February Update

1. 9 to 5.

..I'll get back to you on this one.

2. Veggie Bites.

The month will be.... April. April seems like a good veggie kind of month, right?

3. Chocowhat?
I almost did it. I didn't buy any chocolate for myself but when you live with two guys that love their chocolate, biscuits, icecream... it's hard to say no. February is 'no' month. I promise.

4. Slurp'n'Burp.
There may or may not be a glass of Coke Zero on the table in front of me...

5. There's Always Water.
Uhm... I forgot?

6. Ditch the belly...

5lbs of 50lbs lost

I have actually lost what I said I was going to. It's just kind of crappy because I know I can do so much better.

7. Rinara Reads.
Done.

8. Gamerpoints!
The only time I've turned on my xBox in January was to watch stuff, listen to stuff, and play Assassin's Creed. Yeah I'm talking about the first one. So I probably have about 50 points more than last year.

9. The Morning Pages.
I sort of started this. I started writing some before the big move. So February is looking like it's taking on a lot of responsibility! Sorry, Feb.

10. Cook More.
Again, I forgot.

Ok, no I didn't, but with moving home again eating healthily was put on the back burner.

11. HOGWARTS!

I know I said I was meant to have saved some money by now, but it really hasn't happened. Hello moving home in January. Guh.

The Oath

Have you ever woken up one morning and felt a bit 'off', and by the afternoon you realise you've become somewhat 'stuck'? Stuck in life, that is. That's what happened to me this morning. So I've decided to make a list of things that I'm going to do this year. Not that I will try to do, but that I am GOING to do, dammit! Think of it as a list of New Year's Resolutions. So here it is, a list to make this coming year as unstuck as possible.

1. 9 to 5.
Finish a frickin book already! I've been falling back on the "I'm not working but I am writing a book" excuse for way too long. This year, I'll finish one! The goal is to have 240,000 words by January 1st 2012. That's 20,000 per month. 5,000 per week. 1,000 words per weekday. On average. Easy. How am I going to do this? By giving myself a timetable. The most sensible seems to be to treat it like a 9 to 5 until I get into the swing of things. We'll see how this works out.

2. Veggie Bites.
A while ago I asked people what they thought I should have as my NYReso's, and one that came up was 'be a vegetarian'. Well... no. I won't. But I'll give it a try. One month this year I'm going to be a veggie. Who knows, maybe it'll help me with #6 down there...

3. Chocowhat?
I eat way too much chocolate. So in true Veggie Bites fashion, I'm going to quit chocolate for a month. I'm so determined about this one that the Chocowhat month is now. January 2011. Maybe it'll stick. I gave up chocolate in school for a long long time and I miss how great it was. The energy, the high spirits... that stuff is bad for you, you know!

4. Slurp'n'Burp.
Carbonated drinks. Devil food. Ok so I can't quit these entirely I don't think, because I really don't fancy having to spend 5 times as much on juices. Instead, I'll only drink diet or sugar free stuff, but I'll only drink that on occasion, when there's nothing else. Even at that I'm talking about one or two cans per week, max.

5. There's Always Water.
Just writing that '...when there's nothing else' I felt guilty. Ok, so there is always water. I'm going to drink as much water as I can, when I can. I don't drink enough, that's for sure. I can go days without drinking the stuff and then end up in a mood because I'm dizzy or weak. Really, Rinara, you think there's a connection?

6. Ditch the belly...
and the bum, hips, thighs, arms... you get the picture. Over Christmas week I gained half a stone. I mean, that's how you know it's Christmas, but really, it was just two steps forward and one step back. So I'm really kicking it up a notch this year. I'm going to lose 50lbs, which is roughly 1lb per week. This time last year I was losing 2-5lbs per week. We'll say 5lbs per month is my goal. I can totally do this.

7. Rinara Reads.
You may or may not know that I have a second blog where I review books. No? Well it's called Rinara Reads. Catchy, huh? But I've been slacking a bit. This year I fully intend to read at least one book per month.

8. Gamerpoints!
I'm the kind of person that unless it's scheduled, I'm likely to forget to have fun and take a break. One of my friends suggested one of my NYReso's would be to earn another few gamer points on xbox Live. Since I'm not an achievement whore (*cough* Robert *cough*) I'm going to call it an even 100 per month. That won't seem like much but for me that's half a game or 10-15 hours per week gaming. I live in a gaming environment most of the time anyway though, where gaming for us is like watching TV for most people (we don't actully have a TV... WEIRD right?)

9. The Morning Pages.
This probably should have been the first one I listed. I read somewhere that to get the creative juices flowing it's important to just write. Especially if it means clearing out your head so you can get something done. One of the ways I've seen people doing this is to keep a diary-like book on hand, called the Morning Pages (or at least mine will be called that) where every morning a set number of pages (I'll say three) has to be written. It can be about anything, everything, whatever, but it has to be written into. I can really see how this will help me. It's like an entire notebook of doodles and brainstorming. How could it not help?

10. Cook More.
Self-explanatory. It ties in with half of what I've already mentioned to. And it'll save money. Why do I need to save money? Because we're going to...

11. HOGWARTS!
Well, Hogwarts, Florida... which doesn't really have a nice ring to it but hey, I'll take it. It means that I have to put some money aside per week before we go, which is in October. Eight months away. I worked out that I can manage €20 per week (how pathetic...) which will give me €650 ish by then. Which is about $870. That's a nice sum of spending I think.

I think that's all I have for now. If I have more I'll add them later.

So here's the deal... I'm going to check in here on the last day of every month and let you guys know how it's going. If I'm falling behind on anything you need to kick me in the ass and yell at me. Ok? I mean, what kind of friends wouldn't do that for someone?

Testing, Testing. Is this thing on?

It's been a while, I know, but I only just remembered how I promised a few people that I would still blog occasionally and keep up with reviews. Well, let me just say that if anyone wants a Lush product reviewed, just ask me, because quite frankly there are far too many new Lush products to be writing about. This thing would turn into a daily blog again, which is something I really don't want!

Books, on the other hand, I will review as I read them. There are three main reasons for this.

1: I haven't been reading much lately and I really want to, so if I know people are going to be watching for when I finish a book I should end up reading more regularly again. Ahem.

2: I have a very bad memory. I think if I review books so that I have something to look back on in a few months' time I'll be able to say at least why I like (or don't like) the book I can't remember. Does that make sense?

3: About 90% of my friends like to read, whether it's one book a year or three a week. I get asked if there are any new books or good books that I think people might like. So, ta-daa, now I'm telling everybody.

Yes, I think that's an excellent idea. Don't you?

Edit: After a bit of thinking (I know... shut up...) I'm going to make a new blog specifically for book reviews. I think I'll move/copy all of the one's I've already done for this blog and stick them over there too. Don't worry, there isn't many. :)

Signing Out

I've decided to end this 365 project at the 5 month mark.

I was starting to feel weird about how anything I had to say to my friends usually got a "Yes, so I read." It meant that I was spending too much time stressing over something that did nothing but kill conversation 'in the real world'.

So, anyone online that read this and thought it was enough to call yourself my friend, get off your ass and talk to me instead, now. You'd be surprised how much more interesting what I have to say is when you actually hear it from me.

I'll keep giving reviews of things, mostly movies and books, because I realised that writing them helps my problem of memory retention. I usually read a book and forget it completely a few weeks later, which is a pain in the ass when I can't tell people why I liked a book... just that I know I did. So writing the reviews here has helped me with that for sure. I'm not completely dropping it.

Stay safe.

~Kit

153 - Twilight (Lush Review)

Lush have become quite creative and adventurous with their ballistics - thats bath bombs for the Lush-uneducated - where they've released four new ones. Two I like, and two I don't. The first one that I like (obviously) is called Twilight.

OK, roll your eyes and get it over with.

It smells very, very nice. "Lavender and Ovaltine", the website says, and I'm not too sure if that's what it smells like but it's very nice indeed. It's subtly sweet and relaxing. Idea for just before bed. It also makes skin very soft, which is always a good thing.

Where the magic happens with Twilight (and likewise with their other new ballistics) is when you drop it into the bath. Twilight turns the water pink first, and the bright blue before the two mix and make purple. It's very very pretty and a lot more exciting than the monotone you usually get with ballistics. Watch the video below to see what I mean.

152 - Soggy Situation

I was carrying a bottle of water in my bag. It was sealed and everything. But it exploded and poured half a litre of water into my leather bag, and my ipod, phone and the book I was reading went for a swim.

The worst part was that just an hour before I did something I never do. I bought a new xbox game at full price, because I had the money spare and thought I'd not need to buy anything major any time soon. Murphy's Law.

I was afraid to look in my bag until I got home, and then I tested everything to suss out the damage.

The only thing that stopped working were my earphones. How lucky was that? I guess I should be pissed off that they were SkullCandy ones and the best ever... but I sorta didn't care when everything else was fine. So I got new headphones. These ones are called Dots. They're tiny!

See, I've always had small ears and could most inner ear phones would hurt. Then there were those ones with rubbery mushroom shaped caps that were really flexible that they sold with three different sizes. The smallest ones were just about perfect for my ears. Then I got my tragus pierced and the smallest ones were verging on too big. I didn't have much choice though. I couldn't wear over-ear headphones because of other various piercings, either.

Dots are the best invention ever. Dots have the same sized rubbery bits as other earphones but the main body of the earphone is about half the size of regular ones. Yep, even SMALLER! They're perfect for my ears! The picture on the right show them with the smallest sized rubbery bud things.

So the moral of the story is, if you dun goof'd there's always something small to make things better.

OK, that's a crap moral of the story, but I'm so happy with my dots! THEY'RE PURPLE!!!

151 - Toy Story 3 (Review)

Oh. My. God.

Most depressing and tear-inducing kids movie I have ever seen. It is so, so sad! I even made my sister cry telling her about it. Every adult in the cinema was crying by the end too.

It may not have the same effect on someone who wasn't a fan of the Toy Story movies of 1995 and 1999, but I could say that it would still be enjoyable and bring a tear to the eyes. Oh, and you should also know that anyone that said they didn't cry is lying. Everyone I know that went to see it eventually admitted to crying like a slapped child.

Yeesh, I was just ten when the first one came out. That's almost as bad as Harry Potter!

Anyway, everyone has to see this movie, regardless of how old you are, especially if you watched the first two all those years ago. It will break your heart and it will make you pee with laughter, too. I want to go again.