Infinite-loop Songs

There are songs that get stuck in your head, and they do have an end point, so eventually, they come out of your head.



But, then there are songs that loop FOREVER, and even if you listen to them, the soundtrack continues in your brain.



For your convenience, I've made a list:

• John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
• Bananaphone
• Song That Never Ends
• Hole in the bucket
• It's a Small World
• 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall
• Badgerbadgerbadgerbadger
• Peanut Butter Jelly Time
• I'm Henry the VII, I Am
• Yo Ho Ho Ho, A Pirates Life for Me

On babies

So, today, I told my mom I wanted to tell her something that would make her feel happy. She said... Are you pregnant? No...



..tangent start..

It was a story about my dog sprocket following along to a commercial, which offered him a T-R-E-A-T and said sit. He looked at the TV and sat. How cute is he?

..tangent end..



So, back on to the topic. I am not pregnant. I am 32, so I've been talking about babies more. Just cause Time Is Short.



We were in a chili's before seeing Coraline, and there was a couple with three children under 3 or 4 (I couldn't tell). They walked in when we were waiting for Casey and Christine. The kid was very loud. Not obnoxiously so, at first, but he didn't have any concept of "inside voice". The parents were obviously overwhelmed.



As we sat down and ate our tilapias (for Stu and I - 161 calories, by the way), there was other worldly screams. Apparently, the kiddies got riled. And continued to be that way for the entire meal. I felt bad that the rents were completely overwhelmed, but maybe they should have spread out the babies. Maybe 1 a year is too much?



So, that was fun. A good time had by all.



Then we went to Coraline. Lovely lovely lovely movie. It's PG, but make sure your kid is 10 or so, unless you want them to have fear of sewing, buttons, spiders, stuffed animals, or a combo of any of those. So, it's a 7:30pm show on a Sunday night. Did I mention, only 10 and above, unless they are super mature? So, a rather large family walks in with children under 5. Probably 4 of them. (has no one ever told anyone who's thinking of the second kid, don't let them outnumber you unless they are 4-6 years apart?... they should have.) These kids did not understand the "silence is golden" adage. And also, not inside voices... have we stopped teaching kids about that? I think I shushed about 6 times. terrible. WAIT THOUGH. apparently, some braniac also thought, oh, an animated film, that won't be too loud for a newborn. And the newborn parents, they were different people.



Seriously. I feel like I'm losing my mind here.



Oh, btw... I think that Stu and I have decided about the baby...



Yeah, I'm not telling you. :)

And go see Coraline. In 3D. Did i mention it's in 3D? I took a set of glasses, and now I have two for no good reason.

Letting people go...

So, I have this terrible needy problem. I love being loved by people... wait.. I take that back. They don't have to love me. I love when people like me. But it is problematic. When people don't like me, I can't let it go. I have to know why. And if people just drop off for no reason... well, that really really really bugs me... I obsess over it.



So, I have this girl I was friends with at my job. I would go to lunch with her, out to shop during lunch. We would talk about things... religion, politics, families, relationships, ourselves... whatever.



So, it sounds like we are friends right? Yeah. I even invited her to my wedding. I felt really close to her. My job moved buildings... and she slowly got cooler to me. No explanation, no nothing... just cooler. Not really disliking me... we still talked and everything, not like before. But I didn't know what I did.



Her life circumstances changed, and she left work to take care of that. But then she disappeared. Not literally, but I said to her, let's go to lunch or whatever, or I would e-mail her an article I thought she would like, or I would IM her or something. But I would hear nothing from her.



She works occasionally with my company freelance... but she ignores me. My very wise friend Sandra told me... "Some people are put on this earth to spend a season with you"... I get it... but I can't let go. I invited very few people to my wedding, and I thought she would be a person who would stick around. I had no one I could talk about spiritual things and she was very open about talking about it. Her faith is very evangelical, really recruiting people into it (she is Mormon) and sometimes I think that because I didn't join up with her stuff and she "dumped" me, that maybe she had another agenda.



It makes me so sad. I really enjoyed her company. I have no friends I can talk openly about faith with. She was that friend. I've even toyed with the idea of joining up just to keep friends with her... well, refriend her, I suppose. Horrible thought, but then again, I grew up with the idea of "fellowship" in my own Baptist faith. I am very depressed about this. Have been for a while. I can't let go. This season thing, I guess, I'm the one used to making the decision to leave, not the other person. I don't know. It makes me really really sad. I've been thinking about it lately.



You see, my friend Melissa just had a baby, and family was so important to this girl. I've even been thinking about babies lately... I just wish I could talk to her about it. You see, I have MS, my husband's family is Jewish, and I'm 31, so I'm concerned about a lot of things. I tried talking to two of my other girlfriends about babies this weekend, but they are no help really. One would rather die than have a kid... the other seems to want me to have twins (she almost bet I would have twins)... I just want to talk to someone about it. My friend Melissa wanted me to have a baby at the same time as her... so we'd go through it together. But there's so much crap around all of the baby stuff (literally and figuratively), that I just want a sane sounding board.



*sigh*



I just feel lonely tonight. I wish that girl would forget about what I did or whatever, and just talk to me again.

FOOD PORN

I love food blogs. Beautiful pictures, yummy recipes, the backstories... LOVE THEM.



We, the "in the know" people", call this FOOD PORN.



It combines my love of a few things:

1. Food (hope that's obvious)

2. Photography... a beautiful picture of freshly made recipes will add 100% to your desire for that food. For example, if you are looking around the day that I wrote this... I don't even LIKE Bread and Butter pickles... they fill me with icky unhappy feelings... but the picture... YUM.

3. Sharing. There's this blog I love to read, and she's sharing HER recipes.



I love it.



For a little song and dance about potato salad... watch this...

Solid Potato Salad:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHEtXkReIbE



Stick through the singing to the odd finish.

A momentus day...

... in my blogoverse. I got my first comment. Thanks AllyBally!



I thought I'd update you on my life so far.



Been doing the WiiFit relatively frequently, but I haven't lost much of anything. Maybe 2 lbs going on 70 days. But I do lift weights, so I'm denser than the average girl. (It's showing my little Mii as Overweight, but my waist shows different... I'm not a stick, but I'm not flubber, either.)



My hubs got a job at a Great Special Kompletely wonderful pharma company. He's in charge of Learning and something. Manager of it. I'm proud of him, though I'm super jealous of his commute. He drives to the train, takes that in, and can catch up on his RSS feeds and whatnot. The place, as it's BIG Pharma, closes down basically at 5, so he gets home BEFORE me now. But he gets to ride the train home, too. Cutting out the frustration of my commute would be fabu, but it's not good for IT people right now, so here I sit... ummm... writing my blog. :)



We took Sprocket on vacation recently. MAJOR SUCCESS. He's coming next year for sure!



That's all for now.

Wii Fit - Day 1

So, I went to the gamestop and picked up my preordered Wii Fit.



Observation 1: This is a heavy package. Heavy heavy. If you are out of shape, you have been warned. Your arm may get sore.



They had a game displayed by it, WiiSki. I would have gotten it, but they are all sold out. After my performance on some of the ski games on the WiiFit, I think maybe this is a good thing.



I opened up the package, and inside was 4 AA batteries, an instruction manual and the Wii Fit game.



I unpacked it, installed the batteries and put it on the floor of my bedroom.



Observation 2: You need some major space around the Balance Board... how can you do pushups if you can't stretch out your legs? hrm?



I put in the disk, it actually needed a Wii System Update (so I did that), played the disk, synced the wii/balance board together, and voila, I was in business.



They start by showing your inital trainer, the balance board itself. You create a new profile, selecting your mii, and then weighing you/doing your bmi.



I was petrified. Really. Scared to pieces. I was going to show up as morbidly obese.



Observation 3: I apparently have a touch of that body dysmorphic disorder I hear about.



Yeah, my BMI was SLIGHTLY over, but even my weight (I've been putting 165 in all of the machines at the gym.) was less than I thought (it was 159. I don't look like that, seriously, my muscle is heavy.) especially because it was 7:45 when I started playing, and the later at night, the heavier you are.



So, color me pleased! (I'm guessing that's a light pink)



They do a little balance test so you can figure out how the board works. pretty simple really... simply lean from side to side. They talked about how a balanced body is a healthy body.



It says, surprise again, that my balance was pretty good. Good stuff.



Then you pick a trainer (female or male) and you use him/her as your trainer. The female chick has some weird... well, her chest is very separated. Real chests don't look like that. Usually the fabric stretches between them.



Then they have strength, balance, aerobics, and yoga.



I started with yoga. I've never done it before. Pretty fun, surprisingly, and I felt I was getting more of a workout because they talk about your balance and where you should be weighted (it has a yellow bar that you have to stay within), and you are awarded points by how little shake you have. I unlocked another yoga exercise, but there's a lot more to go.



Oh, I left out that there's this fitness bank, which gives you credit based on how many minutes you've worked out with the wii.



I then did the strength... but I don't have a lot of room right now, so I have to clean it up over the weekend. i couldn't do pushups or jackknifes. However, a lot of the exercises are much like what i do with my trainer, so rock on. I unlocked a few more of the exercises.



I think that when I thought my balance was off, I was wrong in my thinking, it's actually my COORDINATION. This became WOEFULLY obvious when I tried to do the stepping game. Sure. I could do the first bit, back/forth etc... Throw in the side/side and I'm all verklempt. Throw in BOTH and FORGET IT.



I did the hula hoop one quite well, I did ok on the ball in hole game, and i sucked at the ski jump.



I actually am looking up right now to see if there's a trick I'm missing.



The jogging (no balance board, just jogging in place with the controller) was actually a lot more enjoyable than i first thought. I was going to do it every morning, but I failed this morning, as I couldn't get out of bed. i figured I would try again tomorrow, I'm going to the gym tonight anyway.



Anyhow, as of right now, with one night's play under my belt, I would recommend it.



Just buy you some rechargeable batteries.

WiiFit coming... Tomorrow

So, tommorow, May 21st, my preordered version of the WiiFit will come in to my local gaming store.



They are hard to come by, but I want to blog about my experiences.



You see, I feel a bit overweight in the middle, but I think I'm generally fit. I'll put my measurements on here and we can track stuff together. See, i go to the gym 2x a week and work with a trainer. I have a feeling that my muscle mass is so much greater than others, that my BMI is going to be higher than i would expect. I think that calipers are probably the best methodology of seeing how much body fat you have vs. muscle mass (and muscle weighs more than fat...)



I haven't seen any blogs about a female putting her experiences online, so I thought I'd be the first.



I don't have a goal per se, but it would be supersweet to fit into a single digit pair of pants without the dreaded MUFFIN TOP.



So, I hope that maybe this will inspire one or two readers of my blog to umm... maybe read my blog.



:)



Tomorrow I will start the journey and tell you how it works WHEN I'm working with a trainer, and I'm a girl... all things I haven't seen documented online!



Enjoy the journey with me, won't you?

Why am I so green?

I am known as an environmentalist. I hold "green" issues in high regard, and, honestly, well before it became the hot thing to do.

So, why?

I always had this feeling that we were put here, and that everything about the earth is so fragile. Since I have this sense of justice, and defending the ones that cannot defend themselves, I guess choosing to defend the earth was a natural choice.

My Dad always took me to nature preserves when I was younger. Showing me the flora and fauna of a place like "The Great Swamp" Nature Preserve (yeah, that's what it's called), in NJ, had me captivated. When I was younger, instead of becoming a doctor, lawyer or president when I grew up, I wanted to be a Naturalist. Yep, only kid on my block with that desire.

So, it seems natural for me to recycle everything I can, use reusable bags (I use the ones from envirosac), when i get a larger yard I would like to compost (and have a victory garden), etc.

I know that the idea of global warming is still for some a controversial one (if the earth is warming why is it so cold), however, I think that is simply because of a bad name. If we had called global warming "climate change" from the beginning it would make sense. Over hot summers, over cold winters, strange cyclones, hurricanes, drought, flooding.... it makes it all make more sense.

Some things I've referred to in this entry:
Envirosac
Great Swamp
Composting
Victory Garden
Global Warming
Climate Change

A felon with sweet bacon....

Yep, I stole something.




Namely, John P's awesome picture of my bacon toffee.



BTW... I made this in FEBRUARY, so this is WAY late. But I wanted to mention it. I do like experimenting. Unbeknownst to my husband, I've never actually made red meat (I suppose corned beef counts, but I wouldn't want to eat it unless it has been boiled senseless, or on a lovely piece of rye bread), as usually my experiments with that go in the garbage. So, barring my wallet completely emptying, I stick with poultry, shrimp, and legumes.



So, I've made us do 2-3 vegetarian meals per week, and therefore made us not active beef eaters unless it's a special occasion. I just don't like experimenting with expensive meat.



Bacon? Well, bacon is why I'm not a vegetarian. I love it. It's my favorite. However, it's immensely BAD for you, so I limit even then.



So, on Valentine's day at my work, they were having a sweets contest. I think valentine's day is the day of love, so I was opposed to this competition. So, I made odd things.



1. Chocolate covered PB Pretzels - mind you, not that odd... like a candy.

2. Frito Candy - yep, it's got FRITOS in it. Really good, I would make it again. I would call the taste like a Skor Bar. (Which I love, btw)

3. Bacon Toffee - I got my inspiration from Simply Recipes, a blog I adore.. but I got the recipe here: http://www.offthebone.net/?p=169 Check out that presentation.



Once again, though, I had a sleeper hit. I won 3rd place at a chili competition, but I've only been told that mine was the favorite at the other two... ah well, it's my fate. I have a neato chili apron from my 3rd place win, though.



Thanks to John P. for letting me (unknowingly letting me), steal his AWESOME pic of my bacon toffee. He got the toffee from a care package I made him after the event...

Green Food Day Again and Traditions

I have very few traditions that I hold dear. I love just spitting in the eye of convention.



... except for one thing. St. Patrick's Day.





I really, really love to make St. Patrick's Day boiled dinner. I make Corned Beef and Cabbage. It's brilliant. Melt in your mouth goodness. Serve with Malt Vinegar, horseradish and mustard.





As an aside, strangely, this is a NEW ENGLAND thing, not an Irish thing. Cow is not exactly plentiful in the rolling hills of Eire. I would think that rolling would be your first indicator. The cows are not so suited for such things. But Corned Beef and Cabbage, AKA New England Boiled dinner, is a new england thing. Boston & New York are/were packed to the gills with Irish immigrants. So, they talked to their Jewish neighbors, found out about brisket, added potatoes and cabbage, both very inexpensive, and voila.





But as an aside, my hubby's work constantly has "days" for the holidays... Red food day for Valentine's... and today, obviously, green food day..





Last year I made Pistachio Pound Cake....
















This year, I got a little lazy, and I made one of my old standards, but different. Lemon Butter Snowbars is the standard. But I said, this is green food day, so I made it Lime Butter Snowbars, and I put a little food coloring in it.



Here are the results.

Dinner 3/11/08

I made this really good soup last night, great with whole grain bread...



Try it, it's really good for you, and it tastes GREAT.



Click the title, the recipe is there.... Double Potato Soup.

Uncluttering continued...

So, how did I amass so much stuff?



Totally reasonable question. Ever heard of hoarding. HOARDING. Not whoring, pervert.

Well, it's actually a mental illness. I don't have it, but it certainly runs in my family. Amongst other fun medical things I get to look forward to. So, hoarding... it's actually a form of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Behavior).



How do I explain it... ok. imagine if you will that every object you amassed was no longer an inanimate object... that's taking it too far. Imagine if you will that everything in the world, you are responsible for it's fate. Garbage cans would be sending something to hell, giving up on it, etc... A lot of hoarders call their broken, their trash (yep, I said trash), their various unused (or used) items their "treasures".



I don't think I'm a hoarder, but being raised by a family of hoarders, I never learned how or why I should throw things away. I do feel some regret and fear that I'll need something when it's gone, or that it will go to waste, etc... I have a lot of crap. It's hard for me to clean it up, but I am under so much stress from it, I have to do something.



I would take pictures of my house to show you how it's not that bad... and it's not. I just feel this hoarding thing creeping in, and I feel a little powerless in my fight against it.



Perhaps I should brainwash myself....

The start of the uncluttering...

... of my home has actually been going on a while. I am a little confused how I gathered so many things, and WHY I've gathered so many thins. But as with all Zen revelations, I do realize that this is a major stressor in my life.







So, my friend Bec came over a while back and we destroyed my closet, it's so neat and nice now, I can find anything I want. No problems.







So, that wasn't so hard. I had fun, we goofed around, a few hours and one quick trip to target for some specialized hangers (those pant hangers really do save a ton of space)... and getting rid of the wire hangers (no more wire hangers!)... and a weight is lifted off my closet.







So, unwisely, but necessarily, I've moved on from there, first I went to Catalog Choice and got rid of all the catalogs were piling everywhere. Phase 1 of the paper war had begun.







I'm on to phase 2... getting rid of my pile of papers. I will move on to filing, but right now, I'm just trying to find my prescriptions I need to refill, and I am looking for tax documents (as we are doing our taxes next weekend.







I'm hoping that during the tax extravaganza, I can label some file folders. Get those things away and organized.

Vote for my sprocket

If you go here....



SPAY DAY USA



...you can vote for Sprocket's photo on the humane society web site... :)





I would appreciate it if you do.





Sprocket was adopted in 2004 from the Women's Humane Society in Bensalem, PA.





There's a story to that...





My cat Harley had to be put to sleep in March. He had a HUGE personality, and although we have Darla and Spanky... something was missing.





After hemming and hawing, and thinking about it (overthinking it really)... I started looking on petfinder. In April, I saw this picture of this three legged dog. I said, oh, that three legged dog, someone must take care of him. I went to the shelter that saturday, and I saw him, 4 legs and all... (he is so thin, they sometimes hide behind other legs)





However, the sign on his cage said, I've been adopted. Waiting to go home.





I left a bit despondant, as Matchstick (at the time that was his name)... was so hungry for affection, that he was rubbing against his cage in my direction, so it could feel like he was being pet.





I looked on petfinder a few more times, but no dogs caught my eye.





Two weeks later, I tried petfinder one more time. MATCHSTICK was up for adoption!!!





I asked my boss if I could take an extended lunch. He said yes, I went directly to the shelter. ACK! They needed to see my yard... would a picture do? Yes! I went home, took the picture, went back to the shelter, was approved, paid 40 bucks, and I had a dog in my backseat. :)





I brought him to my work, cause I really didn't know what to do with him. After renaming him, getting the riot act from my husband about getting a dog without telling him, and getting him supplies, a vet visit and a good wash (his feet are WHITE not beige!).... he settled into our happy home.





We've actually had to buy a bigger bed because of him. And most of our furniture will not show his fur, cause he's a shed machine. He went from 42.5 lbs, to a very athletic and healthy 55. We get stopped everywhere with people needing to know what kind of dog he is, and telling us how handsome he is.





They are always super surprised when I tell them he came from a shelter and was a stray before being taken there.





:)





He's a good dog.





(Oh, and his name comes from the dog on Fraggle Rock. Matchstick was kind of awkward, and I never saw the movie Matchstick Men.. but he's not a conman anyway, so it didn't fit!)

Blog personalization

I've got to figure out how to personalize this more.

I like what other people have done to their blogs.. I'll have to do some more research. I really really don't want to program HTML... seems so 1993. ;)

*silence*

Yeah, I had a web page back then...

*silence*

Yes, it had an obnoxious background image.

*silence*

Yes, and some animated gifs...

*snicker*

Be quiet you.

Yeah, that link at the top... that is the Wayback Machine... and it caught tidbits of my old site. Hit whatever you need to to select all. I told you I had an obnoxious background, which equals text color = white.

So, how did I get here?

Well, I have this thing for Google.

I think they are the coolest. I want to work there, I want to bring my dog to work (he rocks!).

So, I was just looking at the "more" arrow when i was using my google calendar... and here I am.

Voila!

George Clooney is Siriusly DREAMY

Old fashioned movie star.



Read this: George Clooney is Super Dreamy



--



Ok... so I know how to spell... I swear. Seriously. See, I can do it.



However, I'm referring to Sirius Sat. Radio... It is the best thing EVER!



I've been listening to a radio station called "Alt Nation".



AWESOME! Vampire Weekend, The Hives, Gorillaz, Jack Johnson, etc...



So good. I sound like I'm on the cusp of something fabu, my finger on the pulse of new music...

Not that it's not. ;)



Coming up soon, I don't have a kid, but I have a GREAT dog... and he makes me super duper happy... So expect to see pics/video of this sometime soon.



I know you are restless with antici...

Hi. This is my blog.

And I'm a fontophile. That's all I've got now. I want to really do this. I want to have a day 2 day journal sorta thing. Fabu. :) Thanks for joining me. Enjoy the trip.