various ramblings

Yup, I did it. I chopped what I estimate as 2-4 inches off of my hair yesterday. It used to hang below my shoulders in waves, and now it is kind of like a long bob that barely touches my shoulders. It is long enough to put back into a ponytail though. Currently it is mostly straight, with a curl at the bottom, but I might wear it wavy. I dunno...I haven't figured out the styling just yet, but I have figured that it is much lighter and cooler...and that, my friends, is Florida summer friendly. :)

I also had a LOVELY chat today on my lunch break with mamarose...it was great! A little awkward at first I admit, being that I was calling someone with whom I only know through livejounal (and subsequently a very long yahoo chat), but who opened up to me so warmly that I immediately felt welcome. That is a wonderful feeling, so thanks for brightening my day...I really enjoyed speaking to you! :)

Sorry, got to mention food again. I roasted my own bell pepper for the first time today. Hooray for me!!! I usually just buy them in a jar, but I was in a hurry and decided to grab a single pepper and do it on my own instead of searching the aisles of a grocery store mostly foreign to me. I've seen it done on tv a million times, but they always focused on roasting over a burner of their gas stove. Well we don't have a gas stove so I broiled it, kept a very keen eye on it until it was sufficiently charred, put it in a ziploc type bag, and let it steam for a while. Once it has steamed a while and cooled off, I dunked it into some ice water, peeled the charred skin off, cleaned it up by removing the seeds and such, and sliced. I added it to some Uncle Bens Spanish rice, along with some sundried tomatoes and some sliced artichoke hearts. Served the whole thing with baked grouper which was seasoned with a mix of Adobo (a commonly used seasoning in Spanish/Latin dishes), Old Bay, and Colombia Restaurant seasoning. It was a tad spicy, but oh so yummy! I ended up cutting the fish in small chunks and mixing it with the rice. Maybe next time I will cut it up first and cook it with the rice??

Oh, and I got my raise for the first half of the year. I am a quality plus contributor (that is better than quality contributor) and I made a whole whooping $0.21 cent per hour raise, though I hear some people got half that, so I guess I should be thankful, right?

One last thing, for that special person out there, just to set the record straight, it is "huggy bear" and not "big huggy bear". Got that straight? Good. ;p