Crazy for Grammar

Hello, friends! I hope you are all doing well today. I've been cleaning up the apartment for a lot of the night, because we have one of our routine inspections tomorrow. Every three months, the agent stops by to make sure that we're not trashing the place that we're borrowing in exchange for rent. I feel like I'm at overnight camp and waiting for my daily cabin inspection. I understand that we're supposed to keep it clean, but isn't that the point of a security deposit? These checks make me feel like a child. Guys, sometimes I just need to vent!

Work

Work was different from most days, because the entire sales department was in training. Besides me at reception and a few guys in service at the back, everybody was locked away in the conference room all day. I knew this last week, so I had a few pleas when I e-mailed the office the training schedule. I told everybody that I was going to be bored, and I wanted people to bring me toys (silly putty, a gingerbread house-making kit, Game Boy, etc) or magazines to keep me entertained. Since Nikki is apparently the only person in the office who cares about my well-being, she brought me an entire (pink!) shopping bag full of bridal magazines (she got married in March). 

The boys gave me a project that involves calling every single client in South Australia to confirm their e-mail addresses, so I didn't have time to read the magazines today. Nikki is letting me keep them, though. I'll have plenty of time before my wedding to look through them all.

After lunch (which I ate at my desk, since I had to be around at all times to answer phones), I dug into the charity box of chocolates. I got a Time Out. I wanted it instead of my apple. This is why you can't keep chocolate around me. 

It's a chocolate-covered wafer with flakey chocolate in between. I had my first one in Israel, and I never saw another one until I came to Australia. 

Dinner (and dessert)

Since I was babysitting the phone all day and even had to turn on the night button (activates the answering machine instead of the phone ringing) for bathroom breaks, I was out the door as soon as the training stopped at 4. I love leaving at 4. 

It rained the whole drive home. Once I got back, I really wanted to change into comfortable clothes and lounge around in the warm apartment while occasionally cleaning. I would have been able to do that if I woke up when my alarm went off at 5:30 to go to the gym, but I went back to sleep instead. After work, I had no excuses! I dragged myself to the gym, but I of course felt fine by the time I got there. I did 40 minutes on the elliptical, and then I called it a day. 

I cleaned a little when I got back, and then we made dinner. We had chicken schnitzels in the fridge that just needed to be thrown on the pan to cook. We also added pasta sauce and cheese to make it a parmy. We also heated up veggies for a healthy factor. As it turned out, it was disgusting. The chicken tasted like dog food might taste, and the texture was rubbery. Yuck. I ate the cheese off of it, and that was pretty much it. The only good parts of the veggies were the peas and corn (the carrots and potatoes were way too soft for my liking and had no taste), so I ate those off the plate. 

This dinner would not have happened if I made a meal plan this week. Ugh.

Luckily, we had ice cream to make me all better. 

What could be better than good ol' Neopolitan ice cream?

Especially in a mug?

With chocolate sauce and sprinkles?

Now, before I go, I just want to say a few words about today's title. As a blogger, it is evident that I love to write. As somebody who writes, there is a good chance that I try to pay attention to grammar. As a matter of fact, I love correct grammar. There are the common grammatical writing mistakes that drive me insane when I see them, and I try to never make them. They include:

• your-you're
• their-there-they're
• too-two-to
• effect-affect

I see these mistakes every day. I see them in other blogs, on Facebook, in work e-mails and occasionally even on news articles. I bring this up, because I noticed a mistake of my own that made me green. I just happened to be reading over some of my blog posts last night before going to sleep, and I saw that I made the effect-affect error last week. I had to jump out of bed and kick Al off the computer while he was updating something on his own website. I immediately edited it, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of you probably saw it. Yikes!

So, I just want you all to know that I really do appreciate grammar, and I proofread my posts! Sometimes, I just don't proofread well enough. If you ever see that I made a stupid error like the one above, you can tell me in my comments section or on my contact form. I mean it. I will not be offended. Just don't make me cry. 

I also realize that my grammar is not perfect, even if I wanted it to be. I do start sentence with "but" and "and", and I don't even always write in complete sentences. If I wrote like I was trying to write an essay, my writing style on  my blog would not sound conversational. It would sound too formal and not like me. 

That is all. Make sure that you don't make those silly mistakes above, either! Good grammar is more important than you think. You don't want a bunch of people on Facebook thinking that you don't know the difference between your "your" and "you're", do you? How about your boss or somebody you want to hire you?

**Update on Tim Tams**
Pepperidge Farm makes Tim Tams in the US, but I'm not sure if they are for a limited time. If you can get your hands on them, you should! We finished all of our today :(