Step Away From the Cake

Apparently there is something called Tenuate that helps you lose weight. I've never heard of it before, not that I'm into that kind of stuff. But it's Diethylpropion HCl which acts on the nervous system to reduce the appetite. I don't know if it works or what it's like but apparently it's out there. Who knew??? Do you ever wonder if you're doing the right thing? Situations arise where there are a number of responses, do you ever wonder if your response was the right one? I do. A lot. Everyday we face so many choices and decisions and sometimes I just freeze. I hate it, but it happens. Don't ask me why I'm thinking about this but I am. The things that go on in my mind would amaze and scare you :) Okay, that's it. I'm off to clean house, head to work for a little, look for a breeding cage for the cockatiels, and buy a camera. Oh yes, and there is that lunch at the Kona Brewery - yummm.

I took Nala to her 2nd acupuncture appointment. It didn't seem to go as well as the first but now she seems to be doing a lot better. I don't know but we'll keep going to give it a real chance. I was talking to the vet and since Nala can't get any real exercise, she runs around but walks are out, we talked about food. She is on a light food but like the vet said, that's mostly carbs. Dogs are carnivores and need more protein. Also more protein would fill her up faster, keep her full longer, and require less food. So, even though I work for Nutro and love their food, I'm on the hunt for a food lighter food that is higher in protein and lower in carbs. Organic dog food just might be the way to go. Once I thought about it, I thought duh!!! I'm eating higher protein and less carbs to lose weight. Since the dogs are carnivores and I'm an omnivore, they would need even more protein. So that's my next project, dog food.

I really can not believe how fast time goes by. It seems like it was just yesterday that it was New Years. Now here we are in June, half way through the year. Wow. It's the same with the weeks. They just seem to fly by, one after the other after the other....... Whew!!! Well, it was a pretty good week. I got 90% of my exercise in and am feeling really good. This weekend is going to be pretty busy but that's okay. Ahh, I don't have anything to say. I think I'm heading off to bed.

Things are pretty exciting here on Oahu right now. You should scoot over to Flo's Place and see what's going on :)

For a few months earlier in the year, I had some real problems with my back. It got extremely painful with crippling pains shooting down my leg. I knew it was my sciatica acting up and it was really bad. I refused to go to the doctor because I knew what they would tell me and I knew it would be wrong - for me. Instead I got back into exercising. I worked on my core strength and slowly built myself up. It worked. My back got better. It's not perfect and I still have twinges but at least I can now pinpoint what caused it. Well, yesterday my back started aching. It wasn't really painful just kind of aching. I could not figure out what was wrong. I did all my stretches and some yoga and nothing really helped, it just ached. This morning, as I was getting out of bed, it was still aching and I thought it felt like when you have a cramp and the cramp releases. Once that muscle starts to relax it aches, sometimes more than the cramp itself. So I figure that's what...

June is my anniversary. On June 24th I'll have been married 18 years. Oh. My. God. I'm really old. Anyway, June is the time for weddings and everyone wants unique wedding favor ideas . Weddings now are getting unbelievably elaborate. I know it's a really special day, but $25,000 on a wedding?!?!?! Yeah, not my idea of how to spend money. Anyway, weddingshop.theknot.com has some really great ideas for favors and things for really reasonable prices. They have attendant gifts. Items for the reception. Items for the ceremony. Everything you could think of for your wedding. I got married on the beach in Monterey. I've always wanted a fancier wedding. Maybe for our 20th we'll have a ceremony. If we do, the first place I'll go is weddingshop.theknot.com, that's for sure.

Okay, I had written a whole, long post and I just erased it. I decided I didn't want to go there. It's too darn depressing. In case you forgot, I live in Hawaii. Well, Hawaii is the home of golf phenom Michelle Wie . Now she turned pro about a year ago at age 16. At the time I said it was a mistake. She is an incredible golfer but she was too young and didn't have the experience. She never played on the junior circuit. She never learned how to win. I said her parents pushed her into it. At the time she said it was her idea but she was 16. At 16 you can't see beyond next weekend, let alone the rest of your life. Our local paper though thought Michelle walked on water. You would think she was the only great female golfer ever. It was rather sickening. Well, last week it seems she kind of self destructed. She abruptly withdrew from a tournament when there was a danger of her score going over 88. The LPGA rules state if you score over 88 you can't play in...

I took this morning off and it's nice to just hang around and blog. I was supposed to run this morning but I realized I haven't taken a day off in 10 days, so rest won out. I've begun my last block of Afterburn training. It's really helped and I can definitely see muscles where there were none before. But I have this great workout roll going, I don't want to lose momentum so I'm trying to decide what's next. I could start Afterburn again. There's nothing wrong with that and with the 4 week rotations it should work fine. But I don't want to get bored either. I'm considering getting Turbulence Training and giving that a try. If I decide to do that I want to order now so I can review the program before I start it. Also, TT is only 3 days a week so I would be able to focus more on my running. So that takes some thought. I would also like to start swimming again. I'm trying to see how to work some swimming in too. Hmmmm, I don't kno...

So the other night I talked about savings, something I'm working very hard on. Some people invest in silver and gold. I've never quite understood that. I realize it's definitely a hedge against inflation , I got that, but where do you store your gold or silver ingots?? Well, Monex Deposit Company will not only sell you silver , they will deliver it to you or arrange for storage. So, that answers that question. I guess if you don't have a big safe you have it stored somewhere. Apparently you can also get it in coin form. Who Knew???? Seems demand for silver is at a high right now. Demand exceeds production. You know what that means?!?!?! When demand exceeds supply the price usually goes up. So now might just be the best time to buy. Again, who knew???

We seem to have lost our tradewinds and it is bloody hot tonight. Looking out my window nothing is moving, there aren't even that many bugs around - it's too hot for them too. In news from the birdie world, a while back I blogged about Kiko the cockatiel . Kiko is about 18 months old and has become a chronic egg layer. Now there are a number of ways to deal with chronic egg layers. Most of the simple ones I've already tried and while they've slowed down her laying, it hasn't stopped completely. There is also medical intervention. I could take her to the vet and get hormone shots to stop the egg production. I'm leery of this for a number of reasons, the main one being she could quite likely die. Since she started laying I've become a master at keeping her healthy. She gets a good seed diet so she gets enough fat and protein to support her. She always has 2 cuddle bones in her cage so I'm sure she gets enough calcium. She also has a mineral ...

our air conditioner is down and I am positively dying!!! Our lab only has one "opening", the front door. All the other windows are sealed. We also have about 1500 square feet. It is so unbelievable miserable in here right now, I can hardly stand it and I'm sitting by the open front door!!! Arrrggggghhhhh!!!! So I've shifted into my next 4 week block of workouts. It's interesting. By the time I'm done with them I am wrecked!!! I've also been doing my interval training very religiously and I really think it's starting to pay off. Twice a week I run on the road and do my intervals and Sunday I believe I was doing 10 minute miles. Not earth shattering but pretty good for me. Especially when I'm not running flat out all the time. So I'm happy. And, a while back I was rhapsodizing about the teardrop shaped muscle in your quad and how I wanted one. Well, I'm getting gone. Woo Hooo!! Okay, I have to find something cooling to do.

I hate dentists. No, you don't understand. I hate them so much that by the time my appointment rolls around I am so tense and tight all over I can not relax. I have had Novocaine not work because I am so tense. I get sick to my stomach just thinking about a dentist appointment. That is the reason I take really good care of my teeth, brushing, flossing, rinsing, twice a day every single day. I hate being like this but I have not found a dentist that makes me relax. Maybe charles brown dds pc would be different. I need to find someone who doesn't make me feel like I'm heading to the executioner. You really don't know how horrible it is.

SkiRough has requested photos of the Moluccan maniacs!! This is my sweet little girl, Xena. She really is a good bird and a real lover. This is Xena with her Daddy. Like all little girls she just loves her Daddy. I am basically the maid. I feed her, clean her cage, clean the room, make sure everything is taken care of for her but she goes crazy for Daddy. Ugh!!! This is Tatu Behati. That means 3rd times the charm in Swahili. She's my bosses 3rd Cockatoo, the other 2 died. Tatu is a good bird but she is really spoiled. She demands attention and will bite you if she doesn't get it. She gets really loud and obnoxious if you don't pay attention to her. I love little Tatu but she can be annoying. Those are the 2 Moluccans. My boss asked me today if I could watch Tatu again in 2 weeks. She's going to the Western States 100 to help pace of friend. So there will be a part 2 of double Moluccan weekend. Yea! Something to look forward to :)

I am fairly savvy when it comes to computers but the truth is I hate them. I hate having to sit and spend time figuring out how to do things. I see other blogs that have all these videos or news stories embedded in them and I just sigh and think I do not have the patience to figure this out. Well, I've found a way to do it. The News Room provides access to thousands of news stories and it's super easy to post them on your site. All you do is hit the MASH button, it provides you with the code, copy and paste and you are on your way. This is fun!! This is all free and so easy it took me literally 30 seconds to figure it out. You have 100's of news stories to choose from and you can earn money from this. You can sign up and every time a news story is viewed on your site you can earn money. This is really, really cool. There are a number of videos covering the debate last night but since I am in no mood to have my head explode I've passed on those. I chose the Par...

Well, this weekend was double Molucan weekend. I was birdsitting Tatu, my bosses cockatoo. It was interesting. They both stayed in the same room but separate cages. They really like being together. Whenever we would take one out of the room the other would scream like crazy. It was really cute. But it was nice when Tatu's mom showed up to take her home. Have 2 birds is not twice the work, it's about 4 times the work. I'm not sure how that works but it's true. I was fixing food and changing papers all weekend it seemed. Ugh!!! 003+ - This is what Xena did when I left the room. She also stood over my keyboard and ate an ancient piece of bread. Yea! Now I have crumbs all over my keyboard. Oh the joys of bird ownership :)

Well, today was much worse than yesterday. I woke with a major headache. I really thought it was going to turn into a migraine, it was so bad I could barely stand it. Things then went down hill from there. I wasn't sore at all from the exercises I'm doing but when I tried to do the this morning I started getting dizzy. I figured it would pass so just kept going. Ummm, yeah, not so much. I kept getting dizzier and dizzier and then started getting light headed. This was not good. I ate a hearty breakfast thinking that might help. Nope. It was getting worse and worse as the day progressed. I had to work and quite frankly I was a little afraid to drive. I was very light headed and didn't know where it was heading. So I caved in and had a cup of coffee. I had tried everything else and couldn't think of anything else to try. So I had a cup of coffee and my dizziness started to clear immediately. I remained a little light headed the rest of the day but it was l...

So I've been bird sitting another Moluccan all weekend. Her Mom comes home this morning and I'm looking forward to her leaving :) Actually, it's been okay. The 2 birds seem to keep each other quiet and that's nice. They talk to each other so Xena isn't screaming for me. But I'll tell you what, taking care of 2 big birds is a lot of work. I'm ready for an Orlando Vacation that's for sure. Well, I think I'll head out on my run and then come back and clean house until Tatu's Mom arrives. It's a beautiful morning and I want to get out there before it heats up.

I was doing some cleaning in my computer/bird room today and realized I need to stock up. Apparently Xena really enjoys the office supplies. I think I'm going to have to look around and see if I can find some discount office supplies since she goes through them faster than I can stock them up :) Well, tomorrow my boss picks up Tatu. It turns out that it wasn't such a bad weekend. She actually did quite well. She ate like a horse. I think I'll start calling her Miss Piggy. Usually when her Mom is gone she gets depressed and doesn't eat. Not this time. All she's done is eat. Hmph...Birds!!!! Okay, that's it, I'm off to bed....

Vintage Candy !!!!! This totally rocks. Candy cigarettes!!! Pop Rocks!!! Sixlets !!! Giant Pink Gumballs!!! This totally brings back my childhood. I grew up in Jersey City. Now this is not exactly a suburb. It was a pretty industrial area. We lived in an apartment building on a corner. At the other corner of this block was a candy store. Between my house and the candy store was our school. We went to that candy store all the time. Afterschool . On weekends. All. The. Time. It was one of those old fashioned place. The candy wasn't packaged, it was individual pieces in jars. You would go through and pick pieces of what you wanted. Most of it was only like 1 penny a piece. I loved that place. Most of those candies are gone now. You can't find them in the stores. Heck, do they even have candy stores anymore??? Well, for a blast from the past check out ecandy .com and relive your childhood :)