H.B.

Is my Birthday!!! Happy Birthday!!!!!!

Kitty

H.E.A.

When I was a young girl, I believed in the fairy tale version of love. That a prince/handsome guy would sweep me off my feet at first sight and we'd live happily ever after. While we like to think that we can keep our childish dreams as we grow up, a few broken hearts later and our views change a bit. Even though we grow cynical of our fairy tale love lives, we still crave that romantic ending. A Happily Ever After. Unfortunately, life doesn't give us our endings. Boring marriages, unhappy relationships, lonely women. This has lead to a very profitable movie genre: romantic movies.
These movies help renew our childish dreams. Each predictable, love-filled, stereotype of a good/romantic relationship touches our hearts and stays in our fantasies. It lifts us up and helps us through the tough times. The romantic, lovable characters could be us: we could be the woman randomly bumping into the perfectly flawed man who will fall in love with us and give us the life we want.
The problem with this scenario is that we judge all our relationships based on what we see in these movies. On our fantasies. As we know from growing up, life is not like that. Our relationships are not like that. The difference is that our men are real. They're not some character created to tug on our heart strings with perfectly thought out speeches. They're human. Real men make mistakes, say crappy things, and are not mind readers. But, in the case of us lucky women, they love us. They may not show it the way we want them to, but they worship us in their own way.
The point of this post isn't to give links to a bunch of good movie clips. It's to put things into perspective, ladies. It's good to have a dream. It's good to have the fantasy. But don't expect every moment to be like a romantic movie. At times, it can be a disaster. A relationship isn't just the attraction and the love, it's also about working through the disasters together. During which you may want to kill your significant other. I highly recommend not following through on those urges. It's messy. But if you love a person, and you feel it's worth the trouble, you'll get your happy ending.
Wishing everyone their Happily Ever After this corporate-created, consumer-driven joke of a holiday :-) Happy Valentine's Day.

TFNS

I hate seafood. Something about all types of seafood just sets my stomach on edge. That being said, I love tuna fish noodle salad. It's the only seafood containing meal I will eat and enjoy and ask for seconds. It's good. After making some for lunch today, I figured I'd share this very easy recipe with everyone :-)

Ingredients:
1  5oz can of Albacore Tuna (or your favorite tuna)
Mayonnaise
Relish
1 stalk of celery
3 cups elbow noodles
salt and pepper

1. Empty the can of tuna into a medium sized mixing bowl. Cut up the pieces of tuna with a fork. Add a few scoops of mayonnaise and mix. If you like a bit of tang to your food, add a scoop of Miracle Whip instead of plain mayo.
2. Mix in a couple scoops of relish.
3. Cut the celery in half length-wise. Then chop into small chunks and mix in with the tuna.
4. Boil the noodles until they are cooked to your liking. Strain the hot water. Rinse the noodles under cold water until cool. This is a cold dish. Trust me, mayo does not taste good warm.
5. Mix in the noodles. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3 Servings. Add more noodles to stretch for more people.

Sorry the pic is horrible quality (phone camera) and the food is half eaten (pic was after thought) but you get the idea...:-)

R.A.K.

One of the downfalls (or upsides, depending on the type of person you are) of working in retail is that you have to deal with a lot of people. These people will be grumpy, needy, greedy, and mean. Through my ten years of experience, I have to say my view on humanity and society has gone completely downhill from the optimistic attitude I had when I started. Not all the people you meet are going to be bad, though. I always have a place in my heart for my happy customers: the ones who understand what I'm going through, who are polite to the people they're talking too, and who make the day better by a simple smile and a kind word. So, while I normally don't care much for my job or the people I deal with, I have to say that a small act of kindness, even if it's just a smile, can change my view in an instant. It brightens my day and I'm able to go about brightening others' days because of it.
Random Acts of Kindness. It can turn this seasoned skeptic into a happy optimist. By being kind, and opening your heart to others, you can change the world. Each act of kindness inspires at least one person to do the same.
This story: Buy A House , was amazing to me. A woman buys a house for a complete stranger. When asked why, she replied simply, "She needed help." While a couple newspapers covered the story for a day, I feel this should have been front page material for weeks. The kindness and generosity of people astounds me, and it shouldn't. While I'm not saying everyone should run out and buy the homeless houses (unless you want to, then go ahead and be a hero to someone that needs you) but I am saying that even the smallest acts can change lives.
This story: Flowers, is an example of just that. A man's boss was excessively mean to him. He responded by buying her flowers. From then on, she was a nicer person in general. She smiled more, she treated people better. It was a small, thoughtful act that completely changed this woman's life.
So why am I showing these stories to all of you? Why am I writing this? Because performing random acts of kindness has become an amazing feat of saintliness when it should be a daily common act. When people need help, there should be people to offer assistance. We, as a society, as a race, have become self-centered, greedy, and too cautious of others to even look at the people they pass by on the streets.
This story: Shoes, shows what happens when you pay attention. This kind old man was selling second-hand shoes and allowed a young girl to polish them for some money. Upon hearing that she was saving up to buy her brother's uniform, the old man took her to the store and bought it for her. This was all witnessed by a man just out for a walk. He was so moved by the old man's act, he told the man he was a hero. To that young girl, the old man was a hero. She didn't have to work for that uniform now.
Helping others can have a ripple effect. Missing is about a family that gets a community to look for a missing local boy by simply helping. They started asking around the neighborhoods and town and suddenly, a large group of people are doing the same.
The most touching story I read wasn't about poverty or helplessness or anything major. It was a small act of kindness in response to an observation: live kindly , is about one family who is trying to spread kindness to others. This post I'm sharing is about others sharing kindness with them. The father takes his daughters out for cookies and is told he's being a good parent by a complete stranger. The mother picks her daughter up from daycare and the teacher gives her an inspiring card because the teacher noticed she looked a bit stressed as of late...
It's the smallest things that effect us the most. Make that small thing a Random Act of Kindness.

Hello there

I'm not sure what exactly I shall be writing about, thus the random title/url name. I've considered many things: from my adventures in geek-dom to my fight to live a greener life. I knew I didn't want to simply go on and on about my life or my personal problems. If I wanted that I'd have stayed on livejournal :-p.

So, I just wanted to put my first post out there to say, Hi! :-)