Angela McCormick

What a week!

Fri, 12 Mar 2004 19:41:37 GMT

I spent the entire week planning various household remodeling projects. This morning I had a window treatment lady in and we ordered window treatments for my office, our bedrooom and the nursery. We'll be doing the cool Silhouettes on all windows but the nursery will have light-blocking honeycombs.

I just got done talking with Maid Brigade for weekly maid service. I hope I'm doing the right thing by going with a commercial service. In case anyone is wondering why I need a maid I will soon be having modified to strict bed rest during my pregnancy. My body will need all the help it can get in order to hold the body in my body, so I need to be laying down as much as possible. My husband just told me yesterday that he might be traveling to Cincinnati every week, so I might need someone to visit everyday during the week. A household assistant will cost us about $350-400 a week so I might cancel the maid service after two months and go with a fulltime household/personal assistant. I won't be able to make my own meals, walk the dog, and many other things that I'll need help with. Not looking forward to this, but hopefully this Thanksgiving we'll have a healthy baby to be thankful for.

Tonight our painter comes to give us an estimate for our bathroom. The people haven't called yet about remodeling our porch, which got ruined this winter due to our pipes bursting and flooding it. I should call them up this afternoon.

I am soooo tired!!! I've been like a busy little bee cleaning and getting stuff done in preparation for the tough months. I haven't allowed myself daily naps like I should.

Thank god morning sickness hasn't kicked in yet. I'm hoping I don't get it at all, all I'm experiencing right now is a slight "deja-vu-like" feeling of what it was like last year. If I drink water or pop and eat a few nuts it usually goes away.

I have a few hours to relax today. I'm going to spend an hour napping, then "mastering" regular expressions which is a crucial skill for a programmer to have. Then I'm going to study a bit for my C# certification. An online friend of mine is studying for his, so I want to keep up with him so we can quiz/help each other out.

I'd like to start my personal site so I don't have to use Live Journal anymore. My personal site will have different topics for me to post in, so people who don't care about certain aspects of my hobbies (pregnancy, programming, vegetarianism, books) don't have to hear me drone on about my passions.

I recently registered 10 new domains, including names for our future babies - Satori and Andrew. They will appreciate having their own name as a website! And as they grow up they will have their mother to show them how to build their own homepages! :)

Okay now to read and relax a bit.

Feeling tired, nauseous, and happy

Thu, 04 Mar 2004 02:20:51 GMT

Well, a few days ago I awoke to a nauseating smell of an overpowering fragrance when my husband was in the shower. I asked him to wash his cologne off, he said he wasn't wearing any. I made him offer his deodorant so I could sniff it to see if that was the culprit. Nope. It was the soap!

I thought this was a bit strange, and seeing how I was slightly nauseous the day before, the truth dawned on me. Sure enough, my suspicions were correct!

I am now 5 weeks along.

I hope my family doesn't stumble onto this, as I hope to keep this a secret a bit longer. I only started this journal to deal with my emotions after losing a baby to premature labor last summer.

I've been feeling exhausted after doing the tiniest tasks. But I've got sooo much to do before I'm ordered bed rest. (My pregnancy will be termed 'high-risk'.)

I need to get help (maid, dog walker, cook?). I just ordered for the first time tonight groceries online from SimonDelivers.com. It took me 13 minutes only and it was my first time. Later online grocery shopping just take just a few minutes once I get my custom lists setup. They didn't have alot of veg-friendly ready-to-eat entrees (in case I can't cook) but I ordered lots of organic fruits and veggies so I hope they come all fresh and tasty. After I placed my order, it reminded me that I only spent 13 minutes, and imagine all the things I could do with the time I spent shopping! That was pretty cool.

I moved my EQDiva.com from two Load Balanced servers to one server. I had some issues with it. I may go back to the dual servers one day, that was a great concept. Tonight if I feel awake enough I'll move my database over to MaximumAsp (new web host). Then I can finally cancel the incredibly terrible Interland web host.

I'm planning to build a second tank, one of my cichlids has no territory in my main cichlid tank. I'll give them a happy life, but from now on, no more cichlids, they're too aggressive. I already have one fish in a small hospital tank. Can't wait to move him to a bigger tank once I set it up. I hope someone will be okay with doing 40% water changes every month to two tanks, it usually takes a whole afternoon... I'll have sweetpea do it I guess.

Well, it's almost time to pick the parents up from the airport, they went to Las Vegas. Hope they had a good time.

February recap

Wed, 18 Feb 2004 06:05:57 GMT

Okay not much happened this past month.

I worked on my gaming site. I moved it back to it's home (I was updating the site to .NET and it took me a year to move it back home). I feel bad that I neglected the site for so long, but now I'm active on it again. I re-launched it January 26 2004. I made a few tools that seem to be very popular and after the launch spent a week polishing those up. The first few weeks of February I switched my focus to upgrading the forums. I'll be using the ASP.NET 2.0 forums, which I am helping them build with my feedback. I may even give a hand with some of the code. Lord knows those ASP.NET team people are busy enough!

I made some new IM friends and they do a good job distracting me from coding. But they're worth it. :) Luckily, they're every bit of a code geek as I am!

My yoga room now has a little entertainment center so I can watch yoga DVDs and listen to meditation music. I bought a few CDs today to do yoga and meditate to. Next week I'll put together a surround sound in that room, order some ambient lighting, get my wall mirror going, and some zen-like decor. I can't wait till the room is finished.

I feel guilty that I let an entire month slide without remembering my priorities. I made lots of people happy world-wide, but I can't forget myself. So I started my running again, I've been doing 3 miles a night for the past 4 nights, a small stint of strength training and some yoga. I've also been trying to fit some massages in. We're eating better, sweetpea is trying to eat less sweets now, and he's doing very good. Most nights we only have vegetables for dinner, it's more filling than you think!

My brother Ken in Iraq is doing better, he says it's getting very cold there but at least he's got a nice place to stay now and warm showers. He took a few pictures which was nice to see him in.

Thursday we head to the Florida Keys to finish our scuba diving certification. We're meeting our friend Mike there and a friend of his. I can't wait to relax, read a book (that's not technical) and sip some pina coladas and margaritas. I'm looking forward to the trip and know that the scuba diving will open our world.

Well, better head to bed now...

Fitnuts

Thu, 08 Jan 2004 05:47:14 GMT

Does Fitnuts sound weird? That's my new name for my fitness and nutrition related website. Get it? Fit-nut... And you can BE a fitnut, if you care about working out and eating right. And stress management and taking care of your environment. Well this is my future baby project. I registered the domain name, fitnuts.net yesterday. I backordered fitnuts.com. I plan to make a site similar to fitday, except much cooler and better looking and more. See how much carbs, fiber, fat, etc... is in the foods you eat. Track your workouts. Motivate each other! Learn more about a healthy you! I have a free nutritional database, I'm armed with fitness/nutrition books for content and articles, I have a cool forum capability lined up. Can't wait to start!

And my friend helped me dream up a logo! It is so cool, I'll draw a sample logo up tomorrow to show you.

Today was hectic, but I'm bored with that news already. Now, to tuck my hubby into bed...

Jammin to live version of "Jane Says"!

Wed, 07 Jan 2004 19:34:54 GMT

Fuck ya. Love this song!

Had to post that emotion here!

In my Everquest community I am following the ripple of news about a certain corporation buying out all the sites. Most are saying I should sell out. I have high personal ethics and am determined to decline their offer. This means turning down $15,000 the first year, and $5000 each consecutive year for placing a little ad on my site. That means turning down the most beefed up computer I could ever dream up. Dual 19" LCD monitors. Plus a new weight lifting station thingie. Plus our trip to the Keys. I can't think of anything else I want, but those are the only things I've wanted in the past few months. And I'm turning it all down for the sake of my personal conscience...

Happy New Year

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 06:22:34 GMT

This has been a busy holidays for me.

I just have been offered $10,000 for one of my sites, and an additional $300-500 per month for me to keep it up and put an ad on it. I turned them down. It was a bit surprising though.

My cousin's wedding was sooo much fun! It was one of the most unique and personalized weddings I've seen. She had a 2 mile Fun Run (in January in 30 degree weather). I came in first for the Women!! I actually haven't been running much this past month, just walking 40-70 minutes. I must start up my running again in earnest.

Lately been addicted to programming again... I am having fun using Amazon Web Services, I think I have an idea for a website that will require two weeks of coding for me, then I can sit back and let it bring in $20-50k a year by itself. That would be awesome, and if it works, I'll have future ideas for two other niche sites to make even more. I think it's awesome that Amazon is opening up their code to developers, sure they make money off of us, but we make like 15% or more for hardly any work on products we sell. And we don't have to deal with money transactions and inventory or anything!

Last night I prepared a bunch of photos from my cousin's wedding. It took me four hours, whew. And tonight I spent three hours preparing images for some members on my site to show off their epics. All this work for free too... Oh well, it's fun.

Ken my brother in Iraq is now in a safer place. I wish he would come home now and resume his life. He was on top of the world before getting dragged into this.

Well I suppose I better get to bed, I just wanted to update my Live Journal. I also had to express my surprise at the offer for me to "sell out" my site. I don't want to talk about it on my site, but most of the sites are getting bought out now, it's kinda sad.

Scuba exam

Mon, 15 Dec 2003 00:57:33 GMT

Well, we passed our Scuba final exam! We also passed our 200m swim and 10 minute treading water. PADI makes it pretty easy getting your scuba diving certification (although one person failed the exam), so I recommend everyone to get certified! Now, we just have to make plans to hit some tropic waters and get our Open Water test done so we can get our lifetime certification. We're zeroing in on Key West, I think that sounds romantic and relaxing for our February vacation. Other ideas were Hawaii, St. Thomas, we just have to stay within US territories, as sweetpea is still in the process of getting his green card, leaving the country and coming back in is always such a hassle.

Looking forward to a full week of doing whatever I want and not having to worry about studying scuba. I think I'll work on my EQDiva.com site a bit and study some geeky stuff. Maybe I'll study nutrition, a few more chapters out of my nutrition book would be cool. When I say "study", I don't mean I have to, I'm not taking any classes, I just like to teach myself lots of stuff.

I'm fasting this afternoon and night, I think I'd like to get into the habit of fasting for a day once a week or at least once a month. Getting past the first 4-6 hours are the hardest though.

I won an auction of David King's, he does abstract pet art. Looking forward to getting my cat!

It was a long hard weekend with all that scuba diving stuff. Sweetpea already relegated himself to a night of XBox. I'm going to clean up a bit, and then immerse myself into Uru, the new Myst game.

Christmas gifts pouring in!

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 19:40:51 GMT

We sent our little jacket to our toddler in need today. He's getting a super cool jacket, 3-in-1 and matching gloves from Gymboree. I tried slipping in a $50 Gift Certificate, but sweetpea said that was overdoing it. So I plan to send it to my sister with her new baby. I can't wait to have cute little kids to buy all those cute little clothes!

My gifts I ordered from the Internet for others are pouring in! My parent's computer is getting setup, and sweetpea's gifts just arrived today via Airborne Express and UPS (They arrived too fast!). I am not in a Christmasy mood though this year, since every day is like Christmas for me, I'm going to pass on it being a fun, materialistic day for me. I asked sweetpea to donate a few hundred to a charity of my choice. He takes all the fun out of it by requesting that it's tax deductible. Know any charities that give you a receipt for your donation? Anyway, he calls me "Grinch". I don't want to put a tree up in our brand new house as we won't be around much in the holidays to see it. I did deck out the yard with animated leaping reindeer and sleigh and lights all over the place, miniature christmas trees, so that was enough for me. So I don't know why but I'm extremely crabby. I'll have fun giving all my presents, the fast Dell computer to the parents, XBox to brother Justin, and sweetpea's gifts, but if I had my real wish I would bring in a poor family and give them lots of gifts, play Christmas songs/sing, and a great vegan Christmas meal! But it isn't going to happen.

I guess I'm a bit stressed from getting ready for scuba diving class, it's a two-day class and sweetpea never prepared (too busy). He's going to flunk. He also might want me to get pregnant this month and I'm not ready yet. I'd like to scuba dive in February first before I get pregnant. There's also so much to do before I commit myself to this upcoming high risk pregnancy with all its boring bedrest time.

I want to cry. I don't know why. I am always so happy but today I am so discouraged. Oh, I know why! It's that time of the month, my hormones are making me unreasonable.

I don't want to wrap sweetpea's gifts. I just want to give them to him tonight. They're quite big and heavy. And if I'm not getting a gift, it takes all the fun out of our personal Christmas so let's just cut the drama. Yeah, I'm a grinch all right.

We did get our picture taken with the Grinch on our Univeral Studio vacation a few weeks ago. He gave me a hug. I was scared of him though.

Well I better go take Maddie outside for a bit, and then finish up my scuba studying.

Gryffindor!!!

Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:07:26 GMT

Your Years at Hogwarts by nevermindless
Name:
The Sorting Hat places you in:	Gryffindor (Red and Gold)
Subject you are naturally best at:	History of Magic
Your favorite book:	Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century
Pet you bring to school:	European Green TOAD
You are most known for:	Being Prof. Snape's favorite student.

Created with quill18's MemeGen!

Happy Holidays

Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:04:49 GMT

Just a summary of what's going on.

Bamboo flooring got laid down professionally yesterday, ouch, it cost $1000 for a little room. I think we got ripped off, but at least it's done. The painter guy will paint it next week, and will also paint our nursery. I might go out today and get the rest of our nursery theme and select the two paints we're going to use. By the way, nursery is for future baby, which we hope to have next holidays. A moment of silence for beautiful girl Satori who should be here with us starting her second month....

....

I have plans to make my health website. I'm going to build an Amazon storefront. They'll pay me 3-15% commission of any product I sell. I don't have to handle any money, don't have to handle inventory, don't have to do anything but a short stint of coding. Then my husband and I can sit back and take lots of vacations without worrying about losing money by not billing hours. I attended a meeting last week on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and so because I have the knowledge and the time will build a health website and will pull out any health-related products from Amazon (books, videos, clothing, products) and will sell them on my site. Also will be using a foods database I can get for free and will be building a cool tool similar to the ugly fitday.com. This is my dream project in my life by the way, I started a few years ago with a site called FitJournal.com but that was when I was still learning .NET. This time I'm much more knowledgeable in how to do things and am sure it will be a success. Even if I only make $100 a month or less, it will still be fun and an invaluable learning experience.

I went to a homeopath and he did Applied Kinesiology and a blood test to confirm his findings. That was very, very interesting.

My parent's computer arrived yesterday. I'm setting it up now. They will have (for Christmas):
Dimension 4600 Series, Intel Pentium 4 Processor at 2.66GHz
512MB DDR SDRAM at 333MHz
128MB DDR NVidia GeForce FX 5200 graphics card

and I'm loading all necessary software (Office 2003, Adobe Photoshop 7, Winamp,...) on it today. We hope they like it. I'm a bit jealous, the computer I check email from is only a 1.4Ghz! A girl like me needs to keep more up-to-date! My other Windows Server 2003 is a bit faster (2.2 ghz, 1 GB RAM), but I only program on that.

Other exciting news, we are getting scuba diving certified this weekend. In February we will finish our certification in the warm waters of Hawaii! So today and tomorrow I will spend a large part of time studying for this.

Well, better go do that studying, I'll try to write more this month.

Gonna GEEK OUT!

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 23:06:14 GMT

Yay, I've recently gotten excited about my programming/database skills again (kinda lost interest after retiring). I don't care that I don't need to learn this for a job, it's so fun goddammit! Tomorrow I head to an all-day seminar for ASP.NET 2.0 (the upcoming version) and learn all about all the cool new stuff, they're showing this in the Mall of America theatre, and afterwards we are treated for lunch and Matrix Revolutions movie. Microsoft is totally giving me the tools to have fun with my .NET hobby, with the $25,000 worth of software for under $300, and free seminars all the time!

Today I got all kinda of books. I went on a book spree, first hit Half Price Books, then Micro Center, then Borders. Got over $500 of technical books this week. Then got home, looked them all up on Amazon, and found out that half of them are 30-40% off. I knew they usually have books 30% off, but sometimes I cannot control myself. Anyway, I got the following types of books: C# Class Design Handbook, C# (1.0 and 2.0) Programming Language, ASP.NET Server Controls and Components, ASP.NET Professional Secrets, Hacking Exposed, The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick, Hack Attacks Revealed, SQL Server 2000 DTS, Real World ASP.NET Best Practices, Online Privacy and Security, T-SQL Programming with Stored Procedures and Triggers, SQL Server 2000 Stored Procedure and XML Programming, a CSS style book, and a book on Diabetes for my mom, and an Anatomy and Physiology guide. I'm ordering $100 more on Amazon tonight. Okay I overdo things sometimes, but you gotta understand that's who I am.

For justification on what I recently spent on books, if I ever go back to work, my knowledge gained in reading all these books will pay back one hundred-fold every year. I would become an independent ITconsultant again, with tons of in demand skills, or become a doctor and help people while making money.

Now, for hiding places for all these books... Sweetpea just wouldn't understand. I ran out of space on all my bookshelves, I'll have to clear some out and store old books somewhere to make room for the new. The trick of hiding books behind other books confuses me (I lose them), and last night sweetpea discovered a book I "hid" to show a friend. It was a gross (literally) human anatomy book. The closets are full of empty boxes from things I've ordered this past month, and a rechargeable little vacuum is recharging for it's first time. I hope sweetpea understands its an easy way for me to clean the stairs every week...

OK, time to take a few deep breaths. Stretch... I think I need to start getting weekly massages. I know sweetpea needs them. There's this woman who does it out of her house, but I think that would be a little weird.

Woot! Our friend Mike is in town working at Cargill client with David. He's so fun, and geeky, so it makes for lively conversations. Now the cool part is that David will hang out with him at night and go out to dinner. Leaving me to READ and CODE!!! I'm sooo excited. I don't even have to plan dinners. Planning/making dinners takes so long, I wish I didn't have to do it, yet still have healthy gourmet meals at home.

Okay, my latest new hobby is Hacking. No, I don't want to learn how to hack, I just think it is really interesting and I'll have lots to discuss when chatting with the old ITco-workers. Plus, it'll help me build my sites securely (which I already do, but there's always room to learn more).

Vera called and woke me up at 7:30am. She's got herself a new country boy boyfriend. I'm glad for her. I feel bad that we don't have much in common anymore, but she wants to come up and stay with us for a weekend again. I didn't have the heart to tell her I plan to spend my weekends studying to get the latest IT certifications or for my MCAT. Oh well, maybe in December I can find the time.

One long hectic week

Sun, 09 Nov 2003 16:35:23 GMT

Okay time for an update on my life.

My brother came home to visit. He normally lives out in Denver, but the army has a hold of him now, and they're sending him to Iraq tomorrow. He first spent a week home with us and it was fun hanging out on the farm. My husband especially loved it. Our dog and us got to run around and there was so much space and woods to explore. We had a party for Ken on Saturday, and there were tons of people there.

Right before this happened, I tried to bow out of my EQDiva site. I personally think Everquest is unhealthy and addictive and boring, but I knew what it's like to be hooked. And I happen to love working on my site. It's funny, I don't think of it as an EQ site. I think of it as gathering data, storing data, and displaying data. I think of it as a fun challenge to make it easy for users and I to add, manipulate this information and then presenting it. I must admit I took a very long hiatus from this site (like a year), but trying to leave it completely would be like trying to give up my baby. Giving the site to someone else would be like the emotional trauma of giving my baby up for adoption. Will they care for her? Will she turn out ok? Too much worry, I'd rather just finish it so it is always updateable by itself.

Here's my new site, written in C# and .NET, using the very best techniques: http://www.dotnetdiva.com
This is my rewrite of the old site, and is still in beta and has alot of work to do.

So about a week ago I decide to revive my work on the site. It turned out to be a very unhealthy week for me. You see, when I get obsessed about something, I don't sleep I just go gung-ho on it 24/7. I did that for a week. I coded until I couldn't think anymore, then I slept for 5 hours, only dreaming of coding and sql queries. Wake up and go non-stop all day. I only did yoga and ran once. My legs were constantly fidgeting due to lack of exercise and caffeine overload. I CANNOT DO THIS TO MYSELF!!!

This week I need to balance it a bit. I can still work on my site, but I can't neglect myself. I will run at least half hour everyday. I will do yoga half hour a day. I will finish painting my new yoga room (been procrastinating on this because I won't get my flooring in until December). I will try to eat better and will keep the house clean. I can do this! I have to learn to.

Yes, at the same time I want to continue my studies to be a doctor, I want to get my MCSD for .NET and MCDBA certifications. I want to finally finish EQDiva.com. I want to become very skilled at yoga. I want to increase my running speed and be able to run 10 miles straight. Is all this possible for me to do this year?

Thursday night I went to my .NET meeting where Doug Seven from www.dotnetjunkies.com presented. First off, he's the best speaker in IT I've ever listened to. I loved his talk last year, and this year was fantabulous. He taught us how to hack into a site in one second, and how to give yourself total admin privileges to it within 5 seconds, giving yourself access to the entire database and sharing out the C drive to the public. You then download the database and code files, erase their database, erase your username, send an email to the CEO with the first 100 records of his user table, and demand one million dollars in exchange for his database back. Hehe, I would never do this. But it's done every single day... I remember 3 years ago I could go to huge website and with a few keystrokes, get all their code brought up on a webpage. This code held their database username and password. I never did anything about it except urge them to apply the latest patch. Anyway, the presentation was on .NET Security, and it was so a subject that was so surprisingly interesting and IMO worth ALOT of money to listen to and learn. Good thing it was free, his talk was invaluable. I will have to run out and get his book so I can make sure my sites are secure.

Afterwards we went to Kincaids and had a few drinks. Me, an unemployed housewife (by choice) sitting talking to the world's most famous and best programmers! Learning what's coming up, who's who, what's it like to be in their hectic world. These guys have no other hobbies than .NET (I asked.)

I seem to have lots of hobbies compared to most people I know. Either my friends are all .NET enthusiasts and nothing else, or they're EQ addicts and nothing else. I know people who convert their entire house (I've seen it!) to their reef tanks. I just wish I could triple the length of my day and I would have time for all my hobbies.

Okay, I've rambled on more than I thought. Just a quick wrapup now.

Friday we saw Matrix Revolutions. Today (Sunday) we'll see Elf, and while hubby watches his afternoon game, I'll geek out and code. Yay!

EQDiva site down!

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 16:30:07 GMT

I took down one of my sites on Friday.
http://www.eqdiva.com/

This is causing a huge drama among bards everywhere. It tires me out. I'm too tired to post anything else at the moment.

Starting to wake up!

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 14:57:49 GMT

Just had to add a few more things this morning before I eat breakfast...

I can definitely feel what muscles we worked out in yoga yesterday. We did some new strange stretching poses - one was called a frog, and the other was against the wall. Both relied on stretching the legs apart and letting gravity do it's job. We joked about doing this pose when the UPS guy came. In fact, I should be getting some UPS packages today... A new yoga bag/mat/block/strap set for one thing, and some family room paintings/wall sculptures, and my bamboo flooring. Maybe a few other things, I've been going crazy ordering stuff online lately. I'm trying to get ready for my family visiting this weekend and next weekend, and getting my yoga room setup.

Went outside and the air smells great. Like bright orange leaves starting to rot on the damp ground. I love the smell of leaves. I love this time of year. I think I'll run Maddie this afternoon after her grooming. It's looks a bit drizzly now, but I'll wear my Marmot jacket.

Well I better go get breakfast before I forget and I wonder why I'm so ravenous.

A nice long day ahead

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 14:44:11 GMT

Well I've been keeping myself so busy it's nice to have a long empty day ahead of me to get stuff done. I woke up to a strange and disturbing dream. I dreamt I was young again, living with my parents. I love my parents, but in the dream I concocted a clever way to kidnap myself right in front of them. Then I showed up a week later, with everyone loving me and being nice to me. My relatives, friends, etc... They all believed I was really kidnapped. They all said that everyone was curious about me, so all my neighbors read my websites. Like this LiveJournal, and my family forums, and my gaming sites. I was a little embarassed, because I didn't want my neighbors and family to know how geeky I really am, lol. Then in my dream I went on to the grocery store and my grocery bill came to $300 when all I wanted in the first place was some fruit. Guilty feelings pervaded, wondering how I'll explain this to my husband...

Anyway, I just woke up and knew I had to get out of bed before my dream got any weirder. Now I'm all disoriented and stuff. I need to start going to bed earlier and getting up before 9am.

All I have to do today is take Maddie to the groomers at 11am. They love her. At first they're all busy-like and annoyed when I call. Then I give them my phone number. After a few seconds, they say "Is this Maddie?!? Oh yeah, I can make room for her this afternoon!!! We can't wait to see Maddie!" Hehe, the benefits of living with a Golden...

Yesterday I dropped off all the toxic old stuff in our house at the Eco-center - like old household paint and batteries. I also dropped off an old microwave at an applicance recycling center. Felt great to get rid of some of those chemicals, we had alot of old paint the previous owners left here.

Sweetpea hooked up our new gas dryer and the house didn't explode. At least we saved $170, but he won't let me start drying until he's home to make sure it's safe and we don't have a gas leak. Our new washer and dryer look like big black monsters in our laundry room, I'm not used to them. They also show fingerprints.

Oh, we went to our chiropractor last night. We've been going two nights a week for the past month or so. I surprised my chiropractor by spouting off the names of the people who made chiropractic famous. She was very pleased and said she visited their campus in Ohio (or Iowa). I bet she doesn't get that everyday - her patients studying the history of her profession. And THEN, I met my very first vegan in real life!!! She was sitting next to me getting muscle therapy and I heard her say something about a Boca hotdog. I asked if she was vegetarian, and she said she was vegan! That was fun to talk to her, it's so rare that I come across vegetarians, much less vegans, in fact this was my first time I actually was aware of meeting a vegan in the flesh. Her roommate (or lover) was also there, and she was just a vegetarian.

Well, I added alot more LF friends based on those who visit the VeggieBoards. It feels a bit strange, maybe that's why I had my dream. Lately, I've been a reclusive person, ever since graduating from college. I love getting together with friends, don't get me wrong, but my husband and I are perfectly content with each other and playing with our toys and companion animals and our computers. Anyway, I hope to update this journal more often and try to be more entertaining.

October Catchup on LiveJournal!

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 02:05:42 GMT

As always, so much has happened in such short of time.

Most important event has been my new eye sight! I just got LASIK refractive surgery last Friday. It went very well and I'm sorry I waited so long. Vision the day after was 20/25, and it's improved since then. Not quite as crystal clear as my contacts were, but they say give it a few days, or even a few months, and things will get better.

As for my fitness routines, I was running 10 miles a day until I had to start wearing my glasses to prepare for the LASIK surgery. Now, I'm supposed to avoid aerobic activity for a few more weeks, I suppose so I don't sweat in my eyes. This is making me pretty anxious, I am so full of energy. Thank god for my yoga, I'm able to do that alot and stretch and hold poses that make me feel tons better. I suppose yoga is another one of my new things too. I started the week after our fitness spa vacation, and started two classes. These classes are now winding down, and I'll be taking more in November. I also practice yoga at home every morning and night, I love it that much. In fact, this week we're converting a room downstairs to be our yoga room. I ordered bamboo flooring and got some relaxing light natural green paint. I also got a quote on a wall mirror for one of the walls, so that should be installed soon after the room is finished.

We've been going to the chiropractor starting last month. It's all part of my new "natural healing" philosophy. Of course sweetpea thinks it's for his sore lower back, but I know it's to help our overall health on much more than just back problems. More on this later.

My brother Ken is visiting this weekend! He'll be staying 10 days and we'll be going to the Vikings/Packer game November 2nd. I sure miss him and wish he didn't have to go back to the army again. He deserves to live his life in his new house, with his good job, and enjoy his life.

Sweetpea is out at Home Depot getting stuff to install our new gas dryer. Our new washer/dryer set is awesome, it's graphite in color and Consumer Reports say it's the best.

I've been teaching myself Chemistry, so I can go on to study Anatomy/Physiology, Nutrition, and all that fun stuff. I just want to know everything, so Chemistry seems like a good thing to review. Why am I doing this? Besides the fact that I'm a bit of a geek? Well, in case Sweetpea loses his job, and I decide I hate my old career of IT consulting, I can go back to medical school and become a natural healing doctor of course! This is all highly doubtful, but I'm glad I'm learning all this anyway.

My EQDiva.com EZBoard forums are expiring soon. I have to chuckle that everyone waited until the last moment to figure out a new bard site, and now today we have 3 other bard message boards. And of course they all want my EQDiva domain name. Hehe.

Sweetpea and I had vegan pizza for dinner, with a yummy salad to start, and some peas thrown in as an extra vegetable. He wants me to start cooking gourmet veggie meals again, but I'm so busy with life it's hard to buy fresh veggies everyday and cook a well prepared meal. I do want to do this, I just have lots of other things I like to do with my day.

Well, time to go, I feel the urge to stretch into some yoga poses and take Maddie for a last minute night walk down our street.

Labor Day week

Wed, 03 Sep 2003 14:16:23 GMT

I'm just about ready to go on my 2.5 mile morning walk with my dog but since it doesn't get so hot in the morning anymore, I can quickly post an entry and still enjoy a cool morning run.

What's been going on with my life lately? I started my Detoxification last Friday. I fasted for more than 40 hours before I couldn't concentrate. From then on, it was all brown rice and veggies, well minus a few occasions. Sweetpea decided to do this with me, but he is weak, so we broke our fast on a Perkins breakfast, which wasn't on the plan. We also went to a movie on Labor Day and had some popcorn. Oh well, maybe I'll try this again seriously another time, I truly think a detox week is good a few times a year. I think I'll try again in October.

One good thing, I'm getting used to whipping up whole grains in my new pressure cooker and eating fresh organic veggies. Just by forcing myself to eat like this for a week I feel great, and I know I can do it for the majority of my diet. Just need to experiment more and cook with more grains, veggies and beans that I'm not familiar with, and I'll feel like a vegan expert in no time.

Well, our one year anniversary is next weekend! We're going to the Red Mountain Health Spa in Utah! 3 gourmet meals (vegan for me) are included, massage, hikes/bikes, yoga/pilates/etc.. classes, cooking classes, we're so excited. This is a way for us to have an awesome vacation and be healthy too! We're nearby many National Parks, so we plan to hit a few and go hiking or biking or rafting or horseback riding. It should be very invigorating.

http://www.redmountainspa.com

My yoga class begins the day we leave, so I at least can get one class in.

Oh, I ordered my vegan purse from the Bagg Lady! http://www.bagglady.com
It is ultra-suede (cruelty-free) and is very cool, but it was too small. Those silly people didn't realize how many gadgets I have, so yesterday I returned it and ordered a larger one and a different style. Can't wait to get it, I no longer have to be ashamed of my leather Coach purse when I shop at the health stores.

Due to my detox week, I took off too much time from running on treadmill at home and my strength training, so I just started that back up yesterday. Must keep that up, I have to be in my best shape for hiking in Utah!

Becoming a better person

Sun, 17 Aug 2003 23:04:51 GMT

This year has been my quest to become a better person, in terms of self-health, environmental health, and the welfare of animals and people worldwide. Today we saw "SOS Planet", a 3-D Imax movie that addresses the deforestation, global warming, and reef-destruction issues. I thought the movie could have been more effective, but I suppose they wanted the kids to pay attention. Anyway, I was so proud of my sweetpea when he wanted to write a list of 100 eco-friendly things we could do to help the environment. I have been environmental-conscious for awhile now, but there is much to be improved and learned.

So I'm going to change my lifestyle to be more environmentally friendly. This will also help me be healthier and happier. I must be the luckiest girl in the world to have a husband who is so receptive to my concerns (he just turned vegetarian this spring and now he too wants to be eco-friendly). Not a day goes by where I don't learn new respect and pride and love for this guy.

I took the Earth Day quiz, results are as follows: (they are very shameful results)
IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON.
WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 8.6 PLANETS.

Eek! Time to make some changes!

This week's research is going to include:
Hormone Disruptors - specifically how to avoid them in everyday life
Detoxification - learn about what is involved, and plan my detox to occur in a few weeks
Yoga - the basics in preparation for my upcoming Beginning Yoga class on September 11!
Cooking - experimenting and continuing to learn organic, whole foods cooking and making healthy dinners every lunch and dinner, eating out less
Environmental friendliness - how to live without wasting/ruining earth's resources

This week's goals are:
- Hanging out more on Veggie Boards, these guys know so much and are the type of influence I am desperately looking for
- Continuing the morning 2.5 mile jog, and also running a few miles in the evening on my treadmill
- Starting up my strength training program again

This afternoon sweetpea and I discussed our financial situation (which is really good). Basically, we're going to be smart with all our excess money and pay off the last of our debt (my student loans), max out our Sep IRA, and contribute to the life insurance plan. We decided not to go ahead with our plans for Europe vacation, but instead drive to Glacier National Park/Banff and hike/camp. This will be a more beautiful, exhilarating vacation anyway, and I'm just as excited about it. With the money we save, we can furnish two rooms in our big house.

Vera and Jeff visited this weekend. I feel so different from normal people these days, for example instead of dancing at clubs, I am more interested in the dangerous chemicals we unknowingly ingest in our daily routines. But we had fun anyway, we went to eat at Macaroni Grill and then went to downtown Minneapolis and hit a few places for drinks. They stayed overnight and loved our guest bedroom, they said our bed was so comfy. I had a hard time refraining (bragging) that it was high thread count Egyptian cotton in their linens and towels that made them so comfy. It is hard to talk sometimes about my real thoughts, because we've grown so different. But Vera and Jeff are such nice people and I should make more of an effort to socialize more.

We just bought organic veggies and some brown rice is in the steamer, so I better go cut the veggies up now.

Life is awesome

Tue, 12 Aug 2003 14:30:10 GMT

So much seems to have changed in the past week. I am coming along great in my morning jog, my heart is getting so efficient so fast. Of course I use my heart rate monitor to gauge my exertion. I've been enjoying all the new music CDs I got and plan to rip them so I can listen to them on the computer and mp3 player.

Doctor visit yesterday to follow up on the pregnancy went well. Everything looks recovered and back to normal. We can try again very soon. I think my doctor was kinda surprised on all the knowledge I had accumulated since it happened. I think I knew more about him regarding certain things.

I've been doing my fertility charting online at www.fertilityfriend.com for 20 days now. It says I ovulated 6 days ago but its a little confused. I guess once I start starting up my cycle for sure it will be easier. I must renew my subscription now.

Been getting up before 8am every morning lately, even on the weekends! I'm so proud of myself.

Had our morning jog, been doing that every morning this week except Sunday when it rained, but we did do sprints in the rain.

CARDIO
25 minutes - 146 AHR
13 minutes - 120 AHR

Yesterday picked up a stretching book, I've been feeling so good lately that I feel like stretching more.

Weight loss is coming along nicely, lost 3 pounds this past week. It'll probably come off quickly this first month then slow down. 3 more pounds and I get a new microfiber purse (non-leather). Wish I could keep the old Coach, but it's too small for all my little toys now. I'll give it to my mom like I gave her my first Coach purse when that got too small.

My resolutions to not drink caloric drinks or eat dairy are coming along great! It's working well. When I'm out shopping and I get thirsty, I crave a cold, sugary Mountain Dew. Or I want a big sandwich bagel with cheese at the bagel place. Just a month ago I would have gotten both. Both these things are soo many unnecessary calories! I end up with a water and a veggie whole wheat bagel instead and am very happy.

Today I go back to the dentist to get my fillings filled. :( Sweetpea goes tonight to get his teeth cleaned. He's totally not looking forward to it.

Dentist day

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 18:00:32 GMT

Went to the dentist this morning. No cavities, yay! She also said I have very nice teeth. I was a bit worried since last week I felt some pain in my lower left tooth. Sure enough, she said some of my filling came out.

Then went to the mall to return sweetpea's underwear. I swear he is soo picky. This will be the third time that I returned to get the right kind.

We've been trying to eat good. Last night we experimented with sea vegetables. They sound like the perfect food, low cal, no fat, and high fiber (7g per serving). Unfortunately, I used too much vinegar, but otherwise they didn't have much taste. We had miso soup for appetizer, and the black stringy sea veggies with sauteed onion and carrots. For tonight David picked out a different stir fry with diced potatos and normal veggies. I hope its good cuz the last two nights my cooking hasn't been the best, but at least its practice.

My package from Amazon came today. The latest Ellen McIlwaine's CD Spontaneous Combustion, and the book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.

I finished cleaning the main level of the house, and all the aquariums are sparkling clean! Took me all afternoon to clean them all, and scraping coralline algae off glass isn't fun. Maybe I'll reward myself by taking a break this afternoon.

Well, gonna go walk the dog for a little bit.

Our lawn will be redeemed!

Wed, 30 Jul 2003 17:48:59 GMT

After chatting with Tru Green ChemLawn guy, I learned all about our 8000 sq ft lawn. I saw what an aphid looked like, and all the insects, diseases, and such that our trees, shrubs have, and the weeds that our lawn has. He was sooo nice, I'm glad I called them.

Went shopping this morning, got some decorative stuff for the kitchen and house, and all kinds of squeaky dog toys for Maddie!

I finished my book Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown yesterday. Of course I had to go straight to the bookstore to peruse for two hours and I did some research on some of the concepts I learned from that book. Mind you, I'm quite a "nontheist" to put it mildly, but I find this religion history quite fascinating. That is like me, I get all pumped up about something, and for a few weeks I research, read, obsess about the subject. Right now I'm determined to learn more about all this.

Anyway, I picked up Daughter of God by Lewis Purdue, but unlike the Da Vinci Code which follows some factual concepts (of course a fictional plot), I'm thinking this book may be speculative fiction and there was no female messiah, but then again, I'd have to do some research to learn more about this theory as well. Well, even if this was based on history, I wouldn't believe in a person who does miracles and such. I also got The Templar Revelation - Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ to learn more about the role of Mary Magdalene and the Knights Templar. It is intriguing to have learned that this story is told all around us, through art, music, and movies, yet hardly anyone knows the real history.

I've been playing the piano alot lately, I finally found some relatively easy classical music that is fun to play. I plan on reteaching myself how to play, then perhaps getting lessons from someone to challenge me further. I hope sweetpea learns too, so far he hasn't gotten much further than his hand exercises where he shakes out his wrists!

Monday Morning

Mon, 28 Jul 2003 18:54:20 GMT

Woke up at 9:30am. Ate a veggie breakfast burrito and surfed a bit.

It was a nice relaxing weekend. Sweetpea came home early on Friday and we went to see "Sea Biscuit", which was a very enjoyable movie!

Yesterday we went to "Tomb Raider" which was a movie to be expected. Nonetheless, it used to be my favorite video game so I had to see it. We then went to Home Depot and got a longer hose, a hose cart and another sprinkler. I'm determined to get our lawn halfway decent again before summer ends! Due to my urging, we then went to BabysRUs and solidified our choice for our future baby's nursery theme - Malawi (safari animals). So we bought the decorative wall border and the lightswitch trim. I thought I would go online to see if its cheaper but its not. As soon as we buy the complete bedding set, we will figure out how to paint the room. I'm thinking two colors for the room. One of these weekends we will spend a weekend stripping the existing wallpaper in the nursery and preparing the room to paint.

I spent alot of time this weekend working on my project of cleaning the entire house from top to bottom. I figured it would take me about a month. It took me two weeks to finish the upstairs bedrooms. I'm inventorying where we keep everything to make it easier to find things later. I just finished the kitchen yesterday. This week I get to tackle my office, laundry room, living room, and dining room. We still have a few boxes laying around that we never unpacked since we moved in January. Its about time to move in completely and know where everything is, if everything is neatly organized.

Also this weekend we had fun playing with the tiny camera. Its so small I can't believe it.

I started reading Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Its the perfect kind of book for me! I am learning about history, religion, art, symbolism, and its all so fascinating. I can't wait to read his other books.

My vegetarian diet is coming along nicely. Its nice to have David join in this time, it makes it alot easier. I will still strive for pure vegetarian (no dairy, eggs, cheese), but won't mind if I occasionally eat any of this, I just won't buy/cook with these ingredients unless its for company.

Well, time to walk the dog!

Morning!

Fri, 25 Jul 2003 14:55:45 GMT

I woke up early today! I have been trying to get up at 8am, but normally wake up at 10am. Today was a good start, I woke up at 9am. Sweetpea the poor thing has his alarm go off at 6am, and takes off around 6:30. We decided last night to give me more of a rigid schedule so I am compelled to get up earlier.

Here's a sample:
8:00am Wakeup!
8:10-8:30 Morning Yoga
8:30-9:00 Breakfast, Check Emails, Surf, feed fish
9:00-9:30 Jog/walk dog or use treadmill
9:30-11:30 Read - either study for certifications, read a good book, play piano
11:30 - ? hmmm...

Well, that's a start anyway.

Today I am using a client to post to my LiveJournal. It's alot better than using their web interface. The journals I code up will have most of these features online though.

Shoot, my mouse needs recharging. Good thing it only takes a second to give me a few more minutes.

I am uploading the picture of the new tiny digital camera I wrapped up last night. http://www.bauerfarm.net/images/pictures/optios.jpg

End of shopping spree week

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 23:05:06 GMT

Whew, this past week has made me very tired. Well, I was tired before that. I think I got my shopping spree tendencies out of the way for awhile. Today I picked up my gift for sweetpea, wrapped it, its smaller than an Altoids tin, and I'm making him guess what it is. He doesn't have a clue.
http://www.bauerfarm.net/images/pictures/gift1.jpg

I also picked up my gift, which is the Aeron Classic chair I've been lusting after for about five years. He finally let me get it! I'm sitting in it now and its so awesome, great for the back and totally adjustable.

Sweetpea has been working long hours. He leaves the house at 6:30am and doesn't come home until 8pm. :( At least he is easily accessible via AIM and phone. So it'll be a few hours before he's home.

Just jamming to Radio Paradise, listening to a good Flaming Lips song...

Watered the yard a bit today. I've been worried about it, I think we're killing it, its got some big brown dry patches and weeds are infesting it like crabgrass and the like. I emailed ChemLawn for help, I better call them tomorrow. I'll try to water the lawn everyday now, I need to get another 50ft hose to reach the far corners. Its embarrassing to have an ugly lawn in a neighborhood full of thick, rich, green, lush lawns with automatic sprinklers. Think we'll need to install one next spring.

I'm starting up my jogging again, we've got a loop around our neighborhood that is 2.3 miles. Not much, but a good start to run Maddie, our Golden Retriever. I've been quite inactive since March of this spring, but now I am able to get some good exercise in until I get pregnant again, which hopefully will be this fall. I jogged the loop a few days ago, had my heart rate monitor on and jogged/walked for 40 minutes with heart rate always above 130bpm and below 155bpm, averaging 142, which is pretty good.

I'm taking a few weeks to clean the house from top to bottom. We lose things easily in this big house, so I'm inventorying where we keep things. Its kinda silly but necessary I guess.

Hmmm... still getting used to this new chair. Did I explain how awesome it is? I'll post pictures tomorrow maybe.

First Day

Mon, 21 Jul 2003 23:06:16 GMT

For a long time I've missed having an online journal. Finally the need to express myself has forced me to use this LiveJournal. I will most likely code up my own journal, hopefully soon, but we know how that goes.

Today is Monday. I feel that I am about to embark on a new phase of my life. I'll explain it, but not today. To give a vague explanation, I feel that I have went through an experience that has changed me. It wasn't a joyful experience, rather quite the opposite, but I am trying to make the best of it and turning these emotional forces into something therapeutic and healing.

My husband and I ordered a Yamaha grand piano last week (as part of this therapeutic-ness). It was delivered this morning, luckily I woke up just in time for the delivery, lately I've been sleeping in past 10am. So now in the corner of our living room we have a shiny ebony black baby grand piano. It is beautiful. I just wish I could play it more eloquently than I currently am able. I rushed out and got a few piano sheet music books - Indigo Girls (Strange Fire), Bob Marley, and the "O Brother" soundtrack music. I have to admit I need some practice.

A few new CDs came by Amazon today - Ellen McIlwaine "Up From the Skies" and Rose Polenzi. I love these women's voices and music. Two days ago I got a Michelle Shocked CD, that is fun to jam to as well.

Well, time to go, call my sweetpea, and see if he wants a stirfry tonight. He'll have to put up with brown rice instead of white rice, it's healthier.