The Fandrogyne

~ I'm a bit addicted to Nestea honey ginseng green tea. They come in these huge 695 ml cans for $0.99 (except at a nearby grocery store where they're on sale for $0.88 right now), and I swear I can drink 3-4 of these things in a day if somebody doesn't give me a good reason to resist. When I first discovered them, I carried 10 of them home in grocery bags and limited myself to 2 a day, so that I wouldn't have to go back for more very often, and it was really hard to limit myself. Each can has a fair bit of sugar (18% of the RDV, which is so out of touch with reality that it's not worth paying close attention to anyway), so 2 cans has a lot of sugar, but they also have more liquid than I usually drink in a day, so it's worth the tradeoff.

I've always been terrible at keeping myself properly hydrated. Really, even if I get a bit more sugar than normal, it's worth it to have warm hands and feet and to not have headaches and dry mouth and a stuffed up nose so much.

~ I started watching The 100, because it was on Netflix and I'd heard it was better than the books (which I found to be pretty lackluster). It's not bad so far. Definitely some strong visuals, and the plot moves forward much more quickly than it did in the books, which is a definite point in the show's favour. Some events seem utterly out of order, but that was probably done to make for a better visual experience, and granted, I'm only 3 episodes in at the moment, but it hasn't caused any weird conflicts or anything that I can spot. The acting's decent, the cinematography is good;, so it seems like it could be a pretty good watch. There are only 29 episodes, so it shouldn't take me long to watch all of them.

~ My replacement FitBit arrived today! And it actually works, which makes me so wonderfully happy! Now the challenge is to see if I can actually get 10,000 steps in every day. This in my account, if anyone feels like adding or friending or whatever it is you do there so people who know people can follow each other's exercise attempts.

This makes me extra tempted to go out tomorrow morning before bed, for a nice long walk to Starbucks so I can see if they really do have a decent chai latte. Last time I had Starbucks, it was pretty unimpressive, but they get a lot of their tea from Teavana at the moment, and I know that's good stuff. It'd be a treat for me, and give me exercise!

~ I slept so badly last night. I got only around 4 hours of sleep before cats woke me up with their rambunctious running around, combined with gnawing hunger, and a really stuffed up nose that meant I had to take the last of my decongestant pills. So one way or the other, I have to go out in the morning no matter how cruddy I feel, so I can get more pills. (I can take a relatively short walk to the pharmacy to get pills, or a longer walk to get chai and then pills at a different store, so it all depends on how I feel in the morning. But I'm going out either way.)

~ I want to spend my upcoming night playing video games, but alas, because the landlord's coming by at some point later this month (possibly next week, but I have yet to hear definitively) so he can clean the furnace filters, I want to get the rest of the water out of the basement. And the carpeted stairs need a good vacuuming. And while I'm at it I ought to mop the downstairs floors, too, to make them look extra good. I normally wouldn't go all out like this when it comes to cleaning, and my house is generally pretty presentable and not one I'd be ashamed to have people see, but the landlord is the kind of person who complains that it's messy if he sees cat fur stuck to a chair, so. I want to give him no reason to get ridiculous when he's over. Quick visit, in and out, and then I can go back to my life without as many interruptions.

Part of the deal for renting the house is that the landlord takes care of the yardwork, and I take care of snow removal. Which is fine by me, and means that at least in the winter, I won't have to deal with weekly, "I'm coming to mow the lawn tomorrow" texts and emails. If last winter is any indication, he'll generally leave me alone until it's time to cut the grass again. Of course, then it'll be non-stop interruptions for the whole grass-growing season, but at least I do get part of the year without that hassle.

~ Now it's raining, and the sound of rain on the windows makes me want to curl up under blankets and not do anything. Of course, on the night when I have to do things!

~ I finally remembered to make syrup from the 1 lb box of strawberries in the fridge. All but 3 of the berries were useful, so there was very little waste. Next time, I though, I need to remember to use less sugar than the recipe calls for, because this batch turned out so sweet that it could be candy!

It also yields about 300 ml of syrup, which isn't as much as I was hoping for, but it's still something, and it will still flavour things well, which is all I need.

And now I have stewed strawberries from the leftovers, which I'll probably eat over toasted English muffins!

~ I can't believe it's October already! 3 more months and 2015 will be over.

Because it's a new month, I feel like I ought to make a list of goals to accomplish before November. I usually end up failing miserably when it comes to goal lists, but over the past few years, I've gotten better at doing a lot of things I used to do badly at, so maybe this time it will actually work out.

~ The rain came down really hard last night, and while the area didn't get flooded, I know I got pretty lucky. Seeing videos of some cities in southern NB made me appreciate that PEI missed the worst of the storm. There was enough water falling from the sky here to reduce the road outside my house to about half a lane's width by the time it really stopped falling. Glad I didn't have to be outside in it, either!

~ 30 situps today! 15+10+5. Each time it gets a little easier!

~ Months ago I got a 375 ml bottle of Torani caramel syrup because it was marked down to $1.99 at Foodland. It normally sells for $7.99 a bottle, so for that price, I wasn't about to pass it up, even if I didn't know at the time what I'd use it for. Lately I've been adding a tablespoon to a pink mug of milk and making really delicious milk that I don't want to stop drinking! I keep hoping that the store will have more marked down bottles, but I haven't seen any since I bought the caramel syrup. Shame, because there are a lot of Torani flavours I'd love to try!

~ On the downside, I slept like butt last night. Had trouble getting to sleep, then I had trouble staying asleep. I'm hoping that being tired tonight will mean I'll be so tired tomorrow morning that the same thing doesn't happen, and that I can get a decent day of sleep then. Fingers crossed, anyway.

~ Slept until midnight, because whaaaaat? I went to bed shortly after noon, and it took a little while for me to fall asleep, but I really didn't expect to sleep in until midnight! I just hope that doesn't screw me for trying to get to sleep at a decent time today.

~ Finished up with Ferrett Steinmetz's The Flux and started on Kameron Hurley's Empire Ascendant. It pulls no punches early on and expects you to know exactly where the last book left off, and considering The Mirror Empire was complex and had a large cast of characters, it's a little disorienting and I'm trying to pick things up as I go rather than letting myself feel overwhelmed. I don't want to put this one down and reread the first one, even though I'd enjoy that, because I'm behind on my reading goals for the year already and rereading something would take up time I'd rather use to read something new.

But even though I feel a little lost in regard to some aspects of the plot, I'm getting back to grips with it all, and the writing and story is more than good enough to keep me wanting more anyway. I'm not losing anything by feeling lost.

~ Watched the first 4 episodes of Chihayafuru, which is pretty good and more interesting than I initially expected it to be. I'm enjoying it so far, anyway.

~ Apparently there's a 3rd Ring movie coming out soon. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this. I enjoyed most of the Japanese movies in the series. I remember The Ring was what got me into J-horror in the first place. The Ring 2 was so forgettable that I actually couldn't remember if I'd seen it or not. And now this third one, which may or may not be worth seeing but I'm probably going to see it anyway. I just hope it's decent.

And I should probably rewatch the first 2 movies, just so I can refresh my memory a little.

~ Walked 10,000 steps today, which surprised me, because it's been a long time since I walked that much. I'm proud of myself, though! My feet hurt, though.