I love this New Yorker cartoon

Trying to remember to post a picture every day.  A teenager reminded me that even if you aren't TAKING pictures, you can always steal them off of the Internet to make your Power Point presentation.

It is just so hard to remember to do the things I have to do to get more fit, like exercise (almost) every day and spend many hours NOT eating.  Scary going to events such as I went to this weekend: a British tea, church refreshments and a girlfriend reunion with LOTS of yummy things to eat, many of which are not on my eating plan. Combine that with the fact that I had no time to exercise over the weekend due to too many events.   And like the guy above, I spend too much time sitting.  I think that is why my favorite activities are driving around and reading (not at the same time.)  I like to SIT!

Audiobook review:  The ten year nap, by Meg Wolitzer, narrated by Alyssa Breshahan.  Perhaps the first book by this author that I have read.  Four fortyish women living in the New York City area find that their lives have not really turned out the way they thought they would.  They meet, they talk, their lives change, they move, they get new friends, they get disillusioned with the new friends.  I always find myself criticizing the readers of these books.  For instance, one of the women's daughters sings the song, Greensleeves.  The reader pronounces it like Greens-leaves.

At least there's no zombie apocalypse

There is a Zombie run in Philadelphia on Sunday.  250 zombie spots have been filled.  I think they are going to CHASE the runners?  The woman on NPR said that no matter what problems we may all have, we can at least feel good about the fact that there is no zombie apocalypse!

The birds are enjoying the back yard.  Even more than usual due to my neighbor's "tarting up" of the back yard?  Or maybe just because it is Spring?  I am enjoying the back yard more too.  My yard energy only goes so far as my one window box.  (I have three pansies planted there that I got for free at the recent SICC dinner).  We have a taller, better water container, some suet I got for free from the Amish Market (!), bare sticks that my neighbor thinks will bloom and become hydrangeas, lots of statues, benches, empty pots and stuff planted here and there.  Don't know how my yard guy will mow what with all that STUFF.  But, anyway, I read first that my yard guy was arrested for having a stun gun and just a few days ago, he was PUT IN JAIL for filing a false police report.  What are these guys UP TO?  They are very polite and religious when talking to me.

Going to a British tea today.  There seems to be some difference of opinion about how to dress.  A man friend told me they wear dresses and hats and then he gave me a book about teas and two teacups to take along.  Then we saw someone going in wearing a pants suit.  I am so reluctant to dress up.   In fact, I seem to be going around all the time wearing my exercise clothes.  Today it was with false hopes about fitting in some exercise.  Too busy going out to breakfast, shopping for stuff to make fruit sticks for a reunion tomorrow, dealing with phone messages and now using the computer at the Cumberland County Library.  All out of time!

I prefer to labor in obscurity

I guess Facebook is where it's at...and it is fun in it's own way.  Kind of interesting to find out what all my old boyfriends are doing.  But I prefer blogs.  You get MORE info from fewer people and I'm kind of scared to say anything on Facebook  And I don't really WANT my old boyfriends to know what I am doing or NOT doing nor do I want them to know what I look like.  Where in the world will my remarks be going?  At least now I know when I write my thoughts down in "my blog that no one reads".  I didn't check that out as a blog name, but I DID check out quite a few names and they were all taken, including ALL THE GOOD NAMES WERE ALREADY TAKEN.  I did decide to investigate Twitter yesterday, but when it came time to choose a name, I got stymied.  To listen to the news, you would think that everybody in the world EXCEPT for me is tweeting.  But, really, do I know ANYONE who tweets?  Don't think so.

Sick of hearing about:
- Twitter
- Immigration
- Celebrities and their bad dress choices
- Marriage (especially GAY marriage)

It is almost a full time job listening to my music.  Playlist.com has a lot of problems.  Some days it does not save, some days it gets jammed up, sometimes the songs change and sometimes the links go bad. So then I move over to YouTube.  But YouTube has problems, too.  Now I am back to playlist because the Beyonce videos to two songs were stupid.  I like some gansta' rap songs and when I have to watch the videos, I realize how distasteful they really are!  I don't really want to watch Rihanna in black leather and chains.

And that's why we sent you to private school all them years

Said a mother to her son.  Overheard at the counter at the Vineland Amish market this morning.  She was criticizing the public school system of Vineland New Jersey.  (He didn't look like he turned out all that great).

I am having a relaxing day, killing time in Vineland.  Made it to my 8 AM Exercise for arthritis class (my goal is to get to one of the two weekly classes).  Then I head for the baked oatmeal breakfast at the Amish market.  Oatmeal started off as a diet food.  By the time I get done with it it is NOT a diet food.  I load it up with bananas, raisins, hot milk, and brown sugar.  And I have a sneaking suspicion that "baked" oatmeal already has eggs, flour and sugar already added to it.  Then I stopped by to make a hair appointment.  Next I went to my previous place of employment and visited a few people.  Now I am using the computer at the Vineland Public Library.  Already had to ask my neighbor to stop cursing at the computer.  Those old librarian habits die hard!

It is such a struggle trying to lose weight.  Unwanted (unnecessary) pounds are part of my excess STUFF. Maybe if I eat sensibly and exercise EVERY day for a VERY long time, I could lose some weight?  I was rather pleased today, though, when I had my body fat percentage checked.  Maybe there was an equipment malfunction but, according to the stats, my body fat declined from somewhere in the 40's in January to somewhere in the 20's in April.  (Strangely enough, they measure this in the middle of the top part of your arm instead of pinching your midriff). I guess it was in January when my self improvement campaign started.  When my "home away from home" became the Fitness Connection instead of my CAR.  Possible diet plans:
- Eat one meal a day and have 100 calorie snacks at intervals the rest of the day?
- Behave myself all the time and only have one "treat" after the weight goes down five pounds?
- Paleo diet?
- Gluten-free diet?
- Spend an entire day at the Fitness Connection?
- Curb the nightime eating? (I may have to wean myself off of the Ambien to accomplish this)

Maybe they don't WANT us to know

Had to go to the Post Office and get another letter filled with gobbledy-gook from the City of Bridgeton.  They had been charged $6.11 to mail it and it came "postage due".  The last time they sent one it cost half that amount.  I HATE certified mail.  Just makes me worry unnecessarily. And then you have to get to the Post Office and wait in a big long line to get it and then it is incomprehensible and you wish you had never gotten it.  I called the city to complain and ask why they couldn't just give us a few "bullet points" about what it really means to ME, the man on the street.  We went around and around and I really learned nothing except that they mailed these change in zoning letters to 700 people.  "It's the LAW'", the head of Planning told me.   What a waste of time and money!  I guess I SHOULD have said, "What are you trying to ENABLE and what are you trying to PREVENT?"  Of course, there is another possibility and that is that they REALLY DON'T WANT US TO KNOW!  All he really said was that it is so complicated that it would take en entire huge volume to explain it.

Had a mouse emergency today.  First time my wireless mouse has failed. It has been working perfectly for  9 months.  Thus, I don't know what to do.  I don't have the instructions with me and even if I did there is no phone service down here in Greenwich.   Thank goodness one of my gentlemen friends down here at the Cumberland County Historical Society came up with a mouse which I could plug in.  (The first one he gave me could not be plugged into my laptop due to no compatible hole).  But at least I didn't have to face a DAY WITH NO COMPUTER (it's like a day with no sunshine).  Yesterday I was online for THREE hours and I thought THAT was not enough time.

Saw a bound book of the Dollar weekly news lying on the table.  So I checked out what was happening on April 8th, 1938.  The was a humorous debate at a grange meeting on this topic: Resolved - that a wife is more useful than a wheelbarrow on a farm.

Evaporating ice cubes

It is kind of creepy, but every time I go to use some ice cubes, I find that they have evaporated in my freezer.  Is it some side effect of a "frost-free" freezer?  Does it suck up moisture?

Finished My beloved world, by Sonia Sotomayor.  I thought she meant Brooklyn or New York or her life in general.  At the end of the book she prints out in English and Spanish a poem by Jose Gautier Benitez.  Puerto Rico is referred to as "my beloved world".  I loved the book.  She is a successful single woman who came from a poor family and ended up on the Supreme Court.  I cried at one point when she had to take several forms of public transportation to get to Radcliffe to decide on a college.  She didn't like it at all.  It made me cry remembering how my mother took me around to all the colleges.  When she was at Princeton as a student, a friend said, "You must feel like Alice in Wonderland!"  Sonia replied, "Who's that?"  So, she had a lot of cultural and class differences to overcome.  And yes, she did go to college under Affirmative action but look what she made of herself.

I never do anything with my yard.  If I cut off the dead stuff, my yard energy is done.  Now some people moved in downstairs and I said he could do as he wished  in the yard.  Everytime I come home now, I say to myself, "What in the ?#?#?#??"  We have pots, we have rims around things, we have Italian figures, we have driftwood....  I did have to say something about the totem pole (?)  I said I couldn't stand looking at that horrifying image unless he wanted to put it up to scare the neighborhood children.

Lessons learned about food

Was invited to lunch yesterday at the Centerton Golf Club.  When we got there I found that the cost was $38!  Gulp... So, even though I am on a diet (I mean life long eating plan) I HAD to get my money's worth!
That is the problem with the BUFFET.  I should have just eaten from the hors d'oeuvres table....they had gigantic, delicious shrimp, roasted vegetables, cheese (my favorite food) and grapes.  The hot buffet was ho hum compared to that.  I ignored most of the desserts because I eat there once a month and am overly familiar with all of their offerings.  Was quite captivated by the three tiered chocolate fountain.  And, naturally, I had to completely cover my strawberries, pineapple and pretzel sticks with chocolate.  I think it would have been better (and more sensible) to just put a BIT of chocolate on those things.

Insane city, a novel by Dave Barry.  I love Dave Barry but I prefer his humerous essays.  This novel was way over-the-top Florida insanity.  There are a few Florida authors who take it too far.  And I know that Florida CAN be crazy.  It involved some madcap adventures with a family preparing for a wedding and running into lost luggage, marihuana brownies (medically approved), an escaped orangutan, Haitian refugees, hired henchmen, snake wranglers, Russian gansters, drug dogs, angry strippers and more.  There is an overemphasis on coversations.

Now, TODAY would have been a good Easter day.  Yesterday, it was somewhat cloudy and cool.  At least, the rain held off until after the egg hunts were done.  Got to see some kids, dye some eggs, eat some chocolate, sing some songs in church, receive some compliments about the singing.  I wore my same Easter dress from last year.  Luckily, no one seemed to notice.  Two shades of purple, with pink kneesocks.
Someone gave me some eggs, someone STOLE my eggs, someone gave me some daffodils.  Found out my neighbor stole my eggs because a friend of his said go outside and look for the eggs I left for you.  He said they were delicious.