I know I suck at blogging.

I realize it’s been almost a month now since my last blog about my sister’s bridal shower… Plus I never wrote about the games and stuff we played and all the other details I wanted to talk about to potentially help other girl’s plan showers…  But alas, I still don’t feel like going onto my mom’s computer to pull off all the pictures so I can write a lovely blog about the games.  Maybe later on today but for now I want to talk about the topic that is currently the biggest part of my life: LOSING WEIGHT.

As of yesterday we have approximately five weeks until my sister and future brother in law walk down the aisle.  That’s 5 weeks I have to squeeze myself into my bridesmaid dress that seems to small by an inch or two.  I’ve been spending the past month dieting and working out… Resulting in my weight going from as high as 233 to as low as 220.  But according to GNC’s “Bio Measure Health Measuring System” I weigh 226.1. So I’m going to go off that scale and go back in a month to see my progress. The system was actually pretty cool. My brother did it while I was buying magical products to help aide my weight loss such as the
Quick Trim Shake and Acai Berry diet pills. After I saw his results of how it measured your body fat percentage and did a BMI… Plus how tall you really are and your weight… I decided it was definitely worth the $1 to get the test done.

So here are my results as of June 26th in the mid-afternoon:

Height: 5’10.4″
Weight: 226.1
Age: 27
BMI : 32
Body Fat – 35% or 80 pounds of my total weight… SO LAME

Actually my results weren’t TOO discouraging because when I initially lost 40 pounds four years ago my body fat was at 44% so I’m happy to know that even though I’ve gained back 15 pounds, I still kept off a good chunk of body fat.

The past week I’ve been awesome at working out, doing lots of walks and hikes and mini-jogs… Plus my 5 pound acu-hoop (hula hoop) and lots of work with my resistance band. Last night while babysitting I took advantage of being paid to exercise so I did a bunch of random floor exercises. Needless to say, I’m ultra determined to fit into that damn dress and at the rate I’m going, it shouldn’t be too hard.

So basically here is what I’m doing:

Eating a balanced but low-cal breakfast

Snacking on veggies and fruits

Drinking my shake once a day, preferably for the bigger meals like dinner or lunch instead of eating all those extra calories so late in the day

No more soda

No more candy bars

No processed foods and DEFINITELY no fast food

Sticking to around 1200-1500 calories a day

And I’m working out for at least 40 minutes to an hour nearly every day.

So with all this effort, my weight has only one way to go = DOWN!!!

I’ll try to write soon with more updates!

Food is one of the best part about Bridal Showers.

You know, one of my favorite things about parties is the leftovers.  Not to take any attention away from the party that I’m about to describe.. But YUM.  I FUCKING LOVE LEFTOVERS.  It’s now nearly 1am the night of my sister’s bridal shower…  The first bridal shower I’ve ever *thrown* and pretty much the first bridal shower I’ve ever *been to*.  It was super cool for my sister because her own shower was the first she had ever been to as well!

Anyway, so I’ve mentioned a few times that my dear little sister Alyssa is getting married in a few months, August 7th to be exact.  Living up in Oregon I managed to somewhat escape all the wedding chaos that flutters around this house but now that I’m back – THE WEDDING PROJECT IS IN FULL FORCE.

My sister Alyssa at her shower!!!

I’ve been spending my months contemplating the perfect Bachelorette Party and how I’m going to fit into my Bridesmaid dress… Not giving much thought to the Bridal Shower itself.   I guess I thought it would be easy to plan and everything would just some how come together.  For the most part, I was right and it did totally just somehow come together.  But in the past week I was convinced that if I didn’t have heart-shaped quesadillas, the perfect decorative party plates,  and an astonishing balloon bouquet that there is no way the shower would go off as a big hit.

Talk of the shower started about a month ago when we (My mom, sister, sister’s best friend Katelyn, and I) decided that the shower should be on the 4th of July weekend, a month before the wedding and over a timespan when my sister would have the time off.  About three weeks ago it was decided by my mother that the shower would have to be over Memorial Day weekend (another day-off holiday weekend) instead because she had to photograph a wedding (she’s a photographer).  So… knowing that we had a mere three weeks to somehow arrange this elegant and important event, we set forth on our Bridal Shower planning.  My Mom was taking off for Mexico a week before the event so I knew that I would probably have to be the one doing the research of decorations, games, food, and keeping track of the guests.  Plus, according to an assortment on Online sources, as the Maid-of-Honor I was the one who technically was supposed to be hosting this event.

So thanks to great blogs like this one, I found some great ideas of what I could do. I originally had so many great ideas. I really wanted to make these gloves, as I found on the above listed blog…

But I had to abandon the idea once my focus turned to food rather than party favors. Plus, my mom had her heart set on making “floral appliqued” mint holders and as all my ladies know, there is only room for *one* great idea when it comes to a specific part of a party. Although funny enough we ended up with just plain glass mint holders once her reality set in that we just had way too much to do!!!

The shower favors!!

So after I got over what to do about the favors, I began planning a menu.  My original menu included the following:  potato salad, artichoke dip, bruschetta, baked brie/caramelized onions in puff pastry, fruit salad, cake, heart-shaped quesadillas, brownie bites, chocolate dipped strawberries, homemade lavender infused lemonade, sangria, tea sandwiches, and a spinach salad.

And as of this morning after about ten hours of cooking/baking… The final menu was:

• potato salad (made by my Mom)
• pasta salad (made by my Mom)
• veggie tray (made by my Mom)
• fancy strawberry spinach with avocado salad (made by Katelyn)
• fruit salad (made by Katelyn)
• sandwich tray (made by Costco)
• amazing tiered cake (made by Allison, my brother’s wonderful girlfriend)
• artichoke dip (made by our friend Monique)
• baked brie with caramelized onion (no puff pastry – made by me!)
• chocolate dipped pretzel rods (me)
• chocolate dipped strawberries (me)
• chocolate covered peanut butter hearts (me)
• sangria (me)
• lavender lemonade (me)
• cocoa popcorn and kettle popcorn (me)

I was going to do the heart quesadillas and brushchetta but after suffering HORRIBLE ALLERGIES this morning during the preperation, there was no way I was going to be able to get all that done too.  But here, check out some photos!!

Alison's beautiful cake!

My completely homemade, hand squeezed, and handpicked lavender infused lemonade!!!!

My chocolate covered goodies and the drinks!

I have so much more to write about this shower like the games we played and just general advice for the ladies in the future planning bridal showers… I definitely got A LOT of help from reading websites and blogs so I hope that this someday may find someone needing a little guidance as well!!

But for now I must sleep for it has been a LONG DAY.

Good night all and check back soon for the rest of the bridal shower coverage and more pictures!!

Weight Loss and Business Plans

Ugh.  So I just got done doing my ten minute hula hooping exercise and decided to measure myself.  I’m still the exact same measurements I was before (4 weeks ago) which means that my constant thoughts of losing weight have not successfully caused me to lose weight.  I then tried on my bridesmaid dress for my sister’s wedding in 2 1/2 months and definitely could not clasp shut the damn zipper at the top of the dress.  That basically means that I NOW MUST ACTUALLY TRY TO LOSE WEIGHT.  The fat isn’t just going to fall off of me, especially when I have new found habits of baking and sitting around doing nothing.  After tonight, I’m totally motivated that I’ve gotta get at least 15 pounds off of me before I walk down that aisle in front of 150 people.  I’VE GOTTA!!!

When I lost the initial 50 pounds before (which I’ve gained back 20 lbs. of) it only took me about 4 months of solid and dedicated effort.  Although once I got in the routine of exercising and eating small, healthy portions it totally wasn’t hard at all.  I know what my problems are, I just gotta get over them.

The problems I must rid myself of are:

- My need for soda all day long… I probably consume 300-1000 calories a day just on that awesome sugary drink alone.

- Not doing any more exercise than my 5 pound hula hoop… I gotta start speed walking or some shit.  Maybe I can get Anya to do some Comcast On Demand exercise videos with me again.

- Eating when I’m bored (Which I’m totally battling right now… I WANT FOOD ARRRGHHHH!!!)

- Not eating balanced meals and more whole foods rather than macaroni and cheese or frozen pizza

So…. For the next couple of months I’m going to do again what I did in the summer of 2005.  I’m going to start my days with a slice of whole wheat bread, peanut butter and raisens… Have a snack mid morning of some carrot sticks… Have a lunch of a delicious veggie filled sandwhich and a salad… Have another snack of a fruit or something… Have a balanced dinner with CORRECT portions… And finish off my night with some sort of low fat/low carb/low sugar snacky cake.. Probably popcorn or maybe some frozen yogurt would be good.  Agh… And I gotta stop with the soda bullshit.  I just bought some Hansen’s soda which doesn’t have any high fructose corn syrup so those can be my treats if I can manage to go every few days without fucking up.  I had tea earlier today and it reminded me of how it actually can satisfy my needs for caffeine.. I was just as awake with the power of Earl Gray than I am with the power of my past love, Rockstar.  It would help if there was a damn scale in this house but I’m just going to go by measurements until I get the ability to weight myself again.  We have an old one and it may just perhaps need batteries… I should probably check that out

Anyway, besides my new BIG NEED to drop some weight… My life has been busy doing what I do best: plan.  I’m planning Alyssa’s bridal shower, her bachelorette party, summer camping, and a new business plan for my children’s center.  I’m hoping to finish my business plan by the end of this month so I can apply before all the new students of my business school graduate and are applying for their loans.  I applied in October of 2008, three months after graduation, and by that time everything was already drained… So I really hope this time around I can actually get the loan.  I’m going to be asking for about $8,000 which isn’t THAT hefty, but still.  Women’s Initiative also offers and I.D.A account where they’ll match whatever I put in… So if I can save even a grand, that’s $2,000 I have towards my business.  I did a start-up cost list today and I’m estimating I can get the company going for about $8,000, giving me extra money for 3 months of rent and a three month set of supplies.

In case you’re wondering what business it is that I’m talking about..  Two years ago I had this wonderful plan of starting a children’s play center where kids can come play and do creative types of activities like music and art.  I also wanted to teach parent-participation classes where the caregiver and child could come and sing some songs, read some books, do some art, play with friends, and get a social feel to prepare them for preschool.  Along with those two aspects of the business, I wanted to host birthday parties on the weekends.

Two years later after the American economy has crashed hard, I’m back at planning again but this time I’m making it much cheaper to actually get going.  My new business plan is for all that you see above except I won’t offer drop-in free play at the center.  I want to teach classes three days a week and have the parties on weekends enabling me to have time to still do my freelance childcare work and hopefully be able to attend some junior college classes.

I’ve got a lot of work to do until then but if I can make life sway my way… I’d be opening the center as soon as September.

I’ll save more details of all that for another blog though.

On a train with no idea where it’s headed

I’ve got so much crap going through my head right now that I can’t even think of how to start.  Not everything is my usual depressive chat, but a big chunk of it is.  It’ll be three weeks tomorrow that we’ve been back in the Bay and things are still running along… Though Callan and I still have no idea what we’re doing.  My babysitting is back in full swing and amazingly enough, I seem to have gotten back all of my old clients… I’m already booked up for the month of May and June is going quickly.  So… in the work sense, I’m lucky I could hop back into that so quick.  Plus, it feels really good enjoying what I’m doing and getting paid twice as much for a job that’s not a tenth as difficult as doing the daycare work in Salem.  I’m torn though because when it comes time to get an apartment, are the future renters going to be ok with the fact that I’m self-employed?  I hope that they will be because after all, how secure is anyone’s job these days?  I make my own work and I hope I can show them my calendar or something to prove to them that I’ve got 15+ families to work for.  This week will be my first full week back to the childcare juggling, I’ve got a different family every day and I’m actually looking forward to the work, isn’t that nice?

Besides that, Callan and I gotta get a place to live SOON.  Our relationship is suffering because of all the back and forth bullshit of him staying at his friends and then coming here and then not feeling comfortable because of all the negative tension there is at this house.  It just sucks. For everyone.  Right, Dad?  I’ve been reminded a lot these past weeks of how shitty a lot of people’s lives are lately… So many people are unhappy and it’s just so sad.  How the hell are we supposed to get better when there is so few reasons to help us out of our ruts?  We thought that moving to Oregon and abandoning all our problems in California would make us happy.  Then we thought moving back to the Bay to be with all our friends and family would make us happy.  Now we gotta find a place so we can actually BE happy rather than floating around in the breeze waiting for the right place to land.

I hope that time continues to go on quickly and before we know it, I will be able to write in here about our super cute little cottage in some field somewhere that we’re moving into… Realistically it probably won’t happen until July 1st which I guess isn’t THAT far away, it just feels like it is.  Maybe it could be sooner though, we’ll see. ::fingers crossed::

Life back in California

It’s been a little over a week now since Callan and I made the move back to the Bay Area.  Our departure in Oregon came quick and ended nicely.  We went out to breakfast bright and early at a GREAT little joint called The Sassy Onion in Salem. I had fabulous sausage from my homeland of Chicago, hash browns, sunny-side up eggs, and shared a piece of their AMAZING COMPLETELY HOME MADE FRENCH TOAST. It most definitely was the best french toast of my life. They made their own bread using a recycled(!) coffee can. So having a last breakfast with Danny and Marilyn was very nice. I’m so grateful for them and how much they made Oregon a home for us.

The drive home went by somewhat quickly. I was nervous because I’ve had expired tags for the past 4 months and I just paid off the previous ticket I got from Silverton’s police. Unfortunate but expected, I got pulled over outside of Weed, California… About 60 miles into the California border. The cop was nice but I know the ticket is probably going to be another $150, unless I can get them to drop it once I get my tags renewed. Driving around here is quite scary but luckily I know all the back roads pretty well so I can go the less cop-populated ways. Hopefully within the next two weeks I’ll be able to get my tags taken care of!

Luckily I’ve already been back in the swing of things with my babysitting clients. I’ve already booked myself a bunch for the month of May and am working on filling up the rest of my summer. Now that we’re back we have a lot of decisions we need to make, as do I with figuring out what kind of job I’m going to be wanting to stick with. I would really like to get a business up and going this winter so I can finally get to do one of my many “life’s purposes”. For those of you who don’t know, I had this awesome business plan for a children’s play center complete with enrichment classes and birthday parties. In 2008 I went to a school called “Women’s Initiative” that helped me write a complete business plan and taught me many aspects of starting a business. It was a completely amazing class and I’m so happy I did it because I feel much more ready to venture out on my own. I know I can do it, I just need to actually DO IT. Ideally if I could do it by the end of this year would be great… Callan and I could have our place, our incomes, and our futures a little bit more stable for whatever is next to come!

So anyway, the past week back in California has been very surreal. It’s as if part of me quite hasn’t realized that I’m back yet. I feel at home here for the most part and while most things haven’t changed, some things have. My parent’s home is now a bustling place tof life. My parents started renting out a spare bedroom about a year and a half ago so they basically inherited new children and with me back, they’ve got two more (with Callan) running around the house. So, with Callan (a few times a week), room mate Katie and her boyfriend (stays most nights), my brother and his girlfriend (on weekends), my parents, myself, one dog, one bunny, and one fish.. The house can get super full. Although during the days it’s empty and peaceful. Being back in the situation of having to mooch off of parents again is very motivating for me to get out of their hair though. It’s not fair to them to have to deal with all these kids after they dedicated 27 years of their lives to raising their kids now! So, hopefully with however our job situations end up, we’ll be out soon enough.

Plus, it totally sucks not being able to have a personal space with Callan. He’s only been away from me for three nights now but I HELLA MISS HIM. I became accustomed to having him around all the time and now that he’s gone I just feel bored and alone. I gotta start hanging out with my friends more but with my expired tags, it’s so lame! He’s off having fun though with his best friend which I’m happy for. I know he needed it after our time in Oregon. And I’m a pretty weak person to drink with and Callan being the lush that he is, he needs someone around who can hang.

So there’s not too much besides that. I’ve been dreaming about my sister’s upcoming wedding. Probably because it’s been on my mind a lot, considering it’s only 4 months away. More like 3.3 months away. I tried on my bridesmaid dress that doesn’t fit so that’s motivation to drop hopefully 15 pounds beforehand. I’ve been working on her bachelorette party and we’ve been trying to figure out a date for her bridal shower. There’s definitely lots of things to think about! I’m excited for when the big day finally gets here, now that experience is going to surreal! I think when Alyssa get’s married, that’s when I’m going to really feel like we’ve “grown up”. Crazyness! It’ll be fun though. I’m totally hoping I can plan an exciting choreographed dance for the reception though!! After looking up some “Thriller” dances, I found a whole bunch which makes me want to do a different dance. So we’ll see. But in the meantime, check out the best one that I found! I liked it because it totally seemed like a giant surprise the way everyone was laughing about it. Also check out a hilarious video below where the bridal party danced down the aisle to the alter. Both totally made me in tears over laughter. This is exactly what I want to capture at my sister’s wedding!!

From rain back to fog…

Well, we made it almost four months of being here in Oregon.  Callan and I had originally agreed that we would at least give it til New Years 2011 but after the way we were up here; we knew we were gonna have to get back to the Bay Area much sooner.  I had turned into a horrible depressive Eeyore and Callan just seemed to have a tough time adapting to my new personality.  Both of us had a hard time just adapting to Oregon life.  We went through these past few months with a little bit of money but not much. Every time we got a few hundred it was quickly spent on minuscule things like gas, eating out, bills and a random treat every once in a while.

Once I finally got working it was nice to know that we had a paycheck coming but making $8.40 an hour just wasn’t going to support the two of us when I had so many bills to be paying.  Minimum wage only seems to work for people without car payments, rent, and insurance.

I know that if we had taken a few different routes we probably would’ve never ended up going back like we are.  I know that we hadn’t of been so impatient about coming up here in the first place we would’ve been smart and 1) had the money to move and 2) secured jobs.  I guess we just hoped that everything would magically fall into place once we got here.

Our living situation did, luckily.  I’d say the best part of being up here easily was getting to live with Callan’s  Dad, Danny and Step-Mom, Marilyn.  They treated us SO WELL.  We were fed delicious meals nearly every night, full of meat and other great things like cheese.  Callan always had beer he could sip on and I always had bags of popcorn ready to be popped.  They had stockpiles of toilet paper and laundry detergent always available to our needs and never once asked us to pitch in for the costs (which I could only imagine how expensive that all got).  To have two kids both in their mid-twenties under their roof not being able to help out more than dishes and vacuuming and to be so generous about it… They deserve more than just a thank you card.  I really hope that I’m able to repay them in some way for all the help they’ve gave us.  Yesterday I made them my family’s “Italian Beef” which they totally loved.  Just seeing how much money I spent on just one meal though… They must’ve been spending hundreds on groceries because of us.  I wanted to be able to give them some cash before we left but unfortunately it’s not going to be possible.  Hopefully when I get back to California I’ll be able to send them some cash and when we come back in June we can shower them with gifts.

So besides Danny and Marilyn, Oregon did have many other great things that may have been hard for me to appreciate while I was being depressed.

Here’s a list of some of the things that I’ll miss:

- The green grass all over.  California lacks the rainfall so we always had yucky brown scratchy grass.  Here it’s green and fresh all the time.

- No sales tax.  It helps so much when you go and spend $30 and then you don’t have to worry about another $3 in taxes.  Buying fast food is always a nice easy transaction to estimate because you’re only being charged for exactly the price you see. So cool!

- Not pumping your own gas.  No longer did I have to stand out in the cold pumping my own gas because here if I tried, they’d yell at you!!

- Cheap, old movie theaters.  Here in Silverton the movies are only $4 matinee and $6.75 at night.  Sure it’s only one screen without surround sound but to pay just $4 is worth it.  Plus the popcorn was only $5 for a huge tub with REAL melted butter.  This is not to be confused though with the bigger cinemas which as just as expensive as California’s.

- Drive through banking.  I know there’s a few in California but every bank here has it so people don’t have to get out of their cars in the rain.  It’s great for lazy people like me.

- Seeing the snowy mountains in the distance.

- Oregon back roads

- People’s general friendliness to their community (which I think could be just here in Silverton, everyone was so nice!!)

- Fresh, clean tap water.

- The waterfalls, rivers, lakes, and beautiful creeks to be found everywhere

So there’s a few things I quickly loved about this state.  I don’t know if we’ll ever end up living here again and if we do, it’ll surely be on the coast because being 2 hours away just doesn’t cut it.  I’m happy that we made the move because it was what we wanted at the time.  I don’t regret anything because this whole experience has made both Callan and I grow a whole bunch not just for ourselves, but together.  If we can get through all this, it should make our future endeavors of living together easier.

Now that we’re going back to California, our lives will be a bit jumbled.  I’ll be living at my parent’s house sharing my mom’s office with my bed.  Callan will be couch surfing with his friends.  I’m hoping I can get right back into babysitting sooner than later and hopefully Callan will be able to find something so we can get a place soon.  We’ve been looking at Sebastopol/Forestville for living since we know our most important aspect of a spot is being around the trees and having a lower rent.  It’ll be a bit of a trek to Novato but I’m hoping this winter I’ll be able to get my children’s play center up and going, maybe in Santa Rosa since they’re in need of a spot like that and it’ll be cheaper rent.  We have the rest of our lives for everything to fall in place but I know first hand that it will take work to get there.  Life is all about lessons and making sure you remember the important ones without making the same mistake again.  The day we left for Oregon I wrote in a notebook, “I hope this was the right decision”.  It may not have been the right decision to us now but then, it was and I’m happy that we gave it that chance. 

See you all quite soon!

My 26th Year – Growing and rocking out!

Sometime early last Spring I got the random urge to plant a garden.  I can’t remember what it was that finally made me go for it, maybe it was just a desire to spend money at Osh.  Anyway, so about mid-March is when I went for my first veggie spending spree.  I got a tomato plant, some lettuce, cucumber, cilantro, basil, red pepper and green pepper.  Within a few weeks I was able to chop my cilantro and patiently wait as all my plans grew bigger and bigger.  By mid-April I was ready to expand.  So I bought three more tomato plants and another batch of basil since the snails promptly ate it up.  By mid-May my first tomato plant was already bursting with little red tomatoes!  Apparently that was early in the season because my gardener babysitting clients were very excited for me that I already got my first tomatoes!!!  Within another month I stated to get my heirlooms going, including this BEAUTIFUL lemon boy tomato, the first of my heirloom tomatoes.  IT WAS SO GOOD.

My first Lemon Boy tomato from my garden!

The rest of the summer was very fruitful when it came to my tomatoes, I wish I had pictures showing all of them in their glory.  I forget what the other heirloom was called but it was red and green, striped like a zebra.  I had little red cherry tomatoes as well.  In fact, I’d say the only plants of mine that did extremely well was my tomatoes.  I got about 4 cucumbers the whole season, 1 red pepper, and 3 green peppers.  I planted cantelope, pumpkins, and corn but I got them in the ground too late so they never turned out to do any thing.  But its ok, the lessons I learned about gardening proved valuable and once I get back in California, I look forward to trying my luck again.

Besides my gardening fun, I also attended a bunch of concerts last year. I started out the year by going to see my favorite ska band Streetlight Manifesto alone in San Francisco.  I was a bit nervous of how I would do during the show but I HAD SUCH A GOOD TIME it didn’t matter that I had no one to share it with!!  Plus, after Streetlight Manifesto played I got to see another favorite ska band called Reel Big Fish.  I’ve seen them probably eight times though so it wasn’t the pushing reason why I wanted to go to the show.  I would’ve paid $30 just for Streetlight.

Streetlight Manifesto!

The next show I saw was Good Charlotte, a band I had always made fun of but my brother got free tickets for it so he ended up taking me.  It was actually pretty entertaining and had a good time just getting to bond with my brother.  A few weeks later, I got to see Flogging Molly, an Irish punk/rock band.  I nearly died in the pit but had a lot of fun jumping around with such an enthusiastic crowd.

A few months later I had the Van’s warped tour, which I went to twice.  I got to see Reel Big Fish again along with Pennywise and one of my other favorite ska bands Less Than Jake.  Flogging Molly played again along with NOFX and Anti-Flag. In July I got to see Incubus at the Hard Rock Casino in Vegas with my dear Callan, a band that I had been waiting a good eight years to finally be able to see.  That was probably the best show of the year for me, for numerous reasons like Callan being there and that the vibe of the show was just so incredible.  Plus, I didn’t have to worry about how many bruises I was going to be going home with.

I think Incubus was the last of the shows I saw for that year.  I got to see Callan’s band Paper Street Mayhem play a bunch of times so that satisfied my need for live music.  I look forward to the Warped Tour this year because Streetlight Manifesto will be playing again along with like ten other bands that I love and cherish.

So now that I’m officially 27 (today’s my birthday) I can honestly say when I look back on my 26th year, even though there were some rough times, all in all I had a really fun year.  I know I grew a lot as a person through dealing with death, falling in love, and moving to a new state.  It makes me appreciate the person that I am and the woman that I am growing into being.  So with that said, heres to another happy year!!