So, I finally got the pictures off my camera. They made it onto my Facebook, but decided to play around with flickr and see what it can do. Apparently quite a bit. Knifty!
This is Mischief, the resident bipolar tabby, checking out the sock I made for my sis-in-law for Yule this past year. At the time, it was still in progress.
Chels? This is a pic from the night Peter’s books put Missy into the throes of passion. The pics didn’t really come out all that great.
Hokay.
I’ve just gone through and turned off comments and pings on old posts.
I’ve also gone through and deleted a ton of porn and car spam from trackbacks & pings.
About once a week I’m going to go through and close commenting and pings. Spam will be deleted as soon as I can get to it.
Really, I’m just tired of the spam. I didn’t want to do it, but now one needs to be registered to comment, and I think I turned on the option for the admin to approve all comments. Since I don’t get a ton of traffic, this isn’t a big deal, really. It’s just annoying.
Just another update. 12 pounds have departed my hefty frame. I’m getting curves back. Well…the right curves, at least. We dug out one of my old corsets this weekend, and it fit OK. It may be too small for me fairly soon. We’ll see what happens once I get rid of another 13 pounds.
My knees don’t hurt as much. I don’t gasp for breath as much when I climb stairs. I have a higher activity level.
I actually eat breakfast. And when I go without food for a long time (ie: miss supper), I pay for it in droves…I don’t just get tummy rumbles, I start to feel nauseous (eggs with cream cheese! Bland! Stat!)
All-in-all, I’m doing well. Clothing is draping better, and soon I should be able to start pulling some of my old jeans and such out of drawers and storage boxes and into use. Once that happens, the bigger stuff goes out of my house. Not going back to that size.
Whee!
A little folk humour there, but so true. And I’m not talking from a standpoint of pure vanity.
I cut my sugar intake again. I’m back on track with Atkins induction, and it’s working. My energy level has skyrocketed, my body is using its natural furnace-like abilities to burn fat off, and I’m dropping pounds. I can actually feel it.
I’m down 8 pounds at the moment. I’m a very happy young lady. Some of that is water weight, yes…usually the first whoosh of weight loss (which was a very quick 5 pounds). The last 3 pounds took a tiny bit longer. That’s fat, and I have a feeling I know where it came from.
So…progress. I’m drinking 2 litres or more of water each day, and getting more active. I’m also steering clear of the sugarbombs in our office…we have “Healthy Snack” day (Yoghurt, apples, oranges, bananas, granola bars) twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday, and “Snack Day” on Mondays (Baked goods ie: muffins, croissants, danishes, scones, etc). Unfortunately, the fruit is too high on the Glycemic Index for me, and the baked goods are all made with refined sugar and flour. No goodies for me. I go to my lunch bag and get a piece of cheese.
It hasn’t been easy, but I’m doing it. 8 pounds and about 5 inches down. w00t! 
Okay. So I have rediscovered a love for pork chops. Particularly now that I know how to cook them properly. This is what I have discovered is the Uber-Yum:
Get a good simmering pan (usually a deep frying pan). Spray with PAM, or use a SMALL amount of olive oil. Brown both sides of two chops for a couple of minutes each side (the ones we get are usually loin cut, I think…very little fat).
Add enough chicken broth to just cover the chops…the broth will start to “boil”. Let it.
Add about 2 or 3 cloves fresh garlic, minced. None of that stuff you get already in a jar, mince it yourself (brings out the flavour).
Dash of Cumin and a dash of oregano. A few dashes of black pepper to taste.
Toss in some mixed veggies - the easiest way is to get some frozen “California Mix” - Broccoli, Cauliflower and Carrot. If you’re not watching your natural sugars, enjoy the carrots…even using frozen veggies, this particular recipe brings out the natural sweetness and tenderness.
Reduce, reduce, reduce! I had the pan simmering for about a half an hour until I was certain that I had boiled the chops to a cooked state. Again, if you’re not watching carbs or calories, add a bit of white wine for a little extra zip.
Strain (or use some of the leftover reduction as a “sauce”) and enjoy. TASTY!
It is very snowy outside. I got home from work, put the car in the garage, dropped my bag inside the door, and proceeded to put on mitts and a toque. Grabbed the shovel. Began the chore that is “shovelling the walks”.
Shovelling the walks isn’t generally a difficult task. However…we have had quite a lot of snow recently. Enough that when I got out of the car to open the garage door, my shoe was pretty well buried in the stuff. So not only did I have to dig a nice little trench down the side of our driveway (our walk) down to the sidewalk, but also over the driveway and down to the neighbour’s walk.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been finding that our sidewalk has been shovelled along with the neighbour’s. Every so often, I return the favour. It doesn’t look like our neighbour has been home for a couple of days, so I shovelled the walk.
I still greatly dislike our Mail Carrier. Bozo will deliberately walk across our lawn. There is a pile of snow practically up to the knee on that side of the walk…and still Sir Tardlet plows right on through. I SHOVEL THESE WALKS FOR A REASON!!! It’s NOT just because shovelling snow is a good workout!
But yeah. Walks are now shovelled. I be one tired muffin. And I’m not sure what I want for dinner. Gah.
Oh…and the streets are yucky. If you have the misfortune to have to be driving on them, please drive slowly and with extra caution. The guy you avoid plowing into at a sudden red light will appreciate it. 
Got to bed later than I’d planned last night. Was woken up around 4:30am with a headache (and Robin, oddly enough, already snuggled up in bed). Spent a good hour in the bath, trying to get rid of the brain-buster, then back to bed for another hour and a half.
Definitely going to bed early tonight. Definitely. If I wasn’t short on sick time due to things like, oh, dental appointments…I’d be calling it in. But other than a bit of tiredness, I’m actually not doing too badly.
Did a little organizing in the bathroom last night. Instead of all my hair stuff being crammed into a small 3-partitioned box that I’ll never find things in, I found 3 more decorative boxes and sorted things. Now the clips and barettes and different types of hair ties won’t get mixed. It also means that I found my other hair widgets, some of which I’ve never used. It has occurred to me that I have some very pretty, long, hair…and I generally do whatever I can to forget about it. Tsk tsk and shame.
Chelsea has recommended that I try using Henna on my hair instead of colouring with dye. I may have to give it a try. The Indian Market on the corner apparently carries body-art quality henna, so this could be fun. Something to do on a Saturday afternoon, at least. I also found a community for folks with long hair. I’m not into the whole “lifestyle” of hair growth (at least, not to the point of measuring my hair and setting goals for length), but there are some pretty good tips for how to take care of long hair, and what to do with it once it’s a certain length.
Now to try and figure out what I’m going to do with my still half-damp braids that got dunked in the tub this morning when I was trying to work the knots out of my neck….hrm…
Lest anyone manages to google WINE and WoW and comes up with my website…no, I don’t have a solution for you. Hit that “Back” button poste-haste. I’m a relative noob, trying to figure it all out on my own.
Looks like I will be booting back to Windows for WoW, at least until I can afford to get a new Video card. Then we’ll see whether or not that fixes the difficulties I’m having. Apparently I have everything set up fairly correctly; the problem stems from ATI’s shitty drivers. Keep getting an error that says that I have no 3D Accelleration, or something along those lines, when I try to launch.
The silly thing? I managed to get it to semi-boot at one point..it showed the vectored boxes on the right (choose your realm), and the login box. No graphics. This was *before* I installed the ATI Xorg drivers through the update interface.
So yeah. I will be upgrading the vid.card next, and after that we’ll see if this fixes the problem. Always willing to listen to recommendations from the Linux geeks regarding which card to track down & choose (I can’t afford to pay a lot, so bear that in mind, thanks…and it needs to be able to run Warcrack and Sims 2)
No, I doubt that running under Cedega would fix this. Unless there’s something I *really* don’t know about Cedega, and for that I look to the guy who was commenting on my blog yesterday
For the rest of you, who likely feel a little lost? I’m with ya. I haven’t got a clue about *half* the things I’m talking about on this one…
Chelsea and Zoe, put DOWN the speed-dial…lemme ’splain
It is approaching spring, or at least the unseasonably warm weather must be playing tricks with me…for I am cleaning. And doing laundry. And folding it. And actually putting it away. This is a feat.
I have decided to take a month and focus on one thing. There will be sidelines, of course, but there is a focus. January was Stop Smoking (sideline: Start Eating Food). February is Healthy Diet (sideline: Move Thy Butt). A continuing thread to all this? What I have now dubbed “Project Purge”.
I want to not only lose weight, but I want to look good and feel good. Part of that is knowing what is in my wardrobe, and what is available. I have a ton of clothing that either doesn’t fit, isn’t flattering, or just isn’t my style. Then there’s the ruined stuff that has been kept…I dunno…maybe as a reference. “I’ll toss this out when I find something similar to replace it”. That doesn’t explain the socks with holes in them, but definitely explains things with stapled hems (yes, staples). Those things that are too small (and not my style) or too big (and not my style or just…too big…) will be going to Goodwill. I’ll be keeping things like suits and fancy dresses until I can no longer wear them at all.
No, I’m not putting anything up for auction to make money. I’m far too lazy to actually send things out. I’ll be lucky if the bags for Goodwill actually get to their destination.
This “purging” will continue, going from clothing to possessions that are no longer needed. We’ve been in this house for a year and a half now; it’s time to start de-cluttering.
May the purging begin….
In case anyone from WoW wonders where I’ve gotten myself off to, I’ve voluntarily turned off the computer…to install a new hard drive.
It’s been making clicking noises. I’m not the only one to notice this…Robin has too. In fact, it started clicking away last night so he turned it off. I noticed that the computer “hung” a couple of times when this happened. Described the behaviour to a couple of co-workers and the consensus was: You need a new hard-drive. Do it now before you lose your data.
Considering I just backed up my stuff about a week or two ago, and haven’t put anything majorly important on the HD since, I don’t think this will be a problem.
I plan to partition the 250GB drive about 4 ways: Windows, Ubuntu, and another OS that has yet to be determined (No, you don’t want to know). The rest will be storage of files. I have been told that under NO circumstances should I put my personal files onto the partition(s) with the Operating Systems! Much finger-waggling ensued!
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And Blake? There is no problem running WoW under Linux. The users who got banned were using Cedega, and got banned due to some difficulties in the program that mimicked botting behaviour. Those who really were just banned for this (and not for any other reason like actually running a botting program) were given an extra two weeks of free service and an apology. Those running under WINE were perfectly fine and did not get banned.
