I'm going on a self date tonight!

I’m just throwing this out there in case there are any single women who read this blog who feel like they have to wait to have someone join them to go out for a fun evening.  Have a self date! 

This won’t work for everyone.  Like when my kids still lived at home I always had to drag them with on my self dates since they needed to be fed and would have a riot if I saw a movie without them.  But at this stage of the game, where my main companion is a geriatric dog with dementia, I can take myself out on self dates as often as I want!

I am in a long distance relationship.  Have been for years!  And it doesn't interfere with my dating life at all. Here are some good reasons to self date…

No scheduling issues whatsoever! 

This makes the “event” stress free or at the least low stress.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cancelled a self date because I was too lazy to get changed out of my saggy sweats so I could appear in public, or I’d had too many glasses of wine and shouldn’t go out anyway.  And my date didn’t get mad at me at all!  No hurt feelings to soothe!  So nice!

 

If you eat in, your house can be messy! 

For example, tonight I’m going to try a new coconut chicken recipe with a pineapple/sriracha salsa.  It sounds delicious!  But if it sucks, I don’t have to be embarrassed about it.  I can just eat a bowl of cereal and it’s all good!  My house is pretty cluttered, in fact my kitchen table is buried under papers and “stuff” and my kitchen sink is full of dirty dishes, but I’m not going to get all futzed up about it.  Who cares?  Not me!  And I will wash my dishes after I cook (maybe). 

No dressing up! 

You can go see whatever movie you want to see at whatever time works for you because hey, this is all about you! 
 

I should call it selfish dating instead of self dating.  Selfish dating is all about being your own bestie.  Showing yourself that you appreciate all the hard work that you do slaving to keep a roof over your own head!  (Or in my case struggling to stay awake at my desk some days and forcing myself not to feign illness so I can go home where I have a chance of doing something productive with my time – yeah, sometimes it’s slower than snail naps around here.)

Last time I took my grandkids to a movie with me I had one of them nudging me to let me know that her eyes were watering (it was a 3D movie and that can’t be watched without some issue apparently) or that her stomach wasn’t happy about her choice of snacks.  I’m just sitting there thinking “maybe I should have just taken myself to this movie so I wouldn’t have to worry about tummy troubles or watering eyes?”  Nah, I'll take them to a movie again, even if they are pesty, because they're just so darned cute!

When the date is over you can have a glass of wine or 3 and play World of Warcraft until the wee hours and laugh at how badly you type when under the influence…or you can listen to You Tube and post tons of songs that nobody else will listen to, on your Facebook page, and your friends might whisper to your kids, wondering if their Mom might be drunk?  It’s happened.  I know! 
 

If you’re feeling romantic you don’t even have to shave your legs to make that marginal effort!  <wink, wink>

 

While it’s not as much fun as “with company”…well hmmm, maybe sometimes it’s MORE fun than the company you’ve currently got going…it’s pretty much a sure thing you’ll be sleeping with a smile on your face by the time your selfish date night is over. 

 

Since I am one of those weird-zoids that has lively conversations with herself in her own head, pretty much constantly, I tend to be well entertained without a lot of external input.  Selfish dates are hassle free and guaranteed to be enjoyable for someone like me!  I wonder if they'd be enjoyable for the extrovert types?

I have no shame about bringing a good book to a restaurant and having a leisurely meal with my nose buried in it, except for being annoyed with the wait staff, who keep checking to see if I’m alright.  Yeah, and I was alright 5 minutes ago too!  Now where was I?

I’ll go to a movie and sit by myself without embarrassment.  My favorite is to sit on the aisle in the seat with a railing in front of it so I can prop my feet up during the movie or have quick access to the ladies room in case I drink too much soda during the movie.  No one to climb over.  And I get to sit in my favorite spot instead of where someone else is sure is the best view, often in the upper middle area.  I have my reasons.  I like aisles and room to stretch out! 

So don’t wait for one of those idiots on-line to ask you out!  Go out with your favorite person!  YOU!!  Cause you rock and I bet you’ll have a really great time with yourself if you just give yourself a chance! 

Tonight I’m baking myself that coconut chicken with pineapple salsa, then I’m going out to see the new Star Trek movie.  And knowing me, I’ll probably crash out pretty quickly by the time I get home because I’m a wuss and usually am really tired by Friday night but if not, I’ll be on World of Warcraft doing some bad typing if anyone cares to chat!  Now that’s a great night out for me! 

It would be better with Mr. Ken and knowing him he’d doze off DURING the movie since he’s been working harder than me all week, but since he’s 1200 miles away, this works.  We are such a wild couple.  Living la vida loca!  If I could only get him to play World of Warcraft!  (Like that’s gonna happen)    

Anyway, y’all have a great weekend!  And if you don’t have a date, date yourself and have a great time!  If you feel self conscious, DON’T!  I do this all the time and to my knowledge, nobody cares at all if they even bother to notice!

Things I suck at and the cayenne pepper cupcake mishap

Was just watching a Jenna Marbles vlog on You Tube and she was talking about things she sucks at and she inspired me!  Cause I suck at things too!

Bruiser wants me to chase him...what great timing!  Well I'll take a minute and do that...doesn't take much to wear him out!  Wait...while I typed this he forgot about chase and just laid down.  I love this old dog!

Started this entry this AM, was distracted by Bruiser, went cupcake shopping but now I'm back on point now...

I sometimes suck at staying focused.

I suck at dressing myself.

It's a problem.  Here are some samples.  One day, after I got to work I looked down and realized I was wearing 2 different shoes.  For real!!  I stayed at my desk A LOT that day!

I can't tell you how many times I get to work, have to use the restroom, look in the mirror and realize I have a stain on the front of my shirt or that I can see my black panties thru my light colored slacks.  Or that I realize how badly the color scheme I'm wearing clashes.

I am capable of dressing nicely, I just tend not to focus on it when I'm trying to get out the door in the AM and sometimes it ends up being embarrassing!  I've often thought I'd be a great candidate for that TV show "What Not to Wear".

I suck at dieting.

I promised myself I'd stop with the fat comments recently because I'm beginning to bore myself with them.  I figure if I don't like it I need to do something about it and stop running on about it.  BUT I do suck at dieting.  As soon as I think of dieting I want cake.  Or something decadent and fattening.  And I seem to be able to make myself behave for 2-3 days usually and then reward myself with something fattening and decadent.  And that's all I'm going to say about this.

AND WHY DOES BRUISER START WHINING AT ME EVERY DAMNED TIME I SIT DOWN TO BLOG???  I mean he was just napping.  I was watching You Tube and he was ignoring me.  Then I get busy typing and here he is...groaning and whining but does he want out?  No...who knows what the fuck he wants!!  Annoying.  JS

Ok, I just finished lunch and was all set to taste test my cayenne pepper cupcake from Nadia Cupcakes but thought I should take it into the kitchen for some better light so I could take a picture of it and post it here and make you all jealous.  Then I dropped it on the rug.  Yup.  Frosting side down, on the rug.

pitiful isn't it?

Dammit!

Anyway, back to things I suck at.

AFTER I get some honey mead because I deserve it because I dropped my cupcake on the rug.  I did taste a bit of the cake before I tossed it...not as good as the Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcake from Cupcake, but it did give some heat.  (If I was at the Renaissance Festival no one would think anything bad about me having honey mead right after lunch.  Think about that before you judge.)

Now, things I suck at...drinking honey mead apparently because I just breathed it down my wind pipe and am hacking up a lung.  This is a rough little patch here!

I suck at jogging.

The other day I felt inspired to jog again.  Then I got up to walk to the lady's room and my left knee was hurting and my right ankle didn't want to bend like it should and my back was aching.  So I started thinking that maybe instead I should go get some jogging clothes and then I could jog tomorrow because it was sort of warm to bundle up for jogging...like almost 40.  Still haven't gotten my jogging clothes.  Also my version of jogging is more of a zombie shuffle while my face turns red as a beet and I pant like I'm dying.  You can read about my last foray below.  Maybe I should get a bike?

http://gorvik.blogspot.com/2013_03_30_archive.html

Is that enough for you people?  Ok, here's some more!  

Sometimes I suck at baking.  BAD!  Hard to believe this, I know, but it's true!  

When I was a kid I tried to bake my grandma's red velvet cake.  Twice.  Because the first time it didn't rise and weighed a ton.  The second attempt didn't work any better.  So I tried to make the best of it and put them all together and frosted them and they looked really nice.  Until my Mom lifted the plate and was shocked at the impressive weight of the thing!  It didn't taste right either!  In fact it tasted really weird!  I have not attempted that recipe since.  It scares me.

And that other time where I offered to help a co-worker out by baking a pumpkin pie for him to take to a family/friend gathering for Thanksgiving.  And didn't realize that I hadn't added spices until we tried my pie at our family Turkey Day festivities.  Let's just say it was rather awful!  As in inedible.  I not only did I have to face my family with this awful pie I had to face my co-worker the following Monday when he wanted to know why I secretly hated him since I would send him to a gathering with an inedible pumpkin pie like that!  

Oh I just remembered Lacey's graduation cake!!  That was was an awesome blunder!  I baked her a lemon poke cake and poured lemon pudding all over it to soak into the holes.  Then I frosted it with a pretty yellow frosting and decorated it with lettering and a graduation cap all done in black icing.  Done freehand by yours truly!  Wrapped it up to take to the celebration.  Set up the taco bar, decorated, etc.  Then uncovered the cake.  The frosting had melted!  Because of the pudding layer, all the frosting was in a pool of yellow and black smeared frosting around the base of the cake!  It looked hideous!  We hid it back in the kitchen and a few of us ate it anyway and it was delicious.  It wasn't fit for human eyes but luckily the flavor redeemed it and we have a good memory out of the fiasco!

I suck at dog grooming.

My dog is partly to blame for this one.  When he was a pup I took him to several groomers and when I'd come to pick him up they'd tell me not to bring him back because he bites and they couldn't keep a muzzle on his apparently weird shaped jaws.  So I decided to learn to groom him myself.  I bought clippers and even got a video on how to do the job.  I watched intently.  It showed how you tie their leash up so that they stay put.  I was stoked to try this!  I tried it on Bruiser and he pretty much strangled himself.

They showed me a trick of how if you lift the back leg closest to you, you can buzz the hair on the inside of the far leg because they'd have to stand there since they only had one leg left to stand on.  Seemed pretty clever and I couldn't wait to try it!  

I lifted Bruiser's right leg.  He lifted his left leg leaving his rear end dangling by the leg I was holding in my hand.  There was no leg available for me to buzz.  

Not ONE of the tricks/techniques in that video worked because they weren't buzzing a Bruiser.  So now I get someone to hold him down and I buzz him down so short you can see the freckles on his skin.  He looks pretty stupid for a couple of weeks until it grows back in but that's what happens when you have an impossible pain in the ass for a dog and a poorly skilled dog groomer.

can you see his freckles?  

I think that's enough admissions for one day.  I hope you all feel better about yourselves.  I need to go do some laundry and be productive.  For a short while anyway.

I mostly plan to goof around with my brother and sister playing World of Warcraft in a while...that's the real truth.  I'm going to be a little productive but mostly this day is set aside to goof off with my siblings.  Who rock and who already know really well how bad I can suck at things!!  In fact, I'll probably suck at WoW with my mediocre boomkin but I love her and them and it'll be fun even so.