May 21st, 2012: Lazy can't be helped.

When you have the privilege of getting a long weekend it is incredibly hard to do any of the productive things you should do.  There just isn't enough time in the day to accomplish everything during the work week and then when you have your weekends, well who really wants to do housework? No one. That's who.


This has been a most delightful extended weekend for me and I was just so lucky to have it happen over my birthday weekend too.  It was like a little present for me.  I will not be happy to go back to work tomorrow that is for sure.

I did try to accomplish a few fun things though.  I worked some more on the Doctor Who scarf I'm knitting for Chad.  Even though it is my first ever time knitting something; I think I'm really getting the hang of it.  I think I'm starting to get a technique down, or at least I'll be really good at the garter stitch now.

My dog looks really enthusiastic in the background.  At least she is using the dog bed correctly for once.  I can't even tell you how many times she just lays next to it or half in it.  I'll have to search for a photo of that some time as proof of how amazingly 'smart' she is.


Charli is a pretty good distraction for me sometimes though.  For example; when I'm feeling down she'll let me set her in my lap.  She really enjoys laps but most dogs do.


Anyways! Enough about Charli! What else did I do today? Glad you asked.


I did a rather unsuccessful job search.  I'm still trying to find a new job that isn't terrible.  I am glad I even have a job right now, but having a job and feeling like you are wanted and needed at your job are different things.  Does that make sense?  I could have a worse job, that is certain. I could be doing so much more else where and would be appreciated way more than where I am now.

When I talked to my friend Jason on Saturday about his new job (he just recently got out of the job I'm currently in) and it sounds like the stuff from fairy tales and tv at this new place.  I want to find my fairy tale dream job doing something I can get my heart wrapped up in.  Instead of getting my heart stomped on.


Is that too much to ask?


Enough of this depressing topic.  I've already tried to work off that depressive mood by riding some on my squeaky exercise bike that makes my butt fall asleep, but that didn't help.  You know what will help?  Pictures of me and my dog with our unkempt hair from our lazy day.  She looks so 'pleased' when I make her take pictures.

I just realized that I have been mispronouncing/spelling unkempt all my life. I could have sworn it was unkept. My world is rocked by this.  I think I need a moment to collect myself with this new found information.


Goodnight!

May 20th, 2012

Such an original title. No?

Suppose I could have made it something along the lines of "IT'S MY FREAKING BIRTHDAY!1!!!one!!!" but I felt the date itself would suffice. 


As I had planned before I was going to start up with my daily posts once my 25th birthday rolled around.  So here I go! As of right now I'm not doing any sort of 25 things to do while 25 but I still might do something along those lines.

24 was a good year but it definitely had it's bad moments.  To put my year into a nut shell I will give some incredibly vague descriptors of negative and positive experiences throughout my 24th year.


Negatives: Breaking up, random depressive anxiety attacks, feeling alone, strong dislike for my workplace, lack of funds
Positives: Breaking up, finding the courage and strength to make bold choices, buying a house, dating my current boyfriend, realizing I don't really have it all that bad, comfort in family, rescuing a dog who is 'special' to say the least, learning how to make cinnamon roll waffles, working on White Christmas, tweeted back by Neil Gaiman


Well some of them aren't all that vague, and I'm sure there are more positives and negatives to add but can't think of them right now.

When I think back on that year of life I really don't want to focus on the negatives.  They were a big part of the choices I made but I definitely prefer to remember the positives in life.

I think you should do the same.  Just an idea.

~~~~~~~~~~


Now for what I actually did today!


I spent the day lazing about with Chad.  We watched My Neighbor Totoro and he decorated a store bought cake for me with some of the fasting burning candles on the planet.  


I decided to wear one of the shirts Chad bought me for my birthday today as well. (He let me open my presents the day before)

I love this shirt.  I remember when I first saw it online and how much I laughed at how brilliant it is. The fact he remembered I liked it was awesome. (If you don't get it then you probably haven't seen Dragon Ball Z.  Here is a little video link to see the Fusion in action.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0uQor_juqE&feature=related )

He got me another shirt and My Neighbor Totoro was actually a birthday present from him as well.  I'm fairly certain the mustache wallet he gave me last week was also apart of my birthday presents too.  (I think he was afraid I would buy one...and I almost did)  I'm sure I'll get a picture of the other shirt and wallet at some point.

Today was also the solar eclipse happening.  Minnesota was only cool enough for a partial eclipse but I'm just glad I managed to see it.  I was so worried that I was not going to be able to see it because when I woke up earlier in the day it was very cloudy out and I was almost certain it would not clear up by the time the eclipse was going to happen. (Chad can vouch for my whining and 'crying' about it)

After the eclipse I enjoyed a good laugh at The Pirates! A Band of Misfits with Chad.  I seriously recommend it.  Those kind of movies are always for a good laugh and totally not just for kids.

I think it may be time for bed after my rousing weekend of fun.  Charli and I say bring on another year of life!

I look slightly terrified while Charli is clearly unimpressed.  

Such is life. 

Good night!

The way we get by

I'm having one of those days where I'm feeling slightly retrospective.  As I get closer to my birthday memories from the past year seem to be flooding back to me.  It goes back more than just the last year, but mainly 2011.

So much change can happen in just one year and you hardly realize what has happened until it is done and gone.

But I digress, this blog is starting to get to bleak for me and I don't want to be a blah-de-blah blah blogger.  At least not today.

I've been working on my list of 25 things to do while I'm 25.   So far; if I'm remembering off the top of my head correctly, I would like to read 25 books.  I'm looking for must read books that I haven't read.  I would considering reading something I have read before if it is something really good.  There are plenty of classics that I haven't read and need too, but please suggest some!

Doing a marathon of some sort was something I thought about but I can't really run because of my knees but there are walking ones too, right?  That one I'm still on the fence about.

There must of been something else that I can't think of at the moment. Usually they come to me while I'm in bed trying to sleep.

I should put unpack my boxes from moving finally and paint the rooms in my house to my list, but I don't know if those are considered must haves of my 25th year.

OH! I just thought of one that's on my list and I actually have progress on.  I want to go to my first ever convention.  My boyfriend and I have already preregistered for Gally!(What Gally is: http://www.gallifreyone.com/ )

He went this year and loved it, and is willing to share it with me next year.  It should be super awesome since it is the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.  The convention would still be exciting minus that but 50th anniversary could mean some pretty cool things might happen.  I just can't believe I'm already excited for something that is happening 315 days from now.

Now I'm just excited thinking about Gally and this blog isn't going anywhere.  Here's a good song.

P.S. Why does typography look so cool?

P.S.S I realized that was a really short video of that song after I posted it...so here is a longer one but less cool because it lacks typography. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5dCKc7LxaI

Updates coming soon!

So it is pretty clear that I have let my daily blog go to the wayside but I have been making plans to bring it back. I'm not sure if anyone will be excited for it or not but I think it will be good for me to have it back again.

I will most likely be doing the picture a day again like I did two years ago.  I'm thinking of starting this up again when I hit my 25th birthday.  It will be a nice way to remember how I handled my quarter life crisis (assuming I have one).

Another idea that I have is to bring back my list.  That list being twenty something things to do before I turned twenty something.  For some reason I can't seem to remember if it was 23 or 24.  I could just do some digging in my blog and find out but I'm far too lazy for that right now.  Instead of it being 25 things before I'm 25 the list will be 25 things to do while I'm 25.  I'm taking any suggestions as far as what those 25 things should be.

Lets hope this post isn't an empty one and I actually succeed in bringing back this blog.  I still find myself planning out a picture for a blog post even though I haven't really blogged for almost a year now.  I've got a few months to prepare since my birthday isn't until May!  Better start making my list!

June 26th, 2011

Never have been one to count my eggs before they have fully hatched, but in the case of my house I'm pretty sure I can put all of them in one basket.  (That was painful to write that many cliches in one sentence. )

Used my lovely Sunday afternoon to wonder aimlessly about Ikea to get ideas for what I would want in my house.  Got some good ideas as far as furniture for my living room and second bed room.  Probably won't fork out the dough for Ikea furniture but at least I can start visualizing what I'd like to have.

For a couch I would probably want something similar to this. The link for this couch is:  http://www.roomstogo.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=showItem&ipac_id=36886  One of the things I have come to discover I am a big fan of is a Chaise.  They work nicely when you can connect them onto a couch like the picture above.  Most versions of the chaise/couch combination at Ikea that I saw had the ability to switch sides or be free standing, and I really like that idea.

That couch also has a pull out sleeper inside the couch.  I'm think of getting just a small sleeper sofa for the second bedroom for guests to use when they come over.  Then I can still have the guest room to use as an 'office' but also a place to keep quests.  Plus if I had a big couch like the one above in the living room people could sleep on that too!

Who knew having a house could make one so excited about buying furniture!

June 25th, 2011

Good news!!! Excellent news! Probably the best darn news I can get...well me winning the lottery would be better, but this is pretty close.

Today was the day I found out my offer on the house was accepted!  Here I was thinking it was going to take until next week before we could even start to haggle with them, but they must be eager to sell because they got back to us over the weekend.

Now I have a place to rest my head after my lease is up.  There are plenty of things I will need to be figuring out now that I have a house!  Technically first I'll have an inspection done and then wait for all the paper work to do what it has to do.  Originally I was going to move end of August but the seller wants to move the closing date up to the end of July.  So, I will most likely have a whole month to move into my home.  That is crazy!

Still think I'm in a bit of a shock from having it go so well.  Please hope and pray that the inspection doesn't find something terribly wrong with the place.  Definitely don't want to look for houses yet again.  Plus I think I got the place for a pretty good price. : )

My house!  I'm so excited to be working towards owning a place instead of renting.  Lets just say the 'block' party our apartment place had while I was trying to sleep today was more than annoying and solidified my choice to get a house even more!

June 24th, 2011

Sometimes your body doesn't like to make plans.  Today was one of those days.  My morning plans went through without a hitch, it was what I had to do in the afternoon that got a wrench thrown in it.

My morning was filled with paperwork to make an offer on a house.  The papers probably won't be seen by the seller until monday.  Not really looking forward to waiting, but that is part of the game.  Despite the intial money I will have to spend on the house I can't help but look forward to the smaller monthly payments.  Need to be careful though...don't want to get my hopes up and have this get shatter.  Really, really, reaalllllly hoping that does not happen.  High hopes for all of this.

As for the rest of my day; did some picking up around the apartment because they apartment people wanted to show our place to a perspective renter.  Since the showing was at 5:30 I needed to get some sleep before hand because I had worked the night before.  Thinking I would get up an hour beforehand and scooch on out before they got there was my plan.  

Sadly that didn't happen.  My phone kept ringing while I was trying to sleep and kept me jerking in and out of sleep.  This ended up causing me to sleep through my alarm later and be woken up when I hear someone opening my room's door.  There was no panic or screaming "Omg who are you??!!?!"  Somehow I remembered they were showing it and laid still and the person mentioned something about someone sleeping and left me alone.  

Oops?  Guess I can't really feel too bad about it.  They got to see the rest of the apartment....just not my bedroom.  Not like they are judging my room, it's the place itself they want to judge.

Oh, one more thing about this viewing.  They told me that they would give us at least a day advance warning if they wanted to bring someone in and they had tried to schedule the viewing the same day they called.  Come on people, if you are going to say something please try to keep to your word.

P.s. Flower pots have their first bloom!  I can't remember what all is in there, but if you can tell me what it is you get a high five.

June 23rd, 2011

Today was a day for firsts.  Never have I ever cooked with eggplant before and for some reason this was the week to do so.  Admittedly, I should have read up more on the technique to get it to cook correctly before I jumped into the recipe but I was hungry!  Hind site; never cook when you are very hungry or you'll make too much or do something wrong.  It is kind of like how you should never shop while hungry, expect entirely different.

When I bought the eggplant I did at least look up how to find one that was ripe and I think I succeeded at least in that.  The recipe I found was eggplant parmigiana.  Basically it is just like chicken parmigiana except with eggplant in place of chicken (imagine that).

Some of the ingredients listed were not in my cupboards or I had forgotten to get them at the store, but I made due.  The only things I think I changed were crackers instead of bread crumbs.  After having made them I'm almost sure bread crumbs would have worked better.

The recipe in a nut shell: eggplant, crackers, egg whites, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, pasta sauce, and mozzarella cheese.  The eggplant is put in the egg whites and then dipped into the crackers, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder mix.  Then it is baked, flipping them once.

After they baked on the sheet you lay them in a pan and slather on the pasta sauce and cheese in layers, and then baked it again!  Some how with all this time in the oven I'm pretty sure I still managed to some how under cook them because they seemed far to crunchy and chewy.  Then again I haven't ever cooked them so I'm not really sure how they should taste.

All I can say about it is, I doubt I'll probably make it again.  Definitely not added to my favorites.

June 22nd, 2011

So I decided to finally risk the grey skies today and ride my bike.  It didn't look like it was going to pour rain or anything so I took it as a challenge.  Well, sort of... 

Having not had a bagel from Bruegger's Bagels in far too long I decided that should be my destination.  There was more uphill parts of the path than I expected.  Guess I never really noticed while driving.  About half way there I walked next to my bike; I'll admit partly because my legs were not used to hills and partly because I had to answer the phone and make some other phone calls as well.  

I made it to Bruegger's Bagels without any rain.  Did I really succeed so easily?! Nope.  While I enjoyed one of their new skinny bagel options (egg white patty, turkey sausage, and some tomato tasty spread on a sesame seed bagel) outside in the cool morning air I got a phone call and moved back into the building.  

Shortly after I was on the phone it started to mist rain outside.  Bah!  I ended up having to ride part way home in the misting rain.  Luckily it was only the annoying mist kind and not heavy drops or I would have probably had to stay at Bruegger's until it let up...which probably would have led to me eating more bagels which would be oh so bad for the diet.

My reaction to having to ride in the rain.  I had to carry my purse under my light jacket to keep it safe from rain and I decided that I kind of looked like a pregnant lady on a bicycle.  I wonder how many people passing on the road thought I was.

June 21st, 2011

This whole rain a lot thing is making me sad.  I want to be able to ride my bike more often!  It seems like the rain happens when I'm awake and want to ride my bike. : (  Then when I'm asleep it isn't raining.  Just mean!

Besides being sad about not getting to ride my bike I have had the chance to revisit a home that I visited last week.  I'm going to be making an offer on this home and I'm pretty excited about it.  I'm also extremely nervous that they won't accept my offer and I won't end up getting the house.

I'm way sick of apartment life.  The sound of children screaming in the courtyard or babies crying in the apartments near you, or neighbors making 'noises'.  I'm way over that.  I'm ready for my own place, and a yard. Maybe some day I can afford a puppy or a kitty.  I have been considering adopting a pet as well, but that won't be till much farther in the future...like next year. Haha.  Right now my gerbil is the only one for me!

Keeping my hopes up on the house and that everything will work out!

P.S. I need to trim my bangs, stat!

June 16th-20th, 2011

I seriously hate when I get behind on my blog like this and I'm not really sure why I didn't do it over the weekend.  I had one of those extremely lazy streaks come over me.  Now the challenge is trying to remember what I did during the days I missed.

I went to the movie Super 8 and that was pretty good.  I've heard it described as the modern day ET and I guess you could kind of say that.  I would have to agree with some that the mystery with seeing the alien for so long doesn't let you get time to truly connect and care about the alien.  I wish that there could have been a moment where we could become to understand what it wanted more.  Ah well.  Still good anyway.

On Friday, I believe, I went to some houses.  Well, I finally got to see the inside of a few houses.  This house search is kind of annoying but I have a feeling that apartment searching would be just as annoying.  I'm hoping to get the whole housing situation figured out soon.  There are a few hopefuls as far as a place to live, but we shall see how that goes.

Weekend was extremely boring.  I wanted to make something that needed some brown sugar...which brought to my attention that someone had thrown out my brown sugar..soooo I didn't make it. I made rice crispy treats instead!  Totally worth the 3 weight watcher points for each piece.

Speaking of weight watchers, lately I seem to be magically eating my exact amount of points without using my points calculator like a nazi.  I think I'm finally start to memorize what certain things count as and getting better at mentally figuring it out.  Which is helpful because my mobile app isn't working.  Apparently I don't have enough room on my phone...again...Bah.

Lastly, my garden is doing wonderfully!  Just check out my lettuce!

(Part of the reason I'm excited for a house is that I can finally have a real garden!)

Oh yeah and I forgot that sometime during this stretch of me being a lame face and not posting this happened. I opened an egg and it had two yolks...I'm not sure if that is supposed to happen...I think the second egg I cracked open did the same thing.  Is that what happens when eggs get old?  I was kind of concerned after that and threw them away a few days later just in case.  I mean I did eat the ones I cracked and I'm not dead now, but it just seems odd.

June 15th, 2011

Just another day for me...not! Went to Theatre in the Round to get a tour of the place and talk about volunteering there.  I'm not going to lie but I'm pretty excited to work in a new place.  Not only will I gain experience working in a place that performs in the round but I will be adding a new theatre to my resume.  They seem like a reputable place.  They have been around since 1952 according to the pamphlet they gave me.

I'm going to say it again, I'm excited.  The technical volunteer coordinator that I talked to seemed like they were really helpful getting people headed towards working professionally.  That is all I can hope for.  Getting closer to doing what I want to do on a professional level.

I just hope they think I meet their standards after the show I'm working on for them and bring me back for others.  I can't wait. : )

The show I'm working on for them is The Fantasticks.  It's going to be fantastic! :P

June 14th, 2011

Today was a sort of cooking adventure for me.  I have been trying to figure out what to do with the canned salmon I bought from Costco.  Haven't really made much with salmon before so I wasn't really sure where to start.  My grandma makes some delicious salmon patties but I can never remember the recipe for those.  In the end I decided on making what I believe would be called a Salmon salad?  It's similar to what you would make for a tuna fish sandwich, but with salmon and missing a few other ingredients.

The salmon I used was a wild Alaskan salmon.  Bear salmon (rawr).  It was boneless and skinless so I didn't have to check for bones, but I did anyway.  Never can be too careful.

I didn't have any mayo like I would normally use in a tuna salad or chicken salad.  I scowered my fridge for something that would work and came across something my parents had bought and left in my fridge when they visited me last.  It is ranch that is apparently calorie free, fat free and gluten free.  So in my world of weight watchers it was 0 points.  Woot woot.  I doesn't taste too bad either.  I would say it doesn't taste just like ranch but it's not a bad taste either.

I also added some celery to the salmon and ranch mixture to give it some crunch.

Finally I put the mixture in lettuce leaves instead of bread for less points.  I would have used bigger lettuce leaves but my romaine lettuce was getting into the smaller pieces.  Ah well.  The tomatoes are just because I like eating tomatoes. : )

Some of posts might be more about what I cook lately...mostly because I'm trying to figure out new ways to cook lighter and healthier.  Don't worry, all my posts are not going to be about food...I think. Haha.

June 13th, 2011

Time to get creative with my food.  Well, semi-creative.  I made pancakes today with strawberry chunks cut into the batter.  I think they turned out pretty well considering I haven't made pancakes with fruit in it.  The only thing I have added to my pancakes is chocolate chips and those are definitely not on my healthy eating radar.

Is it just me or does everyone else have issues turning over the first two pancakes?  The first two pancakes I make I usually end up screwing up because they don't flip over nicely.  One of them ended up in two halves and the other one kind of folded into itself, but then the  next two I made turned out perfectly.  Pancakes.  Funny things.

I also made some turkey bacon to go with my pancakes.  Someone please tell me if they think this is totally crazy but I was considering making pancakes with pieces of bacon in them.  Is that super strange? Ha ha.  I think it might be interesting.  I might try it some day.

June 10th, 2011

Sometimes trying new contraptions can lead to unusual occurrences.  I had bought a wine opener from a thrift store awhile back and finally decided to try it out.  

The Houdini wine bottle opener.  Quite the weird looking contraption.  It comes with a foil cutter that is used to obviously cut the foil on top of the wine bottle.  The directions to use the opener seemed easy enough but they were not!

We put the opener on top and did as the directions said....and next thing we know the cork went down instead of coming up.  Woops?  I've never seen a cork go down instead of upwards.  I have no idea what we did wrong but no way that was going to keep me from finally opening my bottle of Working Girl wine!  I just pushed it down into the bottle.  I think I'll have to keep the bottle with the cork inside as a reminder of what happened.

June 9th, 2011

Staying on my recent topic of websites I have found I'll let you know about www.skinnytaste.com.  She is actually a food blogger that includes the points for people who are part of weight watchers.  I'm looking forward to looking through her blog and figuring out some new recipes.  I like coming up with my own sometimes, but there are times when I don't know what would be  healthy to eat besides fruit and veggies.  Here are a couple recipes I want to try out from her page. The pictures included are her pictures, not mine.

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/04/chicken-rollatini-with-spinach-alla.html#more

This is a Chicken Rollatini with spinach alla parmigiana.  Too me it just looks delicious!

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/06/skinny-italian-spinach-meatballs.html

Meatballs with a secret... a tasty one! Spinach snuck there way into these meatballs.  I love meatballs and I like the idea of mixing my veggies into my meat because sometimes I don't feel like eating veggies and feel more like having some good ol' meat.

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/02/chocolate-pistachio-biscotti.html

Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti.  I don't know about you but these look too good to be true. I want to make them soooo bad but not at the same time because I'm afraid I would just keep eating them!  All I can say is thanks to this lady for making this blog so I can't find new food ideas.

I enjoy cooking for the most part. : )  Except when I get really lazy.

June 8th, 2011

Today I discovered the website www.omgpop.com. When I opened my google Chrome browser they had asked if I wanted to play angry birds on Chrome.  I thought, "sure" and clicked on it.  It took me to some sort of app store for Chrome and didn't actually find angry birds, but the game Balloono.  This game attracted me because is had a cute monkey. : )

Isn't he cute? I guess cute things just pull me in.  The game was just as cute as the picture.  You get balloons to pop boxes and power ups and what nots.  Pretty fun.  I suggest trying it.

Besides playing a cute monkey game I had a regular day.  Had some free nachos at work...which probably was not the best for me but it is oh so hard to say no to free food.

I'm going to try out some other games on that website.  They look fun as well.

June 5th, 2011

Just another lazy Sunday.  Laying around and looking at the internets.

I got so incredibly bored laying around that actually got up and went for a bike ride.  I ran into a dead end on the path I picked though.  I could have swore the path was supposed to go all the way around the lake, but I couldn't see where it went.  It came out to a street and I couldn't see it starting anywhere near by.  Maybe there was something I was missing.  I guess I'll try going the other direction next time.

After the bike ride I decided to work out a bit on the elliptical machine too.  I'm beginning to think the best way to lose weight is to work out every time you are bored.  I get bored pretty frequently when I don't have much planned so I'm pretty sure I'd be working out all the time. haha.  Something to try out at least.  It's a better choice than just napping when bored, or worse eating.

Maybe that would be the solution to obesity in america.  Work out when you are bored, or at least move around instead of vegetating.

June 4th, 2011

I wanted to fly my kite on Friday but another case of running out of time.  Soooo I fit it in on Saturday.  Sadly the wind did not cooperate with me.  I got it up for maybe a minute and then the wind just died down.  Meh.

I just kind of gave up on getting it to fly.  Kinda sad.  I was rather frustrated because I checked online and it said there was some wind blowing.  I will have a better kite flying day.  Or else! *Shakes fist in the air*

For dinner I decided to get creative and make some taco hot dish thing.  Basically I took my Jenni-o taco seasoned ground turkey and cooked it.  Then I added diced tomatoes, and celery.  Mixed it all together with some elbow maccaroni and threw some cheese on top and baked it for a few minutes to melt it.  It's pretty good.  I've got plenty though!  I know I'll be having some leftovers.

June 3rd, 2011

In the oh so 'wise' words of Rebecca Black.  "It's Friday, Friday, gonna have fun on Friday!"  I now apologize for anyone that got that song stuck in their head now.

I went to the movie X-Men: First Class.  It was pretty good.  I'm not a big comic book nerd so I didn't know how much of it was true to the comics.  I hope most of it was true so that what I know now about the characters isn't all lies.

After the movie I had some tasty lettuce roll ups.  Lettuce roll ups have become a staple in my diet because they are so easy to make and not bad for you either.  Just take a leaf of romaine lettuce, and your choice of deli meat and roll it up.  You can add cheese if you please.  I have been splitting my cheese slices in half for one roll up.  Pretty tasty.

Later in the day I went for a brief bike ride because we lated so late to go for the ride.  We started to run out of sunlight so had to turn back.  My butt isn't use to riding a bike.  I definitely had a pain in my butt afterwards and it wasn't even that long!  I might have to invest in a new seat if my bum doesn't get used to it.

I didn't actually use my new helmet when I rode my bike... I was riding near my place on a path so I didn't feel like I would need it, and I also forgot I had got it. Haha.