Weird Water Weight

'Kay.

So I am a little downtrodden by the fact that in the midst of summer no one wants to Pilate with me. That's okay. I can understand it.

But MY body needs the workout, I'm stiff, and I'd really like to get back on the wagon.

Then today, 680 News was discussing how there is a new study (egad - not ANOTHER study!) that suggests that in order to lose weight and keep fit, and fight "the bulge", adults over 35 need 5 (yes, read 'em) days of 55 minute exercise sessions.

5!
55 Minutes each!!

Okay. Well, so The Pro isn't doing too bad here. I work out 4 - 5 times a week for an hour.

But.

Here comes the caveat.
I KNOW I am not getting enough cardio. And I REALLY know that 5 times a week has been hard to hit the last 2 months or so.

Now here's the kicker.
My slower than slow metabolism just doesn't like me. It isn't about diet for me. I eat reasonably. But my body just doesn't use it all. ...So I started feeling all bloaty and big in that spare tire section. ...So I realized I had to do something.

When, I wondered to self, was I feeling most swarthy and good...?

Well, other than when I was hitting the gym 6 days a week for 2 hours...

Oh... I know.
When I was taking these:

I dunno. Does it help with the metabolism? I've been back on them just over a week. My waist somehow feels better. Is it the Vitamins? Or is it weird water weight?

I dunno. I tried other ones. Just didn't like them as well. Or my body didn't. Or it's still just weird water weight. Who's really to say? Is every body different? Can anyone come up with that magic solution or is it just experimentation? If they really do work, will I have to take them for life? What if they go off the market? The Jamieson ones don't work half so well....

sigh!

I wish I had magic answers.
But alas. I do not.

Anyone got magic answers?

People Are So Self-Righteous!

Poor Steven Page.

Not ONLY is his marriage a mess. Not ONLY does he have substance issues. Not ONLY was he caught with it and busted....

No, it's even worse. Busted is the US. Plastered all over Entertainment Tonight and Perez Hilton.

No, it's even worse. Now the band won't be playing Disney or promoting Snacktime at that event.

Nope, worse still. Events are being canceled all over the place.

Even worse; so-called fans are placing judgment on this issue as if they'd been there. As if they knew what demons Steve lives with. As if they knew the details of that night or even the last year. As if they knew what personal hell this must be for him.

No, personal hell is not enough. Somehow, we've got to make it WORSE for him.

I posted on the BNL website that it is too bad so-called fans feel compelled to click on Perez Hilton to view his mug shot. I can admit to being curious. How did he look? I wonder. But I won't do it. I will stand on principle and refrain from standing at the train-wreck that this is and poring over the carnage. I won't click on those links.

Instead, I will continue to groan when I hear of another cancellation for the band. I will continue to wonder how many times Ed (who loves to swear - what a TERRIBLE role model. Read: sarcasm) has uttered his favourite four letter expletives, I will continue to hope that Steve is able to hold his head up through all the media attention, and I will continue to post on the message boards that I am here to offer my support to both him and the band.

This sucks.

It's such a bad train wreck and gets worse by the day. For Steve, for the band, for his family.

But I won't waver.

Hang in there Steve. "When you were born, people looked at you and said, what a smart boy, what a strong boy, what a good boy."

Heartbroken!

I just finished posting on the Barenaked Ladies Message Board.

This is what I said:

A little heartbroken this morning; the local [read: loudmouthed] rock station was goofing on the whole thing. My heart has never sunk so fast. I'm not sure what it is. I don't know if it's the drugs or the nefarious sounding surroundings of it. I have been a fan since day one. Was so proud to be able to show off Band Number One to my kids with Snacktime. Have NEVER thought of it as a sell-out. I still love ya, Steve. Not sure who I feel worse for - you and your family, or the band. Timing stinks as it always does in a situation like this.

Hang in there. There can be bumps in the road - just don't go and Belushi yourself.

Here till the end - k

What a sad sad day. Not only did I not want to hear this news, but I don't want to have to explain it to Sarah. I'm not pulling pious - I feel for the guy, in a big way. I know how things happen and not being any saint myself I am not prone to say what others on the Boards are saying which is "shame on you, Steve."

But on the other hand, they JUST put the new CD out there, and kids everywhere are falling in love with their music; Sarah doesn't just want to hear Snacktime, she wants Gordon and Maroon and anything I can throw at her (which is a lot because I am a huge fan). What are parents thinking this morning? What are they going to do? Will they prevent their kids from listening?

I hope not. It's hopefully just a "blip" (as Sarah likes to call 'em).

I am heartbroken today. I've never felt like this. I feel bad for all the guys, Steve, Ed, Kevin, Jim and Ty. For Steve's family. For myself. For Diane. For Sarah and Maggie and James and Ian.

I feel bad. I'm havin' a bad day. Nothing you can do or say. Havin' a bad day. Think I'll stay in my room.......

love ya Steve.....
k

Small Fortunes and Talented Artists

'Kay, so the car's gonna cost us $500 smackaroos. So I said something about it last night, prompting Sarah to say "is that a lot of money?"

"Yes, it is. It's quite a bit."
"Yeah, but is it ALL your money?"
"No, but it's a lot of money right now."
"Yeah, but mom, is it ALL you HAVE?"

There was the kicker. In the grand scheme of things, unwelcome though it may be, the guy didn't say "a grand", the guy didn't say "it's dead".

Kids are great at perspective. Bless her giant big perspective-giving heart.

Item two for your consideration this day:

So... giving this blogging thing some thought.

I realize that I miss writing. I am good at it and I love it. I have a 2/3 written manuscript somewhere (psst - don't tell Chris it's on DATA). It's a good story I think, with lots of twists and turns (interestingly, Dee, it goes back and forth in time, this before I ever read Outlander!). I think I need to make time to work on it. But when??? I can't even make time to do some much needed cardio, let alone sit and WRITE. Heck, I don't feel like I have time to even sit and think some days.

Mama needs a laptop.

Anyway, me aside for a moment. A lot of people I know are talented. Take Miyuki. Ever seen this:

http://baikautsugi.livejournal.com/


That is one talented artist there! And on this wonderful page she laments lack of time for honing her craft. It's true. There is lack of time. How is that? Why is that?

We gotta make time, peeps. Life is too short. We've known too many artists who have had all their time to practice their craft wrested from them too early. I take for granted my talent for writing, and I waste it daily. On living life.

But is it living life, or going through the paces? And is there a difference if you do it intentionally and don't just plow through it? (Though some days are plow days, and some days you have time to notice that your little one now says CARRRR and not cah.)

What to do?
What to do?

Any ideas, other talented peeps?

Am I the only one who seems surrounded by extremely expressive people? Look at Brad and Diane's pictures:
That ain't nothin'! If you go over to the side of my blog there, you'll see EastCoastARama is on of my faves. Click on it and see how even capturing a group hug becomes artistic expression!!

My peeps is talented.

Cheers to the talent. And hope that time can be found to be creative!



k

Stainless Steel Water Bottles

So anyone who knows someone or IS someone with small kids heard all about the bisphenol-A fiasco. That's where all the manufacturers of baby bottles and sippy cups wanted us to have the clearest, glass-like plastic bottles ever, so they used this chemical to prevent the plastic from yellowing or clouding. Only, who cares if the plastic isn't clear if everytime it heats up it's releasing harmful chemicals into our kidlets bodies?!

So everyone and their brother has been producing stainless steel waterbottles of late. You can go to one of the more shi-shi specialty children's stores and find them for $25 bucks a pop (or more). You can go to an outfitters store and do the same. You can get them insulated.

OR you can get an email from Kitchen Stuff Plus like I did yesterday and see a special for 33% reduction in price, to get kid-friendly sized 500 ml water bottles for $8.00, and 750 ml for $10.00. So I went on the way home and grabbed a blue one for Sarah, a red one for James, and a 750 blue one for me.

The only problem is the cap is plastic. BUT it isn't clear plastic and doesn't have the evil 7 on it. And I really think you can't get entirely away from plastic. But if it's just the cap, and liquid isn't in contact with it all the time, presumably there is less leeching??? Alas. Win some and lose some so they say, right?

So now the kids have new water bottles, and we can finally do that big purge of plastic plastic and more plastic. We DID get rid of a little crappy bisphenol A laden Princess sippy cup that was just bad to the bone!!!! So, anyone else big on the Stainless Steel Option???

Come on Ovah and Chat a Little

Hey there. I am doing this again. Some of my happier days were blogging days, back in the day we called it Blobbing. Now I am going to "blob" again and invite you to join me. Nothing is off topic. Let's talk about it all, or nothing. Though to talk about nothing will be muchos boringos.

So let me begin. What in your mind is the best 80's movie? There were some good ones. But you can't count Star Wars because that began in the 70s even though it might have helped to shape the 80s, and personally I didn't see it till the 90s. And same with Rocky. There was a lot of camp in the 80s. Golan Globus and their "shoot 'em up ex army guys save the western world chuck norris" flicks. Monty Python. Airplane movies. (Ooh again that wonderful series began in the 70s!) But then you had Goonies, Stand by Me, St. Elmo's Fire, Breakfast Club, and many more coming of age films. Right when I was coming of age.

I have to say, at this stage of my life, I am gonna go with Ferris Bueller's Day off. It was THE movie. And to this day I love to sing "when Cameron was in Egypt land....let my Cameron gooooo." Gotta love the state-of-the-art answering machine in that scene. I also thought of Ferris' sound equipment and sure wished I had a keen set up like that. Look at how much room it took up!

Better off Dead was a good one too. And it really made an excellent starting point for our boy John Cusack (never count 16 Candles. He was a supreme nerd in that one. No, better the John that gets to wear his collar UP). I smile every time I think of that kid collecting for the newspaper on his bike. "2 Dollars! I want my Two dollars!" Such nostalgia - when was the last time you saw anyone collecting???

Top Gun was a real classic. Did you know I wrote the sequel along with my friend Jennifer? Yes we did. We alternated writing chapters, and got three binders full. Yeah, more nostalgia. We HAND wrote the thing. Before computers could do it, before email exchanges or blogs or IM or texting. Before T9 we did it long hand. Man, I feel old. Yes, it was more than 20 years ago. I mean, I have the 20th Anniversary DVD!!!! So many cute guys. Wonder what Barry Tubb or Whip Hubley are doing now? We all KNOW about Tom Cruise. Maybe too much.

Nowadays it's Lost. WAS Jericho and Lost but Jericho is but a thing of the past. Still I managed to be part of that really big effort to bring it back and so at least we got another 7 episodes. That was something I will always remember. How maybe our little movement changed the way TV numbers are gathered. So now it's Lost. And there are more theorists than episodes of the series these days, so I will leave it to the Really Big Brains. Though maybe a little talk about it wouldn't be entirely offensive!

What 80s shows were good? A Team? Magnum PI? Rip Tide? Miami Vice? Hardcastle & McCormick? Knight Rider? Family Ties? Cosby? Soap? Yes, Soap. Gotta love that one, and Billy Crystal was just a wee thing back then. 80s was not the heyday of TV - that was earlier. But it was the era of really good and available repeats, so I saw a lot of those earlier classics like Lucy, Gilligans Island, Brady Bunch, Flintsones. But for it's own time, I guess the best it had to offer was Family Ties. Go ahead and remind me of others....

Music? Well for me it was Duran Duran, U2, Blondie, Joan Jett, and great movie soundtracks like Top Gun (there it is again, groan), Footloose, Cocktail, Flashdance. In retrospect, certain bands did a ton for the industry. Who knew U2 would end up so huge? If they aren't careful, one day they could overshadow the Beatles.

Another thing that shaped my existence was Band Aid and Live Aid. I finally learned to get outside of my box. It was a huge thing. And there was Phil Collins jetting from Heathrow in London to New York to be on both stages. I watched it all.

So, talk to me. Do you care about anything I've said? Share your opinions! You know you want to!