Fit And Feeling Better

I've taken a lot of diet pills through the years, always over-the-counter types. They're constantly coming up with new and improved, stronger, and longer-lasting things to help a world that is growing more and more overweight each year. They all say they are not a substitute for a good, balanced diet too. They aren't, but they help. I'm not sure why but it's hard to eat just what we need. Most foods have way more calories in them than what is needed for a single person in one sitting, but we don't change that. Most people don't even know what a proper portion is. I'm including myself in that. I'm just as guilty as the next guy/gal.

It's nice to know that ionamin is there for me though, because I sure can't do it alone. With just a little help it's easier to eat smaller portions, and pick better foods. Maybe because I'm thinking about it because I'm taking the pills I make better choices in what I eat. I do know diet pills help to curb my appetite. Excersizing helps too. The more I work out, the less hungry I am. It's kind of a funny thing how that works. You'd think it would be the opposite. All of these things work together to help lose the buldge around the middle, and the flabbiness around the arms. Excersize without eating more responsibly doesn't work all that well. Eating responsibly without exersize isn't going to do much about the flab that is left over from the weight loss. So develope a good sensible diet plan, exercise, and take ionamin to help curb the cravings and get fit, and feel better.

Stop the Silly Stuff

NASA is now taking steps to protect astronauts further after finding a cut in one of the gloves of the last space shuttle mission.

That's not what I'm writing here about though. Again I have to ask--do you really think all this space travel is necessary? The last trip was to repair space station stuff.

Okay, maybe the space station is a good thing, but really what do we need that massive billion dollar hunk of junk in the sky for? Traveling further into space? It's like a rest-stop gas station in the astro superhighway. Where the heck are we going? All these years and there still isn't another habitable planet to be found. Is there one? Maybe a trillion light years away... maybe a little closer, around the next bend... maybe not at all. Even if they find one. What are the chances it is enough like earth that moving there wouldn't take centuries upon themselves? Why go somewhere else when we can't even control our lives down here on the planet we have? We'd be as guilty as the 'aliens' in the movie 'Independance Day'. Kill a planet and move on.

Now I'm no real 'Greenpeacer'. That's not what I'm writing about either.

Technology is great. All that metal in the sky that keeps our cell phones buzzing, and our computers connected, and our televisions blaring out so many channels we can't choose which drivel we don't want to see tonight instead of the wonderful 2,5, 7, 9 and UHF that we had as baby booming kids of the 50's, 60's, 70's, and such. That's great.

Perhaps I should be singing the praises of NASA and scientists the world over. Believe me I would if they'd stop concentrating on stuff we don't need and spending money supposedly the economy doesn't have. Can you imagine how nicely we could all live if the governement equally doled out the amount of money they spend on the space program, not to mention wars we don't really belong in that aren't about us in the first place, silly grants that do not concern themselves with human illness, or conditions such as that... if they gave us all an equal share of the trillions upon trillions of dollars they spend on that stuff every year we'd have no homeless problems in the US, we'd all have plenty of money to spend on just everyday necessities... Thomas Edison invented hundreds of things that we still use today. We owe him a great debt, but he never collected a single 'grant' cent. He did it all in his garage. Most inventors (scientists) still would but not they don't have to, they can do it in safe Universities, or government agencies and get paid tens of thousands of dollars a year for it. Thomas Jefferson was a great inventor too...I really doubt he hit the government up for his expenses though.

...heck, don't even give it to us, just stop taking it from us. Stop taking income tax from us and they wouldn't have so much money to throw away on silly stuff.

For Better Or worse

I've spent a little time posting about science and discoveries that were silly, or at least had very little impact on our daily lives. This isn't one of those posts. Doctors have now developed a 4-D machine that will 'xray' a human body showing it from a inside view that appears to be standing right in front of you. With these 'virtual humans' organs, muscles, tissue can be analyzed as if it were standing bare before the physician, and even, hopefully soon, patients can view their own internal workings, and problems with their doctor to discuss illness, and injuries and their progress for better, or worse.

Money Woes

Do we worry too much? I think we do. As a whole. Everybody. It's hard to make a way in life. It always has been, there's nothing really new, just new technology making the troubles different than they were a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years ago. I think it's human nature to worry. If we're doing something wrong, right, and I'm not only talking in the moral sense, although that is certainly a part, I think 'morals' plays less a role today than it did in centuries past. I mean wrong, or right to get the desired outcome from a project, or piece of work. To make money...

most of the worries today, and throughout the ages have been about making money. Money is not only the root of all evil, it's the source of everything as well. Unless we manage to go back to the barter method completely it always will be forever more. Everything, just about anyway, takes money. Even having fun, and relaxing can take money, so it's no surprise we obsess over it. I don't know there is an answer... just the dilema. How do we relax and stop worrying about money?

A Bad Cold?

Scientists have now decided they've discovered that Mars once had water. Perhaps they're trying to equate it to Earth and the eventual demise of our own planet. Of course it could happen. This planet has been, like most others in the solar system, in a constant state of flux from its inception. Ice Ages, Meltdowns... none of which were caused by human intervention, or technology have been happening throughout the milleniums. Nothing science can do will stop it. As a favorite George Carlin skit once proclaimed... humans are like a virus. Earth will shake us off like a bad cold and continue on it's path.

What Do You Worship?

There are some things you just can't have enough of. bic pens are one of those things. Whether you use them for yourself, or as cool advertising giveaways to promote your latest book, article, or your home business like our farm, or crafts, or anything at all--you can never have enough pens. Sometimes I think a long advanced race of humanity will some day excavate our property finding our ancient left behind relics like those of the Astecs or something... and find a pile of pens buried deep beneath the house. I'm sure they'll come to believe we are pen worshipers. That or odd sock worshipers because somewhere beneath this house there are years worth of lost pens, and odd socks.

Stop By And Say Howdy

Check out my farm blog for all kinds of fun recipes for cheese, pudding, and yogurt as well as to find out what's going on 'down on the farm' at our Country Haven Ranch. I love to post pics of the new arrivals of miniature horses, and goats as they arrive and share the experiences of my life in rural America with visitors. Be sure to comment and say 'howdy' as you pass through too.

Feeling Good

I've had such a good time being the subject of Colleen's Supahstar Saturday posts this week so far. I've even met some new folks that I hadn't seen until now who have hilarious blogs and did wonderful posts to me. It's enough to make a body's head swell... luckily none of them would let that happen. They'd come at me with postie sticks and beat me back down, I'm sure. :)

Thanks everyone for such wonderful posts.

Peace of Mind Insurance

Death insurance is as necessary as health, car, and home owner's insurance, but it's the least 'loved'. No one likes to talk about it. I don't like to think about it either. Just today Bob was saying he needed to put all the important papers -- notice how he didn't say 'life insurance, or death insurance' papers -- no one likes to say it, in a place where I can find it easily and know what everything is so that if he died I wouldn't be lost as to what needed to be done. It's a good idea. I know it is. But even just him saying that gave me the willies. It just does. I'm sure it's that way for everybody. I don't want to think about him dying. I'd hope he doesn't want to think about me dying... but it happens. It happens to everybody eventually, and when it does, you sure do want those 'important' papers. And the one who is insured wants to know you'll be taken care of.

I Wanna Be a Supahstar

That song won't leave my head... and guess what? I AM.

Super wonderful and vibrant Colleen from GeekySpeaky.com has given me the honor of being this week's Supahstar. I love blogging. I love the people I meet on my blogs and the friends I've made... but most of all I love to express myself in print and share my opinions and thoughts. Blogging lets me do that.

Big hugs to Colleen who is constantly coming up with ways to help us 'expose ourselves'... in a legal, and acceptable way. :)

School Dayz

Another fun thing to do that's close to home and a great cheap form of entertainment is to follow and support local school sports teams. If you have school age children that's an easy for of entertainment, but even if you don't, if you love sports and like to watch them on tv, why not get a schedule for the games at your local school? It's just as exciting and the kids sure love the encouragement.

Throwing Money around

Wow, expensive art--long gone artist Andy Warhol's Green Car Crash (yeah that sounds like something he'd create) sold for a whoping SEVENTY ONE MILLION dollars at auction. I guess you do have to be dead to make a fortune as an artist. That's wild though. Why would anyone, anywhere, for any reason pay that kind of money for any piece of art? For anything at all for that matter? They say we're in a recession, but it's obvious that some people still have more money than sense and can afford to throw it around.

Crazy Weather

It is so cold here this morning that I'm downing coffee in an attempt to keep warm, and I'm still shaking in my office as I type. It's MID MAY. What is up with this weather? One day 90's and the next 60's. Certainly it could be colder and worse, but it's no wonder everyone I know has the sniffles at least. Hubby has a good cold going and gives me cheek kisses because he doesn't want me to catch his cold. I'm surprised I'm not sniffling but so far I've been able to ward off the spring time flu. This is such a bad time of year to get sick too because for some reason it seems like spring time colds are the hardest to get rid of. I'm not sure why, but whatever the reason I'm hoping like all get out I can avoid catching the bugs running around due to the crazy weather.

Prairie View

Well, there wasn't a 'supahstar saturday' post on Colleen's geeky speaky so I'll create my own. I have to admit that 'A Priarie View' blog caught my eye mostly because of the name. It was going to be the name of our ranch until we settled on something different, but anyone who names their 'life' blog Prairie View must have just that and that means they have a lot in common with me. So right off the bat I love it. It's a wonderful site. The only thing about it I had a problem with is I still don't know the name of the person who writes it. Her 'about' blurb on the front page doesn't tell me and there's no link to a bigger 'about' page. I know the name of some of her family members just from the posts, but not her. Other than that little niggle, I really like her blog and I was right... she's a country gal.

Beem Me UP

I am REALLY getting fed up with the slowness of dial up. There are so few options available when you don't live in an urban area. No cable. There are 'satallite' companies that I could get, but I've only heard of two. Wild Blue and Hughes net. I was all set last month to get one of those two and then found out you needed to network the computers together if you had more than one to operate on the system and Hughesnet didn't do it for you. Wild Blue would so they became my choice (not to mention they are cheaper all around)... BUT... then I went online and did some research on what others who were using either of them thought of the systems and found tons of negative reviews, mostly stating the same problem. During the 'trial' period everything was fine, then right after the 30 days or whatever, speeds slowed down to a crawl. WORSE THAN DIAL UP. Wow, I don't need that. Who needs to pay more than five times as much to get crappier service. Oh sure the downloading times were faster, but while that would come in handy once in awhile, it's more important to have fast page loading and browsing capabilities. And as for the downloads, those are somewhat limited as well. Does ANYONE know of a good satalite service they are happy with?

Pop Culture Guru?

Robert Thompson is noted for being the 'most quoted man' in regards to pop culture. He's a Syracuse University professor and he knows a lot about---well his real passion is television shows going from the 50's to current. Heck... I could be a pop culture guru if that's all it takes. I know all about television shows... okay, maybe I'm not as up to par on current ones, but the oldies--oh yeah. Give me a call CNN and all you others. I can regale you as well as Mr. Thompson.

A Place Of Their Own

My grandkids love their 'designer' rooms. Not really designer, but decorated in a particular design. My grandson is Spiderman, my granddaughter is My Little Pony. When my kids were young my son was baseball theme including the linen--his team was the Cubs--always rooting for the underdog my son was. My daughter was Strawberry Shortcake. It may seem silly to some, but those simple touches gave my kids, and my grandkids now a special feeling, and made their rooms a wonderful place for them to be. Gave them a place of their very own. Finding kids bedding isn't difficult. The themes run the gammut from sports to fanciful storybook themes and come complete from the bedding right down to the light switch on the wall. For the most part it's very reasonably priced too. If you're lucky your kids won't switch 'favorites' every year. I was pretty lucky with mine, and so far my daughter's got it made with Spidey and ponies.

Are You Sweet Enough?

Yahoo has an article today about the safty of sugar substitutes saying that the big five, sucralose (marketed as Splenda), aspartame, saccarine, acesulfame-k, and neotane are essentially safe even if used daily for a lifetime as per the FDA. Now, correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it just a short time ago that aspartame, and saccarine were under fire? That's why everyone switched to sucralose. Or maybe it was a marketing gimic on the part of Splenda? You know... I'm taking my chances with good old fashioned sugar. It may be fattening, but it's fairly natural.

Office Ag

Fellow postie Colleen had a really interesting post over on her 'GeekySpeaky' blog that really got me thinking. Her post on 'Office Corn' (that's Corn with a C folks get your minds out of the gutter all you erotic writers) made me smile. Why? Well, agricultural related posts aren't too unusual for me, at least on my farm blog, and living in the middle of cornfields sometimes I guess I could easily take for granted what some others might find 'exotic'. The smile was more for, what a wonderful way for those who might not otherwise get to know the thrill of growing a source of food otherwise. In the cities space is greatly limited, but to come up with the genius of growing a corn plant in a corner of your office is just beyond words. And once you discover the real thrill of watching something go from a pot of dirt, a single seed, and a little water and blossom into something edible and nutricious... I'm quite sure you'd be hooked.

Some Things Just Don't Work

No no no... they're makeing another "Terminator" movie BUT without Arnold. No no no... somethings won't fly. He IS the Terminator. His personna is so connected with the roles he has played serially that another just won't do. Very few 'high profile' type characters that have become serialized can be portrayed by others. The James Bond character most distinctly comes to mind. Even then, each time when the new 'Bond' is introduced in a movie it takes a bit to accept him. The last one most specifically because he just didn't have the 'suave' that the others possessed. He still didn't really ring quite true in that catagory even at the end of the movie, but he did 'pass' enough to make it okay. Not the Terminator though. That is a part of a different color. It requires such a specific look, attitude, and well... yeah, even accent, lol, to come across that just no one on earth could possibly possess all of the attributes in enough of a quantity to be believable, or acceptible. Plus, just how far can you carry that plot? They had a great ending to the series with III... note to Hollywood: Quit while you're ahead.

Venting a little frustration

During the normal course of any business at times it becomes necessary to deal with folks who do not pay their aggreed upon contracts. I usually don't sell with contract but on occassion I've been moved enough by a persons request that I do, and for the most part I've been lucky enough to have dealt with up front people who actually pay according to the agreement.

For the first time, actually, I'm faced with dealing with someone breaking a contract and I am just fuming about it.

Many times when faced with a store not accepting checks, or sellers not accepting checks or even cashier's checks anymore with all the weird things going on with cashier's check scams I or my husband will shake our heads and just say, one person spoils it for all the rest who are indeed honest and up front... it's true. Now I know in practice how true that is. It will be a long, long time before I have enough faith in humanity again to allow a sale via contract.

A Run For My Money

I keep trying to tell my best friend that there's no such thing as easy money. It's true. I have a couple of at home businesses and while I make a fair days 'wage' and it's fantastic working for myself from home, it's sure not easy. She flits from thing to thing in an effort to make money 'easy'. When you do that you are sure to fall for all types of scams. She came close to falling for one late last year when she got a 'check' in the mail. A cashier's check. Supposedly a messed up order and the company was willing to 'make amends' by graciously letting her cash the check and just send them back the 'cost' of the supposed items (that never existed in the first place). Of course the check was no good. That's the typical cashier's check scam, although admittedly sending the check with no previous converstation, or reason is an unusual twist. I told her it wasn't 'right'. And we were talking a very large sum of money as well. Thankfully her bank was smart and didn't let her cash the check until it cleared, which of course it didn't. The thing is, if she had happened to have that kind of money in her account, the bank WOULD have let her, and then when the check didn't clear she would have been responsible for not only the stupid bounced check charge, but the entire amount she had withdrawn against it. OUCH.

That's certainly only one of the bigger examples. She tries to do a lot of the things we do here on our ranch to earn income too. She sees it is possible... she sees the work too, but when it comes to wanting to do the actual work she just can't seem to do it. Well it's no wonder that most of the 'ventures' fail. You have to work hard. Certainly my businesses give me a run for my money every day, but that's why they call it 'work' and not vacation. The dream of working for yourself is a common one, but you have to realize it's still WORK. And you have to be able to make yourself do it, even when you don't feel like it. When you work for yourself you're the foreman, the boss, and the employee all rolled up into one tired package at the end of the day--it's worth it, if you have the stamina.

Outdoor Entertaining

I had some lovely folks stop by to look at our horses today. Strangers pop in unannounced all the time around here wanting to know if we have any horses for sale, or just wanting to see the 'little horseys'. Times like those make me really wish I'd gotten busy quicker with getting a nice outdoor set up. I've been looking at patio furniture and have seen some nice teak outdoor furniture which is how I think we're leaning since we want to put up a wood arboritum and a stone deck. I think teak would lend a classy elegant touch to the whole atmosphere. I'd like to have someplace nicer to sit than a picnic table when entertaining buyers, and even lookers... and just ourselves.

Even When You're Not Thinking About It

I recently decided to get more life insurance. The insurance we had would pay off the house, and give the kids something nice to live on for awhile when we're gone. Or if I go before Bob, some extra cash to help with expenses to get along without me. He'll need to hire help around the farm. But it sure would hurt it a lot if funeral expenses had to come out of that amount. So we both decided to get some additional insurance. It was important to us to find no exam life insurance. Not that either of us is in bad health, we just both hate doctors. Well... hate may be a strong word...

No it's not.

Either way it's just a pain in the rear and we just wanted something simple and quick. People who are getting up in age would fair better with no exam insurance too, and well, we're not spring chickens. We found some, sent away the simple information form and viola, additional life insurance that will cover funeral expenses and leave the big money policy for the kids, or one of us who survives the other. No one likes to think about insurance, but it's nice to know it's there while we're not thinking about it.

Down Home in Tennessee

I just found the most amazing website for a vacation spot in Tennessee. If you're looking for Pigeon Forge vacation rentals located just a few miles from Dolly Wood, ski resorts, and tons of other fantastic stuff in the heart of beautiful Tennessee then check it out. You can rent luxurious cabins with great rooms and vaulted ceilings, huge beds, and Jacuzzi tubs in a resort atmosphere with a pool, spa, and all the luxuries surrounded by beautiful mountains and fresh air. Then, at the end of a long day of sight-seeing, playing in the game room, or skiing, you can relax and watch the sunset from your very own balcony's hot tub! THAT'S a great vacation.

Sushi---ewwwwwwww

It's a good thing I just read Sushi is good for you. I usually wrinkle my nose and go ewwwwwwww when I hear the word Sushi, but as luck would have it I was at my friend's house this afternoon around lunch time and she pulled some Sushi out of the fridge that her daughter had brought home from her dinner the night before. We both kind of picked at it then took a tentative bite...

You know, at 44 I should be old enough to know better than to judge anything before trying it.

Sushi is actually pretty darned good! Okay, so I'm not a yuppie, and pretty behind the times. I gather that the majority of civilization already knows Sushi is good--if you're not one of them, and you do what I always did and wrinkle your nose and go ewwwwwww at the thought of eating raw fish--give it a try next time. You might be surprised. I was.

The ties that bind--or the cables

If you own more than one computer, and have more than one person in the house that likes to spend a lot of time online, likely you are going to want to network them together so you can both/all be online at the same time. It's not really that complicated, but it does have certain requirements though. Network cables are one of those requirements. Finding just the right cables can be a headache, but now you don't even have to leave the house to do it. You can even pick out your choice of colors for the optimum in home decorating. I wish I'd thought of that before I got stuck with a million black wires hanging all around me.

Celebrity Horse Racing

And speaking of the Derby, I could swear I saw Prince Charles in the crowd at one point when they showed the winner being taxied back to the winner's circle. It just might have been too since I just read Queen Elizabeth II was there. Gene Simmons was there as well. You know, Gene Simmons... the former face painted member of KISS. He's a race horse enthusiast, has owned some, raced some, and had a HUGE chunk of money on one in this race too. $100,000 he said... DANG. That's nearly as much as my entire ranch cost... seriously. Add 29 grand to that and I could pay off my mortgage. I know, I know... chump change to them.

Kentucky Derby Day

I don't know if any of you caught the Kentucky Derby yesterday on TV but it was one of the best races I've seen in a long time. A back-runner (19th out of 20th for 3/4 of the race) came from behind on the rail all the way up to win by a couple lengths over the leader who had run the entire race out front ahead of everyone else. It was quite thrilling. I missed all the pre-race stuff which kind of made me mad, but I was busy getting horses ready to take to a sale this morning. I wanted to watch because they were supposed to really highlight Barbaro the gallant horse that won the Kentucky Derby last year only to fall lame at the start of the Preakness the following month breaking his leg in the process of trying to run on the ingury. He then went through touchy surgery only to develop laminitis in his front hoof during recovery and then as he started to look like he was going to make it after all, had to be put down just a few months ago. I'm sure the tribute was grand. The race itself was a lot of fun to watch.

Whims of Fate

I'm not really sure exactly what went on last month but my blog here went from a PR 3 to a PR 0 with no reasoning whatsoever. Google wasn't even updating at the time. I know for a fact it wasn't just this blog. I know of a few other people that had the same experience, some even a bigger dump, from 4's and 5's to 0's. Suddenly as if by magic, the PR reappeared just the other day. I'm thrilled. I sure would like to know what caused the problem in the first place. It was like the blog just fell off the radar everywhere... google didn't recognize it, technorati didn't recognize it (and still isn't as of yet), nor did Alexa which I don't care a whole lot about, but it was just another thorn in my side jabbing me with a haha, we don't see you, kind of jab. Thankfully it appears to be resolved though. Crossing my fingers it doesn't happen again because it costs me opprotunities for earning. I sure didn't like the helplessness of it all. There was no one I could write to to ask what was going on.. nothing. I was at the whim of mercy and fate. Cruel ladies both.

Now wouldn't you think that NBA players make enough money as it is without having to resort to laundering drug money? Former NBA player Robert "Tractor" Traylor is looking at jail time for laundering drug money if convicted. I don't understand it really. I would be thrilled as peaches if I could earn the kind of money those players earned. I guess too much is never enough as the old saying goes and you always want more... but you'd think that if you were making that much you'd at least not resort to illegal efforts.

Shrek 3

I can't wait to see the new Shrek movie coming out soon. I loved Shrek one. It was an imaginative twist on all the old fairy tales, and Eddie Murphy was great as the 'donkey'. I loved Shrek 2 also. Okay all the Hollywood references were a bit chinzy, but still the twists on fairy tales and the Hollywood spoofs were funny--this one looks like it has a lot of movie spoofs on top of the Hollywood spoofing and the fairy tale twisting. In the commercial I saw it looked like a spoof on Rosemary's Baby and The Omen with Shrek's baby spewing green vomit from a shrouded basinet. Not too mention donkey's firebreathing kids getting older in this episode too... looks like a hilariously fun movie to watch.

Space-heads

Hey, in all their space sized infinate wisdom scientists have found a storm on Jupiter. An 'earth-sized' storm to be exact so I'm guessing it's a whollaper of a storm. The NASA probe on it's way to Pluto just happened to catch it on camera as it passed by the big ringed planet. Okay... SO? This affects us how? Get better at tracking OUR weather first boys. I'm still trying to figure out what great accomplishment this probe going to Pluto will do for us... more space rocks to sell on Ebay maybe? That's one way to finance a space program while we're down here paying $3.50 a gallon for gasoline just to navigate our way to work. Maybe if we spent less on fuel for rocket ships, we could help provide a lower fuel cost for our automobiles down here.

Decorating Just Right

I've been looking for additions to my home furniture for several months now. Slowly adding pieces and trying to keep the styles glued together. I'm working on outdoor furniture now too since summer is here. Even after living here for about twelve years it seems like a never ending search. Pretty much after you get everything just as you like it, you need to start again because earlier pieces have either worn out, or, no longer fit the style you've ended up with. That was my main dilema with my living room furniture lately. I'd started with that when I moved in, and by the time I got the whole house decorated and furnished, the living room style was completely different than the rest of the house. It stuck out. So I had to re-do it. Over the years we'd done lots outside, but somehow never got around to the back-yard patio we wanted to create as a little oasis from the rest of the farm. Apart, yet part of. Someplace we could get away from all the chores and animals, yet still see out into it. This summer is going to be the time for that.