Haiti, Chile, Hawaii: When life hits, it hits hard.

(CNN) -- A major earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, knocking down buildings and power lines and inflicting what its ambassador to the United States called a catastrophe for the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Several eyewitnesses reported heavy damage and bodies in the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where concrete-block homes line steep hillsides. There was no estimate of the dead and wounded Tuesday evening






CONCEPCION, Chile - One of the most powerful earthquakes in decades battered Chile on Saturday, killing more than 200 people, knocking down buildings and triggering a tsunami that rolled menacingly across the Pacific.

Buildings caught fire, major highway bridges collapsed and debris lay in the streets across large swaths of central Chile affecting about two million people.

A 15-storey building collapsed in Concepcion, the closest major city to the epicentre, and overturned cars lay scattered below a fallen overpass in the capital Santiago. Telephone and power lines went down, making it difficult to assess the full extent of the damage and loss of life.






After a day of several tide fluctuations along the Hawaii coast, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center lifted a warning triggered by a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile Saturday morning.

While evacuations were ordered and roads into tourist-heavy Waikiki closed off, officials said the state escaped unscathed, with initial waves looking more like an extreme fluctuation in the tide than a giant tsunami. A tsunami warning was canceled for Hawaii by 2 p.m.

An official from the center gave an optimistic view about the tsunami while it was causing dramatic tide fluctuations in the Aloha State.

Happy New Year

This year I will try to become a more understanding person.

I will try to expand my cooking repertoire.

I will try to watch the news more frequently.

I will try to forget the wrongs that have been done to me.

I will try to forgive those that try to wrong me.

I will try to not allow my wants to become my needs.

I will love those that surround me.

I will cry with those that need my tears.

I will laugh with those that have been blessed.

I will pray for everyone that needs a helping hand.

I will help those in need.

But most of all, I will let God guide me this year.


I hope that everyone's resolutions are going well and that everyone has had a Happy New Year so far!


Blessings,

Samantha

Breakfast Pandemonium

This morning, I was ambushed.

I was minding my own business, pan frying some chicken for breakfast, when the eggs attacked.

They threw themselves off the counter, hurling their little white oval bodies at my side, aiming for my new shirt. I dove out of the way, snatching three eggs right out of the air while the fourth fell to it's death on the kitchen floor.

I stared down at the body of my fallen enemy, smiling slightly, when the chicken decided to get in on the action. It popped and sizzled and crying out for it's friend the egg. It tossed itself about in the pan, making me cringe and forcing me to wield the spatula and scream for he...threats. Scream threats.

I guess the...threats...were enough to make the chiken back down. The rest of the meal preparation went without a hitch. No problems that is, until it came time to transfer the eggs and chicken to the plates. The pan started to tilt, I heard a small "NOW!!!" and the next few seconds happened in slow motion. The eggs drowned in my drink, the chicken committed suicide and I made a very important life decision.

English muffins are the breakfast food of choice.

OMGLOLROFMLBOBBQ!

The only thing that I would really appreciate bloggers on this site to avoid is texting/IMing jargon because I feel that texting and IMing is quickly becoming the real world, and I find that to be a very sad thing. People are becoming unsure of how to act outside of that little screen on their phones or the box on their computer screens. Real communication skills are being lost and it is getting to the point where some people can’t converse without LOLing out loud or OMGing with great conviction.

Now I know that while not everyone has succumbed to this new form of english there are others who have embraced it so completely that they use it in everyday conversations. I love it when people tell me they were, "ROFLMAO". I was told just this afternoon in a verbal conversation that the person I was talking to would "BRB". I just can’t wait for the world to start talking in emoticons. Semicolon parenthesis!!

The English language is rapidly deteriorating into a bland, tasteless, and spineless array of impotent phrases and juvenile statements and I would like to do my part in preserving what is left of that wonderful language! While it is easier and more convenient in some ways to use this new form of English, I enjoy a good old-fashioned conversation I can get my head into, really sink down in, and just let my thoughts float on the ever stirring tide that is our language.

So BTW, next time you think its NBD to LOL while SETE, don’t forget to C&G about how you could be OO before you ask MO. So here’s TOY. TNX for reading and KIT, its been a LTNS. XOXO!

Meditation

I've learned that "making a living" is not the same thing as "making a life"...

Frappuccino - Italian for "I payed way to much for this coffee"

In this introduction to Caffeine-ese, forget everything that you know about the English language. Clear your mind of everything you once knew. Take a couple of deep breaths.

In...2...3...4....Out...2...3...4...In...2...3...4...Out...2...3...4

Alright. Here we go. Please fasten your seat belts and put your trays in the upright position. We are ready for take off.

Lets start off small. Or tall as the case may be. Tall no longer means being of impressive physical stature. Tall now means small. Tall is the smallest small that you can get, which is pretty impressive in itself when you spend $3 on it.

Next we jump right up to Grande. Don't get too excited. Grande still isn't the biggest. While Grande in Spanish is big, grande in Caffeine-ese still means not the big one. Grande now means bigger than the ant drink, and yet not big enough.

Here we hit the Venti. Venti. Say it to yourself a few times. Venti....Venti...it has a certain ring to it doesn't it? Makes one feel incredibly important. Venti.... Venti in Caffeine-ese is the biggest of the big, making all other cups feel insignificant. At night, the Venti's pick on the other cups.

Now that we have covered the sizes let us move on to the other terms necessary when ordering. I think the only term that isn't pretty self explanatory concerning flavor is Mocha. Mocha is chocolate. Plain a simple. Gotta love it.

A Macchiato isn't a real drink. Macchiatos are the one that all the other coffees pick on. I mean really. Steamed milk?

Espresso now comes in two varieties, Espresso hot and Espresso cold. Straight caffeine in two wonderful forms!

Now please be careful when ordering at Starbucks. I have made the mistake of asking for a "cup of coffee" which apparently no longer exists. But never fear, the Starbucks baristas are black belts of coffee, trained to handle any situation. When confronted with a customer who asks for a "small coffee black", they jump over the counter, grab you by the shirtfront and ask you what you said. At this point it is probably better to ask what their favorite coffee is and order one of those.

You have now completed the introduction to Caffeine-ese. Please feel free to print this out and take it with you when going on your coffee adventure.

Happy caffinating!