Ranting, rambling, blah blah blah!

Saturday, Jenn made the vegetarian chili. It was amazing. We had the chili on top of chips with a dollop of guacamole and sour cream. It was quite filling and it really hit the spot! I tried to help make it but Jennie sent me away cause she wanted to do it herself. Okay, so I'll just sit here....

Still no luck on the job front. I applied at UPS online a week ago and haven't heard anything back yet. I tried to find the number online and couldn't, so I went home and looked in 2 phone books and still nothing. I finally just called a UPS Store and they couldn't even give me a number to the particular location where I had applied. He did give me a 1-800 number so I called that and was put on hold for a little bit. Finally talked to someone who was not helpful at all. "Sorry, we don't have any employment information." Great. Since the place is only 2.78 miles away from my house, I decided just to drive down there to see what the hell was going on, only to find that it was closed between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Ooookkkaaaay. This is so frustrating. Just give me some work, somebody! I'm a hard worker and very loyal, what's the problem, huh?

Well, the dreaded day is fastly approaching. I mean my birthday. My 25th birthday, it's on Friday. How did this happen? We've got a whole day planned out though. Coffee sometime in the a.m. with Daleen and Jenn, lunch with Daleen, Jenn and Megan, dinner and cake with my Granny. Daleen and Jennie pretty much made all of the plans. When Jenn told me what we were doing I had almost already forgotten that our birthday was coming up. Oops. Big deal. Birthdays are stupid after the age of, like, 18.

I've been thinking also, since I'm 25 on Friday, why I haven't really changed in the past 5 years. I mean, emotionally I have and all that, blah blah blah, but I haven't really done anything to contribute to society. I haven't really made the best out of my time. I feel like I haven't really done anything constuctive. The only big goals I've ever had was to travel some and I'm proud that I've accomplished that, even though there is still some traveling I'd like to do, but when it comes to having a career or my own place to live, I've failed. And I know I shouldn't compare myself to others and where they are in their lives, or I shouldn't listen to where society thinks you should be in your life by this age or that age, but it's hard. It's my life. I make the decisions and learn from mistakes. Maybe what's holding me back is the fact that I can't really handle the responsibilities of being an adult, which I'm trying to change everyday. I'm a lot better at handling things now than before I went to Australia but I still struggle. Why is this such an issue?

Then I start thinking about how different my generation is from my grandpa's. I mean, when he was 25, he was already a pro at farming (coming from a farming family, I guess that's a given), he had already served in the army, gotten married and started a family. I'm not saying, by any means, that I want to have a family so young. It's just the fact that he knew what hard work was and did it without complaining. He did something worthy of his time. Steve, my grandpa's nephew and probably the last real farmer in the family, usually comes every year and ploughs and plants corn and other veggies on my grandpa's land. I was watching him from the kitchen window as he was doing his work and was really wishing I knew how to do all of that. I mean, I get if you put a seed in the ground, it will grow (hopefully). But I guess I mean, I wish I knew when the best time to plant certain veggies is, when the soil is best, ect. off the top of my head. I feel like if I knew that, then I could carry on our family job, maybe make my grandpa proud, do something worthy and respectable, get my hands dirty, and feel good because I just did a hard day's work. Something organic and real.

Then this thinking brings me to think about the world if we had adapted Native American ways. The way they treated each other: repectfully, without greed. The things they cared about was family before anything. The way they repected the earth. Our climate, resources and future generations wouldn't be in so much trouble if we just lived simply, without so much complicated technology. I'm convinced that this technology is going to end us. Does this make any sense?

I think I have issues...with food.

I'm craving vegetarian chili like nobody knows! When I was staying with Mel in Wollongong (or as Jennie has dubbed it Boringong) she made the most amazing vegetarian chili I have ever had. She used Moby's (yeah, the musician) recipe but has altered it to her liking. These past few days I've been going to different Barnes and Noble bookstores to see if they carry the cookbook that Moby and someone else published (I can't remember her name...sorry!). I found the book at the Mall of America yesterday and wrote the recipe down only to find out today that Jennie finally got her to give up her recipe over Facebook! I think we're going to try it out this weekend, hopefully. We also asked for Mel's curry recipe, which is also to die for, but she wouldn't give it up because it's her secret recipe. Sad face.

I've been trying to make better decisions on what I eat since I've come back from OZ, where I lost nearly 20lbs. I think I've gained much of it back. I'm facing the fact that I might possibly have an eating addiction because I find myself thinking about what I want to eat next an half an hour after I have already eaten. I eat when I'm not hungry. I eat when I'm bored. I don't eat when I'm truly sad, so I guess my eating is a good sign that I'm not severely depressed. Har, har. I've tried to start exercising more. I started to run a little bit, but I'm not consistent enough for it to actually benefit from it. Do I just not care enough about my body to get serious about my health? I like being curvy, but I need to develop healthy eating habits and exercise! I'm so adamant about my skin care, and my hair care, and even other's health before mine? What's going on?

I'm starting to eat less crap in my main meals, though. My lovely grandmother has stocked me up on meatless burgers, soy chicken patties (which are really tasty, don't judge!), and such. I love my Gran. It's really meant a lot that she's done that but sometimes she still doesn't grasp the fact that I'm not eating meat. Or poultry. Or seafood. One day she asked me if I wanted Tator-tot hot dish. "There's no chicken in it, just ground beef," she says. Uhm, no, thank you Granny. One other time she asked me if I wanted to have some turkey. That would also be no. And not only because I'm a full-on vegetarian now, but because we have 5 or 6 wild turkeys that live in our neighborhood that I have grown to love!

More on this later.