You know, I know no one finds it funny but me, but every time I read that little diet thing, I laugh. That diet is me all over with everything I do. The funny thing was that I was looking for something completely different. Isn't it strange how you find funny things like this on the internet? I love the Web sometimes. We're good friends. When you're in another country where you don't speak the primary language, it becomes a really good friend of yours. I don't know what I did without the internet.

Oh, wait.

I read more.

Right.

Well, true, but it's helpful to have this for little ol' me. I like the Internet most days, and it really helps me to talk to my family on a more regular basis. Although I still like to send letters and postcards, the time factor is pretty limited lately, but I'm making sure to make time for myself.

And, also, work has been really slow lately, so I've been able to really catch up. =)

OK, Later! =D

The Non-Stress Diet

The Non-Stress Diet

This diet is designed to help you cope with stress which normally builds up during the day.

Breakfast
1/2 Grapefruit
1 Slice Whole Wheat Toast, Dry
8 oz. Skim Milk


Lunch
4 oz. Lean Broiled Chicken Breast
1 cup Steamed Spinach
1 cup Herb Tea
1 Oreo Cookie

Mid-Afternoon Snack
Rest of the Oreos in the package
2 Pints Rocky Road Ice Cream
1 Jar Hot Fudge Sauce
Nuts, Cherries, Whipped Cream

Dinner
Loaves of Garlic Bread with Cheese
Large Sausage, Mushroom & Cheese Pizza
4 Cans or 1 Large Pitcher of Beer
3 Milky Way or Snickers Candy Bars



Rules For This Diet

1. If you eat something, and no one else sees you eat it, it has no calories.

2. When drinking a diet soda while eating a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are cancelled by the diet soda.

3. When you eat with someone else, calories don't count as long as you don't eat more than they do.

4. Foods used for medicinal purposes NEVER count. Example: hot chocolate, brandy, toast, and Sara Lee Cheesecake.

5. If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.

6. Movie-related foods do not have calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. Example: Milk Duds, Buttered Popcorn, Junior Mints and Tootsie Rolls.

7. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking the cookie causes calorie leakage.

8. Late-night snacks have no calories. The refrigerator light is not strong enough for the calories to see their way into the calorie counter.

9. If you are in the process of preparing something, food licked off knives and spoons have no calories. Examples: Peanut Butter on a knife and ice cream on a spoon.

10. Food of the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are spinach and pistachio ice cream, mushrooms and white chocolate.

11. Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other.

Mistake?

I totally forgot yesterday was Ash Wednesday. Oh, I HATE it when this happens. I really, really love Ash Wednesday Mass. It's one of my favourite masses every year.

This makes me feel like I really need to re-evaluate things. Because of several crisis which unearthed themselves on Saturday and Sunday, I couldn't go to Mass, mega guilt, and now I miss Ash Wednesday Mass. Seriously, all the signs were there, but Brennan just couldn't solve the puzzle. The memo was given by several people, but Brennan didn't check it out. I always vaguely remember when these dates are, but rarely do I remember in time. My planner usually has all the religious events in it, like it did last year, but now this year they don't include them. This drives me CRAZY. Man, now I'm too frustrated to work on my thesis. And I'm tired. Curses.

I don't have enough time, which is the problem, and this is getting out of hand. The last thing I want to have happen is that I leave out my spiritual activities because I'm so busy with work and my thesis and everything else. This isn't what I planned, and I need to stop the bus, back up, and make sure I'm making time for the things that matter. Too much time is being spent on stressing and not enough time on actually getting things done. Life change on the rise. =P

Then again, I should just realize that this semester is just going to, by nature, be busier and more stressful. This is crunch time for me in about five ways, so I can't help that things are going to be more than a little unravelled now and again. Hopefully I can just be ok with that and not get really stressed or accidentally burden other people with my stress. The best I can do is just keeping pushing forward, and I'll make it. Stop, though, and I think I might be crushed by the avalache. =)

Late Night Episode

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Yes, and there it is. I broke my tooth in half. While. FLOSSING. I had a Brennan-is-flailing-moment, and I was so scared and frightened that my tooth nerve was exposed, I was scared that I wouldn't be able to get it fixed, and then my tooth would rot, and then they would have to pull it, and then I would have bad teeth not because I was bad with my teeth, but because I was trying to keep my teeth in good condition after years of misuse. (And really, I used to be terrible at keeping my teeth clean. Really. It's only the last 6 years or so I've really upped the ante for teeth health.) OK, deep breath. Also, lately, I've had this fear of my body dying and being bad and totally misused because I've been so bad to it in the past, that when that happened, all I could do was guilt myself for all the things I had ever eaten in my entire life.

While I was back in Canada, I talked to my dentist, and said that I was having a problem while flossing, and felt like there was something wrong with my tooth. Well, it was clearly that my tooth had a crack in it, and when I looked it in it the mirror, it had the same sort of calcium line that my other tooth that went bad has. So, now I'm concerned that maybe I have some sort of calcium issue? But I really do try and have enough calcium every day! Honest!

So, anyways, being the hypochondriac that I am, it's clear to me that I need to resolve my mental issues. And, I spent all day today which was supposed to be spent on my THESIS in the hospital, in the emergency, waiting to get my tooth fixed. On the bright side, they applied a real filling instead of a quick-fix filling, which basically saved me another day of this kind of mess. Also, they didn't apply freezing, and there was totally lots of dental pain, but I said I would just stick it out, and I was totally proud of myself, because of my HUGE fear of dental pain. (For the longest time, I was pretty sure the worst way to die was having all my teeth drilled out in an angry way by a crazed dentist) All I could think about was how big a wuss I normally am, and how much freezing normally they apply in Canada, but in here I am in Europe, being stauch. I bet my dad would have been so proud of me, and referenced my Scottish heritage. It's what I was thinking of when she drilled into my gums or directly into my nerve! =D Uh, yeah, I think she was a dental student. But I felt the trust instead of the mental terror, because I teach english to people much older than me, and I'm sure they feel it's patronizing in a very similar way. Also, she spoke next to no English, so I even used a bit of Dutch, but it wasn't very helpful, so we made do as best we could. My tooth is fixed, shouldn't have any more issues, and I'm fine. So, I'm proud of myself. I'm slowly dealing with parts of me that have old fears. It makes me feel really great.

Although, really, I'd rather have all my teeth in place.

Lively Slideshow

Well, I just thought I would update on all the things that I have done in the last month or so, since I've really missed out on doing so. So, here!

This is a picture of when Montseratt decided to make Mexican. It was terrific. I helped her make tortillas.

This one looked like Africa. Go Africa!

In the end they turned out very nice, and Montseratt was very happy how they turned out. As per usual, she has no confidence in her cooking skill, which is too bad, because she's a very good cook.

This is my Italian friend Alex, who came over to make us an "Authentic Italian Meal" *All rights reserved* and here he is, making tiramisu! =D

This is us at the dinner table, and as you can see, there is a lot here. =D We had a very nice dinner, and I can tell you, "Authentic Italian Meals" *All rights reserved* is MUCH better than anything I've ever had in terms of trying to make Italian myself.

This is Ralph eating a Bradwurst in Germany. I had one as well, and it was very good, and everything I ate in Germany was excellent. I went to Germany...um...two weekends ago for the first time ever! It was pretty neat, and Ralph's German-Brazillian and Spanish-English friends had me try the beer there. It wasn't that bad. Germany is very nice, and the culture is much different than Belgium...can't really explain it, but definitely got a feel for it. I think I would like to go there again, and I think I could live there. They're just as rule-based as the Belgians, so it wouldn't be that big a difference in terms of the culture-shock, I think, even though I can feel the difference.

This was this weekend, Ginny looking rather 'dashing.' =D Ginny is my Belgian buddy that I take everywhere and make sure she is ok while living in Belgium. I've done everything I can to make her feel comfortable here. So far, not too bad, I think. =) This was the night we went to the classical music concert. It was quite nice. =D

We went out for waffles afterwards. I got mine first, and even ordered in french! =D (OK, All I said was "Une Gaufre Liege, sil vous plait," but whatever. I STILL DID IT AND SHE UNDERSTOOD ME. SO THERE.) Ginny then asked what I said, and I said, "Just say 'One Liege Waffle, please,'" and she said, "One Liege Waffle, please." =) She's so cute. And she apparently got 90s in French in university. Look at me go, it's as if I should live here!

The last couple weeks have been busy with thesis and university, so it's keeping me up to date and there and here, so again, I'll try and be better with the updating, but's today I took a day off just to catch up on sleep. I feel much better, so I think I'll be ripped and ready for another months of working till I drop. =) I think it'll be alright. =D

Anyways, later!

Busy

Sorry I haven't had time to update on here...I've just been very busy. There's a lot that's been happening lately, but I've hardly had time to post any of it. It's been working, school just started today, and I'm having a lunch break, and I have been busy with a lot of little things that have been preoccupying my time lately, cleaning, errands, etc. (Speaking of which, I need to get groceries today. Eh heh.) Not a lot of sleeping. I have one more class today, and then maybe I'll do laundry this evening, yadda yadda. All the fun things in life. I don't have my first semester marks yet, but I think I did alright, so we'll probably get them next week. I have been taking lots of pictures, so that's alright. I'll try and post some of them when I get a chance.

BBQ

So, the neighbours had their annual BBQ this year, and it was a lot of fun. Since I am technically part of the nieghbourhood, I got to invite someone and also to hang out and eat and drink with these fantastic people. So, here's some pictures from the BBQ.

This is one of the neighbours (The wife/girlfriend of Nola, I think??? I'm terrible with names) enjoying hot sangria. No, don't ask me why it's hot. I don't know.

We all enjoyed the very cold weather, while eating soup, which Sum and um, (dang it can't remember names) the Romanian neighbour of ours made, and Patrick bought all the meat, which was sausages and hamburgers. So we had a regular style winter cookout. Very homey. Felt like Canada in some ways.

All the kids got sparklers, and since I was a Canadian, that's equivalent to being a kid at the neighbourhood BBQ, I guess. On the bright side (har har) the children who ran around with flaming embers on the end of small sticks from the fire did not manage to poke anyone's eye out. And this after Patrick took all that care not to have sharp objects and cleaners and what not in the children's reach. (It was kind of ironic, really.)

The man in the back is my Romanian neighbour, the man who started all these neighbourhood parties. Very fun, and a very good time. I made the mistake of accepting something which I thought was some sort of speciality drink from his wife/partner which I thought was just a kind of lemon drink. Well, it was, it was hard liquor made with lemon extract. Ralph laughed at that, but our Romanian friend pictured behind one of the many children that were there told us that he would give us all a taste of Romanian alcohol, and that I HAD to try some. Normally, I would never do such a thing, but I thought to myself that I should really try all these things, and even if I don't like, them (and I don't have to) I'm certainly missing out in some ways. So, I drank a glass of paint thinner, and a glass of paint thinner that tasted like someone squeezed a lemon in it. (Seriously, it was about 65% alcohol, no taste.) For someone like me that never drinks, I thought it was pretty great that I wasn't really drunk at all. Well, as far as I could tell...I don't know what being drunk is like, so I guess I have no idea.

This is Ralph and I somewhere near the end of the evening, both looking rather tired. The glass in Ralph's hand is the Romanian alcohol that we were given. We were told that women in Romania drink that stuff like a tall glass of water. That scared me. But, apparently, that's what happens in Romania.

Anyways, I am very sick today, not from the alcohol, but that I stayed up too late, and I had only slept for 4 hours the night before, and it was a really exhausting night in some ways, and Montseratt is probably right, that I got sick from wearing nothing but a t-t-shirt, jeans and sandals all night outside in the cold...although I didn't feel sick until much later when I was REALLY overtired, so I kinda did it too myself. Patrick, on the other hand is convinced I have a hangover. I have no idea. I feel fine other than just exhausted today is all. VERY exhausted, but that's because I'm sick. Nothing like it.