Step Away From the Cake

I'm still on the fence about what my next move should be. As I've said before I want to find work I can do at home at least most of the time. I'm seriously considering distance learning to get into something different. Looking around for schools though is hard. I do not want to get ripped off and I'm not looking for a diploma mill. But then the biggest question is what do I want to study??? I don't know. Capella University seems to be a good place. Their faculty are writing books and hold PhD , so it sounds like a great place. One of their faculty members has co-written a book: 'Appreciative Coaching: A positive process for change' That's an interesting line of study, life coaching. I'm not sure I could do that though. I can't exactly figure my own life out yet I'm going to help someone else figure theirs out??? Ummm , no!! I need to start thinking about this. Maybe I'll start investigating today. This blog post was based on

but I don't really have anything to say. As I said before, it's been a really good week. I can not get over how good I'm feeling and I'm not feeling as great as I felt last week. That probably makes no sense at all but it does to me. I have noticed there is a pattern to most months. This is the week I should start feeling like crap and lazy. I figure if I'm feeling this good when I should be feeling really crappy this is great. I know that the reason I'm feeling so good is the strength training. It is like a miracle drug and I'm hooked. Now though is when it gets dangerous. I'm following the Afterburn program and the strength part takes about 40 minutes to do. At the end of 40 minutes I am dripping sweat, usually breathing hard, and feeling pretty wiped out. But at this point is when I start thinking that if 40 minutes is good wouldn't an hour be better? Wouldn't it be better to do the DVDs I have that cover every muscle group with yo

In spite of a little bit of a rocky start this really has turned out to be a great week. I've gotten my workouts in , I've eaten pretty good (though not great), but mostly I'm feeling awesome. Woo Hoo I love it!!! I apologize for the flood of posts this week. I try to space the paid posts out more but this week was so crazy they ended up getting kind of jumbled together. It will get better I promise. I'm going to devote a little more time to my other blogs to get them up and approved so that I can do the paid posting over there. Then this one will go back to being just about me (face it, it really is all about me:) So I may be asking favors for visits to my other blogs and links to them so that I can get them approved. Any help would be greatly appreciated. So that's the news from here. This weekend is looking not to be as crazy as last weekend so hopefully I'll get a little R&R in .

Looking for a cheap moving company ? I've got it!!! Service Network hooks you up with movers in your area. I know finding a reliable mover who won't rip you off is never easy. Moving is a stressful time and looking for a decent mover only makes it worse. Here in Hawaii it's really a problem. When you move to another state you have to ship your stuff, there's not way around it. Many people just sell all their stuff here and buy new when they get where they are going. They do this because sometimes that is cheaper than moving it, but many times I know it's due to frustration with movers. Select Network looks like they can help with all aspects of moving, finding a reputable company, time lines , finding self storage, everything. This seems like it would make moving from Hawaii almost easy.

I am a picture taking freak. When digital cameras came out I was right there because I love to take pictures. When I purchased this computer I made sure it had a large hard drive for storage, a good graphic/video type card, and an 8, or 9 or whatever, card reader. I really wanted the card reader because at the time I had 2 cameras and each took a different card (it's a long story-don't ask). So yeah I love pictures!!! What I don't like it printing those pictures out. It costs a small fortune in photo paper and ink. So I take thousands of pictures then have to sort through them and only print some of them. Until now that is. Now you can get a digital photo frame . This is absolutely a great idea. You just stick your memory card into the frame and your pictures play like a slide show. Awesome!!!! This could very well solve all my photo problems. Of course, how many digital frames can one person own????

So here's something. I've been thinking about getting my own domain. This blog would stay here but I would start another blog on my own domain. The problem is I don't know HTML that well. I know enough to fool around here on blogger although sometimes it makes me want to pull my hair out. But my own domain, I don't know. I've had them before and they have those site builders, but sometimes those seem like more work than just using straight HTML. . But if I had something like HTML form it might be a whole different story. This site helps you make forms for your website and then you can download a program to process the information on your website. That's pretty cool. You follow some basic question and answer pages and they create the forms you need. I like that. Simple is good. Now if they would just allow you to do an entire website that would be awesome.

One of the reasons I don't watch video much on the computer is because, well because I have adult ADD and lose interest in a heartbeat, but also because you have to sit there and watch it. If it's something I can listen too, that's cool, but if it's something you need to look at I inevitably miss things because I've been surfing somewhere else. But that all may end here. This streaming video player allows you to float the video over what you're doing. You have no idea how cool that is. This is what the float mode looks like. I think this may be the greatest thing since slice bread. You have no idea how annoying it is to not see so many videos people are talking about because if they are longer than 1 minute or so I'm gone. With the video floating over the screen I'm on I could actually watch these things. Okay, I'll stop ranting now. When I get home tonight I'm going to download it and give it a go.

There's a bunch of stuff running around my head lately. But first, today was weight day. I am so loving the weight training. I upped my weight again today and really felt it during the workout. I like to push it and really sweat. So that was all good. My plantar has been really acting up. When I run it's gets unbelievably painful. I'm thinking I may have to lay off the running for a little bit to allow this to clear up. For me plantar never really goes away, but it does calm down to the point that it's manageable. So I'm thinking of cutting out the actual running and focus on elliptical and biking. That should keep my legs in shape and allow the plantar to heal up. I will of course be stretching, using the tennis ball, and taking ibuprofen to help it heal.

So I've been really focused on eating clean. As a result we have not been going out to eat as much. We do our Saturday lunches and that's about it. Well, tonight hubby's work took everyone out to dinner, they do this every so often - they're a nice place to work. They took us to a Chinese restaurant. Now you know how bad Chinese food can be for you, so I had a plan. I ate lots of veggies, small portions of everything, no rice or noodles. We did have dessert, the Chinese man that owns the restaurant is a pastry chef (weird yeah???), so the desserts were to die for. Luckily they brought them out on a huge tray and everyone just took a piece. So to recap, I did not eat any starch; I ate primarily veggies; I ate small portions; and I ate dessert - just a little. I did not feel stuffed. I did not even feel that much fuller than I normally do after dinner. I am pleased with myself. This still means there will be a wicked strength training session in the morning to bu

they were discussing the Virginia Tech shooting. I found it very interesting for a number of reasons. First they had NBC explaining why they did what they did. Now, I found the constant running of the video disturbing and annoying. But at first I really wanted to see it. It wanted to look at lunacy and see what it looks like. I wanted to hear what insanity sounds like. I don't know why. Maybe to insure I'm not crazy myself??? Who knows. But the constant airing of it got to be too much. However, that was not NBC's fault. All the other news outlets picked it up and ran with it. NBC explained that they received the package at 11 a.m. and no one but the FBI knew they had it until the news at 6 p.m. They sat on it and went over it all and debated and decided what to do. I think they did a fairly decent job of handling considering the unique and bizarre situation. Of the 25 minutes of tape, they used 2. Of the over 400 pictures, they used 7. And of the 23 pages

Yeah!!! Of course, ABC is saying they wanted a 3 year contract and Rosie wanted 1 year. That doesn't sound like reasons to leave to me. They could not have given her 1 year and renegotiated next year??? I think they were looking for an excuse to let her go and this was the only one they could come up with. I really used to like Rosie. When she had her own show, I used to watch sometimes. I thought she was funny and really nice. Well, she was the Queen of Nice. When she was hired on the View I thought, this will be interesting. But lately she really has gone too far. Her feud with Donald Trump was actually quite amusing. I thought Donald went way overboard with his reaction to what she said. But her statements that Bush knew beforehand about 9/11 and that they imploded #7. That pushed her over into the crazy category. How can you take anyone seriously who truly believes that stuff. I have problems with conspiracy theories in general, but ones that involve the presid

So my murdering, drug dealing neighbor is moving to the Big Island. So Big Island, you've been warned. The drug situation on the Big Island is worse than it is here on Oahu. There is a lot less work there so that leaves a lot of free time for people to get into trouble. I understand that besides illegal drugs, prescription drug addiction is a problem too. So that should give the murdering, drug dealer lots more opportunities. Also there is lots of open, undeveloped land on the Big Island, so he'll have lots of places to set up his business that will be hard to find for the cops. Sounds like a plan. Hubby actually met his mother. Now I know mother's cut their children lots of slack, but he's a convicted murderer!! If my kid killed someone I'd be hard pressed to make excuses for her.

This morning was interval day. I pushed it - hard. Damn, it felt good. I can still feel my quad muscles. I like that feeling. I've been working this same program for about 3 months now and I guess I wasn't working as hard as I should at it. The last 2 days have showed me that I have not been working up to my potential. So that's changed. From now on every workout will be a kick butt session. I want to see drastic changes by June 1 so I've got to get on it. I've been trying to figure out how to work my marathon training into my weight fat loss efforts. Then the master Alywn Cosgrove wrote an article explaining exactly how to do that and why it's good. (I can't get the linking to work, I'll link it later). Now it's time to focus on the diet part. I've been eating really clean but I haven't been keeping track of the calories. I think it's time to do a diet review . I figure I'll go over my basic diet this weekend and purcha

I know Netflix is super popular with a lot of folks. I don't use it because a) I rarely watch movies (adult ADD, I can't sit still that long :) and b) when I do want to watch a movie I want to watch it now!! So Netflix is definitely not for me. Blockbuster however is a whole other story. Their program allows you to order through the Internet /mail like the other guys, but you can also use it in the stores. It's $9.99 for the first month and $17.99 a month after that. For that you get to take 3 DVD's for as long as you like. So for $17.99 a month you could watch movies till your head caved in. If you rent at the regular price you could only rent about 4 movies a month for $17.99. With this program you could rent 3 movies a day. The best part is that you can return them to the store or just drop them in the mail. How easy is that??? And right now they are running a free trial where you get 2 weeks for free. I think this is much more convenient and appealing

I was listening to the news on the way home and it just pissed me off, okay, most things in the news do. With the newer cars the keys are security devices. If you lose or damage your key, you have to go to the dealer, they have to order it from the mainland, and you end up waiting. The legislature here in Hawaii is contemplating a law where by the car manufactures would be required to give the security codes to bonded locksmiths so they could duplicate the keys. Okay, this bothers me on a couple of levels. First, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with my security code being handed out to locksmiths. Granted it would only happen if I needed a key made, but still I don't like the idea. Second, is this all that our legislature has to do??? With all the problems this state has they are worried about where we have to get our keys made??? I am so glad we elect these people who care about the state and are not into feel good legislation. I wonder what it'd be like living in Fra

Hubby is a huge football fan. He watches every game that's broadcast. He tracks his team record and follows the play off predictions like it's a religion. Last year we kind of tossed around getting DirectTV specifically for the NFL Season Ticket. We are starting to again talk about it. The pre-season starts in August and there are a lot more games that aren't broadcast on regular TV. Towards that end, I found some great Current DIRECT TV Offers and Promotions. They have all the channels we get now plus some. They have a DVR, which I can not live without now (seriously, the best invention since sliced bread). And it's a heck of a lot cheaper than I'm paying my cable company. It's a thought and definitely worth consideration. If any of you have DirectTV let me know what you think. I'd be curious to hear what users have to say about it before I take the leap. Also, if you have NFL Season Ticket, please tell if that's worth it.

After my rest day yesterday and the weight loss, I was super inspired to workout this morning. Yesterday should have been weight day but since I took the day off and still want to get 3 weight sessions in this week, I did weights this morning. I always warm up on the elliptical for 5 minutes before I start. I figure that's a good way to get the blood flowing at 5 in the morning. I jumped on an by 1:30 I was pouring sweat and I could feel my legs. I thought to myself, " Wooo , I'm taking it up a notch" By the time I finished my 5 minutes I was really breathing hard and sweating buckets. Yes!!! So I grab the weights to begin and I upped the weights on all moves slightly and really pushed it. At the end of each set I could really feel like I'd had a good workout. It was awesome. At the end of the workout out I could really feel my quad muscles. In fact they were shaking even after I got out of the shower. Yes!!! I realized yesterday that I needed to take

Hubby and I were talking the other night. When we got married it was very small and intimate. Just family and a few friends on the beach in Monterey . Friends took photos, unfortunately most of them didn't come out for whatever reason. So we have nothing from our wedding. We were thinking about maybe having another one. Maybe on our 20 th anniversary (which is 2 years away:) we would throw the wedding we never had. On the Internet I found a place that has unique personalized wedding favors . We could get favors that have our wedding date on it. How cool would that be??? This site has some great stuff. Traditional wedding stuff like matches and such. But also some really unique stuff, personalized candles, digital picture frames, disposal cameras with a wedding motif. This is totally cool. Ah, it's probably something we'll never do. We remember our wedding and that's really what matters.

Okay, I've done that song before but it's Monday night and I have zero brain power left. So I had a huge victory today!! I stepped on the scale for the first time in 2 weeks and I was down 2.5 lbs. Now, that may not sound like a lot but it's huge. It means my program of weights, intervals, clean eating, and no sugar is working. I fully anticipate that the scale will continue to go down now that I've begun the downward trend. I will not be stepping on the scale for at least a week, maybe longer. It's funny how it goes. At one time weighing myself everyday worked for me. It kept me honest and kept me on track. It also taught me how my weight fluctuates , sometimes wildly , for no apparent reason. By weighing myself every day I learned not to let the number on the scale rule me. But then one day it stopped working. One day the numbers started getting to me again. I started to get frustrated and angry that it wasn't going my way. So I stopped. This who

It was so busy, I'm still tired from it. Saturday was my bike ride with the cotton and the hill. Then there was some house cleaning and off to work Nutro for a few hours. Returning home it was 2 batches of doggie treats so the kids are set for the week, then our neighbor had a party. We went down and hung out for a while. Sunday it was up and running for an hour. Then laundry, more cleaning, a little soap opera watching and off to Nutro again. On the way home it was groceries, then dinner, clean up, fold laundry and get ready for Monday. I literally did not stop moving from 5:30 yesterday morning until 8:30 last night. I was exhausted when I went to bed and did not hear a thing all night. I woke this morning and my hip and legs were sore so I wisely decided to take the day off working out. I slept in a little and then got moving. I'm going to do some yoga tonight and take some ibuprofen today. Last week I had a horrible tension headache that I couldn't shake. P