Oh, one other thing. Go to my new online city: http://fizzlebeef.myminicity.com

The name is tribute to of one of my more favorite episodes of MST ever.

Oh yes here I am again. I'd be using WordPress if not for my abominable web hosting service. I can't believe I've been recommending it to people for years. Anyhow more on that later.

Going to sum up the past few months in a poem:

Got tickets to launch
weather was bad
Decided to stay home
missed it so was sad

Had a week off
It really didn't matter
It'd been two years since
And I think I just got fatter?

I went on a diet
It really did work
But I fell off hard
I feel like a dork

I got a new job
That was neat
Doing web design
Is quite a feat

Just had an illness
It was a blast
But the holidays are here
So illness; blow it out your ass!

Welcome to today, the first day of the rest of your life.

Wow... Where the hell did time go?

Changes are a coming

So, I have decided that after being a total slacker for the past two years, I'm ready to step up my game and live up to my potential. Won't my teachers be so proud. This means a job change which is always a big pile of fun. I feel more confident professionally than I ever have before. It's tricky though, I want to take the career to the next level without sacrificing my family. What's a momma to do? I think that having Aidan has completed what I want to accomplish on a personal level. Loving Husband-Check, two kiddos-Check, Kick ass friends-Check. So now I feel like I am coming out of the limbo we've been in for the past few years. This is my first blog, so I'm still feeling out this whole writing down thoughts thing. I'll post some more soon.

HOW..THE..HELL..

Could I forget to mention that we got tickets to the next Space Shuttle launch? Well we did, myself, my son and mother are all headed to KSC for the 10/23/07 launch of Discovery (STS-120). Our tickets are the best you can buy, period. We can't get better seats unless we're astronauts or related to one. We'll be 6.0 miles from the pad which is plenty close to experience the awesome power of this vehicle. It'll be great for my son to experience something some awesome at that age. His imagination will go wild. I hope it goes up and more than anything I hope they're safe on the way up.

Now... until the next orbit.

*click*

Where the hell did I go?!

Here I am! Between real job and pseudo side job and the job of being a parent, who has time for these silly blog things? Well here's an update. My diet/exercise is going well and I've dropped a pound or two, pants are a smidge looser. That's most excellent. Everyone is healthy for the most part minus some sniffles. Ok I lied. I had a sinus infection a couple of weeks ago, sucked a big one. Better now mostly. I hate those. But everyone else is pretty good.

Yellow jacket update: They dieded. I WIN!

Other updates, nothing really fascinating I'm afraid. Playing a little too much WoW ... again. Shocker I know.

One thing I have fun doing is going to Youtube to debate the moon landing conspiracy theorists. They're so frickin' gullible. Maybe I'm gullible for thinking they are? Maybe it's all a conspiracy against me!! Nah, they're completely nuts. I'm just mostly nuts!

Well, until the next orbit.
Push the button...

*click*

Freelance

Who needs it?!

I'm sick of side work. Honestly I am. I'm dealing with mostly loose deadlines but between two children, full time work and trying to stay healthy, it's madness. I'm locking myself in the basement at night only to want to break out. One client is worth it, the other isn't too bad and another is on the fence. Added up those it's little things that are driving me mad. A little change here and there, so on and so forth. ARGH!

So here I am, listening to the radio. The radio host is going over statistics on the wedding industry. It's BOOMING. I just recently relented to an attempt to get into the wedding video business. It was stupid. I rushed in half prepared, really wanting to try and make extra money for our second child that is here now. While it was fun to hang out with my friends doing the 2-3 freebies for the exposure, overall, it was blah. What the hell was I thinking? Well I wouldn't have even attempted it if not for, well, I won't get into that.

Suddenly, I'm bitter. What the hell?

Out of all of the projects I've done out of the past year, weddings, side work, etc. Guess how much I've gotten paid, TOTAL. Guess!

I'll round up to $400. I will admit that I'm getting free membership for one project I did/am doing, but that's not a direct monetary payment, still very nice though. So $400... yeah. I read a website on someone in the same situation. They got SO frustrated they just started telling people that in order to create/build something for them it'd cost something outrageous. A logo for example, 1000 dollars, flat out. Yeah, if you want a logo, it's a grand, simple as that. What if you make it HUGE and turn out to be highly successful. That 1000 dollars will be petty at the end of the day. If you go belly up, oh well, should have had a better business plan, but I sure enjoyed yours! :D

So that's what I'm getting at. Because my time at home is invaluable. I'd so much rather spend time with my family than get a measily 20 an hour building a website or something. I'm getting more bitter by the second. Feels good! At any rate a 10 hour job is 200 dollars. That's nice to have in pocket, yes but I've just lost 10 hours of relaxation, doing home chores, family time, etc. Not worth it IMO. So what to do? Up the price! 50 an hour sounds about right... yes, that's 500 dollars, hmm that' a mini-vacation to Kennedy Space Center. Liking this more and more.

Well I'd better work, they're paying me here.

NO MORE (nearly) FREE SHIT!

DCF

Water

This stuff is supposed to be the best thing to drink. Why then must I have to scurry to the restroom nonstop after downing a couple of liters. Maybe something is wrong with me. Maybe it's the caffeine. Oh well, I want to drop some fat pounds so I guess I better get to it. I had a sub today and I wanted just a little bit of something else. What did I do? I bought some clearance baby teething cookies. They take a little effort to eat and I figured that the 90 calories was better spent there instead of 150+ for some chips. Yeah...

One major thing was deciding to drop the "free day". One person even said, since it's a free day, you're free to not use it. I'm going to not use it for a while. Treats won't come at a certain time on a certain day. They will come whenever we're out and about visiting, partying, etc. So much easier that way.

The gym tonight perhaps. We shall see.

One week later

Our youngest is now one week old. He's a quiet sleepy little fellow. Only cries when he's hungry or gassy. Our oldest is trying to adjust and adapt and feels a little left out I think. He says he likes his little brother. I feel bad because I'm usually swatting him away since he's 4 years old and doesn't understand that the little one is fragile.

Well, time to work, just keeping this thing alive.

Oh, eating, yeah I've done decent in past days. Grandmother made me a chocolate chip cake which, if you haven't had one, is very tasty. So tasty that it's easy to make yourself sick eating one. Her bringing me that cake made me have an epiphany. For the past few years I would save up my bad eating for Friday evening. Well, more often than not we'd have a party to go to or a family outing that weekend, where more bad eating would commence.

I decided that events will be my bad eating. Outside of that, I don't want to eat junk. No chocolate, candy, cheese, etc. That's really really hard with two young children and mother in law staying with us. The range of foods we have is very wide. I have to decline the foods that kids love because they are public enemy #1 to adults watching weight. Harder is declining to eat some foods that one might consider healthy when they either aren't or aren't to me.

Now, I have to do all of this, work out and actually drop some fat pounds so that I won't look like a damn food deprived fool that's still bulging over the top of his pants. Here goes...

The updates

So a lot of things just happened all at once. I'll sum up.

Monday - She is in labor
Tuesday - She has kid

Well that sums it up.

So our newest son is here in this large world. Our oldest is great, he tries to be so helpful. Trying too hard at the moment, there will be a time when he can. There will also be a time where he demands we take him back to wherever we got him. So the days of dirty diapers, spit up, random flying food and so forth are back. They only last so long though and then it's gone. This time, as those trends fall to the way side, they will be for the last time, each time. We decided to stop at two kids just because that's a comfortable number in this day and age for us.

What else happened...

Space shuttle Endeavor landed 22 minutes after the birth of our child. That's just awesome! I also learned that people, in general, are very very ... very stupid. I do stupid things but wow. I'm not even going to get into what I'm referring to. Just know it, people are stupid.

Well lets see, what else. Oh right.. the waistline. Yeah. . .
So now that kiddo #2 is here, there is no excuse for slacking on my part. None, zero... if there ever was in the first place, it's gone now! My waist has expanded over the past 4 years. Time to kill it. There are obstacles like, anxiety issues, my scar tissue from previous surgeries, etc. But those things are just excuses. I must press forward. I can work on those things, they won't kill me, they just suck. Well, so far today is good...

A couple of notes:
DON'T EAT CANDY. Not even one tiny itty bitty piece. Nothing, no, zero, zilch. Why? Why not? Because it'll just make me want more, durh hurh?!!?!

I will have my one cup o' coffee each day though, you bastards! I will also add one extra cup o' water to go with it.

6 rounded.. er, squared... uh, cubed?? meals a day. 1200-1400 calories PER DAY. Why so strict you say? Nazi you say? No, because if I don't get strict, I'll get lenient if I get lenient then I slack. When I slack, bad things happen. So I'd rather be strict and happy than a slacker and miserable, eh?

Ok, enough for now. Time to work.

Cold water test

So I do this weird thing at times. Well, first off, I have stomach problems every other day and it's mostly due to my over excited nerves. The fact that I have the most vivid imagination ON THE PLANET never helps with being anxious. I'm glad to be so imaginative but sometimes it sucks.

Well, stomach problems. I have a way to help me overcome them. It's a test I've dubbed the "cold water test". Here's how it works: Get a glass of cold cold water, iced, bottled, whatever. COLD. Drink a large sip. Stand up perfectly straight. If I can feel it go straight into my stomach it slightly relieves me. I don't know why that is but it helps. If it doesn't go, then I keep sipping. There's a certain relaxation property of very cold water that seems to help 99.3% of the time. And 99.9% of the time all I need to do is relax and breathe. Water helps.

Moral of the story? Drink water!

Aidan, what a fitting name

Here we are in one of the hottest summers in a long long time. Global warming? *sigh* No! Just wanted to get that out of the way. Anway, the name Aidan means 'fire', 'little fire', etc. So, it's just very fitting that he will likely be born on a very hot day since there is no immediate relief in sight. Turn up the AC!

A strange thing

Now I know there is such a thing as coincidence. It happens a LOT. For instance, the other day we go to see my dad at a local farmers market. Now this town has two, yes TWO traffic lights. Not to be outdone by my home town which has one caution signal. Anyway, we pull into town and hit the light as it's turning red *kiss the roof*. Well we hit the next light and it's red. We stop, chit chat, go on our way. We hit the same light, red. Go to the next light, red. Circle around after getting something to eat, hit the last light and it's red. That's right, I hit two lights, 5 times and each time they were RED.

Just so you know, if you're anywhere in mid Georgia and see a late model black nissan truck, don't follow me to a light.

Weekend from hell: Part I

Let me take you back a few days, first. I really wanted to mow the lawn one evening with the pushmower. Why? Well hey, why not get a little workout while mowing the lawn. Simple enough. Half way through it I felt a sharp pain on my back left shoulder and on the back of my leg. OUCH! What the hell was this? Well I thought it was maybe a wasp. No, no nests. Yellow jackets? No sign of a nest either. Horse fly! Yes, a horse fly had bitten me. Smarmy bastards, hurts like hell.

Fast forward to my weekend. zzzzzzzzzzip.

Now, I want to cut the grass again. Workout, again. Half way through it... again. I was in the same general area of the yard when suddenly two simultaneous sharp pains hit either foot. I look down. To my horror I notice a brigade of YELLOW JACKETS swarming out of a hole in the ground. My first thought was "%@#$^@#$@!@". My second thought was, RUN. My third thought was, oh who cares, I'm running at this point. Jumping, and looking a fool. I can't remember if I screamed, I don't think so. I yelled I'm sure. I left the lawn mower to fend for itself.

I get inside, slam the door and clammer to find find the phone. Initially it felt like I'd gotten stung several times, so I wanted to call someone and just say "OUCH!". The wife was still in the local area and I demanded benadryl because I knew there'd be swelling. I fall to the floor, throw my sandals off in a flurry. I dial her up and now I'm a big ball of sweat and pain. As I sit here now, nearly 48 hours later, there is still some mild pain. Yellow Jackets HURT.

She came home, drugged me up. My son made sure I was ok. I assured everyone I was fine. I was going to live, yes, but the pain would remain sharp and pointy for the duration of the evening into the early morning.

As I fall into slumber the twitching pain eases and my mind falls at rest. My plot for revenge gently hatching in my sleep. My plans for revenge would go on to hit other snags.

To be continued...

Excuse me

I am trying to get this thing sorted out but as soon as I do, you will be the last to know.