We’ve rearranged the room for spring, has given is a wonderfully open feeling and frees up a lot of clutter. I really love spring cleaning ^ ^. Found a bunch of crap I’d all buy forgotten about in the closet including my old Japan paper work and my alter stuff. Found my athame in a box with some dried up flowers from who knows how long ago. And Joe’s old Moogle plushies I bought him as a stupid cute anniversary gift like 3 years ago XD. They were in a box that had signs of closet bugs so had to give them a good wash.
Kiwi got his first real vet visit because he had a bad molt. Turns out he’d been cheating with his diet and consuming mostly seed instead of his pellets so he’s on a special pellet only diet. He had a little birdie fit over it for like a day before giving in and eating the pellets. $90 later I’m glad I bought birdie insurance.

Soooo I’ve been doing the gym as often as possible. I’m able to widthstand cardio for a full hour now without felling like I’m about to die. I feel much better and I’ve lost weight but I just don’t seem much of a difference in my opinion. Really frustrating D: I’m about to put myself on an even more strict diet just to get results faster. Jess is basically on a diabetic’s diet because of her own health even though she’s not diabetic. It’s actually really healthy and cuts out all the crap that causes most of my own set backs… like sugar and carbohydrates XD. Even though I stay under my 1000 calories a day I’m still taking in stuff that doesn’t process well. So I’m thinking of just following the same thing… just so hard to cut out bread stuff… sugar I’d be fine without. I just love food so much it’s incredibly difficult T-T. Lots of parties and wedding coming up too. It feels hopeless XD.

Right near our gym is the Asian food mart so we’ve been doing a lot of shopping there. I never realized how amazingly cheap all there stuff is. They have the gallon bottles of my itoen green tea 2 for $5 that I can’t find anywhere else. Unsweetened tea is completely unheard of in this country. And chrosanthemom honey tea… though it’s actually packed full of sugar… so no more of that for me T-T. I’m just very sad they no longer carry my yakisoba! Who knew grilled noodles and mayo went so well together. We accidentally bought some type of chips that were made from the reproductive organs of crabs… Why would anyone make a chip out of that?! I thought they were shrimp chips or something…. nope… crab ovaries! I shouldn’t trust the chinese food I can’t read T-T.
So while browsing the store its inevitable that we come across some Engrish…funny enough that I just had to take a picture… It just seems so funny.
We bought lots of stuff to make curry like 3 days ago. I haven’t had curry in such a long time, it was awesome. One pot made enough to feed us pretty much through the week. It’s been a small way of saving money XD.

I’ve been very much involved in art lately. I finally made the leap and bought my first set of Copic markers out of much frustration with my Prismas. They just run out too quick and have very poor color selection. Sad I can get them for $2.00 a marker too… ended up shelling out like $4.58 a marker for the Copics…. which sadly is still pretty cheap…. Sooooo well worth it though. They truly are god markers! They draw and blend so smooth and easy… like a mix of a marker and water color paint or something o.o! I have a set of 36 and it’s still not enough though XD. I’m thinking one a month I’ll designate a small amount of money into buying a couple of markers at a time. I have to be an expensive whore and get the Copic sketch instead of the Copic ciao which are like a $1.50 cheaper… I want lots of purty color options though T-T. To buy the enitre set of Copic Sketch markers would cost like $1,400… Sad to think I might invest about that much in just markers by the time I’m satisfied… I have major issues.

So going along with my art thing, I finally picked back up on a CG pic since my computer died and I lost the last one I worked so long on T-T… was almost complete too. I’m much happier with this one for some reason though o.o I think the coloring is just going much easier now that I’ve gotten a good feel for the tablet. The possibilities are endless! bwahahahah!
So this time I drew Tsukasa, yet another member of Ab]sin[the that Liz and I came up with so long ago. I really always wanted to draw him… but could never quite figure out how I wanted him to look… he was suppose to be a little more girlie then the already flaming homosexual band. His symbol is the fish as well… so once I’m done CGing him I’d like to add fish into his portrait… I’m thinking parrot fish… cause they look all sorts of happy all the time (and I’m partial to the ones already swimming in my tank XD).

Pretty Tsukasa plays the bass ^ ^. I have much more detail to add… and the black lines are bothering me… I can’t wait to colorize them… but so far I think he’s turning out well! I already have a picture of Shinji (drummer) drawn up. I’ll probably CG him next… then finally on to my picture of Ryou and Mika! I still haven’t characterized Kenji… suppose to be the asshole lead guitarist… and his symbol is the snake… so I’m thinking he’ll look something like a stuck up sexy asshole whose just so sexy you forgive him for being an asshole… We’ll see <3

I’ve put a lot of things on my weight loss, such as my back and front shoulder tattoos. I’d really like to start planning them but just won’t allow myself the satisfaction until I’ve reached my goal weight. Also found a ton of online stores that sell authentic brand clothing like h.naoto, putumayo, BSSB, Kera, etc… but again I do not want to buy anything till I’ve reached my goal and I can feel good about wearing awesome clothing again. Go me for self modivation!
Once I get down to around 100 I’d like to plan on being like 94-96 if possible. Those last 5 pounds will be difficult XD. I’m sure everyone will hate me and yell at me for trying.

So I’m all registered for Otakon, just have to wait for artist ally to open up! I’m so paranoid I’m gonna miss it or something. Eh, even if I do I’m sure we’ll still be going. Joe is really looking forward to it.
I was looking into the panel hosting… but kinda short notice and I’d like to use site staff to attend, host and develop the panel… but once again it’s just me and Kai till we go staff searching. Maybe by next year that could be a great possibility! Would be a ton of fun to run a panel and great promotion for DS. I’ll hope for it ^ ^.
I’m waiting for the tax check to come in. I’ll be putting basically the whole thing off to the side for Otakon. Just want to make sure I have the money saved and ready for hotel and spending. Still debating on if I should cosplay or not. I just don’t have anyone to cosplay with me T-T no fun doing it alone… and I don’t have enough money to ship Kai up for forced cosplay the entire weekend (poor bastard *shakes fist*). Kai get a job now!!!

My next fun even coming up is the Sakura Matsuri at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Still a toss up as to whether or not I’ll go in my Yukata this year. I always seem to suffer from some sort of heat stroke every year when I dress up XDD. I think it’s the obi o.o. I feel quite annoyed at the people who do actual cosplay to this event. It’s about Japanese culture and enjoying the cherry blossoms, not hidious naruto characters and obese inuyashas. WTF…

Still debating AnimeNEXT… I could get a table there and it’s only a 30 minute drive… depends on how much extra money I’ll find myself with by the end of next month.

Number 2 goal right now (besides the weight loss) is to actually save money. It’s always so impossible! Something always comes up that forces me to have to dish out like $200 out of every pay check. On average I spend like $100-200 a week on whatever random crap not including my monthly bills. Some how I must come up with a way to reduce my spending and save money in a successful manner. Joe thinks we should just create a joint account and start accumulating our money together. I’m just afraid that will encourage us to spend more cause it’ll seem like “oh we have a lot of money in our account right now so we can afford to buy **insert name of useless item here**”. What can I say, we both fail.

So here’s some fun. Apparently I have a stalker ^ ^. A real life one too! Got a very strange message on Myspace a few days ago from a practically blank profile “Hey sweetie! You’re the cute girl who sold me my fish a few weeks ago. No mistaking those pretty eyes! I’ll be in soon for more! take care – DF”.
Ok a little strange but no big deal, person found me on myspace and recognized me, whatever I see like hundreds of people a week at work. So I log on today to this message “Hello Beautiful, Was great Seeing you today. i’m always so impressed with what you have to say. I think your really cute and i’d like to get to know you more then just fish talk. I don’t know if I should have said Anything to you like ‘hey I sent you message on myspace’ well i guess I’m just a little shy. I’ll say something next time and maybe the converstion will go beyond fish. I look forward to our next encounter – DF”
Wow.. so wtf… that really seems kind of scary. I mean tonight at work was really busy and I helped SO many people. I keep going over in my head everyone I came accross, what they bought, if they seemed creepy… really could have been anyone. But apparantly this person really likes me, knows where I work, comes in to see me, talks to me without me knowing their intentions, and then sends me creepy messages at the end of the day. I bet it’s like a 40 year old divorced mid life crisis suffering creep.  Lucky for me I don’t have this linked up on my Myspace or I’m sure they’d be jacking to the pic’s in the gallery right now. Hopefully this person will step forward soon so I can become a bitch and scare them off… or file a restraining order -_-

Lets end on a happy note: watching TV today I learned and extremely funny new fact… There is a large frog that is worshiped in Peru by the natives as a god… the Frog lives in lake Titicaca and it’s Latin name translates to “aquatic scrotum” because well… it has a lot of loose skin that resembles a scrotum. Aquatic scrotum frog from lake Titicaca… who the hell comes up with this?

1. Drop like 15 lbs.
Holy crap I use to weigh 97 lbs. And now I’m up to like 115. disgraceful. I’m FAR from being as active as I once was. Dieting helps keep my weight stable but I lose nothing…. so basically I have to drop a lot of weight first and then keep on my diet to maintain the weight…. and still try to keep active XD. Again, I want to be as ungodly skinny as I once was. I don’t care too much about how unhealthy it may be. I must get down to my use-to-be-sexy weight…. and hopefully drop a bra size. C’s just aren’t my thing.

2. Draw you Bitch!
I use to draw everyday. I use to have a new CG picture up like 3 times a month. I spent hours on one piece till I was satisfied. And just as I started getting really good I just kind of stopped. Damn me ><! I still draw once and a while but I’d really like my art to be as important to me as it once was. I’d also like to work my way back into the pornographic genre. I enjoyed my smut T-T. I just never felt it looked good enough to display my really vulgar stuff. I must make more… and maybe finally share it with the world. Yay for porn, hooray for naked men!

3. Photography
I would spend hours setting up little photo shoots for me or my friends. So much fun ><!!! I haven’t whored in front of a camera for a while now XDDD. Probably goes hand in hand with me gaining weight. Self esteem issues, I just haven’t felt up to it T.T But I’d like to put my god camera to good use. Mainly lighting is such an issue. My old room had a sky light that just happen to allow the perfect amount of natural light in. Also was positioned so conveniently for setting up make-shift backgrounds and such. Now I’ll have to figure out new DIY bootleg lighting systems that make pictures not suck. I don’t care how good of a camera you have, a picture just fails without the proper lighting D:

4.Study Study Study
I’m amazed how much Japanese I’ve forgotten… and at the same time how much I can still remember. Song translations were really good at keeping me refreshed on everything I learned. I’m really like to do more of them and hopefully go through my textbooks once more as a good refresher. I actually got the opportunity to speak with an old Japanese couple at work a few weeks ago. I was able to keep up a conversation but I found it a little to difficult to feel comfortable with. Though they were surprised enough to find a little white girl in a pet store blurting out simple Japanese to explain about dog food, I’m sure I made a bunch of mistakes XDD.

5. Back to the promised lands!
It’s more of a long term goal (can’t be done in 3 months) but I’d like to start focusing on saving money once more so I can continue my study in Japan. Last year I planned on getting ready to go back by now. Money has just become such and issue after everything with me moving out and my mother in the hospital. I also really wanted Joe to come with me for the next round but we’ve both come to terms with the fact that it probably wouldn’t happen. I must stay focused though. FOCUSED!!! SAVE MONEY!!!! (after I’ve purchased my tripod and ML-L3 remote of course… and maybe a new SLR lens… *cough*)

I think my goals are pretty realistic. It’s been a rough year since last August. I got pretty off track with everything but at least now I’m trying to gather motivation to make things as I think they should be XD. I need to try and get Joe more involved in my goals as well. I need someone to yell at me every time I’m doing something that is not beneficial to my goals… like spending 3 hours playing FFX… or eating apple pie at 2 am. But… somethings may never change XDDD. I need to find balance.

On top of that we’re now completely broke after being forced to buy a $700 TV. The TV decided to die last week but Joe had the warranty on it so figured it was no big deal… just so happen the company that made the TV was sued by Phillips and went bankrupt late last year. This happened about 2 months after he bought the damn thing. So we were out a TV… meaning nothing to do besides sit on the computer which we both very well can’t do together. Couldn’t even play Wii or anything! SO we took the rest of my paycheck and bought a new TV T-T. Considering the circumstances we did get a pretty good deal but I hate having an empty bank account. SO much for saving DX.

I got bored and decided to jailbreak my iPhone. Holy crap why didn’t I do this sooner? The iPhone has become 9294875 times more awesome now that it’s jail broken. I can now take video’s, WHAT?! something so simple that the iphone was never able to do before XD. Annnnnnd I downloaded a bunch of themes, right now I have a hello kitty theme XD. The themes are really easy to make though so I’m sure I’ll be creating something for myself soon. I also installed an NES emulator on the iPhone so I’ve been dominating Super Mario 3 for the past couple of days. I’ve been too lazy to install the SNES emulator but that’ll probably be soon. I think theres an genesis, and PSX one as well. Need to look that up…

Finally we have a new little addition to our ever growing animal family. Say hello to Clyde frog:

We found him in the feeder tank at work. Apparently a few tadpoles slip in with the feeder fish shipments o.O. I felt bad for him so I brought him home and stuck him in the 2.5 gallon. He still has a tail ^^. I’ll probably wait till his a little fatter then let him go in a pond somewhere or something. I’d rather not keep him… Just another thing to take up room that could be use for fish. It’s hard enough not to take home one of the 19 baby dwarf hamsters we have at work now DX. SO CUTE I want another one T-T. But I already have 4 and I don’t need another one.