Mmmm who doesn’t love chocolate? Not me, that’s for damn sure.

Chocablog is a blog about … chocolate! YUM!

The only downside is that it’s a UK-based blog so some of the yummy treats are unfamiliar and, thus, more appealing than plain ol’ American chocolate. Sigh. At least there are lots of photos.
Pay Dom, the Choctress, Pewari and Sylvia a visit today!

∗ Posted by Monique on 07.31.2006
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∗ Posted by Monique on 07.30.2006
∗ No peeking
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After a week’s vacation, I have to go to work tomorrow.

Ugh.

It pained me to set my alarm tonight.

But, I can’t complain too much, as I have a ton of editing to do tomorrow so I’ll be coming back home at lunchtime and just reading from here. Lest you think I have it easy, I’ll have somewhere around 50 pages of booooring material to read, edit, reread and mark up again … then transfer the edits to MS Word. Yay.

∗ Posted by Monique on 07.30.2006
∗ Work
∗ Comments (1)

So Kid Rock and Pam Anderson tied the knot — for the first of many times. Actually, they’re one of my favorite celeb couples because, despite the outer trappings of trash, they seem like genuine people (except for the PETA weirdness). Pam writes a column in Jane magazine, to which I subscribe ’cause it was like $8/year, and the writing is surprisingly intelligent and good. I don’t think it’s that heavily edited, because why would they hire her if she was a bad writer? I mean, she’s not writing for Playboy.

Anyway, in honor of their special day, I give to you the lyrics to the great, the soulful, the Lonely Road of Faith, as sung by the bridegroom. You know you like it, ’cause God is great indeed if you believe. What hymn could say it any better?

Lonely Road of Faith

I have been there
Unprepared for the storms and the tides that rise
I've realized one thing, how much I love you
And it hurts to see, see you cryin'
I believe we can make it through the winds of change

God is great indeed
If you believe, in the everlife
Yeah we gotta
Make some sense of the piece that's not defined
And if you just hold on, I wont let ya fall
We can make it through the storms and the winds of change

Though I walk through the valley of darkness
I am not afraid
Cause I know I'm not alone

And if the wind blows east, would you follow me
And if the wind blows north, would ya stay your course
And if the wind blows west, would ya second guess
And if it blows to the south, would you count me out
And if the sun don't shine, would you still be mine
And if the sky turns grey, would you walk away
Would you say I do, if I say I'll be
And walk this road through life with me
You know I love youuuuuu

On this lonely road of faith
On this lonely road of faith

∗ Posted by Monique on 07.29.2006
∗ Celebrities
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I did my 5-mile walk this morning and actually decreased my per-minute time. Hallelujah. My 4-mile walk last week was a bit of a train wreck as (a) I forgot my exercise pants and (b) I didn’t bring my dorky-ass water belt (I was at my parents’). My mother insisted I take my phone and the house key, so on top of my iPod and water, I had a lot to carry. I wore my capri jeans, because they have enough pocket space. Well, the jeans are a bit loose in the waist to begin with and they got to be quite heavy. I was disappointed with my time on that walk. Today, I walked 5 miles in about the same amount of time it took me to walk 4 last week. Yay for me! My pace worked out to be about 16 1/2 minutes/mile, still shy of the 16-minute mile I need to keep for this race in October. But still far better than my starting outdoor pace of 18 or 19 minutes a mile.

I went to a local park, as the sidewalk ringing the park is 1 mile all the way around. It was a bit dull, but I managed. I really really really wanted to stop after 3 miles, not because I couldn’t go on but because it was unpleasant. How can it be 72 and 75% humidity at 7 a.m.? Ugh. I was so sweaty, I couldn’t believe it. As a nonathletically inclined person, I am far more comfortable inside with A/C and a book.

But during my internal hissy fit, activities in the park started to pick up and there was quite a bit of eye candy to be seen — basketball, soccer and volleyball games all were going on, with men in their late teens/early 20s. Nice. Especially nice considering my eye candy is laid up at home with a tear in one of the ligaments of his knee. Sigh. I’ve been trying to talk him into letting me bring over one of the greatest movies ever, Honky Tonk Freeway, for us to watch, but so far, no dice. He’s probably just scared of my newfound athletic prowess. ; )

∗ Posted by Monique on 07.29.2006
∗ Walking
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I am a huge fan of I’m Not Obsessed — I read the site daily, sometimes more than daily. (It’s cheaper and better than subscribing to a tabloid!)

I am the fabulous winner of the contest — I  won 50 notecards from Lauren Goessling Designs (I love notecards too, I’m a total dork when it comes to paper) plus shirts from Whiteboy. (Um, happy birthday to my brother? LOL).

Sweeeet!

∗ Posted by Monique on 07.28.2006
∗ Accomplishments
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I have lived in my apartment for over 18 months. Hanging curtains in my bedroom has been my nemesis. Apparently, although the walls between apartments are made of paper, the exterior walls seem to be made of approximately 5′ of steel. My previous attempts at drilling the necessary holes for the curtain-rod brackets have met with limited success. I have blinds, ugly ugly blinds, but they only filter out, oh, 2% of the outdoor light. And there’s a lamppost right outside my window.

Finally, after the gift from my dad of a new cordless drill plus his previous gift of new drill bits, I set to work today. This is what the window looked like before. It’s a large window, about 54″ across, which is especially large considering my bedroom isn’t all that big.

Then, after some elbow grease, a little luck and a whole lot of screwing (wink, wink — well, drilling, but screwing sounds cuter), behold!

I think I like the curtains better down, but I’ll leave them tied back for now. Hopefully it will all hold together LOL.

The curtains are from Tar-jay, can you believe it? I have two more panels, too, leftover from my last house — the master bedroom had three windows in a row. That was a biatch to deal with, but shocker, did that by myself too! ; )

Ah, here are my lovely drill bits. For such a girly-girl, I can be such a guy sometimes too!

∗ Posted by Monique on 07.28.2006
∗ Accomplishments, Family
∗ Comments (3)

Ever have one of those moods, for no reason?

I’m eating a pecan mudslide from Dairy Queen and watching a quirky yet maudlin movie, My Life Without Me, about a dying young woman.

Sigh.

Thank God “So You Think You Can Dance” is on in 10 minutes.

I need more exciting company than myself tonight.

∗ Posted by Monique on 07.27.2006
∗ Movies, My life
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Sometimes my page is purple, sometimes it’s white. Wheeeee!

It’s magic.

Or not.

Melanie from Weblog Design Studios is working out a few kinks in the template. She created the template back in my Blogger days — bah! Blogger bad! — and then converted the code to WordPress for me. Silly IE is causing issues. It looked fabulous in my Firefox browser! But until everything is worked out, the white template is back. I think I know how to fix it — just switch to Firefox — it’s way cooler. Maybe not, I just like it.

Soon the purple girl will be back and I will be unstoppable! Bwahahahahah!

Or not. Maybe I’ll just be pleased because my page will be prettier. ; )

∗ Posted by Monique on 07.27.2006
∗ Blogging
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The aptly named Mr. Fabulous posted on his site yesterday that he was fired from his job — because of his blog.

Someone complained that the blog created a hostile work environment.

As a woman, a feminist and a Democrat, I am pretty sensitive to harassment issues. At my first “real” job, at a factory, a man was fired because he kept asking me out after I turned him down. I was 17 and naively surprised that such a thing could happen.

I have been reading Mr. Fab’s blog forever, and I have nevah nevah nevah read anything that I thought was offensive. Tasteless? Yes. A bit surprising? Yes. Demeaning? No.

I am very careful to not reveal where I work. It’s a large company. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve even told the people I know “virtually,” that I connect with through e-mail, the name of the company. Monique isn’t my real name, although the photos I do post are real (sadly lol). Basically, if someone knew me and stumbled across this site, they would know it was me. Could some freak-ass in Wisconsin track me down to my front door because of this site? God, I hope not.

At any rate, with all of the issues that a company has to face, is one guy’s blog the largest problem? Doubtful.

Hang in there, Mr. Fab. We’re rooting for you.

∗ Posted by Monique on 07.27.2006
∗ Annoyances, Blogging
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