A little better

Ok, so I did better on Saturday with the food/calories burned thing. It helped I'm sure, that I spent a few hours outside at my nephew's reception. I even had a small piece of cake. I didn't meet the protein goal yet, but I got closer. I will get it figured out soon, I hope. I didn't totally blow the fat grams either. Maybe I'll try mixing low cal/fat italian or something with my bleu cheese dressing. The reception was lovely, got to see family that I haven't seen in years, which is always fun. I've gotten nothing accomplished today, other than a bit of kitchen damage control and a couple of loads of laundry. I'm awful tired the last few days... perhaps changing my eating habits has something to do with it... either that or my cycle has gone nuts and I'm anemic? I dunno.

Protein

Ok, last week I joined the gym (24 hour fitness), and with my membership package I got this handy little gadget called a BodyBugg. You wear it on your arm after it's been set up by your trainer, and it tracks all of your activity and then you upload it and it tells you how many calories you burned. The program online also has a place to put in what you have eaten and it will calculate everything for you, it's totally cool! So in looking at my food calculations from yesterday, I'm going to have to work something else out for food, that's for sure. While I did very well on the number of calories I took in, and even though I didn't do a damned thing to exercise and didn't come anywhere near my goal for calories burned, and still burned more than I ate, my balance is way off. I should be having: 93g Protein 254g Carbs 50g Total Fat 300mg Cholesterol 2400mg Sodium 21g fiber 20g saturated fat 1000mg Calcium I actually had: 52g Protein 177g Carbs 80g Total Fat 117mg Cholesterol 2597mg Sodium 12g fiber 31g saturated fat 564mg Calcium So, obviously I need to increase my protein, fiber, and calcium, but reduce my fat (a lot) and my sodium (a little). I think I'm going grocery shopping tonite..........

WOW

It's been over a month since I last posted. Yeah, I'm not always so good at this blog thing. At the end of June, I made my trip to Cancun. I traveled with a cousin, whom I'd not seen in almost 20 years. DFW International Airport, yeah, FUN times... NOT! If you're a Pepper, you are SOL, unless you happen to be in terminal A, I think it is, or near gate 37 in Terminal D, where there are McDonald's restauruants. Now, I could live with Coca Cola being the sponsor out there, because then I could at least get a Mr. Pibb, but Pepsi has no such Dr Pepper type option. Our flight was delayed an hour, and so we didn't get to the resort until almost 8 p.m. Now, considering that TikiTrips sold us originally on a schedule that would have us leave DFW at 7 a.m. on Saturday, and arrive in Cancun at 10 a.m., we were pretty much SCREWED out of a whole day, nearly, plus our return was supposed to be at 5 p.m. Tuesday, but that got changed to noon on Tuesday, so we got shafted there... Bottom line, stay the hell away from TikiTrips because they'll make changes and not tell you until you've made your final, NONREFUNDABLE payment, they SUCK at communication, and in general are difficult to work with. Our group, a total of 8 rooms, granted the bride and groom, her parents, and one other couple had chosen oceanview rooms, however they screwed up the reservations so the brides parents & the other couple had to raise hell at the resort to get what they paid for. The bride & groom were supposed to have a king jr suite, but had 2 fulls. The other 5 rooms were on the non-oceanview side, 1 was in a jr suite building, 2 were in the building next to that, 1 was in the next building, and then there was my room, halfway across the resort from everyone else except my cousin. What the HELL???? They KNEW how many rooms we needed in a given price level (4), so why did they not keep us together?? Perhaps blame there lies with the resort, but I think it more likely lies with those idiots at the travel agency. There were some issues through the weekend, with rooms being wrong, things like that, but overall, it was a good weekend. What's not to like about a pool with a swim up bar! I didn't get to the beach except for the wedding, but that's all right, because I wound up with a heck of a sunburn on my shoulders from the pool! Once I got home and saw photos of me... yeah, gotta do something about that. I've joined a gym, and am working with a trainer once a week, for now. I may pick up another day later on, but until I get through a handful of things in August, I've got a lot on my plate. I have an ultimate goal of about 95 lbs., but my first goal is about 10 lbs by Labor Day weekend, and another 10 by my birthday. I think I've finally got my pool under control... the water's crystal clear, and while there are still some leaves down in the bottom, and I'll probably have to vacuum regularly, I'm not totally embarrassed to have people come over to swim! Now if I can just get the spa cleared up that will be even better! This weekend is my oldest nephew's wedding reception at a friend's house. I'm going to have to endure his grandfather, at least that's the rumor, whom I have chosen to eliminate from my life for several reasons, but largely because my life is simply more peaceful and less stressful without him in it. I don't hate him, but I do have a strong dislike for the person that he is. I wish for him happiness and peace in his life, but have told him that it won't include me. I've finally got some help in the office to handle some of the stuff that just overwhelms me sometimes! I love my job, and my co-workers, but I'm afraid we've grown quickly enough that I can't quite keep up with all the paperwork!

My weekend

It’s hard to believe the year is almost half over already! WOW! By this time on Saturday, I’ll be (hopefully) making my final descent into Cancun. Originally, we were scheduled for an early morning something on Tuesday evening, so we were going to have 3 nights and 3½ days, roughly. Once we’d paid our final, nonrefundable payment for our “subject to change until final payment is made” scheduled trip, we were given our schedule. It changed. Now we arrive around 5 pm, and have to leave the hotel for the airport at 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, so we have 2 and less than ½ days, for the money we paid. But that’s another blog. This has been a great spring for my music collection…. I’ve already talked about American Highlander, the latest offering from The Rogues. I’ve also added the latest offering from Clandestine, ReD. If you’ve seen them live in the last year, you’ve already heard some of the awesome new stuff. From the first time I heard it, I’ve loved Wobbly Wheel Set, Sexy An Dros, and The Ewe & the Sound. The harmonizing of Emily, EJ & Al, is great. Overall, it’s a toe-tapping, dancing in your seat (or jumping up and dancing), fun and interesting disc to listen to. Early last week, I went to the post office to discover my Box O’ Swag, from my pre-adoption of Marc Gunn’s latest 2, Whiskers in the Jar and Going for Brogue. My swag included not just copies of the cds but also a handful of other discs to share, some bumper stickers and a new t-shirt. I think I’ve still got a copy of Going for Brogue to share, as well as an Irish Drinking Songs: The Cat Lover’s Companion, and a couple of his first cat CD Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers. If you’re interested, let me know, or head on over to CD Baby and pick up a copy. Whiskers in the Jar is another fun collection of traditional Irish tunes to which Marc & others have rewritten the words, honoring, playing with, or expressing the loving frustration we cat lovers feel for our feline babies. I SOOO understand Danny Boy… as I have my own obnoxious brat, sweet baby who finds it quite amusing to attack my toes when I am asleep, so as to wake me from deep and blissful slumber. What Shall We Do With a Catnipped Kitty pretty much ensures that I’ll be mixing up the words to Drunken Sailor forever… An absolute must for the cat lover in your world! Going for Brogue is Marc’s offering of traditional Irish songs and sea shanties done with wonderful accents. There’s something for the Irishman in you, something for the pirate in you. At first listen, several of the sea shanties sounded odd to my ear, since I’d really only heard them done in 4 or 5 part harmony by the Corsairs, but by the time the song was over, I was backing up to listen again to Marc’s wonderful rendition. Once again, Marc’s love of music and making music shines through in his voice and music. Order a copy for your pirate, or your irish! In the grand scheme of things, I probably should have spent yesterday doing something totally constructive, like getting laundry done so I could pack for the trip, or cleaning the house because it needs it, or working on the pool, because again, it needs it. The problem with all of those , is that none of those would have distracted me sufficiently to forget that I’ve embarked on what could be a pretty long stretch between live bagpipe shows. I may make it to the Killdares show Friday night, but that’s still very up in the air. Instead of the constructive stuff, I went with Emilee down to Austin so we could make an appearance at Marc Gunn’s CD release party at Things Celtic. Probably 25 or so people were there… got to see a handful of faire folke when Queen Bonnie & Var Grayshadow made it. Marc had a sore throat, but did a great job! Having never been in the shop before, I quite enjoyed looking around and seeing what I could find. Emilee, Marc & I took baby Claire and had an early dinner at a cute little café, Kerbey Lane. I gotta say the French toast was good, and I don’t remember the last time I had bacon cooked just the way I like it… without me even asking! I love it when I have the opportunity to have a nice quiet meal with friends! Marc offered us an opportunity to grow our celtic music libraries that sounds great, and as my library is still fairly small, I’m looking forward to adding new artists to those I already enjoy! On the way home (and down, if we’re going to be honest about it) we stopped in West at the Czech Stop. On the way down we’d stopped for gas and breakfast, and I saw Dr. Pepper cake, but didn’t want to have it sit in the car for who knew how long in the heat. I’ve had a bite or two of it, and it’s definitely yummy, and tastes sort of Dr. Peppery, but also kind of chocolatey. The beer bread I brought home is great too!!! That’s about it for now… gotta go move the laundry now.

A Weekend off

Yep, I finally had a weekend free from commitments. I did managed to get some things accomplished, though not nearly enough. A portion of the around 2000 photos I took at Scarborough are finally edited. Oh, there are plenty more to get done, and hopefully, I'll get a few done each night this week, and before I go to Cancun in a couple of weeks they'll all be done and up. I learned a few things about myself this week:

• I learned that I don't read some people nearly as well as I thought I did. To that end, I'm pulling back out my face reading book, and brushing up on that so that maybe next time, I won't be such a dunce.
• I realized that tapes that I thought were long gone from my head, while not nearly so prominent, are still there, and while they always will be, I know that they were placed there out of love, not malice, and that they are not actually true
• I realized, again, how blessed I am to have the people who are in my world, and how much I have enjoyed adding to my world this year.
• I learned that there is music in all of us, itching to get out, we just have to recognize that music, and let it out, whether it is actually music, or dance, or words, or watercolor, or oils...
• I learned that while, outwardly, I always embrace the person that I have become, I am not always honest with myself, and I don't always believe what I am projecting, though I do believe it is true.

First Post

Ok, here I am with my shiny new blog... I guess the best place to start is an introduction. I've got a couple of blogs a couple of other places, but they are a bit more geared toward specific groups much of the time, and I really sort of want to consolidate. I'm a former Army brat, and by the time I was 10 and we retired from the Army, I'd lived 5 places for at least 6 months, and spent more than a week or two in 5 or 6 others as we transitioned from post to post. I'm my mother's oldest, and my father's 3rd child. I have 4 nephews & a niece that I enjoy immensely. My education is in History with an English minor, but I don't use my degree at all, which is fine, because I love what I do and the people I work with. Musical tastes run the spectrum from classic rock to country, to celtic and other world music. I like pretty much anything except rap, hip hop, and some of the newer 'metal'. My current passion is Celtic. I am totally in love with good piping... great highland pipes, uillean pipes, yep, I am good with pipe music. My favorite bands are The Rogues, Clandestine, and The Killdares. I'm also a big fan of Marc Gunn and the Brobdingnagian Bards. I'm addicted to renfaires and get to as many as I possibly can (especially if I'm going to find some of the bands above there)! I'm owned by a trio of fabulous kitties, who run amok through the house. Yep, when you see me, you're likely to see cat hair on me, or on my furniture, but since I've lived a total of maybe 2 years of my entire life without cats, I don't know what 'hairless' surroundings are. That's prolly enough for now...