It’s been quite a while since I’ve been attended knitting. Tonight I made it along with Kelly, Kathy, Pam, Fran, Barbara and a new person Lorraine. It was a lot of fun. Kelly picked up Panera and then for a treat Saranac Pumpkin Ale.

She watched the WLTV episode on beers too and was interested in possibly a pumpkin flavored beer. Neither of us are big beer drinkers, wine is our preferred choice. But the pumpkin ale wasn’t too bad.

I got through a row of cables on my fetchings. I even taught some knitting tonight! I showed Kathy how to do a cable cast on. We had a great time, munching on french baguette too.

Goal for tomorrow, wake up with the alarm. Simple as that.

I’ve been looking forward to seeing this movie for a few months. I’m hooked on Peter Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door” song, it’s been on repeat in my iPhone for a while.

We went to go see it last week on opening night. The showing sold out, which surprised us. I had read movie reviews in the morning that blasted it for being anything but “real” life. I was getting a little worried, but everything I had seen in previews it looked good.

It was just as funny as the previews showed. It was very real to life. If you don’t have a family member(s) like this, count yourself one of the lucky. Steve Carrell was great, he does a great job as the self-deprecating character who you love. There were several scenes Craig and I were laughing really hard.

The moral of story, to follow your heart, not be too hard on yourself and take risks were conveyed very well.

[rating:4.5]

This week started off all good and well, I went to the gym, had a really good work out sessions with my trainer. That night I was feeling really good and organized.

Tuesday I woke up exhausted as I have been for the past few weeks. No matter how little or lots of sleep I get I wake up exhausted. I didn’t plan my meals and tried to just eat as best as I could while on the go.

Wednesday was Halloween and I was getting more and more down. I also saw the nutritionist that day. It went so-so, I had gained 2 lbs, and I hadn’t really been following the plan since the 19th. She asked what the problem was and I vented a moment about my life, which she then said, “I can recommend someone for you to talk to.” So… that was a confidence booster.

On going I’m having an extreme amount of stress in my personal life with a family member. I don’t want to put it all out here, but if you would like to lend an ear please email me. I’m trying to cope and move on and choose to be in control of my life.

As the week finished up I just got more and more down. It’s also “that” time of the month and cramps seriously don’t help.

So I’m sitting down right now having a little pep talk with myself…

Issues/Obstacles:

• Exhaustion
• Inability to focus
• No planning
• Lack of a routine

Goals (Need Suggestions) :

• Create a routine
• Own my time, it’s for me not others
• Grattitude Journal (thanks for the idea Corrie)
• Be Happy
• Schedule time just for me

Any other ideas?

I can remember back as far as 4th grade and my Mom saying, “did you drink anything today?” when I’d get home from school, and I’d answer “no just the box of milk”.

Getting water in has always been a challenge for me. I do better when it’s ice cold and preferably some lemon or lime in it. Over at James’ FIT blog, I was reading how much water he was taking in 112 oz a day. Meanwhile if I get 16 oz in a day, that’s a good day.

He suggested 8 x 8 oz glasses of water a day plus another 8 oz per 20 lbs over weight. Doing the math that comes out to 104 oz a day for me. I need to get working. I’ve read this before, specifically on a bike forum, and I’ve also read where if you keep your water in take up, it will help your metabolic rate from dropping.

I’ve got a 32 oz Nalgene bottle at work. I’m going to try setting a timer to in the Dashboard to remind me to drink water.

Tonight was my first time going to the gym and working out with a trainer. I set a time of 7:30 to go, guaranteeing work could not throw it off, or any other unforeseen events.

I met with my trainer, we went over why I want to lose weight, what are my goals, how seriously am I taking this. It was good.

We then went and used the elliptical trainer for 15 minutes. I’ve never used one before… wow that kicks your butt and gets the heart rate up and moving pretty quick. At that point my HR was up 150-157 bpm. We then moved onto taking a jog around the track, and then onto lunges on the mats. I did pretty well, except my knees were bothering me with lunges, they always have.

Next we did squats with the physio ball, then up and down the stairs in the place. I only could do that 3 times before my legs wanted to give out.

Back to the mat, and we did free weights for the arms. Then lunges with a weight ball where I twisted holding it out front. Then crunches on one of those half a ball things. Then back down to this thing that was like an elliptical but more running style for 10 minutes, then the treadmill for 10 minutes and then we cooled off doing a walk around the track.

It was a full hour. My trainer was great and I really enjoyed the time with her and learned a bit too. She said I was really good with form, so that’s a plus. My goal is to get back there tomorrow night and continue the routine.

I’ve been half-heartedly trying to be a morning person for a while. Craig wakes up with no issues at 5am. I on the other hand would rather sleep to 10am.

I do best when a beam of sunlight is coming in a window on to my face and voila, I’m awake and feel great. Our bedroom though is dark, has one window, a slider, that opens up to the parking lot below. We don’t leave the drapes open since I don’t want to slide out of bed and say hello the entire neighborhood.

When we’ve gone camping in the past, I’m up and at it, around 4:30-5:00 am, I usually feel good after a few minutes, I typically deal with stress better through out the day. I feel well rested in the evening and I sleep very sound.  So I’m trying to figure out how to bring this into my daily life. I’ve got 4 alarms going off and I still don’t get up. There’s got to be a way!

One thing I am going to try which I haven’t so far is easing into stepping back my wake up time. I’ve been going from 7am to 5:15am, and my body is not responding well. So over this week, I’m going to try for 6:30am wake up time. And for my own record, wake up, meaning getting my bumm out of bed.

I’ll post again on Friday with a progress report.

Technorati Tags:Health, Morning Person, Sleep

This does not surprise me.

The White House censored it’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head person. What she presented to Congress was the findings of the effects of global warming on diseases and extinction.

The White House struck 6 pages of her 12 page report that didn’t “align” with what a report from the United Nations.

So let me get this straight… they bash the UN all the time for not doing enough, not seeing things right but now the UN has a report that is in their favor, so now they’ll back a UN report. Wasn’t it the UN who also said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

>British scientists, in a paper published this week, say that fossil >records show mass extinctions of species are linked to warming tropical >seas. And they say, based on Intergovernmental Panel projections, Earth >is on course to reach extinction-level warming in about 100 years. If >that level is reached, the panel says, “20 to 30 percent” of animal >species will be at risk of extinction.
>

[From the Cincinnati Post](http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071029/EDIT/710290318/1003 “Mass Extinction Just Ignore It”)

Tonight I am going to the local gym to look into membership. I’ve never really thought of myself as a gym person. My body frustrates me and gets in my way these days.

Reasons for joining a gym:

-My work hours can be irregular
- Daylight is disappearing
- Can’t make the excuse of the weather
- Both treadmills at our apartment complex are broken for months now
- No room for a home gym

Goals:
- Go at least 4 times a week at first
- Bring work out clothes with me to work and go straight there after work

Technorati Tags:Health, Gym

Craig invested in the Apple Bluetooth Headsets for our iPhones which came with the Apple Dual Dock. This dock has a USB cable coming directly from it to your computer and charges both your headset and your iPhone. Great, right?

All seemed to be well in our dual dock land, until about a week after getting them. For Craig using it with his iMac, it would actually cause kernel panics when he quit, it wouldn’t sync when he put his iPhone in it, and it would repeatedly tell him it was an accessory not designed for his iPhone.

I had been doing ok, but I also had not updated my iPhone to 1.1.1. Since updating to 1.1.1 I now have the same problems.

I searched around on the Apple Discussion boards and found several other people with the problem. The not so good news was, no one seemed to have resolved the issue and further more their attempts to contact Apple did not go well.

One user said the Apple support technician told him it was normal.I stopped writing here about an hour ago to search on MacRumor’s Forums too. Many people with the issue, but we all seem to be holding out for a software update.

Anyone else out there with this issue? Did you find a resolution?

Technorati Tags:Apple, iPhone, Bluetooth, Syncing

Fall Foliage Tour 2007, originally uploaded by criana.

I hosted the 6th annual Fall Foliage Tour 2007 for the HondaSUV.com this past weekend. We took a covered bridge tour of south eastern Vermont and finished off the day in Keene, NH for the Keene Pumpkin Festival.