So I am making a bigger post on my earlier post about deleting Facebook/Twitter and the like, which was just posted quickly by me during one of my many frantic moods

….. Okay so basically I had intended to write out all that has been going on and stressing me out, but it’s too much, it will come off as too whiny, and you don’t need to hear it all. Basically same shit different day . . . dissertation writing stress, living off saving stress, upcoming going back to work stress . . . add in the insane heat waves this summer which have just been migraine inducing as well as sitting around and gaining back way too much weight . . . yes I’m a barrel of laughs right now. There is also vacation stress, as whether we go on a vacation in January is yet again up to me. Part of me knows I’ll need a break come January (and I did have a great time last year), the other part of me knows I don’t want that on my credit card bill right now. I’ve been monitoring prices and right now they are going UP, so here is hoping they go back DOWN later on. Oh and then there is John having to work to 9-10pm every other night as well, so I never see him anymore.

So basically all this stress ends up leading to me breaking down and/or blowing up . . . and this last time I went and destroyed all my social networks. I deleted Twitter, Facebook as well as all the check-in apps like Gowalla and Foursquare too.

In part, I realized if I’m gunna be nuts online and vent on these places, I don’t need complete strangers knowing I’m nuts. Twitter/Facebook (because it’s easy to link them) are just too easy to go to and post a quick rant. The blog still takes time . . . signing in, writing the post, proofing it, etc . . . Twitter/Facebook it’s basically just bitch’n'go really. I decided 1) I don’t need to just be using these things as a bitch fest, cause nobody wants to read that and 2) I have way too many people on them I have no idea who they are, so they don’t need to know my private biz-nass.

So I just went on a deletion frenzy I guess I should have just deleted people off my lists . . . but somehow at the time I thought this was easier. I know people loved the twitter feed on the blog, but the problem is for it to work properly with the blog, your twitter account needs to be open. That means anyone can sign up and follow you, and unless you take the time to go in and block them . . . they know your biznass. Also for many people Twitter has seems to lost its appeal. The people I got on there to start following don’t use it as much anymore, and most of the updates I see anymore are people spamming 10 news article/links every hour.

As for Facebook . . . well before Twitter/iPhone I never really updated my facebook much. It was too much trouble. I also just approved anyone who asked to be my friend, even if I didn’t really know them, so now I have 300 friends and probably only can really identify who 50 of them are . . . 25 of which I’ve probably actually met in real life.

While my twitter (and 4square etc) accounts got irretrievably deleted, I did save Facebook from utter destruction. I just have too many childhood and obscure friends I’ll never be able to find again on there (though I’m an easy google if they need to find me, the benefit of years of the soap page). So at some point my Facebook will be back. However I’ve decided I need to take a hatchet to my Facebook. I need to go through my friends list and if I don’t recognize the name – - – DELETE! I also need to make lists of trusted friends and general friends, so I can decide who sees what. I need to learn to deny people’s friends requests if I don’t know who they are, and not be afraid to delete/block people – which so far I’ve never done to anyone. However if I’m posting sensitive and personal stuff, I don’t want strangers seeing it!

On the upside, my blog has gotten a lot more attention without Facebook and Twitter

PS Monster Mania this weekend! So I should be having some fun

So I’m typing this on this handy dandy Mac app called MacJournal. It is a diary/journal app, but with the ability to post them to blogs. We’ll see how well it works, especially since I’ve attached some photos and resized them.

I can also apparently download ALL my previous blog entries into it. We haven’t tried that yet, we wanted to see if posting went okay first. If it works though, it will be a handy way to have a solid back-up of the blog in a format other than the MySQL database wordpress stores them in.

The weather lately has been wonderful. I just hope the nasty rain and cold stay away Well obviously we need rain, but not days of flooding rain! In spite of the lovely weather, I spent most of the weekend with a migraine. I know where it came from, I volunteered to do some manual labor in the sun on Friday at school. The next day . . . migraine! Aside from feeling crappy, I am now behind on work. Story of my life lately!

Speaking of school, I am teaching in the fall and next spring most likely. I was told the prospects of keeping me around look fairly good right now. Fingers crossed! I have my conference at the end of this month, and am entertaining submitting an abstract to another local conference that happens in May. Fortunately I can and will use the same paper, with some minor tweaking The dissertation will finally be finished and defended this summer. It’s dragged on long enough, and by fall I expect to be working a lot and it just needs to be done.

In a little over a month I head out to visit my friend Heidi. Unfortunately we have become a fat-ass! I was shocked and horrified when I stepped on the scale this morning. I have not been exercising enough lately with working so much, and I’ve been drinking too many non-diet cokes for caffeine boosts at work, as well as grabbing too much fast food cause it’s quick and easy. None of this is good considering we are doing some water parks. Me in a bathing suit like this? GASP! It’s diet time again and I now have to be serious. I also picked up a copy of EA More Active, the sequel their personal training Wii game. I liked the original well enough, aside from the fact it was such a lunge nazi. Lunge lunge lunge! I got sick of always lunging. I’m hoping the sequel is better, I’ll give it a go tomorrow morning to see if it revs me up.

The doggies have also been getting their exercise as of late. I’ve been taking them to the enclosed field next to us to run around sans leashes and play Frisbee. They get pooped out pretty quick though. They are as out of shape as I am Enjoy some photos I took of them today, as well as one of Little Bunny Poo Poo, who is now a little over a year old.

In one month I turn . . . gulp . . . 34! I am also about 8-10 pounds heavier than I was last year, according to the CalorieKing chart/program I have on my Mac. Not very happy about that! Of course I was running almost every day last summer too, which I have slacked on this year for a multitude of reasons. I really need to get back to it, but I seem to find myself keep saying that The last time I started up I pulled something unfortunately.

I had bought EA Active Sports back in June, but got sick shortly after starting it, then the boot camp started, and well I didn’t use it as much as I should have. It has a 30 day fit challenge, which as the name suggests, you are supposed to use it every day for 30 days. It does let you slack off a few days, but only a few. I have to reset mine at this point since I failed it I think I’m going to use it and maybe report back on my progress with it. We’ll see how well it does. While running last year gave me a weight loss, I wasn’t as toned as I’d like to have been. We’ll see if this can achieve that.

For those who have the Wii Fit and maybe bored with it, give this game a try. The exercises and routines I feel are much better (but it doesn’t have Yoga if that is your thing). The music is great, and the exercises for the most part are a lot of fun as they mix games in with the exercises. You can use prebuilt routines or make your own, and they string together nicely. So unlike Wii Fit you aren’t taking a few minutes between exercises to choose something new. After 30 minutes with EA Active, you will be tired, and the next day you will be sore!

For those who like Wii Fit just fine (or are into Yoga), a new Wii Fit Plus disc comes out this fall, which is more customizable apparently, allowing you to string exercises together and make routines.

Okay, I think that’s all I have to blog about right now.

Post Note: The EA Active Sports comes with a very light “resistance band” which is actually just a pilates type body band. You can pick up a whole kit of light-medium-heavy bands on Amazon for about 20 bucks, or just get medium and heavy bands for about 12 each at TarJay (along with a workout DVD). If you find the band the game comes with too easy (which I did) it’s worth it to get a heavier band. Do NOT get the rubber tubing workout bands though, as those come with specific handle attachments and do NOT play well at all with the Wii controllers. Trust me on this one! Get the pilates body bands and simply put them in the handles that come with the EA Active game.

Since I know some might be wondering how things went today, as of yet nothing has happened. This of course doesn’t mean it won’t. From what I found out, John’s sister had a talk with the oldest and basically said “This is not to be discussed with your father, he doesn’t need to know you all know.” Even the oldest understood this reasoning, there are some things we just don’t tell him because it will cause issues and drama. If this can be avoided with the man, it usually is.

Now how long the kids will keep their mouths shut is not known. More than likely one of the other kids will mention something in passing, so IF he hears the comment (he’s really hard of hearing) then it will become an issue. More so when he figures out they’ve all had the talk and of course he was not involved and get to add his opinion. It’s his opinion that he didn’t get to drill into the kids that will be the biggest issue with him on this subject. Trust me, he will have words to say on this subject, and not kind ones.

Now I know many will say “These are his kids, he has a right to be involved and teach them the morals he sees fit.” Yes, but at the same time, you don’t know this man. He has grown children from the first marriage that are about John’s age, or a little younger. When John came out years ago, let’s just say he quickly turned all his kids against John. They apparently went from being very friendly with John to not even speaking to him. Earlier this year one of these kids got married and John was invited to the wedding, which was clearly just done to be polite. John was invited, just John, not John plus a guest. Yes they know about me too, and I’m sure all bad things they’ve gotten from their dad.

So when I said in my last post that he most likely would ban the kids from seeing me, ban them from our house, probably try and ban then from even hanging out with John; no I wasn’t kidding.

Oh we found out that the father, not long ago, gave the oldest son a book on politics to read. Knowing the father, it was probably one of those “How Liberals Are Destroying America” books. I asked John to find out the book, as I’m sure there is a whole chapter on the evil homosexual agenda.

As for the kids and how they are reacting. Well I saw the oldest briefly, all he basically said was “Hi.” He is at that stage where he’s pretty anti-social, he knows more than the adults around him, when adults speak they say stupid things. So I can’t say for sure if I was snubbed or not. He said hello to John too this morning, that was about it. The youngest of course is not phased at all. She was hanging all over me as usual, wanting us to go swimming in the pool. The middle child I haven’t seen all day.

In other news, I think I’m giving up on the vegetarianism, at least for a bit. Not because of a weak will, but because of the scale. I was at 158 last month, now after the boot camp and two weeks of eating crap, I’m up to 165. I’m not happy, I haven’t been this heavy since last May. In January I was at 155, last December I think I had gotten down to 148 (145 is my goal weight). I think it will be easier for me to drop pounds eating chicken and the various stockpile of lean cuisine’s in the basement. I’m just eating too much pasta and carbs with the vegie stuff. What I will NOT go back to is red meat though. That and McDonalds, Wendys, Burger King, etc . . . .

I also know once I get back into running the weight should come off pretty quickly too. I think I’m going to try and keep getting up on the earlier side as I had been and run in the morning to wake me up. Once alert, then I’ll be ready to put in my 4 hours minimum of writing that day.

So Boot Camp is almost at an end. On some level I’m sad, on some I’m not. After today I see I have gotten a lot done this week. By Friday, heck possibly by Thursday, I’ll have 100 some pages to send off to my adviser to read, part of the much over do data analysis chapters. I just have to make sure I continue to get these 4 hours minimum of work in a day. I now have at least some structure to these final chapters that have been a headache for far too long.

Of course what I won’t miss are driving into Philly each day, and especially the parking fees! I will miss the yummy food I’ve been eating, but my waste line won’t. I am NOT a morning person. I do not drink coffee, I do not drink tea. So I’ve been reaching for Coke to wake me up these past 2 weeks. Coke = a giant sugar bomb! I can’t believe how much of this stuff I used to drink and not put on weight. Yes I could drink diet coke, but frankly it tastes like stale ass. I can’t do it. I mean come on, I don’t like water cause of how it tastes, do you think I’m drinking diet coke? I do like diet Dr. Pepper, but it makes me belch like Shrek, so I have avoided it too. The yummy delicious high in sugar and other bad for you stuff Chinese food I’ve been getting daily probably isn’t great for me either. I know it isn’t, cause by mid-afternoon there is a brick sitting in my stomach.

Basically the 2 weeks I had Pink Eye I lost 5 pounds, lets just say I’ve gained it back and then some. I’ll be happy to get back to more normal eating and back to the gym again. As for what is normal eating, I’m rethinking the vegetarianism yet again. I’ll probably give it till mid-July and make a decision. Lately I have been keeping track of various budgets (via Pocket Money on iPhone), and let’s just say the grocery bill sky rocketed this month. Morning Star Farms makes great veggie foods, but they aren’t cheap and they don’t go on sale that much. Meanwhile I have a stockpile of Lean Cuisines downstairs in a freezer that I haven’t eaten cause they are chicken dishes mostly. Yeah, we are talking 2 weeks of pre-bought food. Hmmmmmm. I told John to start eating them for lunch last month (he’s trying to lose some weight too) but he never did. Don’t get me started on his lunches!

Let’s see, what else to update on. My friend Heidi is coming to visit in July, woohoo! We met on a cruise a few years back. She’s coming for a weekend, so I have to figure out what we are doing. There is tons of stuff I’ve never done in the 11 some years living here (Gettysburg, Hershey Park (okay did that at 10 years old, but want to go back), Valley Forge, Atlantic City, Wildwood). So I’ll make up a list and we’ll figure it out or play by ear. There is also just seeing Philly and going to a nice Steven Starr restaurant too, most of which I also haven’t been to (cause he owns so many).

Sometime in August I’ll be trying to figure out where to apply for a J-O-B. The dissertation should be pretty much done by then, with only the defense left. So I’ll probably just look for something part time at first. I could work at the farm, I probably will end up there, let’s not go there yet though. I am in the midst of a total redesign of the farm’s website though. I hope to get it done soon, like real soon, as I’m sick of the old website, which I have to update and think is user-unfriendly.

So Thursday I headed to Philly to meet Emily as well as Becky. We went on a ghost tour around Philly, then went out to dinner. At dinner I ordered a veggie boxtie, an Irish equivalent of a quesadilla using potato pancakes. I was so starving that I dug in, and near the end realized they had given me chicken! I think I had gone four weeks with no meat and then ruined Oh well, I’ll live.

After dinner we hit the drag show at Bob and Barbs. This used to be a weekly event the students at the anthro department would attend. One of John and mine first dates ended up here too. I hadn’t been in years though, probably since a friend I would go with moved away. Oh my God, it’s still as much fun as it was years ago.

The next day we hit New York to meet up with Aravis. We walked around the city for a bit then went to Serendipity for dinner. Emily talks about how they have the best burgers ever. I was supposed to eat there a year ago with another NY trip, but I had a major hangover then and bailed while others went to dinner that night. I did decide my vegetarianism had been accidentally interrupted, so I had a burger so I didn’t have to keep hearing Emily talk about what I missed out on. It was good, but it was no Five Guys! Anyway, I am back to being a vegetarian today . . . though still will eat fish (I would eat tuna even the 7 years I was a vegetarian before).

Meeting Becky and Aravis was awesome, I wish we all had some more time to chill and hang-out. I’m sure I’ll see them again though. Speaking of hangovers, if you have not seen “The Hangover” then you must see it! I laughed so hard I thought I would piss myself. It is seriously that good of a movie, if you like dirty potty humor movies that is

So Saturday night was a blast. As the title indicates, I had a little too much fun with the wretched As usual, I hadn’t eaten much that day, which somehow I always manage to do whenever going out for the night is involved. I spent Sunday sleeping most of the day. It was great fun though, we hope to meet up again.

I have given up on the Crystal Light. Well not completely, but I did go out and buy some diet soda to mix in with it. I just got to the point where it was souring my stomach and I couldn’t take it anymore. The White Grape flavor totally sent me over the edge.

Let’s see, I’m giving the vegetarian thing one week more, two at tops, then making a decision. I think I am starting to put on weight little by little with this, in spite of eating less and better. It’s all the carbs. If I hit a certain number before 2 weeks is up, I’m gunna give it up. I just have to stay away from the fast food! For me, that’s hard, cause it’s so yummy.

Right now I’m trying to motivate to go for a run, but I’m still not 100% and my head is rebounding a lot. So we’ll see if I make it.

So let’s see what I can blog about today? First up, I officially ran out of diet soda today, and am now going to attempt weaning myself from it. I’m back on Crystal Light, because as many of you know I think water tastes icky. I’m hoping this helps break the plateau I’ve found myself on with the weight. The vegetarianism didn’t seem to help take any weight off, but it hasn’t put any on thankfully. I do seem to be feeling a lot better though as I’m not eating as much crap anymore (ie McDonalds, Wendys, Burger King).

I actually enjoy Crystal Light, but it has some draw backs. First it’s not as thirst quenching as soda is (well for me), so I drink a lot more. It being pretty much flavored water, I’m peeing a lot more because of that. Like every thirty minutes! I know you wanted to know that too, which is why I shared. It also leaves a nice red mustache, and Crystal Light mustaches aren’t easy to get off. You need some serious sea breeze to get them off, water or spit alone won’t do it. Unfortunately I tend to forget I have one and then go out in public, only realizing after I get into the car after grocery shopping and see myself in the rear view mirror.

What else is going on? This Saturday I’m going out to meet real live people. Can you believe that? Well hopefully it will work-out. A bunch of local videogamers are getting together to meet each other in real life (ie not on-line). We are all of the homosexual persuasion too, and being this is a videogamer meetup, that also makes us kinda nerds. So it should be interesting. Right now it seems like only a few people have committed to coming, unless others just decide to show up and lurk about until they decide it’s safe I’m hoping we get somewhat of a good turn-out though.

Depending on how late the shindig Saturday goes will depend on if I get up and do the hike on Sunday. I can honestly say I won’t feel guilty about not going on the hike Sunday if Saturday turns out to be a blast.

So I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend, or relaxed. Our weather here has been a little skitzo. I basically just worked most of the weekend on school, then went swimming in the children’s pool they filled up this weekend. The house never got cleaned though, so I think that is on today’s agenda. I can’t take the little balls of pet hair floating around anymore!

The SciFi channel had a marathon of “Land of the Lost” yesterday. I have the first season on DVD, but never got the 2nd or 3rd. We came into the thing somewhere in the 2nd season and I watched through the abomination that was the third season when the show went to hell thanks to the arrival of Uncle Jack. The marathon of course was for the new movie coming out, which I can’t decide on. I am not a huge fan of Will Ferrell’s humor, I like him in a few movies basically. His “Land of the Lost” will either be really good, or make the third season look like Emmy Award winning television

Twitter suddenly came back last night, yet it’s still broken. It’s not updated since it returned. I think I have to kick start it by putting a tweet out, I don’t know. Maybe Jesus is still speaking to me and telling me “No!” Otherwise I haven’t used facebook, except for a slip-up late one dark stormy night *Confirmed* I’m being positively permanently punished. Twitter only shows my updates or replies to me, but nothing from anyone I follow. Time to give up the Twat!

I still haven’t eaten meat yet either, though the Big Mac is now haunting me. I kid you not, I was at the gym yesterday and “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” was on. I look up and the question is “Based on the famous jingle, what is not an ingredient in a Big Mac?”

Anyways, I have a few other things to share, but I’ll save it for another post. I still have to get my review of “EA Sports Active” up at sometime too.

So for the past few days we’ve had an ant problem in the kitchen. I have no idea where they are coming from, other than outside of course. This hasn’t ever happened before either. They are always on the stove or counter by the sink as well. Historically that has been a messy spot, as I usually prepare food on the stove because our counter space is limited. So I’ve been cleaning it almost daily, but it’s not helping. I finally put some ant traps down, hopefully if there is a colony somewhere close, it will be RAID’d!

My old Twitter account never got fixed, and I’m just accepting it probably won’t. Maybe God is telling me to stop Twittering for good I emailed Twitter support about the problems I’m having restoring it (ie it’s not working), but all I got was a bot form response saying “Based on your question, we think these known issue FAQs will be of help.” Um, no, they weren’t . . . and they made me read those before I could put in a help request. I replied back and emailed off a different support email. Maybe I’ll get a human answer one day soon.

I took an hour to go out to the Collingswood May Fair today. Basically live bands, rides for the kiddies, and a buttload of crafters and venders. Lots of people, lots of doggies, and the summer sun straight down on me. I just got back and am pooped!

I still haven’t eaten meat since last weekend, and I’ve eased up on the fish too. Carbs are gunna be a problem for me! I ended up getting some wraps to use in place of breads to see if that will help. So far the only temptation to eat meat has been a Big Mac box trashed by the side of the road that I kept passing while walking the dogs. Mmmm, Big Macs! I finally just picked it up and threw it away so I didn’t have to keep seeing it.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the hiking day, but sadly I’m not sure if I’ll make it. It will be almost an all day affair, leaving here around noon and probably not getting back till 6pm. I will have to see if I feel I can sacrifice the hours. I need to get 2 dissertation chapters done and fired off this weekend. They were supposed to be done by Monday, but I didn’t realize what shambles one of the chapters was in. I ended up rewriting it and adding a ton of new stuff. Now all I have to do is proof them.

Even if I get them done by tonight, I have other issues. Nikko it seems isn’t feeling too well, he’s having ass explosions I do not want to leave him home for six hours with no walks! It’s a holiday weekend, so the market is slamming busy, and John might not be able to get over to walk him enough. I also really want to clean the house really well, it’s long overdue, and might help with the ants

Anyways, that’s about all I have to say. I am going to have a review of “EA Sports Active” for the Wii up soon. I’m trying to get through a few days with it so I experience a good number of the excersises. The personal trainer option basically picks them out each day and they vary from day to day. I have to say, it’s been kicking my ass!