place your bets

i can't believe how ridiculously in to american idol i am this year. I LOVE IT.

meant to post this last night...whoops. even though we're now down to the top 11 [that final 13 sure didn't last long], mark my words. here's my bid for the top 3, in no particular order:

adam lambert [i've got a mad emo crush on that one. looooove him. and yes, i'm aware he's probably gay.]
allison iraheta [her heart song was the first number of the season that i actually had to watch multiple times. i adore her.]
lil rounds [she's ok. but i think she'll go far. or danny gokey will beat her out with all his shirt-matching glasses and dead-wife pity. but i'll stick to my prediction.]

can't wait to see how it ends up! who are your predictions?

depends on how you spin it

last night i was hating daylight savings. i rolled around in bed till at least 1 a.m. (waaaay past the regular lyndsey bedtime), trying to force myself to go to sleep as i knew i'd be wiped out this morning.

this morning i hated daylight savings even more when my alarm clock went off at 7 (felt like 4 a.m. -- i swear, we only lose ONE hour but it feels like so much more) and it was dark outside and i was so sleepy i didn't even want to eat.

and then things started looking up. to celebrate daylight savings we got to wear our pjs to work! fun fun. my bff co worker joLee actually wore footsie pajamas. i was not even aware they made them in adult sizes but here is proof:



we were quite comfy and happy all day. ALSO my boss came back to work today after a looong four month maternity leave! yay. here's the boss, me, jL and fellow co workers:



oh and also -- in addition to the jammies we had a cereal party. yay cereal! mmm. i kind of OD'ed but whatever. at least it wasn't cookies.

but truly the GREATEST part of today was that when b and i left work -- at 6 p.m.! -- IT WAS LIGHT OUTSIDE.

so. fantastic.
you don't know how wonderful it is to come out after being inside for nine hours and see the sun -- makes my whole day feel longer. and better.

even makes all that nasty early wake up stuff worth it.

p.s. except i got another migraine today. not quite as bad as fri's but still bad. maybe sleep deprivation brought it on?

p.p.s. completely unrelated to daylight savings but tonight i inhaled a combination of ginger, garlic and roasted red pepper as it was sauteeing on my stove. and i am STILL coughing. can breathing in spices damage your respiratory track?

happy daylight savings!

taco weekend

let's just get it out there: i love tacos. i could probably eat some form of latin-inspired cuisine every day for the rest of my life. i also love just about any type of asian food as well (except i don't eat anything with fish -- so that kills sushi. sorry folks) but there is just something about mexican food that i adore.

anyway, this was an awesome weekend for tacos. friday night, i was finally recovering from the dreaded migraine and wanted a low-key dinner.

[you'll be happy (disgusted?) to note i've been back to my old sugar habits ever since the migraine. i'm even helping to expedite the addiction in young children -- today at church b and i gave jelly beans to three different children. mwahahaha. start em young!]

so friday -- we went to wahoo's fish taco for dinner. it was my first time. and i loved it! yum. in fact, i have the leftovers of a carne asada burrito in the fridge right now, calling my name.

but yesterday was the taco adventure to end them all. we've even got some back story here. as you know, i'm recently obsessed with twitter and through my surfing i kept hearing about kogi bbq. apparently there's this new startup phenomenon in l.a., where kogi bbq operates two trucks that drive around the city serving up korean tacos. mmm. i wasn't even sure what a korean taco was but i knew it sounded amazing.

if you're not intrigued yet, get this: they have the most brilliant marketing plan imaginable. every day they go to a different location, but the only way to find out where they'll be is by reading their updates on their blog or their twitter page. and it has turned into this craaaaaazy hit business. i swear, in the past two weeks i have read about kogi in the ny times, newsweek, the l.a. times and a million other places.

kogi tweets, the people come. i guess they average 300 to 700 customers a night, and they usually make a few stops.

yesterday was actually our second attempt tracking down the korean taco truck [i smile every time i say that phrase...just sounds so random] due to poor scheduling and a late truck last week, so i was bound and determined to get me some tacos last night.





we showed up 15 min. after scheduled truck arrival and the truck was indeed there -- along with a line of about 100 people. b and i stood there getting gradually colder and gradually hungrier. [maybe this is part of their brilliance? they make you stand in line for a long time, hungry and bored, while you smell amazing korean spices? you'd even love cardboard if it was smothered in kimchi after long enough.] we made friends with hippies in line and tried not to drool.

after an hour and a half WE MADE IT. the kogi web site posts pictures of tacos that look like these:



mine, however, looked like these (unphotoshopped):



they were indeed quite delicious, and made the wait worth it. my favorite was the korean short rib. i am still not convinced, however, that i'd wait another hour and a half for them again. i guess the rosemead location we went to is one of their most crowded; the truck also frequents stops in mid-wilshire, santa monica, eagle rock, los feliz, etc. so maaaaybe i will try another location in the future. and maybe i'm drooling right now just remembering the meal.

but for now, i am quite content with my taco weekend.

just so you know.

i woke up this morning, took a shower, straightened my hair and started seeing stars. that means a killer migraine is coming on. UGH.

i popped some ibuprofen, ate some cereal and went back to bed for three hours. when i woke up, i had another bowl of cereal, three peanut m&ms and two of those little cookies from last night. and what do you know -- i started feeling better.

[if by better you mean i still can't see, i feel like the walking dead and i still momentarily wonder if my skull will split open. but hey, i came into work, so i guess i'm not doing that bad.]

i'm still not 100% and the recent sugar intake only helped mildly, but i'm just sayin -- i think yesterday's dessert fast is already proving to be a terrible idea.

sugar shock

today i did not eat dessert.

this is a BIG deal. if you are a regular reader of the blog you know i have this oddly high tolerance for sugar. i've been known to eat half a joe joe at 7 a.m. while i'm packing lunches, sneak a chocolate truffle after finishing my cereal, get a little candy pick-me-up in the 4 p.m. snacking hour, or enjoy an extra dessert with b during american idol. not to mention i LOVE cookies any time, anywhere, any style. mmm.

sometimes i get a little too carried away. for example, yesterday at work i ate half a cookie...a scoop of ice cream...another bit of ice cream and a slice of cake at church (balancing it all with a handful of cereal and a string cheese for dinner). by the time i came home i was feeling pretty nasty and regretful. yuck.

then this morning b and i were IMing. here is an excerpt of our conversation.

b: today i challenge you not to eat dessert
l: um...i don't think so
b: it will make you feel better and you'll have more energy. http://www.momscape.com/articles/sugar-shock.htm
l: no WAY. sugar makes me who i am.
l: without sugar i would just be a sad, boring, un-sassy lyndsey
b: oh come on. sugar is not your personality
b: try it for one day
l: hmm
l: okay. but i just ate mini wheats. does that count?
b: no, that's okay
b: just no empty calorie sugar treats
b: cookies, candy, etc.

and that's how it began. i have actually made it 13 hours since that conversation with NO treats. i'm still sort of amazed that i did it. once in college lacy and i decided to give up dessert, starting on a sunday morning. we didn't eat breakfast or lunch that day because we were fasting, and halfway through dinner we decided we couldn't handle it anymore and traded our chicken cordon bleu for an ice cream waffle. me? persistant? what?

the best co-accomplishment of today was that during these 13 hours, i attended a baby shower. a baby shower! one of the best opportunities for free and guilty treats. i said no to ice cream, bottle-shaped sugar cookies, peanut m&ms and a carmel apple, all in a two hour span. um...yeah. i was drooling, but i said no repeatedly.

but i'm not dumb. i collected those items at the end of the night, shoved them in my purse and have them waiting on my table for me to enjoy whenever i break this streak:



we'll see how long it lasts. i was proud of myself this afternoon and told my co worker about the new pledge [via IM once again...i was working remotely]. her response? "ha. so your girl scout cookies that arrived in the office today? those are just going to go to brandon?"

DANG IT. i guess tomorrow is another day...we'll see if it includes sugar or not.

big news.

no, i'm not having a baby. [every time my blog post title involves the words "news," "surprise," etc. i have at least three people tell me "oh, i thought you were going to say you're pregnant!" GET OFF IT, PEOPLE. no baby.]

however, i do have other big news. they are making sleepless in seattle into a broadway play.

HA. while that is my single ultimate favorite movie ever of my life, i think it will suck as a musical. some wonders of the cinema are meant to stay in the cinema. i mean seriously -- a cardboard-and-plaster empire state building?? lame.

also, if you read some of the comments on that article (or even the article itself), you'll see a lot of SIS-haters. sad. granted, i can't really blame them -- it is a somewhat cheesy, unrealistic, dated movie -- but that's what makes it so fun! that and the fact that i can quote verbatim the entire movie, start to finish.

and it's monday.

i was informed recently that i've been slacking on the blog. i think i am capable of being psychotically enamored with only one social media outlet at a time, and lately that has been twitter -- so the blog has been neglected. twitter is, however, breeding ADD in me because i check it constantly. [but if i didn't, how would i ever hear about a mormon girl swallowing her engagement ring, or find out the new editor in chief at car & driver mag before my boss knew about it, or learn about cool mobile food phenomena? more on that last one later. but as you can see, life without twitter would be a sad place.]

or maybe we just haven't been doing anything "cool." sometimes i do fun things and i bring my camera along and i think, this would be a perfect blog entry.

but sometimes all i do on the weekends is watch 30 rock on dvd, make cards, sit on the couch and quote movies for hours with b, go to target, provide free babysitting and cook food for other people and eat delicious apple crisp with friends and well...those things are just not quite so blog-friendly. but they are still my life and these things still make me pretty happy. even if it's not worth a whole blog entry once in a while, i think i have a pretty fun life.

maybe this is blog worthy? last week i found a quarter in a crack in the street on my walk to the train! i was very happy. even though i receive a pretty decent salary check every fifteen days, i get realllly excited if i find a quarter. THEN, the next day, i was working from home and found another quarter in our building hallway. angels were smiling upon me last week. the vending machines at work are new, thanks to the remodel, and now snacks are 50 cents. takes double the luck to find enough change for a snack, but apparently i'm up for it.

i suppose the moral of this story is that i find happiness in simple things. like grocery shopping at 8 a.m. when shelves are fully stocked and no people are out yet. or making it to the train station just in time to hop aboard before the train leaves. or making a new friend on the new blog. or the fact that sometimes i still wish i had stayed in nyc, but then today my google weather tracker says it is 19 degrees there and crazy snowy and i am grateful for my sunny pasadena and palm trees and fun friends who throw monday potlucks where i get to eat two cookies and a brownie for dinner.

life is good.
even if there's not much to blog about.