An overdue ramble ~ totally random

I'm overdue for a blogging braindump, so here we go:

~Twitter~
It's sad but true, but when I want to know what I've been up to now, one of the first places I consult is my Twitter-stream.

~Invisalign~
The new braces are going well. I'm almost two weeks into it. I start my second tray tonight. I'm still lisping a little bit, but fewer people are noticing, so it's getting better. Why the lisp? The retainer hits me across the back of my front teeth, so when I make an S or T sound, my tongue hits the plastic.

~Blogger Followers~
My photo blog has just exceeded this blog with followers. That blog is a little more focused in topic, so I think that helps. Plus, I've been concentrating my Entrecard drops on that one.

~Obama~
Yay! I haven't officially blogged about it, but I'm THRILLED that Barack Obama won the presidential race. I've been closely following him since I voted for him in the senate primary four years ago.
I guess soon I can retire the "Smush Bush" stress doll I bought back in 2004.

~Anonymous linking~
So, I discovered this site, anonym.to that allows you to create links to websites that won't trace back to your site. Not sure why you'd want that, but it's out there. How did I discover it? Through my Flickr stats.

~Flickr stats~
For the most part my Flickr stats are pretty regular. I get about 50 views of photos a day, give or take, with it sometimes spiking up into the 200s or 300s if I've shared an album with family. Over the summer it suddenly spiked to over 1,000 views on one day only, but I couldn't find any apparent reason. No one photo was getting significantly extra views. Today I looked at my stats and found that the photos of my Invisalign retainers are getting a lot of views -- like 75 in one day -- but it's not from a specific source, just Flickr and this Anonym.to site I mentioned above. It's not like I captured the look of my retainers with incredible photography. Make me wonder why so many people are viewing those photos...


~Blog Blast for Peace~
I meant to participate in Blog Blast for Peace earlier this month. I didn't. But let me just go on record now as saying that peace is good. I highly recommend it. Please, can't we all just get along?

OK, actually, I would have put more effort into the post had I written it. Who can argue against peace?

~NaNoWrite Month~
While I'm on the subject of things I wanted to particpate in but didn't, let me throw in National Novel Writing Month. I should have been doing this. But, rest assured, I am back on the writing bandwagon. It's been slow-going. I mean how long does it take to write a 10-page scene?!?! Apparently a couple hours a page. Gah. But I am trying to get it polished up -- this is no messy first draft -- because it's part of a book proposal that Jules and JC and I are working on together. It *will* be in the mail by the end of the month.


~Doodle Week~
For some reason, I didn't participate in Doodle Month last month, either. Don't know why, since I've been involved since the beginning. But, it's coming up again soon and I intend to redeem myself. Maybe on Thanksgiving Day I can get my nephews to help me doodle? Hmmm....

~Smoosh Your Boobies~
Claire and Olga the Traveling Bra had a fun idea for ending Breast Cancer Awareness Month last month. They held a contest for people to put paint on their breasts and smash them against paper, creating art. Another thing I wish I'd done, but couldn't find paint in the house at the last minute. (OK, could have used latex paint left over from our walls, but, really, I didn't want to go there.)

~WoW Expansion~
So, World of Warcraft came out with its expansion set Wrath of the Lich King. We haven't bought it yet. Holding out for over the Thanksgiving holiday when we have some time off (and I'm not otherwise writing). I know it will be a total time suck once I get into it -- a really, really good total time suck.

~Christmas Shopping~
When we were at my sister-in-law's house on Nov. 1, she had all her Christmas shopping done and wrapped. The gifts were stacked in a corner of the dining room, waiting. Inconceivable to me. But, now, I'm starting to think Christmas. I'm putting together my Amazon wish list, which neatly allows you to add products from other web pages not related to Amazon.com. Neat feature. Plus, I'm putting together my own gift-giving guide, where I shamelessly plug my friends' merchandise and other things that strike my fancy. Look for it soon.

~Weight Watchers~
I went back to Weight Watchers last week. So, because I'm counting points, I'm looking at the nutrition information on food, especially at the restaurants I like to frequent. I had the nutrition info from the website of my favorite lunch spot that I'd printed out two years ago. It showed my favoite flatbread pizza as having 9 points. Doable. For some reason I reprinted it last week only to find that they'd updated the flatbread pizza section. That same pizza is now 15 points! What makes it especially hard is that I'm allowed only 21 points a day, plus the 35 anytime points for the week. Well, as you can guess, that pizza is now right off my menu. Gah!

~My stupid emo baby name~
In the spirit of the newly born Bronx Mowgli, my Simpson-Wentz Baby Name is Harlem Cruella.

What's yours?

Workouts at the castle on the hill

I don't think I've ever blogged about my workout schedule. I didn't have an interesting angle, until now.

I've been working out with Stan for a couple years. One evening of personal training a week, and then a weekend warriors class with him on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I (*ahem*) try to get in a fourth workout on my own, but find that if I don't have someone at the gym waiting for me, I often don't make it there.

We do a lot of activities that work the cardiovascular system and the core muscles, focusing on both strength and balance and endurance. I think they call that functional training. It's not my area of expertise, but I'm pretty sure that what it's called. (Hint: If you look at the client photos on Stan's site, you can find some unflattering photos of me working out. There's lots of sweating involved.)

Since I work at a desk job and can be a couch potato at home, I need something to motivate me to get moving. (As if both my parents having heart attacks in their 50s wasn't enough motivation.) For those three hours a week I'm with Stan, I'm motivated and focused and I get a really good workout.

Anyway, that's not the interesting angle I promised in the lead. What's interesting is that for the past month or so, Stan has been a trainer without a formal gym. The old personal training gym closed, and while Stan has been looking for a new location, we've been doing our weekend workouts outside -- Saturdays in a park and Sundays at a local high school track. It officially become too cold to workout outside this past weekend, but up until then our Sunday workouts were here:



What is "here"? It's Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn, Ill., known informally as the castle on the hill. Imagine me huffing and puffing and running around the track, dodging goose poop and being dazzled by the view. I took this photo one morning after our workout.

Why do I feel the need to blog about it now? Because ESPN just recently named it one of the best high school football stadiums. Here's what ESPN had to say:

7. Bill Duchon Stadium (Glen Ellyn, Ill.)
The field is surrounded by woods on three sides, and with the man-made Lake Ellyn Park behind the visitors' stands, the crowd atmosphere on Saturday afternoons (there are no lights) appears right out of the movies. In fact, scenes from the movie "Lucas" were filmed at the site. The high school, built in 1923, looks like a castle, complete with turrets, and sits atop a hill behind the home bleachers. After a Hilltopper victory, the home-team players storm up the hill to ring a victory bell to announce to the town they've won. The field is named after a longtime coach/athletic director who still resides in the affluent suburb west of Chicago.

I would have been oblivious to this tidbit of information, except I saw today that another blogger used my photo from Flickr and had posted about it.

Oh, and about that movie mentioned -- Lucas? My husband was an extra in one of the crowd scenes. I'm pretty sure you can't actually see my husband in any of the crowd shots in the movie, but he was there and can tell you in minute detail how mind-numbingly boring filming a movie can be.

P.S. I'll give 100 Entrecard credits to anyone (up to 2 people) who locate a photo of me on Stan's site and link to it in the comments. Why? I have no idea.

Update: Fragileheart found two of the four pictures. There are still two more on the site. Hint: In one I'm photographed with Karen and in the other with Yvonne.

Weekend Photo Fun: Flickr Sudoku

To see this photo in a larger size, click here.

Something fun to try with photos today: Play Flickr Sudoku.

If you want to play with cute hamster photos, then you're in luck. That seems to the be default setting for this website. If you want to change the subject of the photos in the puzzle, change the tag and make a new puzzle.

Have your own Flickr account? Enter your Flickr username and get a puzzle made with photos from your photostream. Add a tag, and it'll further refine the selections.

If you have no idea how to play Sudoku, check out this site or Google "how to play sudoku".

Have fun! I did.

Loki immortalized!

Oh! Oh! Oh! So excited!



An artist found a photo of my dog Loki on my Flickr set a few months ago and asked if she could turn the picture into a painting. I checked her out and really liked her work, so I said yes, of course.



Well, just a few minutes ago, Carolyn Anderson of Mutt Butt Studio sent me a photo of the painting. Check it out:

Thanks Carolyn for doing such a wonderful job!



In case you're curious, here's my original photo that she worked from: