyboard. There is some notion that writers rely on coffee (or alcohol) for inspiration, but I know some who drink neither and are incredibly creative. 

The best thing about days off…

… is snuggling in a warm bed while everybody else in the house wakes up at the crack of dawn getting ready for school and work, especially when it’s pretty cold and rainy outside. It felt like payback for all those hot summer days during which I was the only one getting up for work and walking around under the baking sun, haha.

Oh, if only I had a cat to snuggle with! (Photo Credit: http://www.redbubble.com)

It also gives me the chance to acknowledge and show my appreciation to all the blog lovin’ I’ve received lately.