recap! or what i did on my lack of summer vacation

Oh wow, it’s been almost a month since I last wrote. Sorry about that. It has been pretty busy around here since then. To catch you up, here is some of the stuff I have been up to:

Softball!
I am on the softball team at my work and it has been in full swing since I last wrote. The program works so that each department can have a team and they compete against all the other teams in two leagues. The American League plays on one set of days where the National League plays a different set. My team has its ups and downs, but we’re not too bad. Our record is 5 and 5, but when we win we really win and we have some really great players, sadly myself not included. I have never ever played software before, and I thought it would be a good way to meet people I work with since I am so new to the place. I play catcher, defensive pitcher, and occasionally second base, which I enjoy the most think I am best at. There are some really weird rules to the league to make it more fun and fair than competitive. Like, each team pitches to themselves so there is a higher chance of hitting and it’s hard to strike out. But, to compensate, there are only 2 pitches and you can get out on a foul and there is a member of the fielding team who plays “defensive catcher” so that the team does not lose the position. Also, since it is a coed league there has to be 3 women playing at all times. I think this makes it kind of chauvinistic and sets up the game to be in the guys favor. Plus, my team puts the girls at the lame positions like catcher, defensive pitcher and middle left/right outfield (another extra position I think which is in between center and left or right field). Plus, the first basemen will come in and play home plate because they don’t trust the girl playing catcher. Not fair, but usually it’s still fun besides. And sometimes I surprise them because I have my moments where I play rather well. I was even elected by my team to play in the  all-star game where the two leagues played each other. We crushed the other league 17-4. Yay team! Play-offs start tomorrow and I will let you know how we do! PS I have a pink glove. It’s super cute!

Traveling to New Jersey
I have traveled to New Jersey twice in the last month and it has been quite an experience, not really a great one either time. I went to visit one of T’s friends in South Jersey via over an hour-long bus ride. Through Camden. On NJT (New Jersey Transit). Yeah, as you can imagine it sucked and was scary/interesting. We left at around 2:00 and the buss was like 15-20 minutes late. Then our stop was at a closed gas station parking lot that had the sad, abandoned look of Pripyat. Not a good start. Then we had to drive from there to THE SUBURBS. I live in the city and both me and T avoid all things suburban. We both strongly believe that life in the ‘burbs is worse than death and we very much like the city life. We are DINKS and the city life suits us just fine. The only time we need a car is when we have to get together with our friends in the ‘burbs. Imagine that? A lot of people find it hard to believe that we don’t have a car and get a long just fine without one, but I like it a lot, at least for now. We had a nice time with our friends, but then we had to go back to the city a like 9:45 on the bus again, which was over 30 minutes late this time. NJT passengers at night are…interesting to say the least. We did eventually make it home, but we will not be doing that again anytime soon. For the second trip to the dirty Jerz I went by myself for a July 4th/ my grandmother’s b-day party in North Jersey. I took PhillyCarShare that time and it was a little better but the 1.5 hour trip turned into a 2.5 hour trip because I got super lost. Damn you Garden State Parkway! Google Maps on my iPhone saved my life though and I made it successfully, eventually. It was a good time, but I was pissed because my fam made a big damn deal about me going but all but one of my cousins skipped and so did one of my aunts. So not fair, but that’s family for you. Well, at least mine anyway. I made it hope safe and sang to Glee Volumes 1-3 all the way home. That was the best part IMO.

Cooking and Baking!
Since making the decision to not go out to eat at all during the week I have been cooking way more. I have also taken the opportunity to try out some new menus and experiment with more healthy recipes. Or instance, I switched out pork for chicken sausage in my meat sauce and it worked pretty well. WholeFoods makes some rocking sausage that I will be trying more of in the coming weeks. Maybe I will do a sausage review or something. Who knows! I have also worked hard to remove almost all high fructose corn syrup from my diet. It’s tough, but I’m trying. More on that later as well. I also made 3 pies over the last month, one strawberry rhubarb and two cherry, all from scratch with fresh fruit and my own pie crust. I hope to share the method and recipe with you all as well.

There was a ton more stuff as well, but I am tired and my allergies are driving me nuts. So, I must be going. I promise it won’t be a month until I write again. Pinky swear.