Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Trees and other good stuff....


A week ago this past Saturday, I went tree shopping. I had a goal - a Little Gem Magnolia for my backyard. My friend LH went with me. The first nursery, which I had such high hopes for, was a dud. So, we toodled to Home Depot. Great sale price for a nice looking tree. Didn't include delivery or someone to plant it (it was about a 22-24 gallon tree; no way was I planting it, at least not properly). We heard a guy talking on the phone and he sounded like he would be the person to talk to about who to contact to get a tree planted. So we did. Very nice guy. Brother-in-law does landscaping on the side. His advice was that the trees look great, but people have had problems with them. He recommended a tree farm. We had a couple of hours till they closed, so we went. What a fun place! I like plant nurseries anyway, but this was bunches of trees in one place. Plus some yard art. Just lots of fun. The did have Little Gem's. They were a bit higher, but about the same size tree and their price included delivery, planting, mulching, and staking. Well worth it!

And, yesterday it was planted. My little backyard just seems complete. Of course, the two added bird feeders, bird bath, and twirly thingy help also. I added those on Saturday. Still waiting for the birds to discover us. Now the backyard doesn't look so empty.

The other good news is something that was expected, but came early. The same Saturday, I bought the tree, I got what I thought was my monthly car statement from Toyota. I opened it to find that it was the title to my car! My loan is paid off and I am now the total owner of my car. Woo hoo! Now, I can start putting that money in the property tax fund. Ahh, the joys of home ownership.

Friday, September 28, 2007

7 Random Facts...

A fellow blogger got tagged for seven random facts. She didn't exactly tag me, but I was curious to know if I could come up with seven random facts. Here they are:

1. I have literally moved cross country twice and made four major moves (to different states) in eight years.
2. I have lived in six different states.
3. I attended the 1986 World's Fair in Vancouver.
4. My current profession is my 3rd profession - I started out working for the Air Force (Civil Service) and then worked in the software industry.
5. I spent my childhood spending the week in the city and the weekends on my family's farm (complete with cows and gardens)
6. Sherlock Holmes remains my favorite detective
7. I rarely vacation, but have been to Mexico and Germany. Would love to visit Scotland and Ireland.

Well, there they are. I did come up with seven. If you see this and are of a mind, consider yourself tagged.

On an ending note, we rarely see anything about the World's Fair anymore, so I did some checking. Wound up in Wikipedia, of course, and found that the last one was in 2005 in Aichi, Japan. The organization that handles it is the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE). For the 21st century they moved to sanction expos every 5 years. In 2001, the US withdrew it's membership from the BIE. The US Pavilion at the 2005 expo was privately funded. Participation in the BIE is funded by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Complete Wikipedia article on World Expo's is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Fair#USA_membership

Sunday, September 23, 2007

If it's not one thing, it's something else....

Well, about two weeks ago, on a Friday night, I got in my car to head home after an evening out, and it was a little rough on the start up. I was a little concerned, but I made it home okay. Saturday, same thing. Now, I'm thinking about what could it be. And, then it hit me. The battery. The car is almost 4 years old, which means so is the battery. Sigh. I thought I'd wait until the following weekend to get it replaced, but after crossing my fingers and hoping it would start Sunday and Monday mornings, I realized that I needed to get it taken care of. I didn't want to go out to my car somewhere and have it not start. And, it was raining that Monday, so that wouldn't have been any good either. I took a couple of hours of comp time that afternoon and headed to Sears to get a new battery. Not as nice as going to a smaller business, but they are known for their batteries. Check that off the list.

That was Monday. That Friday was the day my cubicle was going to get installed. I've been there nine months, but at least I was finally getting it (I was in an open workstation; the other professionals in my department all have cubicles). We thought it would be in the morning. They started assembling in the afternoon around 2:00. To make a long story short, we had to move power poles we weren't expecting to, had to have a power whip installed for my cubicle (the original game plan was to use power strips from the outlet, but they would have been blocked by the partition wall, which is not a good thing), and move phone and data lines from where workstations were to where they were moved. Naturally, until this was done, we weren't working. In addition, the office designers ordered the wrong color overhead bin for me and a different colored wood (lighter). We all like the wood, so I get to keep it and be different, but the overhead needs to match the trim and everyone else's. We were first told a new one would be ordered. Friday, we were told the one I have would be painted. I had them install what we have because I need the lights underneath it. I may have gained a cubicle, but I've given up natural light coming into my workspace. It wasn't all wrapped up until the last Monday and I still am not sure what will happen with the overhead bin, but, in the grand scheme of things, given what we weren't aware of that we had to do, that really isn't too bad.

Then last week, I noticed that Kitty cat had sores in her bald spot, which does appear to have more fur. I probably contributed to that by using the spray the first vet gave me, but nonetheless I needed to get her to the vet to make sure it wasn't anything horrible. I did that on Friday. Bye bye to the last of my comp time. It wasn't anything horrible.

Then to top it off, yesterday I stopped by Origins and the Clinique counter only to discover both had discontinued the products I was wanting. And, neither sales person was overly friendly either. Nope, sorry don't have it. Especially, the sales person at Clinique. So much for the new Clinique. She didn't even know what I was talking about, made me feel like I was making it up, and kind of waived her hand at what they had and said this it what we have. I was so turned off by both sales persons that I doubt I'll look for replacement products from either brand. Origins does have a product I've used in the past that would be closest, but I liked the one they discontinued the best. However, by both of them not having what I wanted, I didn't spend any money.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Re-energized....

Well, I posted recently about being re-energized for exercise. Which is true. And, even with the leg keeping me out of the exercise game for a week, I find I am still very motivated. Not only am I working out more, I'm trying to improve/hone the exercise routine and do more yoga.

The major improvement is I switched my gym membership to a new gym closer to my house (same club). Their equipment is the latest and they have weight machines by Hoist which involve the core as well as the muscle group being used. They're pretty cool. A big change, which is working nicely in the first couple of weeks, is that I do all my strength training at one time, rather than alternating days for arms and legs. This has cut down on the number of days I have to go to the gym (a major de-motivator for me as I hate packing the gym bag) and is giving me more nights to do yoga. And, this gym's pool (a salt water one) is not in plain view of the front door. I'm hoping to incorporate swimming once a week into the routine (start of this is dependent on when I get a swimsuit suitable for lap swimming).

In addition to this, about a month ago I got on the scales. Gasp! I knew why I felt like a beached whale - I was carrying around the weight of a whale! I checked out several options and finally decided on a free website called SparkPeople (SP). It's been 3 weeks now and I've lost seven pounds. So, I'm pleased. To put it in perspective though, I lost around 25 pounds about five years ago and kept it off for several years. Between Arkansas, the return move to Texas, and the loss of motivation to exercise these past few months, I gained all of it back and then some.

The SparkPeople site is aimed at helping you develop better, healthier eating habits. It also involves tracking what you eat, which in the past has not worked for me. Maybe it's because this is online or because it shows where the calories are coming from (fat, carbs, protein) and where you are falling in the recommended range. I'm a sucker for statistics. So far, no problems with the tracker or staying within my calorie range.

SP also has a fitness tracker, so I'll be moving a lot of my exercise chat to the SP site, but will post little updates here on occasion.