I've Started a New Regime

I have started a new regime as I spend far too long on the computer without a break – they say this is really bad for you and I agree but my willpower is lacking to actually remember to take a break.  The majority of times it is not at all intentional to stay long.   Sometimes I do plan to be on here for the afternoon or the evening but at other times I come on here with the intention of just doing something quickly for half an hour, or to spend a brief ten minutes doing a quick listing or to even read a quick email, but then find it is 2 hours later when I eventually emerge from the office chair.  Whatever I originally came on here for led to something else, which then led to another site, or I made the mistake of just checking into Google+ and that is fatal as there is always loads to see on there.  As soon as you have enough people in your circles, which means their posts go into your stream, there are a flow of posts going through your stream to attract your attention and send you off to links you would otherwise have known nothing about.  Adding a few comments here and there, posting something yourself and responding to the quite immediate comments just makes the time absolutely zoom by and the next thing you know it is much, much later than you thought.  It must be just the same if your favourite social media site is Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn – we all get sucked in.

 So I have decided to start a new regime to make myself notice the time more, get more active, give my eyes a break, drink more water (meant to be good for you in lots of ways) and just generally keep myself moving more.

I had this brainwave and found myself an online 30-minute timer to use on the computer so that every time the alarm goes off I will get up and go downstairs to have a small glass of water (or every now and then a mug of coffee).

It seems such a small and effective way to break up my screen viewing which will help with my metabolism, my fitness, my eyesight etc.  They always tell you to take regular breaks from the computer but trying to remember is usually the problem.  So with the timer I will have a loud reminder to get my bum out of the chair and hit the stairs.  If I feel energetic I can even run down them and back up.  All I have to do now is to make sure I go when the timer goes off – the beauty of this as well is that I don’t have to think “when I have finished this” as I know I wont be long and can carry on as soon as I get back.

I only started doing it yesterday but so far it seems to be working well, in fact often my quick break has extended to a 15 minute or so break as I have seen other things that needed doing in the house.  The other thing I immediately noticed was that the 30 minutes was up so very much quicker than I had expected and most times when the alarm went off I would have thought only 10 minutes had passed.  As long as I can keep it up and just make sure I leave when, or just after, the alarm goes off it will work well.

Here is the link to the timer I am using:

http://timer.onlineclock.net/timers/30minutes

Yesterday I went around the house checking out my bear collection with the intention of filling a box with some of them to sell as I have far too many and to make room for the bears that are not on the shelves yet but on the backs of chairs, the desk etc.  But I came away with the box empty as I could just not choose any that I was willing to part with.  I just need a bigger house so I can add more shelves!

Here’s today trivia snippet:

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!

Lastly, today’s chuckle as always:

The Funeral

A man was leaving a convenience store with his morning coffee when he noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery.

A black hearse was followed by a second black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one.

Behind the second hearse was a solitary man walking a dog on a leash.

Behind him, a short distance back, were about 200 men walking single file.

The man couldn't stand the curiosity.

He respectfully approached the man walking the dog and said, "I am so sorry for your loss, and this may be a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this.

"Whose funeral is it?"

"My wife's."

''What happened to her?"

The man replied, "My dog attacked and killed her."

He inquired further, "But who is in the second hearse?"

The man answered, "My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife when the dog turned on her."

A very poignant and touching moment, of brotherhood and silence, passed between the two men.

"Can I borrow the dog?"

The man replied, "Get in line."

Cakes, Dancing and Media Sites

I came upon this brilliant site for cake recipes yesterday.  Why is it that when you are “trying to be good” you see all these interesting recipes that you would just love to try and everyone puts pictures of interesting food in their posts.  When you are sitting comfortably watching television, with no thoughts of food in your mind at all, along comes an advert with smooth tempting chocolate filling pouring deliciously into a sumptuous round chocolate or sizzling food cooking in a pan that you can almost smell and taste.  I suppose the posts and adverts are there all the time but you only really notice them so much when you know you shouldn’t be tempted!  I can never make cakes or desserts at the best of times because I only have to have a small slice and it finds somewhere on my hips to hide for a few years.  Luckily I rarely eat deserts and only really like home-made cakes so it is only a problem if I actually make one.  As long as I stay away from making them it is ok but I do really quite like baking and often get that homely urge to bake something even though I can’t – it must be the nesting instinct in me.

Well it’s a bit of a miserable dull and wet day here and I’m feeling a little sorry for myself as I couldn’t go dancing last night.  Although it was fine when I started dancing again last week, I obviously did too much too soon.  As I said last week I only went with the intention of doing one walk-through teach of a dance but as everything felt fine I learnt and danced 3 more dances too.  I did spread them throughout the evening, sitting down in between, and I didn’t even try the more intricate turning ones that would probably hurt my achilles tendons but although it felt OK at the time it was too much too soon I suppose as my right achilles tendon started hurting the next day when I walked the dogs (it was fine until then).  The following day it was even worse walking the dogs so I haven’t even tried to walk them since.  It is so annoying as I thought I was finally back to dancing again after the injury which was 2 years ago now.  When it feels completely better around the house I will try taking the dogs again and then really just do one dance when I give it another try.  Discipline is what I need so to save being tempted I will just have to come away from the dance class when I have danced just one.  Then I can try 2 the following week and so on.  If I am sitting there I am tempted and my feet are doing the steps under my chair, just dying to get up.  Then there are the “helpful” others there who say “Try this one.  It hasn’t got any fast turns in it.”  That’s why I ended up doing 4 last week.  So to take temptation out of the equation I will just have to leave after the 1^st dance I do. 

I logged into Twitter today and the main page has all changed, then while I was on Google+ the main page on there changed too.  I don’t think the Twitter change is enough to make much of a difference as it is just that things are in different places, but the Google+ one now means that I can’t click the top bar to go back to the top and have to use the Ctrl + Home keys but even worse is that I can’t see the Notifications and be able to comment on them while I am half way down my stream.  Most annoying, that part.

Meanwhile Pinterest seems to have gone mad and I suddenly have new followers daily – I am not sure how or why that has happened but I am obviously very pleased.  As you’ve probably noticed I chose a different colour for today’s blogJ

Well here’s today’s trivia snippet:

Horatio Nelson, one of England's most illustrious admirals was throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.

(Crikey, was he in the wrong job then!!!)

Hopefully this will bring a smile to your face today:

Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.

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Tech support: How may I help you?
Customer: I'm writing my first email.
Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?
Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the little circle around it?

Will You Still Have Books on Your Shelves?

Do you think reference books will be a thing of the past now everything is available online?  I have loads of different reference books – shelves full of medical, healing, tarot, crystal and Reiki books – you name it and I have most types of “New Age” books on my shelves plus lots of books by Mediums.  But if I want to refer to something or check up on something I tend to go first to the computer and look it up on the internet rather than rummage in my bookshelves.  Granted with all the bears taking up residence in front of the books it slows things down a tad but I know where most of my books are and behind which bear.  But by the time you have got the book out, looked it up in the index and found what you are looking for, you could have found it in half the time on the internet.  Not always I grant you, plus sometimes the answers are conflicting so you end up getting the book out anyway.  But whereas years ago you had to buy reference books to learn and to look things up, nowadays it is all at your fingertips online. 

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Now Kindles have also become popular I should image there will be a lot less people buying other types of books as well.  I haven’t managed to find time to read a book for over a year and yet I used to really like reading so I think also people spend more time online and don’t have the time to sit down with a book.  Some find time for both of course, but I just don’t personally know how they can if they end up joining in on a social media site as well.  I don’t have time for more than one social media site really.  I use them all for jewellery but spend so much time on Google+ that I can hardly keep up with the others yet alone post anything on them.  If I still worked full time and danced most nights I wouldn’t have chance to be on any of the social media sites or have chance to read books.  I can’t read when I go to bed as I just can’t keep my eyes open so I used to read before I went to bed but that just doesn’t ever happen these days.  The only time I can honestly say I have time for reading is when it is a lovely sunny day in the summer and as we don’t get many of those I make sure I sit outside but as I can’t just sit still, I read.  We didn’t get many sunny days this summer so I didn’t even finish reading my monthly magazines that also pile up unread.

My old electric toothbrush has finally given up on me.  I bought a new replacement one early last year as my one seemed to lose the charge so much quicker and I didn’t think it would be long before it finally packed up altogether.  Of course, that guaranteed it a new lease of life because it never got any worse for months until it finally died on me by not recharging at all.  So I was very pleased I had the new one sitting in it’s box ready to use.  I duly charged it up ready to use the following night, put it in my mouth and nearly jumped out of my skin.  It is an Ultrasonic one and it seems so high pitched loud!  My other one was deep and throaty (excuse the pun) in comparison.  I was last to bed and I was sure it was going to wake up my husband, but as we don’t have an en-suite and the bathroom is across the landing, it didn’t disturb him.  What I didn’t realise until the next day is that it sounds a lot worse in your head than it does outside of it.  I think it is a lot better than my old one of the same make so I am happy but still find the noise disconcerting until I get used to it.

Well it’s time for the snippet to trivia:

One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!

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Lastly today’s chuckle:

A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
Tech support: Are you running it under windows?
Customer: 'No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine.'

Exercise - one way or another

Everyone talks about exercise in January and I was watching my husband huffing and puffing when he was kneading some bread the other day which made me think that some exercise can be done in just everyday tasks in the home.  Running up the stairs instead of walking, dancing to music while doing the dusting or treating it as a workout by doing all the movements swiftly – stretch up high to the ceiling corners, bend down low to the skirting boards etc.  Not that I can do many of these things as I have a lower back disc problem as well as my achilles problem but it did make me think about doing exercise this way would be much more interesting to people who don’t feel cut-out to go to the gym or do any organised sessions.  So you could  try making your own bread as I could see that that was definitely a good workout for hands, arms and shoulders as well as being quite aerobic too.

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It is now 2 years since I damaged my achilles tendons on a slippery dance floor and ended up with achilles tendonitis. Tonight I am going to tentatively try a dance class again.  I am just going to try the walk-through of a new dance and be very careful to notice if there are any dance moves that I find hurt even the tiniest bit (following the strict warning by my hospital consultant). I am keeping my fingers crossed as I desperately want to get back to the dancing but don't want to rupture the damaged tendons which the consultant has warned me about.  So wish me luck J

Today’s trivia snippet:

The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!  

(and me at the moment!)

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Today’s little chuckle:

One night, an 87-year-old woman came home from Bingo to find her 92-year-old husband in bed with another woman.

She became violent and ended up pushing him off the balcony of their 20th floor apartment, killing him instantly.

Brought before the court, on the charge of murder, she was asked if she had anything to say in her own defense.

'Your Honor,' she began coolly, 'I figured that at 92, if he could screw, he could fly.'

Zero vs Plus Size

I have just read yet another article about models having the BMI of an anorexic and *Plus size* models being a size 14.  The article was stating the usual facts about the models not being an average size and that they should have more realistic models.  I have touched on this subject before but there are some more thoughts and facts that have come to light since then.

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I know lots of size 14 women who are far from a "plus size".  A Plus size is size 16 or more likely size 18 upwards.  I know women of all heights that are a size 14 and have no fat on them at all.  Whereas I also know women who are a size 12 and are really quite skinny with bones showing and no flesh.

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Do they still have a “Petite” size and if they do what size is that now or has it been relabelled “10-12 years old”.  I suppose the good thing is that all these stick thin models can buy their clothes from children’s shops and not have to pay the VAT on them (if that is still the case with children’s clothes).

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What they never mention is the height of the women.  A size 12 woman at 5' is a lot "plumper" than a size 12 woman at 5' 9".    The same applies to weight as the weight of a normal healthy tall woman is the same weight as an overweight short woman.  The weight of an overweight tall woman sounds absolutely horrendous to a slim short woman.  LOL – you can take my word for this as I am an overweight tall woman.

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Most women also know that they if they go into a "cheap clothes shop" they have to buy a size larger than they normally wear.  As stupid as this is, it is usually the case.  Also if a size 14 woman goes into a Plus size shop then the size 14 would drown her.

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The size of a woman is not relative to a size number but to how healthy she looks and how attractive that look is as well.   Clothes may well look better hung on skinny models and normal women have to then "translate" that into what they would actually look like on themselves.

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Looking healthy does not mean bones with flesh hung on top no more than it means rolls of fat hanging in the way.  There is a definite difference between slim women and skinny women, just the same as there is a difference between hourglass or even chubby women and obese women.

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No-one ever seems to accept that women come in all shapes and sizes and there is no "proper" shape.  You cannot change your natural body size any more than you can change your height or the shape of your body.  Women come in all sorts of natural shapes from a straight up and down boy shape to an hourglass shape or the apple or pear shapes.  Models are chosen because their shape so that will be able to fit into every outfit they try on.  They do not pick people to be models if they have wide shoulders for instance as there would be so many clothes that would just not fit or they would not make the clothes hang badly.  If you grow up to have a wide pelvis, narrow shoulders, a long neck or short legs for instance, you cannot change them.  If you are 4' 8" or 6' 2" you cannot change it so why do we get so concerned that, however much we eat or don't eat, we are meant to conform to be a certain size.  Yes we can try to eat less if we put on weight easily or try to eat more if we tend to be underweight - but we should do this to keep ourselves healthy and not because we should fit into a size or shape that is dictated to us by the fashion industry.

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Luckily for the male species we come in all shapes and sizes just as they do. Variety is the spice of life and for every man who prefers a thin woman there is another man who prefers a woman with a bit of meat on her bones.

We should learn to accept ourselves for what we are in our body size as well as the shape of it and our height.  The only thing that is sensible to do is to keep within the healthy limits for our height.

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What concerns me most though is the messages our children are picking up from the media.

Today’s trivia snippet:

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!

Today’s chuckle:

A Doctor was addressing a large audience in Tampa. 

'The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. 

Red meat is awful. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High fat diets can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water. 

However, there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have eaten, or will eat it. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?'

After several seconds of quiet, a 75-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said, 

'Wedding Cake.'

Shall I or Shan’t I?

I have been trying to decide if I dare go back to dancing yet but I am so worried about whether my injury will come back.  It will be 2 years next week since I nearly slipped on the dance floor and ended up with Achilles Tendonitis. 

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I  have been trying on the new dance cross trainers that I bought from the United States last year when I hadn’t expected the tendons to take so long to get better.  The only thing is that when I bought them I hadn’t realised that I would have to always wear cushioned insoles for my tendons, so they are a tad tighter than when they first arrived.  The insoles are only ¾ length ones so they are not too bad but do tend to make the footwear a tighter fit.  I have high arches and very wide feet so that doesn’t help either. 

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You would have laughed if you had seen me huffing and puffing trying to loosen the laces more to manage to get my feet in.  In the end I just gave up and took them off again to get them loosened even more just to be able to get them on.  What happened then! – they were so wide that the laces wouldn’t do up!  So now I have had to miss out a hole out in the lacing to make them long enough and will have to perhaps investigate if I can find any longer boot laces in silver or grey.  Yes my trainers are silvery grey – they have stopped making these dance cross trainers and so I had to plump for the colours they had left in my size rather than the black that I really wanted.  So I have a pink pair (yes pink!) and a silvery grey pair.  I am wearing the silvery grey pair at the moment to try to wear them in for when I do go back to dancing. 

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I decided to miss it tonight but may try next week.  The only trouble is that I remember only too well how painful it was and how I could hardly walk around the house for about a year and was shuffling along as if I was 90 years old.  I miss the dancing so much though and enjoyed the exercise.  I have put on weight because of lack of even normal exercise too which isn’t good.  I can walk the dogs easily now and at a normal speed (as long as the ground isn’t too bumpy) and only have the occasional uncomfortable twinge so I really want to try the dancing again but I don’t want it to send me back to how I was last year.

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Lots of footballers and athletes get Achilles Tendonitis and they get back to training much quicker than that but I suppose they are younger, fitter and know exactly what to do as they have personal trainers.  I know I should have stopped dancing when I felt the pain but I just hoped it would go away so I danced with the pain for a couple of months.  If I had been an athlete I dare say my trainer would have stopped me straight away and rested for a couple of weeks to let it heal.  Too late to worry about that now though so I just have to decide if and when to take the plunge back into dancing.  After such a long break we wouldn’t be able to do much anyway as we wont know any of the dances so will just have to learn the new ones as we go along.

Today’s trivia snippet:

American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one (1) olive from each salad served in first-class.

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Lastly today’s humour:

Reported in the Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers Journal, the following are questions actually asked of witnesses by attorneys during trials and, in certain cases, the responses given by insightful witnesses:

"Now doctor, isn't it true, that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"

"The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?"

"Were you present when your picture was taken?"

"Were you alone or by yourself?"

"Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?"

"Did he kill you?"

"How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?"

"You were there until the time you left, is that true?"

"How many times have you committed suicide?"

Where Does The Time Go?

Well I am still keeping everything crossed but it has been very quiet on the mouse front – we haven’t heard anything and haven’t caught any more in the traps since we bought the poison.  Not that they seem to have eaten it but just moved out as the “blue stuff” moved in.

I don’t know about you but I can’t seem to “catch up” with things since Christmas.  I have been neglecting my blog (LOL – as you will have noticed) and I still haven’t done silly little things like listing and putting my tarot decks away.  There are lots of little things that wont even take too much time but I have somehow just not got round to doing them.  I should write a list of the “little things” that need doing and just take time out to do them – otherwise they play on your mind, don’t they and bug you.  Then there seems to be too many little things to do and it overwhelms you.  LOL -  right, so when I finish this I will definitely write my list and get on with some of the small jobs. 

I know what my problem is though really – it’s starting things and finishing things.  Once I get started I am fine and then wont stop until I am finished but unfinishable things like being on Google+ and reading all the posts, checking things out on the internet and then going off at a tangent to something else – these things I just can’t drag myself away from.  I could literally spend all day on the computer if I had nothing else to do.  I can never drag myself away to go to bed.  All these retirees who complain about nothing to do and getting bored should just get a computer and on to the internet.  Honestly, I come on here to list a jewellery item and check my emails and a black hole opens which I fall into for 2 or 3 hours instead of what seems like 10 minutes.  The times I see that tiny little clock in the bottom corner and get a shock when I see what the time is.  When you don’t have restraints on meal times etc. they get later and later too.

As you know I am also a bear collector (as well as a tarot deck collector) – I collect one-of-a-kind artist bears and Charlie bears.  Well I received these 2 Charlie bears and they are the same bear but with very different faces.  I have had them sitting by my computer for weeks now and just can’t decide which to keep and which to sell.  On the odd occasion I have seen 2 together before it is noticeable that they are different but only slightly and one always has a “cuter” face.  This time the faces are quite different but both cute – one has a bigger light coloured part round his face, a shorter nose and even a different coloured nose plus the other one has more shading above his nose.  I used to be terrible when I used to go shopping for bears, clothes etc. as I used to have to study them to see which was the best one before I would buy – I am most definitely not a grab one and go to the checkout type of person.  Luckily for everyone who might be involved I now only ever seem to shop online where there is no comparison and no choices to make.  I order and it arrives.  Here is the photo of the 2 bears for you to see the difference.

Today’s trivia snippet:

In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child.

A little chuckle from me (some more of the REAL things stated in court):

Q: Sir, what is your IQ?
A: Well, I can see pretty well, I think.

Q: Did you blow your horn or anything?
A: After the accident?
Q: Before the accident.
A: Sure, I played for ten years. I even went to school for it.

Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in the voodoo or occult?
A: We both do.
Q: Voodoo?
A: We do.
Q: You do?
A: Yes, voodoo.

Yet Another Clanger!

I hope you have had a great relaxing break and I’d like to wish you a Happy New Year.   It is very mild here in England and nothing at all like last year when we had so much snow and freezing cold temperatures.

I am feeling absolutely awful and ancient too!  What has happened to my memory lately?  I bought my grandson a 7^th birthday card and yet it was his 8^th birthday – how bad is that!!!  What’s worse is that I usually buy a Grandson card but when I bought it before Christmas they had hardly any Grandson cards as all the Christmas  cards were filling the shelves and the only ones they had out were for men really rather than children, so I opted for an age card.  I never do that normally and the only time I do decide to get one I get the age wrong!  I just don’t know how I did it – I don’t normally think of his age I suppose but it’s not even like I stood there thinking “em how old is he this year?” to myself.  I just looked for a “7” card!  I normally get the birthday cards for the Christmas period earlier in the year as I have 3 to buy and I know there is no good looking when the Christmas cards come out on the shelves and leave very little choice of other cards.

I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed and don’t really want to mention it too soon so “touch wood” but I think the mice are gone.  I think they must have it built into their ancestry that when they see the “blue stuff” it is time to move on.  We were going to buy some of the electrical sonic devices but when we read the instructions it said that they wont transmit through curtains, furniture, doors etc.  so we decided they would be no use in the garage or loft which are both full of “stuff” and even under the floorboards the joists would be in the way.  That is if we could even pry the floorboards up because they aren’t floorboards so much as big panel boards which go under some of the walls.  So anyway, we decided by buy even more mousetraps and buy some poison instead as where the mice were meant that the pets wouldn’t have any risk of getting near it.  So we dutifully parted with our well earned cash and bought 3 different types of the poison in sachet form and in block form.  We put the blue poison in the places where we had the traps and one sachet seemed to have disappeared altogether rather than just nibbled at but the blocks don’t seem to have been touched.  Since then we have caught 2 mice in the traps but that is all and it appears to be very quiet under the floorboards now.

You would have laughed though, that is if you could while holding your nose, because for the last couple of days we have had a horrible smell in the bathroom and kitchen mainly (but in the pipe area is another place we heard a lot of mice activity) and so we weren’t sure if it was rotting dead mice or the drains.  He didn’t have chance to check the manhole cover yesterday as he was out in daylight but as the smell was even worse today he checked them out and it was the drains – well we will definitely know if it was that by tomorrow morning I suppose as it could have been both.  You hear about scorned ex-girlfriends putting dead fish in curtain poles so we were really wondering if it was the mice rotting away as that is one of the reasons we didn’t want to use poison in the first place – at least if you catch them in the traps in is instant and they are disposable.

Here’s today’s trivia snipped:

"Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.

Lastly today’s chuckle as always:

Here’s some more of those actual things said in courts

Q: How old is your son, the one living with you.
A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
Q: How long has he lived with you?
A: Forty-five years.

Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke that morning?
A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
Q: And why did that upset you?
A: My name is Susan.

Q: Where was the location of the accident?
A: Approximately milepost 499.
Q: And where is milepost 499?
A: Probably between milepost 498 and 500.