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Living and Learning to be Country Strong
Thanks blends!
Showing posts with label Anything amp; Everything. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anything amp; Everything. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Upcoming Posts
Good morning blends!
I'm just going to come right out and say it, I've been lazy. I have yet to type up my Camping Part 2 post or my Country Fest 2011 recap post even though I've been talking about doing them soon for quite some time now.
All of this laziness sparked a new post idea with some help from Navigating North, a new blog I'm following these days. So that's been on my to-do list too since Tuesday and I haven't done that yet either.
Anyways, I just wanted to put it out there that I know I need to post everything that I've been telling you about, and I need to keep up with posting on a regular schedule.
This weekend is going to be the perfect time as I have no plans (other than what's on my to-do list) at this point.
Be on the look out for my Camping Part 2 post, Country Fest 2011 recap, and my Navigating North inspired post!
Enjoy your Friday blends!!
I'm just going to come right out and say it, I've been lazy. I have yet to type up my Camping Part 2 post or my Country Fest 2011 recap post even though I've been talking about doing them soon for quite some time now.
All of this laziness sparked a new post idea with some help from Navigating North, a new blog I'm following these days. So that's been on my to-do list too since Tuesday and I haven't done that yet either.
Anyways, I just wanted to put it out there that I know I need to post everything that I've been telling you about, and I need to keep up with posting on a regular schedule.
This weekend is going to be the perfect time as I have no plans (other than what's on my to-do list) at this point.
Be on the look out for my Camping Part 2 post, Country Fest 2011 recap, and my Navigating North inspired post!
Enjoy your Friday blends!!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Ramblings In My Head
I would love to be posting the second part to my camping weekend but while at work I'm unable to upload pictures from my camera. So here's a little something to hold you over until I get the post written up with pictures.
First of all Bo is on my mind. He has sooo much energy lately and he's using it in the wrong way. He's been biting my fingers, hands, and arms a lot lately. I barely get him to let go and he's back at it again. I've tried to hold his mouth closed and say "no bite" in a strong voice but that doesn't seem to be working. I am open to suggestions! I know he's just a puppy but seriously, I try to play with him using his toys that he is allowed to chew/bite on but of course he goes for my hand/arm instead of the toy I'm holding. He does have a bone which he'll chew on it for a little bit but then seems to lose interest and is back to my hand/arm. It's getting frustrating and makes me want to not be around him. It's also frustrating to my brother who is home alone with him during the day so there is no escaping Bo. My dad doesn't seem to have this problem, not sure what's different about him. And my mom doesn't get on the floor to play with him a lot because of this problem we've been having. There has to be a happy medium between Bo sleeping and being (as we call him) a terrorist dog. What are you suggestions for teaching a puppy that people are not acceptable toys to chew/bite on?
Next thing on my mind is overtime. My department is in a big collections push as a result of a big billing push. Basically because the billing department has been told to "bill, bill, bill" for cash flow reasons, my department (credit/collections) is now being told to "collect, collect, collect". I'm not opposed to the overtime pay, and it's not that I don't have enough work to fill my time, but it makes for long hours at the office. Yesterday I worked 8.5 hours by only taking a half hour for my lunch break but wow was it ever a long day. It took until 4pm to get into a rhythm on the project I was working on. So, until 4pm the day seemed to drag by. I put a post-it note over the time on my phone because it sits right next to my computer screen which means I constantly glance at it. I even put papers over the clock radio that sits slightly behind me and is not in my direct line of sight. When I can't look at the time the day goes by a little bit better. If you follow me on Twitter you probably thought I was crazy when I posted a picture of my post-it note on my phone last week but I do it so I don't go crazy. Do you ever have to work overtime for your job? If so, how do you get through the long days?
And finally the last thing on my mind (but not on the bottom of the list of importance) is fitness. I haven't been doing any sort of activity, unless you count walking around the yard so Bo goes to the bathroom. Tonight, despite the scorching heat, I will be going for a walk. I don't care how it gets done, with Bo and my parents, with just Bo, or alone but it will get done! I've weighed Bo twice by holding him in my arms while on the scale, and then weighing myself alone on the scale. While it's not the scale I usually use to weigh in and I didn't record my weight I still did not like what I saw. Time and time again I say I'm going to kick my butt into gear to lose this excess weight but time and time again I'm not actually doing anything more than thinking about what I should be doing. News flash to self you won't lose weight by only thinking about what you should be doing, you need to actually do it!
There you have it, the ramblings that are going on in my head right now. I'll be posting the second part to my camping weekend (with pictures!) soon and hopefully not too far down the road I'll be posting my Country Fest 2011 recap (with pictures!) too.
First of all Bo is on my mind. He has sooo much energy lately and he's using it in the wrong way. He's been biting my fingers, hands, and arms a lot lately. I barely get him to let go and he's back at it again. I've tried to hold his mouth closed and say "no bite" in a strong voice but that doesn't seem to be working. I am open to suggestions! I know he's just a puppy but seriously, I try to play with him using his toys that he is allowed to chew/bite on but of course he goes for my hand/arm instead of the toy I'm holding. He does have a bone which he'll chew on it for a little bit but then seems to lose interest and is back to my hand/arm. It's getting frustrating and makes me want to not be around him. It's also frustrating to my brother who is home alone with him during the day so there is no escaping Bo. My dad doesn't seem to have this problem, not sure what's different about him. And my mom doesn't get on the floor to play with him a lot because of this problem we've been having. There has to be a happy medium between Bo sleeping and being (as we call him) a terrorist dog. What are you suggestions for teaching a puppy that people are not acceptable toys to chew/bite on?
Next thing on my mind is overtime. My department is in a big collections push as a result of a big billing push. Basically because the billing department has been told to "bill, bill, bill" for cash flow reasons, my department (credit/collections) is now being told to "collect, collect, collect". I'm not opposed to the overtime pay, and it's not that I don't have enough work to fill my time, but it makes for long hours at the office. Yesterday I worked 8.5 hours by only taking a half hour for my lunch break but wow was it ever a long day. It took until 4pm to get into a rhythm on the project I was working on. So, until 4pm the day seemed to drag by. I put a post-it note over the time on my phone because it sits right next to my computer screen which means I constantly glance at it. I even put papers over the clock radio that sits slightly behind me and is not in my direct line of sight. When I can't look at the time the day goes by a little bit better. If you follow me on Twitter you probably thought I was crazy when I posted a picture of my post-it note on my phone last week but I do it so I don't go crazy. Do you ever have to work overtime for your job? If so, how do you get through the long days?
And finally the last thing on my mind (but not on the bottom of the list of importance) is fitness. I haven't been doing any sort of activity, unless you count walking around the yard so Bo goes to the bathroom. Tonight, despite the scorching heat, I will be going for a walk. I don't care how it gets done, with Bo and my parents, with just Bo, or alone but it will get done! I've weighed Bo twice by holding him in my arms while on the scale, and then weighing myself alone on the scale. While it's not the scale I usually use to weigh in and I didn't record my weight I still did not like what I saw. Time and time again I say I'm going to kick my butt into gear to lose this excess weight but time and time again I'm not actually doing anything more than thinking about what I should be doing. News flash to self you won't lose weight by only thinking about what you should be doing, you need to actually do it!
There you have it, the ramblings that are going on in my head right now. I'll be posting the second part to my camping weekend (with pictures!) soon and hopefully not too far down the road I'll be posting my Country Fest 2011 recap (with pictures!) too.
Friday, July 15, 2011
It's finally time!
Yes you read that right, it is finally time that my surprise/secret (whatever you want to call it) is revealed!
As many of you know my family had to put our dog Duke to sleep in June. The day after was weird. We no longer had a dog in the house, or outside. The first time in my 21 years of life that I didn't have a dog. It was sad.
[caption id="attachment_206" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Duke after a grooming appointment 4/22/11"]
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_200" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Duke waiting for my mom to come up the driveway 6/3/11 (while he was sick :( )"]
[/caption]
No dog can ever replace Duke but we wanted a dog in our family again. And funny enough the one thing my mom agreed to before she married my dad, he would always have a hunting dog. So the topic came up the very next day about getting a puppy.
Monday (6/13/11) we attempted to contact Holly, the breeder we had gotten Duke from. Her number was no longer in service. I searched online but kept coming up with the same number. So our search turned to the internet. My dad and I were Googling like crazy. We ended up emailing two kennels that night; one responded within 10-15 minutes with a video of his puppies and then shortly after called my dad. We ended up setting up a time to come out and look at the puppies as there were four males available.
Tuesday morning at work I checked my email and was pleasantly surprised to see an email from the other kennel we had emailed. I responded back requesting that he call that evening.
Again we set up a time to come out and see the puppies. We were lucky that we could visit both litters on the same day which also happened to be my birthday. Bet you were wondering why I was on the road when I mentioned it in my last blog weren't you? ;)
Finally Saturday rolled around and we went to see both litters. The first puppies we saw were much older and would be ready to be picked up the weekend of the 25th and 26th. While the puppies were cute (but what puppies aren't?) they weren't what we were looking for.
We ate at Red Lobster between stops. The second litter of puppies were much younger and wouldn't be ready to go to their new homes until mid July. Even at a young age we were able to pick a favorite, boy #7.
We decided we wanted boy #7 by the time we got on the high way but waited to call them back until the next night. We put a deposit down and then all we had to do was wait.
We were expecting to pick up our puppy, who we decided to name Bo, on the 16th of July until we received a call on June 30th saying they had miscounted how many weeks old they would be and we could actually pick Bo up on the 9th.
We were prepared with a new blue collar and leash along with treats.
And finally what you've all been waiting for....pictures!
[caption id="attachment_201" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Bo in the car on our way home :)"]
[/caption]
Bo weighed in at 12 pounds Saturday at our vet and already by Wednesday night he weighed 14.5 pounds. He's growing up so fast!! :) or :( ???
[caption id="attachment_204" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Sleeping next to me on the way home"]
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_203" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="He decided he needed a new sleeping position"]
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_202" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bo between my feet :) Love my puppy!"]
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_205" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Sleepy puppy after hanging out in our yard. Much bigger than he's used to so he did lots more running around"]
[/caption]
Well there you have it! My secret/surprise has finally been revealed and I posted all the pictures I have of him right now.
My parents and I are going camping this weekend so I'll be sure to take more pictures. Sadly, I do not get cell phone reception or internet connection at the campground we're going to so I'll be unplugged until I get home. I don't mind being unplugged but I would like to be able to do some blog posting while it's just me and Bo at the camper while my parents are at wedding.
Still to come my Country Fest 2011 recap! Have a great weekend!!
As many of you know my family had to put our dog Duke to sleep in June. The day after was weird. We no longer had a dog in the house, or outside. The first time in my 21 years of life that I didn't have a dog. It was sad.
[caption id="attachment_206" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Duke after a grooming appointment 4/22/11"]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_200" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Duke waiting for my mom to come up the driveway 6/3/11 (while he was sick :( )"]
[/caption]No dog can ever replace Duke but we wanted a dog in our family again. And funny enough the one thing my mom agreed to before she married my dad, he would always have a hunting dog. So the topic came up the very next day about getting a puppy.
Monday (6/13/11) we attempted to contact Holly, the breeder we had gotten Duke from. Her number was no longer in service. I searched online but kept coming up with the same number. So our search turned to the internet. My dad and I were Googling like crazy. We ended up emailing two kennels that night; one responded within 10-15 minutes with a video of his puppies and then shortly after called my dad. We ended up setting up a time to come out and look at the puppies as there were four males available.
Tuesday morning at work I checked my email and was pleasantly surprised to see an email from the other kennel we had emailed. I responded back requesting that he call that evening.
Again we set up a time to come out and see the puppies. We were lucky that we could visit both litters on the same day which also happened to be my birthday. Bet you were wondering why I was on the road when I mentioned it in my last blog weren't you? ;)
Finally Saturday rolled around and we went to see both litters. The first puppies we saw were much older and would be ready to be picked up the weekend of the 25th and 26th. While the puppies were cute (but what puppies aren't?) they weren't what we were looking for.
We ate at Red Lobster between stops. The second litter of puppies were much younger and wouldn't be ready to go to their new homes until mid July. Even at a young age we were able to pick a favorite, boy #7.
We decided we wanted boy #7 by the time we got on the high way but waited to call them back until the next night. We put a deposit down and then all we had to do was wait.
We were expecting to pick up our puppy, who we decided to name Bo, on the 16th of July until we received a call on June 30th saying they had miscounted how many weeks old they would be and we could actually pick Bo up on the 9th.
We were prepared with a new blue collar and leash along with treats.
And finally what you've all been waiting for....pictures!
[caption id="attachment_201" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Bo in the car on our way home :)"]
[/caption]Bo weighed in at 12 pounds Saturday at our vet and already by Wednesday night he weighed 14.5 pounds. He's growing up so fast!! :) or :( ???
[caption id="attachment_204" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Sleeping next to me on the way home"]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_203" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="He decided he needed a new sleeping position"]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_202" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bo between my feet :) Love my puppy!"]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_205" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Sleepy puppy after hanging out in our yard. Much bigger than he's used to so he did lots more running around"]
[/caption]Well there you have it! My secret/surprise has finally been revealed and I posted all the pictures I have of him right now.
My parents and I are going camping this weekend so I'll be sure to take more pictures. Sadly, I do not get cell phone reception or internet connection at the campground we're going to so I'll be unplugged until I get home. I don't mind being unplugged but I would like to be able to do some blog posting while it's just me and Bo at the camper while my parents are at wedding.
Still to come my Country Fest 2011 recap! Have a great weekend!!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
You can't sip whiskey gotta drank it!
When I was trying to come up with a title for this post my new favorite song popped into my head and I thought it was kind of fitting. The title comes from Justin Moore's song Hank It off his album Justin Moore.
So it's been a while since my last post about the Good News & Bad News. A lot has happened and I'll do my best to summarize all of it without boring anyone to death.
First of all, that good news that I mentioned in my last post that I kept a secret from y'all will be revealed this weekend. Get excited because I know I am!
Three days after my last post I celebrated my 21st birthday. My parents and I were on the road so when we had the opportunity to eat a Red Lobster we jumped on it.
[caption id="attachment_195" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Red Lobster's wait staff singing Happy Birthday to me."]
[/caption]
Wow I don't know how I ever let myself leave the house like that. Yikes! But anyways, I ordered my first legal alcoholic drink and was carded for the first time, enjoyed some awesome shrimp, and some awesome dessert. Red Lobster apparently does nothing but sing when it's your birthday. No free dessert or anything, boo!
I went out with only my mom and my aunt that night for drinks. We ate dinner at Texas Roadhouse and bar hopped our way home. No, I didn't enjoy 21 shots but I still had a good time.
Following the birthday weekend I only had a three-day work week as it was time to hit the road to Country Fest 2011. I don't want to say too much about it now since I have a post in the works with pictures! But you can read about who I got to see here. I will share that I fell in love with Justin Moore after seeing him at Country Fest :)
I came back to work on Tuesday, nothing exciting happened that week.
This past weekend I did some fishing with my dad, some farm work, and a lot of reading! Oh yea, I got a Kindle for my birthday and have been loving it. I just wish they had more free books haha!
Now it's Thursday night and I've been hoping and thinking it's been Friday pretty much all week. Like I mentioned earlier my secret can be revealed this weekend and so of course I am looking forward to the weekend more than usual. Anyone want to take a guess at what my secret is?
In a nutshell these past couple of weeks have been full of fun and not so much healthy living. That's all changing this month though. I've once again recommitted to leading a healthier lifestyle and using www.sparkpeople.com to help me.
What's coming up:
Surprise Revealed
Country Fest 2011
I'm getting back into the blogging world so if I've been missing from your comments section be prepared for me to make a comeback! And if you're a reader of my blog I hope you come back too!
So it's been a while since my last post about the Good News & Bad News. A lot has happened and I'll do my best to summarize all of it without boring anyone to death.
First of all, that good news that I mentioned in my last post that I kept a secret from y'all will be revealed this weekend. Get excited because I know I am!
Three days after my last post I celebrated my 21st birthday. My parents and I were on the road so when we had the opportunity to eat a Red Lobster we jumped on it.
[caption id="attachment_195" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Red Lobster's wait staff singing Happy Birthday to me."]
[/caption]Wow I don't know how I ever let myself leave the house like that. Yikes! But anyways, I ordered my first legal alcoholic drink and was carded for the first time, enjoyed some awesome shrimp, and some awesome dessert. Red Lobster apparently does nothing but sing when it's your birthday. No free dessert or anything, boo!
I went out with only my mom and my aunt that night for drinks. We ate dinner at Texas Roadhouse and bar hopped our way home. No, I didn't enjoy 21 shots but I still had a good time.
Following the birthday weekend I only had a three-day work week as it was time to hit the road to Country Fest 2011. I don't want to say too much about it now since I have a post in the works with pictures! But you can read about who I got to see here. I will share that I fell in love with Justin Moore after seeing him at Country Fest :)
I came back to work on Tuesday, nothing exciting happened that week.
This past weekend I did some fishing with my dad, some farm work, and a lot of reading! Oh yea, I got a Kindle for my birthday and have been loving it. I just wish they had more free books haha!
Now it's Thursday night and I've been hoping and thinking it's been Friday pretty much all week. Like I mentioned earlier my secret can be revealed this weekend and so of course I am looking forward to the weekend more than usual. Anyone want to take a guess at what my secret is?
In a nutshell these past couple of weeks have been full of fun and not so much healthy living. That's all changing this month though. I've once again recommitted to leading a healthier lifestyle and using www.sparkpeople.com to help me.
What's coming up:
Surprise Revealed
Country Fest 2011
I'm getting back into the blogging world so if I've been missing from your comments section be prepared for me to make a comeback! And if you're a reader of my blog I hope you come back too!
Monday, June 13, 2011
If Heaven wasn't so far away...
I'd take my bird dog Bo huntin' one more time.
Those are part of the lyrics to a Justin Moore song that took on a whole lot more meaning for me this weekend.
Friday morning my mom called the vet. She, my dad, and my brother ended up taking him in that morning. From the time Duke was last seen by the vet on Tuesday May 31st a bunch of lumps formed. From what I understand he had some in his lymph nodes, in his stomach area, and one which I had noticed along his spine. The diagnosis was that Duke had cancer and getting anaplasmosis (the tick carried disease) basically made the cancer flare up and start to show symptoms.
It was determined that the best option was to put Duke to sleep. The vet was ready to do it during that visit but my parents said they couldn't do it while I wasn't there. They were given some new pain medication for Duke to help keep him more comfortable until the next day.
Friday night was tough. I found myself wondering what is harder; knowing they're going to go and having to wait for that time to come, or having them go unexpectedly? I never came to a conclusion.
Saturday I had an appointment to go to. My parents went with me and we brought Duke along. Once we got home we only had a few hours left with him. We each took some alone time with Duke. During mine I told him that everything would be better soon. No more pain, you'll be able to run again, you can hunt all the pheasants, mice, and rabbits you want, and you'll be able to play fetch as much as you want because there will always be a ball thrown for you.
The time came for us to go to the vet. My brother decided he didn't want to be there so it was just my parents and I.
About a half hour after arriving at the vet we were on our way home. We took Duke home with us and he was buried next to our first dog Babe.
I went home and laid on the floor on top of Duke's doggy napper for a couple of hours.
Duke is in a better place and our house now feels empty. This is the first time in 22 years that my family hasn't had a dog. This is my first time without having a dog in my whole life. Later this year in October will be the first time in 31 years that my dad will not go to South Dakota pheasant hunting. We're dealing with a lot of firsts right now.
The selfish side of me didn't want him to go and still wishes he wasn't gone. But I know he is in a better place now and that my family will heal.
Yesterday was Duke's 10th birthday. I know he had the best birthday he could have ever wished for.
I miss and love you always and forever Duke! I'll see you again some day.
Those are part of the lyrics to a Justin Moore song that took on a whole lot more meaning for me this weekend.
Friday morning my mom called the vet. She, my dad, and my brother ended up taking him in that morning. From the time Duke was last seen by the vet on Tuesday May 31st a bunch of lumps formed. From what I understand he had some in his lymph nodes, in his stomach area, and one which I had noticed along his spine. The diagnosis was that Duke had cancer and getting anaplasmosis (the tick carried disease) basically made the cancer flare up and start to show symptoms.
It was determined that the best option was to put Duke to sleep. The vet was ready to do it during that visit but my parents said they couldn't do it while I wasn't there. They were given some new pain medication for Duke to help keep him more comfortable until the next day.
Friday night was tough. I found myself wondering what is harder; knowing they're going to go and having to wait for that time to come, or having them go unexpectedly? I never came to a conclusion.
Saturday I had an appointment to go to. My parents went with me and we brought Duke along. Once we got home we only had a few hours left with him. We each took some alone time with Duke. During mine I told him that everything would be better soon. No more pain, you'll be able to run again, you can hunt all the pheasants, mice, and rabbits you want, and you'll be able to play fetch as much as you want because there will always be a ball thrown for you.
The time came for us to go to the vet. My brother decided he didn't want to be there so it was just my parents and I.
About a half hour after arriving at the vet we were on our way home. We took Duke home with us and he was buried next to our first dog Babe.
I went home and laid on the floor on top of Duke's doggy napper for a couple of hours.
Duke is in a better place and our house now feels empty. This is the first time in 22 years that my family hasn't had a dog. This is my first time without having a dog in my whole life. Later this year in October will be the first time in 31 years that my dad will not go to South Dakota pheasant hunting. We're dealing with a lot of firsts right now.
The selfish side of me didn't want him to go and still wishes he wasn't gone. But I know he is in a better place now and that my family will heal.
Yesterday was Duke's 10th birthday. I know he had the best birthday he could have ever wished for.
I miss and love you always and forever Duke! I'll see you again some day.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Wild Rollercoaster Ride
That is exactly what this whole thing with my dog Duke has been. The last time I posted (Friday 6/3/11) I was all excited that things were improving with him. Unfortunately they went back downhill. Duke was vomiting a lot, unable to keep food down. Monday morning when I went to give him his second medicine he didn't want the peanut butter sandwich that the pill was hiding in. I called the vet and got some tips of what to do to try to help. The next morning I called with an update for the vet about whether that helped. It didn't. Our vet decided to take him off of the antibiotics he's on as some dogs are really sensitive to it and hopefully that's what is irritating his stomach. Luckily it seems like that's what it was. Since taking him off the antibiotics he's been keeping food down and even made it through the whole night last night without vomiting! I don't want to jinx it but things are starting to look up again. In a week, if all goes well between now and then, our vet is going to probably put him back on the antibiotics but at a lower dose.
I feel terrible about neglecting my blog, reading and commenting on yours, and my journey to a healthier life. But sometimes there are just more important things in life. It's sad that dogs have a shorter life span than us. Duke may be the second dog our family has had but he's the one that's made that special connection with us. Don't get me wrong, we loved our first dog, but Duke just has such a different personality and he's not so much a daddy's boy, he'll do things with all of us and craves attention from us all and shows it in such funny ways. To have Duke hurting, not feeling well, or possible have something so wrong with him that we would need to say good-bye is soooo hard. Monday and Tuesday morning I've cried on the phone to my mom who is all the way in Denver for work this week. Yesterday was the first day I didn't cry, and now I'm continuing with that today.
I appreciate all of your prayers, thoughts, and well wishes so so so so much! If you don't mind I ask that you continue sending them my way until Duke is deemed "better" by the vet and we're no longer worrying and constantly noting things that happen with him so we can update the vet. Basically keep sending them my way until this rollercoaster ride is over and I'm safely back on solid ground.
I'll do my best to get back into blogging, my journey to a healthier life, and of course following your blogs soon!
I feel terrible about neglecting my blog, reading and commenting on yours, and my journey to a healthier life. But sometimes there are just more important things in life. It's sad that dogs have a shorter life span than us. Duke may be the second dog our family has had but he's the one that's made that special connection with us. Don't get me wrong, we loved our first dog, but Duke just has such a different personality and he's not so much a daddy's boy, he'll do things with all of us and craves attention from us all and shows it in such funny ways. To have Duke hurting, not feeling well, or possible have something so wrong with him that we would need to say good-bye is soooo hard. Monday and Tuesday morning I've cried on the phone to my mom who is all the way in Denver for work this week. Yesterday was the first day I didn't cry, and now I'm continuing with that today.
I appreciate all of your prayers, thoughts, and well wishes so so so so much! If you don't mind I ask that you continue sending them my way until Duke is deemed "better" by the vet and we're no longer worrying and constantly noting things that happen with him so we can update the vet. Basically keep sending them my way until this rollercoaster ride is over and I'm safely back on solid ground.
I'll do my best to get back into blogging, my journey to a healthier life, and of course following your blogs soon!
Friday, June 3, 2011
Update
Well I have some pretty freaking awesome news for you bloggy friends...Duke has been improving since his visit to the vet on Tuesday!!!! You have no idea how happy this makes me. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts this week!! I feel so blessed to have such awesome readers, and dare I say friends, who are there when I need them for their support and prayers!
Tuesday he was re-checked by the vet and had full blood work done to check everything to make sure there was nothing else going on with his body. The disease he has become a bit more serious though as we were informed that it's a lot like lymes disease was about 20 years ago when it was first discovered; information and treatment plans were always changing so they don't know how exactly to treat or how serious the disease is. The vet informed us that they have lost dogs from this disease. Scary stuff!
He was prescribed a steroid medication to start on that night and he's been improving ever since. My mom called to give the vet the update (as we were told to do) and tomorrow we are lowering the dosage from 1 and 1/2 tablets to 1 tablet every 12 hours for two days and then to a 1/2 tablet. If he would start going backwards in his progress we go back to the dosage that was helping. We have to call again on Tuesday to update them on how things are going. Fingers crossed that things keep improving and soon my family has our dog back!
Due to the crazy emotions throughout this week and caring for Duke I've been a bit distracted in the evenings so I haven't been writing as I would have liked to. I thought summer would lead to consistent posting but so far not so much :( I'm going to work on that!
On the weight loss front...
I've determined that losing weight on my own, away from Sparkpeople, just isn't working for me. As of Wednesday I've logged in every day, been tracking my meals as much as I can (which really isn't very much), and while I haven't "officially" worked out yet I have been thinking about it a lot more than I had been. I really want to make progress this summer and not look back. It feels like forever since I've felt good about myself and where I'm at/headed.
Anyways, that's a brief update of what's going in my life. I'll bore you ( ;) ) with more posts soon!
Tuesday he was re-checked by the vet and had full blood work done to check everything to make sure there was nothing else going on with his body. The disease he has become a bit more serious though as we were informed that it's a lot like lymes disease was about 20 years ago when it was first discovered; information and treatment plans were always changing so they don't know how exactly to treat or how serious the disease is. The vet informed us that they have lost dogs from this disease. Scary stuff!
He was prescribed a steroid medication to start on that night and he's been improving ever since. My mom called to give the vet the update (as we were told to do) and tomorrow we are lowering the dosage from 1 and 1/2 tablets to 1 tablet every 12 hours for two days and then to a 1/2 tablet. If he would start going backwards in his progress we go back to the dosage that was helping. We have to call again on Tuesday to update them on how things are going. Fingers crossed that things keep improving and soon my family has our dog back!
Due to the crazy emotions throughout this week and caring for Duke I've been a bit distracted in the evenings so I haven't been writing as I would have liked to. I thought summer would lead to consistent posting but so far not so much :( I'm going to work on that!
On the weight loss front...
I've determined that losing weight on my own, away from Sparkpeople, just isn't working for me. As of Wednesday I've logged in every day, been tracking my meals as much as I can (which really isn't very much), and while I haven't "officially" worked out yet I have been thinking about it a lot more than I had been. I really want to make progress this summer and not look back. It feels like forever since I've felt good about myself and where I'm at/headed.
Anyways, that's a brief update of what's going in my life. I'll bore you ( ;) ) with more posts soon!
Monday, May 30, 2011
I need your prayers please!
Last week when I wrote my post about getting back on the wagon I didn't mention what was going on in my life. If you follow me on Twitter you may have seen the tweet about prayers for my dog Duke. Well here I am asking anyone who reads my blog to say a prayer for him.
Last week Sunday I noticed that Duke seemed to stumble up the stairs. My mom noticed he had a limp. My dad looked him over, felt around on his back legs (where he had the limp and what seemed to cause trouble for the stairs) and didn't find anything to explain it. No big deal right? Wrong. The next day it was worse. Duke could no longer go up stairs and he was struggling to walk. Both of his back legs seemed to give out on him, or it was painful for him to use them normally. We left him sleep in the house that night. The next day he didn't seem any better so we left him sleep in the house again and made the decision to call our vet the next day.
Wednesday morning my mom called and took the 1pm appointment time that was available. I left work at noon to run home quick to get Duke and take him to the vet. He has been eating and drinking like always so his weight hasn't changed since his last vet visit. Duke is an 83 pound Gordon Setter. Lifting and carrying him is no easy task but you do what you have to do for those you love.
Duke tested semi-positive for a disease carried by ticks. It's not Lyme but it has similar symptoms. We started him on antibiotics and some pain medicine. The antibiotics were supposed to have helped by today and if there were no signs of improvement then Duke needs to go back.
Sadly, Duke has shown no signs of improvement and according to my dad he's worse than yesterday. My mom will be calling the vet's office right at 7:30 am when it opens to see if we can get him in tomorrow. Fingers crossed that they have an opening. I will not be going this time. My brother is done with high school (graduates Wednesday) so he will go with my mom to do the lifting and carrying of Duke.
Lex always tells me POPT, power of positive thinking, so that's what I am going to do. Another great quote to remember during this time is from the TV show Hellcats. Savannah always says, "Positive outcomes only."
As much as I try to be and stay positive it breaks my heart to see Duke struggle to walk and I would assume be in pain. So I ask all of you reading to say a prayer for Duke that this next visit to the vet will have better results. My thoughts are that it's something besides the tick carried disease he tested semi-positive for. Whatever it is I hope the vet can figure that out and how to treat it so Duke can return to his normal life and no longer need to be carried long distances or up the stairs.
I apologize that I never posted those interesting posts I mentioned I had floating around in my head last week. They're still floating around and I will do my best to post them this week.
Do you have a furry child or furry sibling?
Duke certainly is part of our family. My mom calls him her son. He's such a special dog to us with an amazing personality that he will be hard to replace. Replace isn't the right word as you can never replace a family member but I don't know how else to describe it.
Last week Sunday I noticed that Duke seemed to stumble up the stairs. My mom noticed he had a limp. My dad looked him over, felt around on his back legs (where he had the limp and what seemed to cause trouble for the stairs) and didn't find anything to explain it. No big deal right? Wrong. The next day it was worse. Duke could no longer go up stairs and he was struggling to walk. Both of his back legs seemed to give out on him, or it was painful for him to use them normally. We left him sleep in the house that night. The next day he didn't seem any better so we left him sleep in the house again and made the decision to call our vet the next day.
Wednesday morning my mom called and took the 1pm appointment time that was available. I left work at noon to run home quick to get Duke and take him to the vet. He has been eating and drinking like always so his weight hasn't changed since his last vet visit. Duke is an 83 pound Gordon Setter. Lifting and carrying him is no easy task but you do what you have to do for those you love.
Duke tested semi-positive for a disease carried by ticks. It's not Lyme but it has similar symptoms. We started him on antibiotics and some pain medicine. The antibiotics were supposed to have helped by today and if there were no signs of improvement then Duke needs to go back.
Sadly, Duke has shown no signs of improvement and according to my dad he's worse than yesterday. My mom will be calling the vet's office right at 7:30 am when it opens to see if we can get him in tomorrow. Fingers crossed that they have an opening. I will not be going this time. My brother is done with high school (graduates Wednesday) so he will go with my mom to do the lifting and carrying of Duke.
Lex always tells me POPT, power of positive thinking, so that's what I am going to do. Another great quote to remember during this time is from the TV show Hellcats. Savannah always says, "Positive outcomes only."
As much as I try to be and stay positive it breaks my heart to see Duke struggle to walk and I would assume be in pain. So I ask all of you reading to say a prayer for Duke that this next visit to the vet will have better results. My thoughts are that it's something besides the tick carried disease he tested semi-positive for. Whatever it is I hope the vet can figure that out and how to treat it so Duke can return to his normal life and no longer need to be carried long distances or up the stairs.
I apologize that I never posted those interesting posts I mentioned I had floating around in my head last week. They're still floating around and I will do my best to post them this week.
Do you have a furry child or furry sibling?
Duke certainly is part of our family. My mom calls him her son. He's such a special dog to us with an amazing personality that he will be hard to replace. Replace isn't the right word as you can never replace a family member but I don't know how else to describe it.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Back on the Wagon!
Hello Summer! While the weather here in Wisconsin might not always feel like summer right now I am officially done with school for the semester so it is my summer, woot! With summer should come more consistent blogging from me (yay!) and less whining about being stressed (double yay!).
I want to say a quick thank you to my readers who have stuck around despite my lack of interesting and regular posts. Also, I'm excited to say I've reached 200 comments!! Some of those comments are my own replies to your comments but still, 200 comments!! I'm excited if you can't tell. ;)
Yesterday marked day one of working 8-hour days at my job. I don't really get much of a summer break by working 40-hour weeks but I am making money which I need to be able to pay for school so I can't complain. And I work at the same place my mom does so we carpool all summer. Not having to pay for gas basically all summer is awesomesauce!
Yesterday also marked day one of no Mountain Dew...again. Last week I stepped off the no Mountain Dew wagon for a few days. I got myself back on yesterday, yay for something positive! I have come to realize that I will probably never be completely Mountain Dew free and I'm OK with that. If I can consistently limit my intake to 2 per week I would be super happy with that. So that's my goal, 2 per week...I better drink them slow when I have them then eh?
Sunday Sami and I were schedule for a ride at 10am but let's just say I woke up after 10am and Sami never contacted me so I just said whatever to it. We aren't schedule for any rides as of right now so I need to get in touch with her. Because of the full-time hours I'm working for the summer we're only going to be able to get together on the weekends so I really need to get my butt in gear about riding without her. Here's to getting back on the fitness wagon!
I have an interesting post floating around in my head that I will try to write tonight. It will have pictures instead of just my boring ol' writing (yay!) so hopefully that helps make my posts more interesting. I know bloggers love to see pictures and not just a bunch of words.
You are now semi caught up on my life. I will catch you up a bit more this week with some more posts woot!!
Questions...
What are your summer plans? Are you working or do you actually get a summer break?
Carpooling: yay or nay?
I want to say a quick thank you to my readers who have stuck around despite my lack of interesting and regular posts. Also, I'm excited to say I've reached 200 comments!! Some of those comments are my own replies to your comments but still, 200 comments!! I'm excited if you can't tell. ;)
Yesterday marked day one of working 8-hour days at my job. I don't really get much of a summer break by working 40-hour weeks but I am making money which I need to be able to pay for school so I can't complain. And I work at the same place my mom does so we carpool all summer. Not having to pay for gas basically all summer is awesomesauce!
Yesterday also marked day one of no Mountain Dew...again. Last week I stepped off the no Mountain Dew wagon for a few days. I got myself back on yesterday, yay for something positive! I have come to realize that I will probably never be completely Mountain Dew free and I'm OK with that. If I can consistently limit my intake to 2 per week I would be super happy with that. So that's my goal, 2 per week...I better drink them slow when I have them then eh?
Sunday Sami and I were schedule for a ride at 10am but let's just say I woke up after 10am and Sami never contacted me so I just said whatever to it. We aren't schedule for any rides as of right now so I need to get in touch with her. Because of the full-time hours I'm working for the summer we're only going to be able to get together on the weekends so I really need to get my butt in gear about riding without her. Here's to getting back on the fitness wagon!
I have an interesting post floating around in my head that I will try to write tonight. It will have pictures instead of just my boring ol' writing (yay!) so hopefully that helps make my posts more interesting. I know bloggers love to see pictures and not just a bunch of words.
You are now semi caught up on my life. I will catch you up a bit more this week with some more posts woot!!
Questions...
What are your summer plans? Are you working or do you actually get a summer break?
Carpooling: yay or nay?
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Weekly TV Show Schedule
Thanks to Julie over at Peanut Butter Fingers for letting Lisa from I'm An Okie do a guest post while she's in Europe on vacation I now have an awesome new blog to follow. As the result of my new love for Lisa's blog I read her post about TV Night. Lisa asked her readers what our favorite TV show is and I proceeded to tell her that I wouldn't leave her the longest comment ever because my list is so long. I intrigued Lisa and per her request I am doing a post on my weekly TV show schedule. I warn you, it's a long one!
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
This is just my current weekly TV show schedule. I'm also a fan of Teen Mom, Teen Mom 2, 16 and Pregnant, Pretty Little Liars, Ice Road Truckers, and Ax Men (occasionally). I wouldn't doubt it if there were some shows that I've missed too - I mean seriously who can have that many shows to watch and remember them all??
All of these shows are either watched as they are aired or they are recorded to be watched later. Thursdays are the days I am most thankful to have a DVR because there are always two shows on at the same time that I enjoy to watch.
What are some of your favorite TV shows?
I know Hollie enjoys ANTM along with Nikki, and Alexis like Wipeout and Grey's.
Do you record shows in some form so you don't have to watch them as they're aired, or maybe you watch shows online?
Monday
- Dancing With The Stars - Rooting for Kirstie Alley and Maks (um hello Maks is HOT!) and Chelsea Cane (Disney TV star) and Mark Ballas
- How I Met Your Mother
- Castle
Tuesday
- Deadliest Catch
- Dancing With The Stars: The Results Show
- NCIS
- NCIS: LA
- Hellcats
Wednesday
- Survivor Redemption Island (boo it's over after Sunday's 2-hour season finale)
- The Real World: Las Vegas
Thursday
- The Big Bang Theory
- Rules of Engagement
- Grey's Anatomy
- Private Practice
- The Mentalist
- The Vampire Diaries
- Nikita
Friday
- Unfortunately nothing is on so the family usually hunts around for something and majority of the time we find a NCIS marathon on USA :)
Saturday
- Another night of nothing on :( Again, a NCIS marathon is usually on USA :)
Sunday
- Audrina
- The Judds (record it more for my mom but I've watched the episodes too)
This is just my current weekly TV show schedule. I'm also a fan of Teen Mom, Teen Mom 2, 16 and Pregnant, Pretty Little Liars, Ice Road Truckers, and Ax Men (occasionally). I wouldn't doubt it if there were some shows that I've missed too - I mean seriously who can have that many shows to watch and remember them all??
All of these shows are either watched as they are aired or they are recorded to be watched later. Thursdays are the days I am most thankful to have a DVR because there are always two shows on at the same time that I enjoy to watch.
What are some of your favorite TV shows?
I know Hollie enjoys ANTM along with Nikki, and Alexis like Wipeout and Grey's.
Do you record shows in some form so you don't have to watch them as they're aired, or maybe you watch shows online?
Monday, May 2, 2011
Fast Five
For those of you who read my last blog post, Short & Sweet, you know that Friday night I went to see the movie Fast Five. To put it simply IT WAS AWESOME!!
It had everything I expected it to have; fast cars, hot men (and women), excitement, action, and a little bit of love. This movie is the fifth in the "fast & furious series" I guess you could say. They seem to just keep getting better and better too since I thought the fourth one was freaking awesome as well.
What I loved about this movie is it brought characters from the previous four movies together. Some characters haven't been seen since the first movie and others were more recent additions. And then there was a brand new character introduced.
There was one point towards the end of the movie where my mom predicted what happened and I was thinking no way that couldn't have happened. But then of course they went back to show you what happened that you don't necessarily pick up on the first time you see the scene, and obviously they show you stuff that wasn't shown the first time. That was probably one of the best moments during the actual movie.
The best part that happened outside of the actual movie was after the credits. I'm not going to tell you why though because that would just ruin the fun of it and it would take away from the experience of seeing what I'm talking about right after the movie. Knowing what I'm talking about would just ruin it completely!
Some of you have said you wanted to see the movie so when I told you to watch all of the credits I hope you listened, or will listen. It's definitely worth the extra minutes spent sitting in your seat. I'm so thankful the guy at the theater that talked a little bit before the start of the movie told us to stay. I guess I can let you have this little hint since I didn't think it ruined anything when the movie theater guy told us this...it's a teaser to the NEXT movie! Oh yeah, another one is going to be made!
I hope if you're even remotely interested in this movie, or even thinking about possibly going with someone even though you're not interested that you go. It won't disappoint!
**This is the first time I've written a "review" type of post so let me know how I did please!!**
Edit: I forgot to mention that you do not need to have seen the previous four movies to understand this movie. But since I like them as well I suggest watching them too ;)
It had everything I expected it to have; fast cars, hot men (and women), excitement, action, and a little bit of love. This movie is the fifth in the "fast & furious series" I guess you could say. They seem to just keep getting better and better too since I thought the fourth one was freaking awesome as well.
What I loved about this movie is it brought characters from the previous four movies together. Some characters haven't been seen since the first movie and others were more recent additions. And then there was a brand new character introduced.
There was one point towards the end of the movie where my mom predicted what happened and I was thinking no way that couldn't have happened. But then of course they went back to show you what happened that you don't necessarily pick up on the first time you see the scene, and obviously they show you stuff that wasn't shown the first time. That was probably one of the best moments during the actual movie.
The best part that happened outside of the actual movie was after the credits. I'm not going to tell you why though because that would just ruin the fun of it and it would take away from the experience of seeing what I'm talking about right after the movie. Knowing what I'm talking about would just ruin it completely!
Some of you have said you wanted to see the movie so when I told you to watch all of the credits I hope you listened, or will listen. It's definitely worth the extra minutes spent sitting in your seat. I'm so thankful the guy at the theater that talked a little bit before the start of the movie told us to stay. I guess I can let you have this little hint since I didn't think it ruined anything when the movie theater guy told us this...it's a teaser to the NEXT movie! Oh yeah, another one is going to be made!
I hope if you're even remotely interested in this movie, or even thinking about possibly going with someone even though you're not interested that you go. It won't disappoint!
**This is the first time I've written a "review" type of post so let me know how I did please!!**
Edit: I forgot to mention that you do not need to have seen the previous four movies to understand this movie. But since I like them as well I suggest watching them too ;)
Friday, April 29, 2011
Short & Sweet
Short and sweet is exactly what my post will be. I have an hour left of work and then I will be a busy busy girl the rest of the afternoon and evening.
Right after work I am going to a late lunch (it'll be after 2pm) with my friend Megan. Megan now lives in Georgia or wait is it North Carolina?? Well, either way it's somewhere down south because her husband is in the Air Force (I think? ugh I can't remember anything lol). They're both up here until the 1st because by the end of the month he will be deployed. Sadly he is going to miss the birth of their first child. But on a positive note he will be with Megan when she finds out what they are having (boy or girl since it's obviously a baby duh! ;) )
When I get home after eating lunch I am going to do my best to work on some homework. I have late assignments to get done and handed in so I can at least get some points for them. I feel so crummy about it but there is no one to blame but myself. Thankfully the semester is FINALLY almost over.
My mom, brother, and I will be going to see Fast Five tonight at 7pm. MMM hot men and fast cars what girl doesn't like the sounds of that ;) We're probably going to leave pretty early because my brother has been asking for NASCAR 2011 (game) for a while now and one of his friends has it so he wants to get it even more now so we will be stopping at Best Buy to let him buy it. I'm going to be a nice older sister and let him use my Reward Zone Points reward of $10 off a purchase to get the game. Those games are not cheap lol!
So those are my fun and exciting plans for this afternoon/evening. I'm not going to bore you with my plans for the rest of the weekend but I'll do my best to figure out something interesting to post about and tofind take the time to post.
I hope everyone has had a great week!
What are your plans for your Friday night?
Right after work I am going to a late lunch (it'll be after 2pm) with my friend Megan. Megan now lives in Georgia or wait is it North Carolina?? Well, either way it's somewhere down south because her husband is in the Air Force (I think? ugh I can't remember anything lol). They're both up here until the 1st because by the end of the month he will be deployed. Sadly he is going to miss the birth of their first child. But on a positive note he will be with Megan when she finds out what they are having (boy or girl since it's obviously a baby duh! ;) )
When I get home after eating lunch I am going to do my best to work on some homework. I have late assignments to get done and handed in so I can at least get some points for them. I feel so crummy about it but there is no one to blame but myself. Thankfully the semester is FINALLY almost over.
My mom, brother, and I will be going to see Fast Five tonight at 7pm. MMM hot men and fast cars what girl doesn't like the sounds of that ;) We're probably going to leave pretty early because my brother has been asking for NASCAR 2011 (game) for a while now and one of his friends has it so he wants to get it even more now so we will be stopping at Best Buy to let him buy it. I'm going to be a nice older sister and let him use my Reward Zone Points reward of $10 off a purchase to get the game. Those games are not cheap lol!
So those are my fun and exciting plans for this afternoon/evening. I'm not going to bore you with my plans for the rest of the weekend but I'll do my best to figure out something interesting to post about and to
I hope everyone has had a great week!
What are your plans for your Friday night?
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Samsung Captivate Stole The Show
Well it's Sunday already, weekend is almost over booo! I have more than enough homework left to do but of course I'm feeling tired and lazy so productivity will be hard to come by. Thing is, I have the itch to clean today. Weird? I think so. I don't want to be productive when it comes to homework but I want to clean??
So anyways my last post I was stressing out about all of the work I had to do. Let's just say after that I got to an "I don't give a rat's butt any more" mood. Tuesday I had a speech prep form due, I haven't done that yet. Thursday I had to respond to my group member's speech prep forms, haven't done that yet. I need to do a discussion post that was due Tuesday that I was having technical difficulties with. And tomorrow my speech, the one I haven't even started to look at yet, is due. And to add the cherry on top of all of these things that were due this last week that I haven't done yet I need to start work for this week again. School is just a never-ending cycle and being a procrastinator means you always feel behind, even though you think about working on things and being productive to be on top of things.
Once I am done writing this post I will be hitting the books...while watching the race. So that means I'll probably be trying to work on things but will get very little done until after the race.
In other news, Wednesday after I was done with work at 3pm I went to the AT&T store to renew my contract and pick out a new phone. As you recall I had posted earlier about either a Blackberry Torch or iPhone. Well neither of them won. I arrive at the store and tell the man, Michael, what I'm there for (to renew my contract and get a new phone). So when Michael asks what phone I want I tell him I've been thinking BB Torch or iPhone. He tells me he doesn't think I'll like the BB for what I want to do (texting, Facebook, Twitter) and that he personally doesn't like the iPhone (he told me some reasons why but I can't remember). He tells me about the phone he has, the Samsung Captivate. About 45 minutes to an hour later I'm sold on the Captivate.
When Michael looks at my account on the computer he tells me it looks like you're out of contract and are not eligible for an upgrade until July. I'm like "whaaat Louie said I could upgrade on 4/13!" Louie is another AT&T employee, or he was not sure if he's still with the company, who I had seen towards the end of 2010 or early 2011 and asked when I could upgrade. So while I'm kind of freaking out Michael assures me that even if he can't get corporate to authorize the upgrade with my current phone number worst case I can cancel that number and get a new number, for no extra cost. Well the worst case happened, the woman Michael called said she's send me a phone but what that really means is it's refurbished and that's not what I want. The woman was rude to Michael as well so he was going to report her...she said "What part of she's not eligible for an upgrade do you not understand?" Oh yea, she said that to him all because he said "Well she'll just open a new line on her account to get her upgrade if you won't leave her keep her number" which he was basically saying either way this customer is getting what she wants today but you could be nice and help her out by letting her keep her number.
I was a bit sad to have to let my number go, it was the easiest number in the world to remember and I had it since I got my phone which was when I was like 12-years-old. But the sadness quickly went away when they found a sweet new number for me to have, 0288. Dale Jr, my favorite driver in NASCAR, drive the #88 so as soon as I heard this number I was like "OMG OMG OMG yes please I want that number!" Michael was awesome about my little freak out and even joked that I must just be cool because the receipt paper was at the end so it was striped, racing stripes haha.
I finally headed home at 5pm, 2 hours after arriving at the store. Of course when I got home I wanted to do nothing but play with my phone so I was lucky to get my history of rock and roll test done. Sadly I got a 60/100. These tests are seriously hard. You have to remember random facts about bands/artists that are discussed and stuff like that.
Thursday I went to my Managing Global Organizations class and took my first test of the class. I studied the vocabulary like my professor had said to. Turns out that wasn't very helpful, you need to study more than that. But I did get a 76% which was slightly above the class average. My professor left a note on D2L saying if you were at the average or above we were doing good but if not we needed to do better for the next test. Whew, I'm doing good! :)
Friday after work I came home and took my Organizational Behavior test and scored at 90% (Thank you Lexie for telling me to take it instead of waiting for Saturday!). Thank you professor for having the questions be only about the textbook readings so I can look up all the answers! That night my parents and I went out with another couple and their son and his friend. My dad was the DD (designated driver) so everyone was drinking. The son and his friend drove separately so they left shortly after eating. It was quite the night.
Because of the late night and drinking the night before Saturday (yesterday) was a very unproductive day unless you count watching DVR'd shows as being productive. I watched The Vampire Diaries, Nikita, Deadliest Catch, Survivor: Redemption Island, and How I Met Your Mother after I woke up at 10:30am. Other than that a whole lot of nothing got done haha.
I will be doing a post about my current weight loss progress soon as I think that's what everyone is most interested in reading about on my blog, with a sprinkling of other things in my life.
No questions today...
Until next time!
So anyways my last post I was stressing out about all of the work I had to do. Let's just say after that I got to an "I don't give a rat's butt any more" mood. Tuesday I had a speech prep form due, I haven't done that yet. Thursday I had to respond to my group member's speech prep forms, haven't done that yet. I need to do a discussion post that was due Tuesday that I was having technical difficulties with. And tomorrow my speech, the one I haven't even started to look at yet, is due. And to add the cherry on top of all of these things that were due this last week that I haven't done yet I need to start work for this week again. School is just a never-ending cycle and being a procrastinator means you always feel behind, even though you think about working on things and being productive to be on top of things.
Once I am done writing this post I will be hitting the books...while watching the race. So that means I'll probably be trying to work on things but will get very little done until after the race.
In other news, Wednesday after I was done with work at 3pm I went to the AT&T store to renew my contract and pick out a new phone. As you recall I had posted earlier about either a Blackberry Torch or iPhone. Well neither of them won. I arrive at the store and tell the man, Michael, what I'm there for (to renew my contract and get a new phone). So when Michael asks what phone I want I tell him I've been thinking BB Torch or iPhone. He tells me he doesn't think I'll like the BB for what I want to do (texting, Facebook, Twitter) and that he personally doesn't like the iPhone (he told me some reasons why but I can't remember). He tells me about the phone he has, the Samsung Captivate. About 45 minutes to an hour later I'm sold on the Captivate.
When Michael looks at my account on the computer he tells me it looks like you're out of contract and are not eligible for an upgrade until July. I'm like "whaaat Louie said I could upgrade on 4/13!" Louie is another AT&T employee, or he was not sure if he's still with the company, who I had seen towards the end of 2010 or early 2011 and asked when I could upgrade. So while I'm kind of freaking out Michael assures me that even if he can't get corporate to authorize the upgrade with my current phone number worst case I can cancel that number and get a new number, for no extra cost. Well the worst case happened, the woman Michael called said she's send me a phone but what that really means is it's refurbished and that's not what I want. The woman was rude to Michael as well so he was going to report her...she said "What part of she's not eligible for an upgrade do you not understand?" Oh yea, she said that to him all because he said "Well she'll just open a new line on her account to get her upgrade if you won't leave her keep her number" which he was basically saying either way this customer is getting what she wants today but you could be nice and help her out by letting her keep her number.
I was a bit sad to have to let my number go, it was the easiest number in the world to remember and I had it since I got my phone which was when I was like 12-years-old. But the sadness quickly went away when they found a sweet new number for me to have, 0288. Dale Jr, my favorite driver in NASCAR, drive the #88 so as soon as I heard this number I was like "OMG OMG OMG yes please I want that number!" Michael was awesome about my little freak out and even joked that I must just be cool because the receipt paper was at the end so it was striped, racing stripes haha.
I finally headed home at 5pm, 2 hours after arriving at the store. Of course when I got home I wanted to do nothing but play with my phone so I was lucky to get my history of rock and roll test done. Sadly I got a 60/100. These tests are seriously hard. You have to remember random facts about bands/artists that are discussed and stuff like that.
Thursday I went to my Managing Global Organizations class and took my first test of the class. I studied the vocabulary like my professor had said to. Turns out that wasn't very helpful, you need to study more than that. But I did get a 76% which was slightly above the class average. My professor left a note on D2L saying if you were at the average or above we were doing good but if not we needed to do better for the next test. Whew, I'm doing good! :)
Friday after work I came home and took my Organizational Behavior test and scored at 90% (Thank you Lexie for telling me to take it instead of waiting for Saturday!). Thank you professor for having the questions be only about the textbook readings so I can look up all the answers! That night my parents and I went out with another couple and their son and his friend. My dad was the DD (designated driver) so everyone was drinking. The son and his friend drove separately so they left shortly after eating. It was quite the night.
Because of the late night and drinking the night before Saturday (yesterday) was a very unproductive day unless you count watching DVR'd shows as being productive. I watched The Vampire Diaries, Nikita, Deadliest Catch, Survivor: Redemption Island, and How I Met Your Mother after I woke up at 10:30am. Other than that a whole lot of nothing got done haha.
I will be doing a post about my current weight loss progress soon as I think that's what everyone is most interested in reading about on my blog, with a sprinkling of other things in my life.
No questions today...
Until next time!
Monday, April 11, 2011
iPhone vs Blackberry Who Will Win?
The battle is on!
Wednesday after work I will be going to my local AT&T store to renew my contract and pick out a new phone. I'm asking for your help peeps!
When the Blackberry Torch first came out and was being advertised on TV I thought I knew what I would get when the time came. I currently have a Samsung Impression which is a touch screen with a slide out full keyboard.
[caption id="attachment_131" align="aligncenter" width="234" caption="My current phone"]
[/caption]
So a Blackberry Torch would be very much the same.
[caption id="attachment_132" align="aligncenter" width="248" caption="Blackberry Torch"]
[/caption]
But recently I've seen people in the blogging world that have gotten iPhones and just raved about how much they love them. I also know people who have iPhones and love them. So I've sort of been toying with the idea of getting one myself.
[caption id="attachment_133" align="aligncenter" width="267" caption="iPhone"]
[/caption]
My main concern with the iPhone is that it is a full touch screen. I'll admit I do not use the full keyboard much on my current phone but I do like having the option to use it. Sometimes I do use it a lot.
The Blackberry Torch seems to be the best of both worlds just like my current phone. I can use the touch screen to text or I can use the full keyboard. The Torch will be a step up from my current phone though because it will be a smart phone.
I'll admit I haven't really done research on either phone as the renewal date has kind of crept up on me. Basically in my uninformed mind I see the phones as both having apps and one being a full touch screen while the other is a touch screen with a full keyboard.
I have essentially have two days to make my decision. Help me out peeps! Give me your honest opinions with some pros and cons of both, especially if you were a previous BB owner and now have an iPhone.
I should mention I am an AT&T customer. The iPhone 3GS 8GB is being advertised as $49. If you vote iPhone which one should I get, the 3GS, 4G...I don't know if there are any other options out there. Seriously, I need help.
I will of course be taking the information I learn from you peeps and going over it with someone at the AT&T store to cement my decision.
Tell me what you think and why. I value your opinions!
Wednesday after work I will be going to my local AT&T store to renew my contract and pick out a new phone. I'm asking for your help peeps!
When the Blackberry Torch first came out and was being advertised on TV I thought I knew what I would get when the time came. I currently have a Samsung Impression which is a touch screen with a slide out full keyboard.
[caption id="attachment_131" align="aligncenter" width="234" caption="My current phone"]
[/caption]So a Blackberry Torch would be very much the same.
[caption id="attachment_132" align="aligncenter" width="248" caption="Blackberry Torch"]
[/caption]But recently I've seen people in the blogging world that have gotten iPhones and just raved about how much they love them. I also know people who have iPhones and love them. So I've sort of been toying with the idea of getting one myself.
[caption id="attachment_133" align="aligncenter" width="267" caption="iPhone"]
[/caption]My main concern with the iPhone is that it is a full touch screen. I'll admit I do not use the full keyboard much on my current phone but I do like having the option to use it. Sometimes I do use it a lot.
The Blackberry Torch seems to be the best of both worlds just like my current phone. I can use the touch screen to text or I can use the full keyboard. The Torch will be a step up from my current phone though because it will be a smart phone.
I'll admit I haven't really done research on either phone as the renewal date has kind of crept up on me. Basically in my uninformed mind I see the phones as both having apps and one being a full touch screen while the other is a touch screen with a full keyboard.
I have essentially have two days to make my decision. Help me out peeps! Give me your honest opinions with some pros and cons of both, especially if you were a previous BB owner and now have an iPhone.
I should mention I am an AT&T customer. The iPhone 3GS 8GB is being advertised as $49. If you vote iPhone which one should I get, the 3GS, 4G...I don't know if there are any other options out there. Seriously, I need help.
I will of course be taking the information I learn from you peeps and going over it with someone at the AT&T store to cement my decision.
Tell me what you think and why. I value your opinions!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Randoms & ABC's
I wanted to do a post for my readers to get to know me better so I went on my Facebook under the notes thingy and looked around for a quiz type thing to do. These are just some random questions I guess followed by some ABC's.
Do you tend to speed when you drive? Without the cruise set, yes. Otherwise I go just the usual 5 over the limit.
Do you smoke cigarettes? No
Does your temper flare a lot? Not publicly. I will vent at home about something the upset me but I generally don't show that I'm mad as the situation is going on.
Do you get emotional easily? Yes, sometimes I wish I didn't.
Do you get obnoxious when you're drunk? I don't think so.
Which shoe goes on first? Um I'm not sure. I don't know that it matters to me.
Are you lazy? I can be but not always.
Name one thing you do that people always tell you about: I wear my emotions on my face. My mom reminds me that it's not a good thing quite often.
Are you superstitious? No
Do you get bored with relationships quickly? No
Can you sleep without blankets covering you? No, unless it would be super hot.
What position do you sleep in? On either side.
What do you do when you're angry? Yell, or say nothing and vent about it later. Depends on who or what is making me angry.
What do you do when you're sad? Cry and talk to someone about it or keep it to myself. Depends on what it's about.
Who do you call when you have a bad day? Right now I would say I would call no one. I would either talk to my mom about it or as of recently text Lex.
-ABC'S-
A - is for the last person that made you ANGRY ~ Myself for putting off a discussion post that was due Tuesday at 6pm until tonight.
B - is for BEER you prefer ~ Not really a beer drinker but Coors Light or Miller
C - is for do you have a CAT? No but I wouldn't mind having one.
D - is for can you DANCE? I'm going to go with no lol.
E - is for do you have your EARS pierced? Yes, twice in my left and three times in my right.
F - is for your best FRIEND ~ Honestly at this very moment I'd say Lex. Sounds weird as I've never met her but since we've started texting I feel like I can tell her anything, and she's very supportive.
G - is for did you ever watch GUTS on Nickelodeon? I think so.
H - is for the last person who HUGGED you? My mom
I - is for close your eyes.. what IMAGE do you see? Uh nothing? Weird question.
J - is for have you ever been to JAIL? No.
K - is for when is the last time you flew a KITE? I didn't fly a kite but in April of last year the group I was with in Milwaukee was flying kites. They even untied a kite from its string to tie it to the end of another kite's string to make it super long. It was up there pretty high!
L - is for the LOVE of your life ~ Oh boy...um I'll say Mountain Dew lol.
M - is for the last piece of MAIL you got ~ American Eagle credit card bill boo :(
N - is for do you remember NERF guns? Yes!
O - is for do you OWN a car? I drive a car but my parents paid for the majority of it and it's titled in my dad's name so technically no I guess I don't.
P - is for your favorite PAST-TIME ~ Reading
Q - is for do you like peace & QUIET? Yes, I get much more done when its quiet and peaceful.
R - is for do you like the color RED? Yes, my room walls are painted red.
S - is for how many hours of SLEEP you need to function? I don't honestly know. I do know I'm not getting enough sleep though since I can never get my butt out of bed in the morning.
T - is for what TIME is it? 11:55pm
U - is for what is UNDER your bed? Dust bunnies I would assume.
V - is for what you did last VALENTINE'S day ~ Nothing, didn't have a valentine to do anything with.
W - is for do you drink a lot of WATER? No but I am working on drinking at least 8 glasses per day.
X - is for have you ever had an X-RAY? Yes. At the dentist, when I injured my finger playing basketball in middle school, prior to having surgery on my mouth and after the surgery for an implant.
Y - is for the last person you YELLED at ~ I don't remember, it's been a while.
Z - is for have you ever watched ZORRO? No.
[polldaddy poll=4880780]
Do you tend to speed when you drive? Without the cruise set, yes. Otherwise I go just the usual 5 over the limit.
Do you smoke cigarettes? No
Does your temper flare a lot? Not publicly. I will vent at home about something the upset me but I generally don't show that I'm mad as the situation is going on.
Do you get emotional easily? Yes, sometimes I wish I didn't.
Do you get obnoxious when you're drunk? I don't think so.
Which shoe goes on first? Um I'm not sure. I don't know that it matters to me.
Are you lazy? I can be but not always.
Name one thing you do that people always tell you about: I wear my emotions on my face. My mom reminds me that it's not a good thing quite often.
Are you superstitious? No
Do you get bored with relationships quickly? No
Can you sleep without blankets covering you? No, unless it would be super hot.
What position do you sleep in? On either side.
What do you do when you're angry? Yell, or say nothing and vent about it later. Depends on who or what is making me angry.
What do you do when you're sad? Cry and talk to someone about it or keep it to myself. Depends on what it's about.
Who do you call when you have a bad day? Right now I would say I would call no one. I would either talk to my mom about it or as of recently text Lex.
-ABC'S-
A - is for the last person that made you ANGRY ~ Myself for putting off a discussion post that was due Tuesday at 6pm until tonight.
B - is for BEER you prefer ~ Not really a beer drinker but Coors Light or Miller
C - is for do you have a CAT? No but I wouldn't mind having one.
D - is for can you DANCE? I'm going to go with no lol.
E - is for do you have your EARS pierced? Yes, twice in my left and three times in my right.
F - is for your best FRIEND ~ Honestly at this very moment I'd say Lex. Sounds weird as I've never met her but since we've started texting I feel like I can tell her anything, and she's very supportive.
G - is for did you ever watch GUTS on Nickelodeon? I think so.
H - is for the last person who HUGGED you? My mom
I - is for close your eyes.. what IMAGE do you see? Uh nothing? Weird question.
J - is for have you ever been to JAIL? No.
K - is for when is the last time you flew a KITE? I didn't fly a kite but in April of last year the group I was with in Milwaukee was flying kites. They even untied a kite from its string to tie it to the end of another kite's string to make it super long. It was up there pretty high!
L - is for the LOVE of your life ~ Oh boy...um I'll say Mountain Dew lol.
M - is for the last piece of MAIL you got ~ American Eagle credit card bill boo :(
N - is for do you remember NERF guns? Yes!
O - is for do you OWN a car? I drive a car but my parents paid for the majority of it and it's titled in my dad's name so technically no I guess I don't.
P - is for your favorite PAST-TIME ~ Reading
Q - is for do you like peace & QUIET? Yes, I get much more done when its quiet and peaceful.
R - is for do you like the color RED? Yes, my room walls are painted red.
S - is for how many hours of SLEEP you need to function? I don't honestly know. I do know I'm not getting enough sleep though since I can never get my butt out of bed in the morning.
T - is for what TIME is it? 11:55pm
U - is for what is UNDER your bed? Dust bunnies I would assume.
V - is for what you did last VALENTINE'S day ~ Nothing, didn't have a valentine to do anything with.
W - is for do you drink a lot of WATER? No but I am working on drinking at least 8 glasses per day.
X - is for have you ever had an X-RAY? Yes. At the dentist, when I injured my finger playing basketball in middle school, prior to having surgery on my mouth and after the surgery for an implant.
Y - is for the last person you YELLED at ~ I don't remember, it's been a while.
Z - is for have you ever watched ZORRO? No.
[polldaddy poll=4880780]
Mr. Potato Head & The Creepy "New White Pages"
This is going to be short and sweet because I have a ton of work I need to get done for school. I won't bore you with all the boring details but lets just say I have 3 exams and a speech this week. Boo college :(
Alexis and I have never met but we have so much fun texting each other. Tuesday night was no exception. We were both studying and took a little break "together". Alexis sent me a picture message of her DIY Chia Pet, or Mr. Potato Head, which she said she had just given a hair cut. We ended up giving the Mr. Potato Head a makeover! Check it out! Needless to say this girl is awesome and I am so glad the blogging world gave me the opportunity to "meet" her!
On my day off from work and school, Tuesday, when I should have been working on homework I was checking out Life of bLyss, a blog I found that I really really like. As I was looking through some of her older posts I came across this one in particular that I wanted to share with my blog readers. The Creepy "New White Pages" is a post I'm really glad I found! Please, please go check it out. Alyssa, Life of bLyss writer, includes directions for how to delete any of your listings. I deleted at least 6 that were accurate for me, my mom, and my dad. It seriously creeped me out how much information was out there!
Well I'm off to go work on all my homework. I may or may not survive this so if you don't hear from me send someone to look for me ;)
Alexis and I have never met but we have so much fun texting each other. Tuesday night was no exception. We were both studying and took a little break "together". Alexis sent me a picture message of her DIY Chia Pet, or Mr. Potato Head, which she said she had just given a hair cut. We ended up giving the Mr. Potato Head a makeover! Check it out! Needless to say this girl is awesome and I am so glad the blogging world gave me the opportunity to "meet" her!
On my day off from work and school, Tuesday, when I should have been working on homework I was checking out Life of bLyss, a blog I found that I really really like. As I was looking through some of her older posts I came across this one in particular that I wanted to share with my blog readers. The Creepy "New White Pages" is a post I'm really glad I found! Please, please go check it out. Alyssa, Life of bLyss writer, includes directions for how to delete any of your listings. I deleted at least 6 that were accurate for me, my mom, and my dad. It seriously creeped me out how much information was out there!
Well I'm off to go work on all my homework. I may or may not survive this so if you don't hear from me send someone to look for me ;)
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
So much to say, so little time
Hey there bloggers...I started this post on Monday after work but saved it as a draft without publishing it because I had homework I needed to get done, and I had planned this whole productive afternoon and evening out which didn't include blogging until after I was done with my to-do list. Unfortunately, I never got around to finishing the post. And then yesterday was not the day I thought it would be either but more on that in a bit.
Sunday I had planned on working on my assignments for history of rock and roll that are due next week. But because of the fact that those assignments are due next week, meaning I was (or would be) working ahead, I gave myself an excuse to not put in as much effort as I should have. I got nothing done yesterday :( I read one section of the assigned reading and then just kind of messed around online and watched TV. So in a nut shell, nothing got done.
My plan for Monday afternoon to make up for Sunday's lack of productivity was to do the following before dinner.
While I didn't carry out my plan as well as I had been thinking I would I did pretty well.
Yesterday (Tuesday) I had no work and no class to attend so I was thinking it would be a great day to be super productive for my online classes. I should have never turned on the movie channels yesterday...all my productivity went down the tube then. I watched The Bounty Hunter with Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston, Dear John mmm Channing Tatum!!, The Ugle Truth (love love love Gerard and Katherine Heigle (sp??)), and I rounded out the day with Rock Star which had Jennifer Aniston in it. I had never heard of this movie until I found it on CMT yesterday. It was from 2001. Not a bad movie.
I did all of this movie watching after I had gone in to have my blood drawn for labs early in the morning. On Monday (the 4th) I am seeing my doctor for my yearly visit and she decided last year that I should have labs done up, I think to just get a baseline of my cholesterol but I'm not really sure. I am a bit nervous to find out what the labs say. I am really hoping that my weight gain and lack of weight loss has not affected my health.
I've finally created a new page on my blog. I decided to make it My Journey page of my weight loss. I am going to do my best to take pictures on a regular basis and post them along with posting my weigh ins on this page. I have never been one for measuring but if I do end up taking measurements I will also post them there. Basically anything that can serve as a means to track my weight loss will be on this page. I took my first pictures Monday and posted them there. You can check it out here. I also weighed myself on my Wii Fit yesterday before eating breakfast so that is also posted there.
I was browsing through Hollie's blog roll Sunday and chose to check out A Taste of Confidence. I found a book review of Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and found myself really interested in the book so I requested it from the public library. It also helps that a movie based on the book is coming out with Robert Pattison and Reese Witherspoon ;) It was when I was on the public library's website that I discovered I own a book by the same author. I have already read Riding Lesson but it was a while ago so I started re-reading it. It's an awesome book. I had always been on the look-out for the sequel whenever I saw books at the store but I never found it. I decided to request it from the library as well along with The Horse Whisperer that was mentioned on the back of Riding Lesson. The Horse Whisperer is already ready for me to pick up so after work today I'll be stopping at the library. Unfortunately, Water for Elephants is a popular book right now and I am number four on the request list so I don't think I'll be getting that book as quickly.
Besides the books I am getting from the library I just received the next 3 books in the Pretty Little Liars series on Monday. I picked up the first 3 from Barnes and Noble when I took Duke in for a grooming and had 3 hours to fill. I started watching the TV series based on the books last summer. I DVR'd the whole season the day of the summer finale (they re-aired all the episodes that day). And then this spring I have been watching the new episode every week. Sadly the spring finale was last week so now I have to wait until summer for more episodes. I love the show but from what I've read of the books so far it's pretty different. I like them both equally though despite the differences between the two.
I apologize for this really long post. I guess I had a lot to say, and I'm not even out of things to say yet! But I'm going to call this the end for today before I put you all to sleep ;)
I hope you have had a marvelous Monday, a terrific Tuesday, and a wonderful Wednesday so far this week.
Questions...
When books are made into TV series or movies do you love 'em or hate 'em compared to the book?
Twilight comes to mind for me...I LOVE the books more than I love the movies buuut I LOVE the movies too. I've read the books multiple times and watched the movies multiple times :)
Is there a book you highly recommend everyone to read??
Until next time...
Sunday I had planned on working on my assignments for history of rock and roll that are due next week. But because of the fact that those assignments are due next week, meaning I was (or would be) working ahead, I gave myself an excuse to not put in as much effort as I should have. I got nothing done yesterday :( I read one section of the assigned reading and then just kind of messed around online and watched TV. So in a nut shell, nothing got done.
My plan for Monday afternoon to make up for Sunday's lack of productivity was to do the following before dinner.
- Speech - No speech for this unit but there was an activity needed to be done by Monday. The plan was to have this completed before my parents came home and we ate dinner.
- Laundry - Put laundry in while working on speech assignment.
- Walk the dog (with parents?) - After dinner take a walk with my dog Duke and possibly my parents if they chose to come with me.
- Watch Dancing With The Stars (DWTS) with Alexis - This one is pretty self-explanatory :)
While I didn't carry out my plan as well as I had been thinking I would I did pretty well.
- Speech - Started reading articles to do the opening activity but did not finish the assignment before dinner. Because of the walk and DWTS I didn't finish the assignment until around 10pm. By this time there was still hardly any posts by other students so I decided I would do the response the next day.
- Laundry - Success! I didn't get all of my laundry done but I did do some.
- Walk with Duke - Another success! After dinner both of my parents and I headed out on a walk. I walk faster than my mom so she told me to go ahead, she would walk with my dad. I had Duke so I wasn't walking alone, even though I had no one to talk to ;) Duke and I went 1.89 miles in 31 minutes, shaving off 2 minutes from the week before when we did the same walk. Wanting to get home in time for DWTS was motivating obviously ;)
- Watch DWTS w/Alexis - Success again! I love watching DWTS and it was even better "watching" it with Alexis. She is just too funny sometimes, but I love it. I'm rooting for Chelsea (the Disney star) and Kirstie Alley this season. I've voted both weeks for them and it has paid off because neither of them were eliminated last night. Oh by the way, Maks is HOT! I would definitely dance my butt off for him ;)
Yesterday (Tuesday) I had no work and no class to attend so I was thinking it would be a great day to be super productive for my online classes. I should have never turned on the movie channels yesterday...all my productivity went down the tube then. I watched The Bounty Hunter with Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston, Dear John mmm Channing Tatum!!, The Ugle Truth (love love love Gerard and Katherine Heigle (sp??)), and I rounded out the day with Rock Star which had Jennifer Aniston in it. I had never heard of this movie until I found it on CMT yesterday. It was from 2001. Not a bad movie.
I did all of this movie watching after I had gone in to have my blood drawn for labs early in the morning. On Monday (the 4th) I am seeing my doctor for my yearly visit and she decided last year that I should have labs done up, I think to just get a baseline of my cholesterol but I'm not really sure. I am a bit nervous to find out what the labs say. I am really hoping that my weight gain and lack of weight loss has not affected my health.
I've finally created a new page on my blog. I decided to make it My Journey page of my weight loss. I am going to do my best to take pictures on a regular basis and post them along with posting my weigh ins on this page. I have never been one for measuring but if I do end up taking measurements I will also post them there. Basically anything that can serve as a means to track my weight loss will be on this page. I took my first pictures Monday and posted them there. You can check it out here. I also weighed myself on my Wii Fit yesterday before eating breakfast so that is also posted there.
I was browsing through Hollie's blog roll Sunday and chose to check out A Taste of Confidence. I found a book review of Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and found myself really interested in the book so I requested it from the public library. It also helps that a movie based on the book is coming out with Robert Pattison and Reese Witherspoon ;) It was when I was on the public library's website that I discovered I own a book by the same author. I have already read Riding Lesson but it was a while ago so I started re-reading it. It's an awesome book. I had always been on the look-out for the sequel whenever I saw books at the store but I never found it. I decided to request it from the library as well along with The Horse Whisperer that was mentioned on the back of Riding Lesson. The Horse Whisperer is already ready for me to pick up so after work today I'll be stopping at the library. Unfortunately, Water for Elephants is a popular book right now and I am number four on the request list so I don't think I'll be getting that book as quickly.
Besides the books I am getting from the library I just received the next 3 books in the Pretty Little Liars series on Monday. I picked up the first 3 from Barnes and Noble when I took Duke in for a grooming and had 3 hours to fill. I started watching the TV series based on the books last summer. I DVR'd the whole season the day of the summer finale (they re-aired all the episodes that day). And then this spring I have been watching the new episode every week. Sadly the spring finale was last week so now I have to wait until summer for more episodes. I love the show but from what I've read of the books so far it's pretty different. I like them both equally though despite the differences between the two.
I apologize for this really long post. I guess I had a lot to say, and I'm not even out of things to say yet! But I'm going to call this the end for today before I put you all to sleep ;)
I hope you have had a marvelous Monday, a terrific Tuesday, and a wonderful Wednesday so far this week.
Questions...
When books are made into TV series or movies do you love 'em or hate 'em compared to the book?
Twilight comes to mind for me...I LOVE the books more than I love the movies buuut I LOVE the movies too. I've read the books multiple times and watched the movies multiple times :)
Is there a book you highly recommend everyone to read??
Until next time...
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Blah Blah Blah~Ke$ha (Thanks iPod on Shuffle for my blog title)
Good evening bloggers...it's been a bit longer than I had hoped since my last post (so much for the 5 days/week :( ) I honestly just haven't had anything that I really wanted to write about...and I really still don't. What do you do if you have nothing "worth" writing about; post a blog just because or take a few days off?
Thursday I did go to Best Buy and get my new laptop. As soon as I got home I was of course taking it out of the box and getting it all set up. Everything was working just fine and dandy for me until this morning when I turned it on for the first time. It had just started up and installed some updates when it blue screened on me. I was shocked and seriously upset. Alexis helped to calm me by letting me know that it could just not have recognized the start-up (which sometimes happens) and that as long as it didn't happen again soon it should be alright. I seriously don't know what I would do without my tech-savy friends sometimes. I'm not horrible when it comes to computers but there are just some things I need someone smarter than me. For instance moving my music library from the iTunes on my old laptop to the iTunes on my new laptop...Putting the music files on my flash drive should work right?? But then my next question is, how to I get the music into iTunes?? Sorry if that's a totally dumb question and has a super easy answer to it.
Friday my dad and I went fishing by dams where the water is open. Because of the snow storm we had on Tuesday there was A LOT of snow to walk through to get from the roads to the water. I guess plowing those areas out isn't something they're concerned with. It was a good work out though...I'm talking knee-deep snow. Unfortunately no fish were caught :( I did take pictures of the geese at one of the fishing spots but haven't uploaded them onto my computer yet so I can't post them to my blog. Which is another thing I have to move from my old computer to my new one, pictures. And I need to figure out how to install the camera program on my new laptop.
My dad and I ate lunch at Freddy's Pub & Grill; both of us having chimis (shredded beef for my dad and shredded chicken for me). It was soooo good! I'm sure it helped that I had forgotten to eat breakfast because I woke up late to be ready to go fishing. Dinner was a home-made fish fry with the fish we had in the freezer from prior, more successful, fishing trips during the winter. Usually we have home-made french fries with our fish fry but we didn't have enough potatoes to make french fries so we used frozen waffle fries. I don't know what it is about waffle fries but I really really love them. Strange that I could like different styles of fries more than others even though they're all made out of the same thing, potatoes.
Today has been a pretty uneventful day other than my freak out this morning about the blue screen. I actually read the text for my history of rock and roll class last night and then today I listened to the lecture, took the quiz (13/15), posted to the discussion board, and responded to two other student's posts. All of this was due either Monday or Wednesday so I feel great having it done already today.
Tomorrow I will be working ahead a week by reading the text, listening to the lecture, and doing the discussion board posting so that I can use the next two weeks to work on my organizational behavior class. My next exam is coming up and I have yet to do any of the work (readings & assignments). Because this class does not have weekly assignments, unlike history of rock and roll, it's very easy to put off doing the work until right before the exam. I also need to look at my speech class to find out when the next unit has things due. I am going to do my best to NOT put off doing the speech until the night before because as we all know that did not work out very well last time at all ;)
Starting this week I will only meet at school for class on Thursdays from 11-1:30 which means I will have Tuesdays off. I am thinking I might work a full 8 hour day (8-4:30) on Mondays rather than just 7 (8-3). Or maybe I should start going in for a couple of hours on Tuesdays? I mean I did just spend quite a bit of money on a new laptop that I didn't REALLY need... Ugh I don't know. On one hand I think I should work more hours to make more money and help out my department but on the other hand in my perfect world I would use the time off from school and work to work on homework/studying. Realistically we know I don't use the extra free time to be working on school. Maybe if I had a fuller schedule I would be more on top of my school work because I would only have limited time to work on it?? Who knows...
Sorry for the completely random and boring post about my life...Like I said I had nothing I really wanted to write about :(
Questions...
When planning to make a semi-expensive/expensive purchase do you get nervous?
Thursday leaving work to go to Best Buy I was very nervous and I think it was because I was spending quite a bit of money on something that I didn't need. I didn't leave the store feeling much better because the employee that helped me made me feel rather dumb. I walked in there knowing what I wanted and told him that. He went on to ask me a bunch of questions like "Do you need anti-virus or Microsoft Office?" "You sure you know what you want, did you do your research?" UGH!! I was thinking to myself the whole time "Yes!!! I know what I want and if I needed something else I would ask for it!!"
I guess I should clarify that it was more the way that the guy a Best Buy was asking me these questions that irritated me more than the actual questions he was asking me. I do love a good helpful employee at a store, don't get me wrong!
Are you tech-savy or do you rely on tech-savy friends to help you out with those things? If you aren't tech-savy do you try to learn from your tech-savy friends?
Like I mentioned before I'm not horrible when it comes to computers but there are things I definitely ask for help on. Thank goodness for Alexis lately :) I'm super happy that I "met" you through your sister's blog!
Check out Alexis's blog here!
Until next time peeps!
Thursday I did go to Best Buy and get my new laptop. As soon as I got home I was of course taking it out of the box and getting it all set up. Everything was working just fine and dandy for me until this morning when I turned it on for the first time. It had just started up and installed some updates when it blue screened on me. I was shocked and seriously upset. Alexis helped to calm me by letting me know that it could just not have recognized the start-up (which sometimes happens) and that as long as it didn't happen again soon it should be alright. I seriously don't know what I would do without my tech-savy friends sometimes. I'm not horrible when it comes to computers but there are just some things I need someone smarter than me. For instance moving my music library from the iTunes on my old laptop to the iTunes on my new laptop...Putting the music files on my flash drive should work right?? But then my next question is, how to I get the music into iTunes?? Sorry if that's a totally dumb question and has a super easy answer to it.
Friday my dad and I went fishing by dams where the water is open. Because of the snow storm we had on Tuesday there was A LOT of snow to walk through to get from the roads to the water. I guess plowing those areas out isn't something they're concerned with. It was a good work out though...I'm talking knee-deep snow. Unfortunately no fish were caught :( I did take pictures of the geese at one of the fishing spots but haven't uploaded them onto my computer yet so I can't post them to my blog. Which is another thing I have to move from my old computer to my new one, pictures. And I need to figure out how to install the camera program on my new laptop.
My dad and I ate lunch at Freddy's Pub & Grill; both of us having chimis (shredded beef for my dad and shredded chicken for me). It was soooo good! I'm sure it helped that I had forgotten to eat breakfast because I woke up late to be ready to go fishing. Dinner was a home-made fish fry with the fish we had in the freezer from prior, more successful, fishing trips during the winter. Usually we have home-made french fries with our fish fry but we didn't have enough potatoes to make french fries so we used frozen waffle fries. I don't know what it is about waffle fries but I really really love them. Strange that I could like different styles of fries more than others even though they're all made out of the same thing, potatoes.
Today has been a pretty uneventful day other than my freak out this morning about the blue screen. I actually read the text for my history of rock and roll class last night and then today I listened to the lecture, took the quiz (13/15), posted to the discussion board, and responded to two other student's posts. All of this was due either Monday or Wednesday so I feel great having it done already today.
Tomorrow I will be working ahead a week by reading the text, listening to the lecture, and doing the discussion board posting so that I can use the next two weeks to work on my organizational behavior class. My next exam is coming up and I have yet to do any of the work (readings & assignments). Because this class does not have weekly assignments, unlike history of rock and roll, it's very easy to put off doing the work until right before the exam. I also need to look at my speech class to find out when the next unit has things due. I am going to do my best to NOT put off doing the speech until the night before because as we all know that did not work out very well last time at all ;)
Starting this week I will only meet at school for class on Thursdays from 11-1:30 which means I will have Tuesdays off. I am thinking I might work a full 8 hour day (8-4:30) on Mondays rather than just 7 (8-3). Or maybe I should start going in for a couple of hours on Tuesdays? I mean I did just spend quite a bit of money on a new laptop that I didn't REALLY need... Ugh I don't know. On one hand I think I should work more hours to make more money and help out my department but on the other hand in my perfect world I would use the time off from school and work to work on homework/studying. Realistically we know I don't use the extra free time to be working on school. Maybe if I had a fuller schedule I would be more on top of my school work because I would only have limited time to work on it?? Who knows...
Sorry for the completely random and boring post about my life...Like I said I had nothing I really wanted to write about :(
Questions...
When planning to make a semi-expensive/expensive purchase do you get nervous?
Thursday leaving work to go to Best Buy I was very nervous and I think it was because I was spending quite a bit of money on something that I didn't need. I didn't leave the store feeling much better because the employee that helped me made me feel rather dumb. I walked in there knowing what I wanted and told him that. He went on to ask me a bunch of questions like "Do you need anti-virus or Microsoft Office?" "You sure you know what you want, did you do your research?" UGH!! I was thinking to myself the whole time "Yes!!! I know what I want and if I needed something else I would ask for it!!"
I guess I should clarify that it was more the way that the guy a Best Buy was asking me these questions that irritated me more than the actual questions he was asking me. I do love a good helpful employee at a store, don't get me wrong!
Are you tech-savy or do you rely on tech-savy friends to help you out with those things? If you aren't tech-savy do you try to learn from your tech-savy friends?
Like I mentioned before I'm not horrible when it comes to computers but there are things I definitely ask for help on. Thank goodness for Alexis lately :) I'm super happy that I "met" you through your sister's blog!
Check out Alexis's blog here!
Until next time peeps!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Real Quick...
Just wanted to post a quick little something so I can keep up with the 5 days/week blogging thing.
Wow so that turned into a longer "little" update that I was planning. Anyways, I'm off to finish making my bed from last night...I was lucky I got the fitted sheet on my bed last night before my dog jumped on my bed and laid down, not that I'm complaining because prior to this he wouldn't lay down and was pacing and panting.
And real quick, new readers thanks for checking out my blog and leaving comments! I enjoy comments and am glad to see new readers commenting. Keep 'em coming!!
- Blogging - Monday and today...guess that means I need to blog every day for the rest of the week as I already didn't blog Sunday and now yesterday.
- Nutrition - Logged pretty much everything in Spark on Monday but now haven't done it yesterday or today. Buuut I have been watching my portion sizes. Staying away from Mountain Dew has been a fail except for yesterday. Moving on to tomorrow, not going to beat myself up about it.
- Fitness - Monday I took my dog for a 33 minute walk. We made it 1.89 miles. Yesterday due to yucky weather I did nothing. I should have done something today but it was like a half-day snow day for me so I ended up being rather lazy. On the bright side, my mom and I have talked about where we could put the Wii in our basement for quite some time but never followed through with our plan but today we came up with a new plan. This new plan is much more attainable than the last one so I have a good feeling it will be happening soon which means I'll have no excuse to not use the Wii as a form of indoor exercise.
- Weigh in - Did not weigh in yesterday as planned. My grandma called me right at 9 when I was going to be getting out of bed and invited me over for breakfast (waffles yum!) and to use her oven as our new one still has not arrived. I made 3 loafs (is this the correct "term"?? Spell check doesn't like this word for some reason??) of banana bread, sooo good. I will for sure weigh in tomorrow or Friday.
- Weather - Like I mentioned in my last blog there was some yucky weather headed my way and it came in full force. It snowed pretty hard yesterday morning, stopped for a while, and then snowed in the afternoon into the night. It was like a thunderstorm but instead of rain it was snow falling from the sky. This resulted in my dog being scared and keeping me and my dad up the whole night between the two of us. This morning it took my dad an hour to make it to work (normally 30 minutes or less) with a 4-wheel drive truck. Yea, that's how bad it was. So my mom and I called in to say we would be in no later than 10. We work at the same place so we rode together in one car and ended up making it there by 8:30. My mom's boss later decided that anyone who didn't live in town should really consider leaving early; translation = my mom should go home. We left at 1, meaning I only got 4 hours of work in so I will have to go in tomorrow to make up the 3 hours I missed but I will probably work 4 as I was planning to today for an even 8 hours.
- Laptop - After work tomorrow I am going to get a new laptop. There is nothing really wrong with my current laptop other than it occasionally likes to blue screen on me (usually late at night for some reason??) so I am getting a new (better) laptop and will let my family use my old one for as long as it lasts, which with their light use it will probably be ok for a while.
Wow so that turned into a longer "little" update that I was planning. Anyways, I'm off to finish making my bed from last night...I was lucky I got the fitted sheet on my bed last night before my dog jumped on my bed and laid down, not that I'm complaining because prior to this he wouldn't lay down and was pacing and panting.
And real quick, new readers thanks for checking out my blog and leaving comments! I enjoy comments and am glad to see new readers commenting. Keep 'em coming!!
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