Step Away From the Cake

I've had a few things going on in the background for the past couple of months that I haven't talked about here. I'm still not going to and I know I would rant about that, but y'all can't know everything :) Anyway for the past couple of months I've had a real purpose in the things I've been doing and it just hit me today what a difference that makes. I'm driven and it falls over into all areas of my life. I've been driven to solve the problems I have and I find myself being driven in my workouts and fat loss efforts. I always thought that I had to be inspired to really put good effort into workouts. Not true. The area I'm driven in is as far removed from working out as you can get. But I find an intensity and desire in my workouts that have been missing for a while. Today on my bike ride I faced a choice of taking the flat route home or tackling the hill that kicks my butt. I've only been riding on Saturdays and I've been avoiding ...

I've been meaning to do this for a while now and just keep forgetting to take the pictures. On my bike route I pass by the waste water treatment plant for Waimanalo . I've always found it amusing that outside the treatment plant are cotton plants. I have no idea why. I've never seen cotton plants anywhere else on the island. But there it is growing outside the wastewater treatment plant. This is outside the treatment plant. Those bushes all along the road are cotton plants. These are the flowers of the cotton plant. They are yellow but then turn red, I'm assuming they do that before they fall off. After the flower falls off this pod forms. Once the pod breaks open there are puffs of cotton. This has always fascinated me. Why are their cotton plants by the wastewater treatment plant in Waimanalo of all places??? It's not like Waimanalo is a big town. It is an agricultural area with lots of flower farms and nurseries . Maybe that's it. Who knows!!!

Well, that's not too hard when you live on a rock in the middle of the ocean. Every journey is one to distant shores :) Seriously. living on an island you do get rock fever. When I first moved to Hawaii I visited the mainland every 6 months. Gradually it became once a year. Then once every couple of years. Now it few and far between the times I leave this rock. But I like to travel. Since it is such a chore to plan and take a trip from Hawaii, I like to do lots of things when I travel. Once of the things that bother me about some travel sites is that you can only arrive and leave from one place. So what if I want to arrive in New Oreleans and leave from New York??? On most other sites, too bad. But I found a site that allows you to do that. Hotel Reservations allows you to book 2 cities. You can book plane travel between cities or get to the 2nd city on your own and return from there. You have no idea how great that is. We are planning a fairly lengthy trip in 2008. ...

is the one day I get to sleep in a little. Not long, but a little. Instead of getting up at 5, I can sleep till 6 ish . I love Saturdays for that reason. But not today. Hubby left for work at 5:20 and the dogs proceeded to go crazy. I thought there was an army invading the yard the way they were barking. I had to get up to investigate. I was a chicken!! But now I'm awake and up so I may as well get my day started. It's going to be a busy day anyway. First, I must get a bike ride in. I'm thinking only an hour with some intervals in there. Then I have a couple of errands to run. Then I work Nutro for a few hours. Then a couple of more errands to run. Yeah, a busy day. Tomorrow is going to be just as busy and somewhere in there I have to get the house cleaned and the laundry done. We bought cuttle bones for Kiko , the cockatiel , and the dogs got a hold of them. Now there's a fine white powder all over the carpet. My ancient vacuum better pick it up or t...

I do. I adore them. I currently have 4 not including my heart rate monitor. I wear and Ironman watch everyday. I have a Citizen for semi-dress up. I have a Swiss Army watch because I like them. And I have a Phillipe something for serious dress up. If it wasn't for hubby, who owns 1 watch, I would have dozens of watches. As strange as it my seem, my favorites are Timex Watches . I love my Ironman watch. Oh, that's right, I also have a Timex marathon watch, so I have 5. My Ironman watch is my favorite, but I have a question. Why do the watches only have 30 laps??? If you're training for an Ironman you're going to be doing way more than 30 laps. Something I've always been curious about. The Ironman watch I have says it records 99 laps but only saves 50 and you can really only view 50 because you have to save them to view them and you can only save 50....... You get the idea. So yeah, I have strange tastes and really like bizarre things, pens, watche...

Am I pathetic or what???? Hubby and some friends went to play golf so here I sit with the dogs and the birds on a Friday night. I tell you married life is exciting :) I have a little rant. I can't use names and I can't be specific in case they read this, so I apologize in advance if it doesn't make sense (didn't I do a rant about that ??). Why can't people answer the question you asked?? Does anyone else have this problem?? I have it really bad with one particular person, but I find it happens frequently. I ask, "where is the door" and they answer, "you can't leave yet." Okay, I didn't ask if I could leave I asked where the door was. This drives me absolutely crazy. If I wanted to leave I would ask to leave. I didn't ask to leave I asked where the door was. Maybe I was going to throw you through it!! Did you ever think of that??? Along that same vein is people who don't listen completely. They are so busy waiting for a ...

I love Fridays. I'm not sure why exactly since my weekends are pretty busy. I think it just because the weekend provides a break in the routine. I still get up early. I still workout. This weekend I even have to work both days at Nutro . But it's different and I like different :) So after my rest day yesterday today was weights. I do these lunges where you start at the bottom and don't come up all the way. You rise only until the muscles in your quad and butt stop working. When I started doing these about 3 weeks ago, I couldn't go very far before the muscles disengaged. I was doing them this morning and found I could raise myself almost all the way and keep the muscle activated . That's pretty cool. In this move you're really working the inner quad muscle. The one above your knee towards the center of your body. That muscle, in people who are in good shape, forms a teardrop shape on the thigh. I want a teardrop. My goal is two teardrops. Okay, th...

Nurofen Plus this is a pain reliever that contains ibuprofen and some codeine. What I wouldn't give to be able to get that. I would love to be able to take a long run and then take one of those when I get back. How sweet would that be? I can think of so many times this would have come in handy I can't even count them. I only take ibuprofen for aches and pains because it is an anti-inflammatory and it works better than anything else for me. According to their website you can buy codeine over the Internet legally. Hmmm , I think I may have to consider that. Codeine really knocks me out but this only contains 12.8 mg of codeine so that shouldn't be too bad. They have 200 mg of ibuprofen which is pretty standard. When in really bad pain I will take 800 mg of ibuprofen at a time. I think this is a good idea. I'm serious, I'm really interested in this. I wonder what the conversion rate is with New Zealand???

I'm all alone at work for a short time and decided to goof off. I didn't get up and workout this morning. Something I ate yesterday didn't quite agree with me. Nothing serious, I was just up and down a couple of times and the ole' tummy was a little upset. So I took a rest day. Theoretically I was going to run at lunch. Yeah.... that didn't happen either. I like to go out before I eat so I don't have a full stomach and so I can relax while I eat and recover. Well, before I knew it, it was 1 p.m. and I was starving. Okay, a real rest day. That's okay. I will probably do some yoga during Grey's Anatomy and stretch out my neck and back. Okay, that's all. I do have some work to get done before I go home so I guess I should do that..

First of all, what the h*ll is NBC doing airing that tape from that sicko??? I don't want to see. By airing it, it's almost like they give validity to him. He sent this to NBC because he wanted them to air it and make him famous. NBC did exactly what he wanted. I know he's dead and doesn't know what's happening but that's not the point. NBC has validated his existence which is something that should never have happened . Second, why is it that our constitutional rights, like freedom of speech, cover all kinds of sick trash and people scream like crazy when someone tries to take them away. Yet, the 2 nd amendment is apparently wrong and we Americans should not be allowed to own guns. How can the founding fathers be so right on everything and get gun ownership so wrong??? I don't understand how you can demand full protection under parts of the Constitution and want to wipe out other parts of it. Why is it so wrong to own a gun? I don't understand...

Yes, another 80's song, I can't help it!!! Anyway, as many of you know I do paid posts for a couple of different companies. I will tell you it's pretty cool. I've made over $500 in the past month for doing nothing but writing, which I do anyway!!! So now there's a new kid on the block, Smorty . I have no idea what that name means but it's kind of catchy no?? Anywho , Smorty is yet another way to get paid to blog . Cool yes??? This is also a great way to advertise your company or website or service or whatever. Advertising on blogs doesn't cost that much and thousands will read it. How many blogs do you read a day?? Now multiply that by the 6 gazillion people that are on the internet and wow! That's a big number. You get the idea. So through Smorty you could make money blogging and advertise your website, how cool is that??? This is not a get rich quick thing. You will never make a million dollars doing this, but it sure is a good way to pi...

so I'm all by myself. On Wednesdays hubby plays golf after work then they play poker. They rotate the houses and tonight they are somewhere else. I like being alone. But I have no idea what I'm going to do. The best part is I don't have to watch American Idol (hubby is hooked), besides, I know who got das boot!!! It's been a really good couple of weeks. As I confessed last week , I wasn't being completely honest with my eating. Well, for the past 2 weeks I have been and what a difference. I do not crave any sweets at all. I have not had any of those night flight episodes. I'm sleeping like a log. My energy is really good. I see there is definitely some good reasons to avoid sugar. Who knew???

I surrender!! I'm waving the white flag!! You win!! I am weak against you and have no chance of winning!!! I bow to your superior staying power!!!! What am I surrendering to? The news media and their coverage of Virginia Tech. That's all that's on the news. They are talking to the same people over and over again. The news people are talking to each other. Give me a break. They are bringing up topics that have no bearing on the issue. Gun Control. Not the subject here. Who knew what when? Not the subject here. If the people that run the schools were such politically correct idiots, they might have done something about this guy when the concerns about him were raised. Who's fault is this?? THE GUNMAN'S !!! No one else is at fault at all. It's all his fault. All of it!!! I do believe that our culture of technology is not always a good thing. We get news so instantly that tragedy become even bigger than they are. If this was before the Interne...

Hubby and I were just talking about life, the future, what we want to be when we grow up :) We've both kind of decided working for someone sucks and it's definitely time to look for alternatives. I've already got a couple of possibilities in mind so I'm good. For him though, hmmm , what could he do. I should point out, neither one of us want to "retire" as in not work. We want to keep working, it's just getting time to do something we really love. When we lived in California hubby did some Landscape Design for a while. He has an eye you would not believe. This website has some really nice landscaping. Their approach to landscaping is kind of like hubby. They call their process the Three SteppingStones (I like the pun :), Planning, Design, Implementation. Landscaping can really make or break a house. If you have a crappy little rundown house with real nice landscaping, it will look like a mansion. But, no matter what mansion you may have, if ...

I'm in a posting mood, so bear with me tonight. It's really sad what happened at Virginia Tech yesterday but...... I know people are upset and angry over what happened and when you're like that you need someone to blame, but come on. People are criticizing the police and the school and everyone as to the way it was handled and I just think that's wrong. Hindsight is 20/20, so they need to tread carefully. I don't have know all the details but just from what I've heard I have a couple of thoughts. First, why didn't they lock down the school?? How exactly would they have done that? There's no central communication system so how could they have gotten word to everyone?? That may be something they should be looking into, getting a central communication system. Second, why didn't ' they react quicker?? There was 2 hours between shooting. If there was a shooting and then nothing happens, I would assume that it's over. How could the author...

And I woke before the alarm and got up shortly after it went off. When I was really heavy, I was really tired. As I lost weight my energy level increased substantially. But I guess I got used to my energy level. I get tired now, not like when I was heavy and couldn't keep my eyes open, but I do get tired. If I eat right and exercise my energy level goes up but not by leaps and bounds like it did in the past. I just find that I need slightly less sleep and I wake up easier. I still get tired at 3-4 p.m. and love to take naps on weekend afternoons, it just not debilitating like it was when I was heavy. The reason I was thinking about my energy levels is that I can't go to sleep at 9 p.m. anymore. I can easily stay up till 10 and it doesn't bother me. I've been waking about 20 minutes before the alarm goes off so I know I'm getting enough sleep. Also, I'm not particularly tired during the day. That's what's been happening lately. It was worse la...

They're almost done but you have no idea how I hate doing them. The whole concept just ticks me off!!! Why do I have to pay the government - at all??? I'm pretty sure that the federal government is supposed to help the states get along and provide for the common defense. That's all!! Why is the federal government involved in all this other cr *p??? Okay, I'm off that. One of my favorite things in life is pens. I love pens. I have favorites that I become very attached to. So on my list of top ten favorites is personalized pens . But they have to be good quality, not that cheesy stuff. I'm trying to talk my work into ordering these. They are good advertising and, have I mentioned, I love pens................ Okay, Okay, I'm going to finish my taxes so I can join the crowds and put them in the mail tomorrow :)

Okay, this is basically for me, but I want to document everything that happens next door in case I need the info. Tonight when I came home there was a bike in front of the house and the front door was open. This could have been Boy although we never saw or heard him. There are 2 or possibly 3 new people next door. The large older woman has been there since Saturday. Tonight I saw a thinner woman pounding something into the ground ( a tie down for the dog??). Earlier in the evening I saw a mans' legs, he was wearing board shorts and talking to the large woman. Just before bed I saw what I think is a different man. He appeared to be younger and had longish hair. Possibly haole .

Wow, it's unbelievable what happened there today. I've been reading the news services and it seems like they don't have much information yet. They said he was dressed kind of like a boyscout?!?!?!? This is just horrible. I don't understand what makes people do something like that (okay, that's probably a good thing :), but seriously. I have a temper and I get mad enough sometimes and the only outlet if physical, but I would never shoot innocent people. I might shoot the folks I'm angry with :) I know I shouldn't be joking about this, but how else do you process something so horrible and horrendous?? I pray for their families.

Want a laugh??? - Go to google maps - Get directions from New York, New York to Paris, France - Read step #23 hehehe I was trying to do this at home last night but was having trouble loading google maps. Either they were having problems or it's time for a computer memory upgrade . Or possibly just a computer upgrade. They are so cheap now. I was looking at the HP ad the other day and they come with all kinds of stuff and are cheap. I hate having to buy a new computer because I don't stay on top of all the latest technology, then when it's time to buy I have to learn a whole bunch of new crap I'm not really interested in so I know what I want and don't want. UGH!!! It's way too much like work.

On the Blogger Dashboard there is a story about how you can now blog in different languages. I may start blogging in Hindi just for fun :) So last night I was doing my taxes, which makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a dull spoon, only to find I wold be getting a tiny, minuscule , infinitesimal refund. Really, it's not worth the effort to write the check and put a stamp on it. But it is marginally better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I was also reviewing my finances again (got I HATE doing that), and I'm really thinking of getting another car insurance quote . I've had the same company with the same coverage for 6 years now. I'm not sure if it's still fine, or if I should change it. Who knows or really cares about this stuff?!?!?!?!? On a completely different subject, I heard Rudy Giuliani the other day talking about health care in this country and he said the only way to make it really work is to make it like car insurance. People will buy ...

I've been doing my weight training fairly consistently for the past few months. I do get discouraged because I don't see improvements. The improvements come so slowly it's hard to see them. Yes, I can do a move with a higher weight or when held a certain way I can see the cut in that muscle. But on the whole it's slow seeing. I'm guessing it's because I'm actually changing my body and that is going to take time. But improvements are happening even if they can't be seen. I overslept this morning so didn't make it to my marathon clinic. I was however, determined that I would run today. So I headed over the botanical garden for the run that kicks my butt. Now back in December I said I was going to run the botanical gardens regularly and conquer it. Well, it rained (hard), and I did this and that and the other thing and that plan kind of fell by the wayside. So today I headed back. My goal was to run the entire way, about 5.5 miles. It's ...

Here's the day I've been kind of dreading. But, the good news is, I don't feel any older :) I was watching Larry King last night and he had Sanjay Gupta, Bob Greene, Lance Armstrong, and Deepak Chopra on as a panel on health and wellness. It was very interesting. They all said the same things, which is what I've learned over the last year or so, dieting doesn't work. Refined foods - no good. Exercise - everyday!!! Dr. Chopra made a great statement, you should never eat anything from a can or with a label. I love that. That's pretty much how I try to eat. It was really interesting. Larry asked about walking as exercise since lots of people think walking is all you need to do. The consensus on the panel was, it's good if you're not doing anything, but no you definitely need more. That's the first time I've heard experts admit to that. Usually all you hear it get out there and walk. Anyway, it was very interesting and I didn't r...