Some Linkage and Giveaways!

Okay, now that I wasted so much time trying to do something simple like set up a Facebook account, I think I got it done finally! Geez, Facebook was being testy about verifying my email address. It's hard enough to keep my personal, work, and blog emails straight without them messing with me about it! Anyway, you can go here to follow me there now.

If you aren't following me on Twitter, you should! I've been having some fun conversations over there lately with Canadian Blogger Girl, Amber, and Simple Dude. Well, it's mostly been us picking on him, but it's been fun anyway! So click on this to follow me so you don't miss out!

Speaking of CBG, she is having a giveaway on her blog, and she's got a bunch of exciting things going on over there. Go check her out and today you can even read a guest post by the crazy Simple Dude, too.

I've heard some blogging friends getting frustrated with losing followers lately. I have been lucky and haven't had that problem (and please tell me I didn't just jinx myself!), but I was wondering. What makes you leave someone you're following? Do they say things that offend you? I mean Average Girl had a FANTASTIC idea that involved a battle of the sexes on posts and she lost followers for it. What the ...? I didn't think any of my followers were that sensitive, but I could be wrong. Honestly, the only ones I think I've ever left are ones that I started following when I first got onto Blogger, and they just didn't interest me anymore. Seriously, you all aren't picky people, right? If so, I'm sure I'll offend you at some point. This is my stress free zone!

Source

I finished up my classes last night. Yay! Unfortunately, I only get one week off before I have to start three more though. Geez, is it June yet? I am sooooo ready to be done with school. Now, if my slow ass professors will post my grades, I will be a bit happier.

Oh, Studio30Plus is having a giveaway for reaching 500 members, too. So click on my button over there, join us, and go sign up for the giveaway! It's a great little community that's coming together nicely.

Tomorrow, Bailey and I have a little surprise for ya. I think you'll all enjoy it, and we got a little help from Bruce and Tuck.

Final thought.. I think the Frito Lay guy who put these signs up in a store near me knew the Super Bowl was going to be shitty. What do you think?

 Honestly, it was a good game. It was just not a good outcome for me and those who love me. *sigh*

6 Million Dollar Man vs. Captain Kirk

Okay, this is an impromptu post on a Friday night to ask a very serious question. If you didn't see $..! My Dad Says last night, then you should go watch it. But in that episode, William Shatner gets the girl over Lee Majors. Now tell me, people. Would that happen in real life? Over Lee Majors? We are talking about the 6 Million Dollar Man vs. Captain Kirk here.

This is the 6 Million Dollar Man intro... It still gives me goose bumps...

And his highlights...

Could Youtube pick a worse thumbnail for those videos?? (Who knew Sandra Bullock was on that show?)

And Captain Kirk....

I am curious to see what you all think. We had a pretty interesting debate on Facebook and in texts tonight about it. By the way, the Bionic Woman was always my hero! Anyone who slams me for that will never get my "Stop the Madness" award. :)

There is a poll to the right of this post for you all to vote on the two men. Go do it!

Busy-ness

I have been so busy lately that I forgot all about this blog. I have been working and going to school like before, but I am also on the board for our pitiful animal shelter now. Apparently, I am the VP until we have an official vote in February. That could change though since I thought I was the Secretary last week.

We have gotten some good people involved since I signed up, including the Mayor of our little town. I am excited about the prospects even though some who were involved before are afraid we will get frustrated and leave. I have told them I am not going anywhere. I am determined to help some animals find forever homes and hopefully get a better facility built.

Of course, I have always loved animals. Since I had that age crisis earlier this year and wondered what my mark on this world is, working with the shelter has made me feel much better. I want to rescue them all, but I am happy to do what I can. I set up the Facebook page for the shelter, and I try to keep it up to date. I also got us signed up for Petfinder so that is going to help out a lot with other doors that can open. We also got a great opportunity with Rachel Ray's charity, but I will fill you in on that another time. We did a skeet shooting event this past weekend to benefit the animals. We made some pretty good money, and I met some new people who were a lot of fun. I think we did good for our first event.

 I am still in school too, and I just finished the hardest class I have had so far, Toxicology. OMG, that class was head-exploding hard so I definitely earned my A in that course. I have decided to take 3 classes each term so I can hopefully finish in April. I will be so glad to get my degree! Next term starts December 1st so we will see how taking 3 classes is going to work out.

Honestly, as busy as I have been I am enjoying it for the most part. I feel like I have a purpose and I am on a mission or two! Or five.... Anyway! I think I need to keep up the blog a bit better. I will try to do it on my phone if nothing else.(Although after posting this one, I see I need to come on the computer to edit it after posting through my phone. It showed just one continuous paragraph on here, when I put returns in on the phone. *sigh*)

It's Friday... Glad Facebook is back!

So for once I wasn't caught up in an issue with Facebook being down. What the hell? I actually wasn't on it yesterday because I had some other issues which I won't bore you with. They have a movie coming out (or it is out... who knows when you don't have a theater in the town you live in), and they help promotions of it by screwing up? Typical! I'm glad it's back up today, and it better be okay tonight. How most of my friends survived without it yesterday is beyond me. The horror!

So how do you like my new look? I HAD to use that bull when I found it. I guess I need to harrass someone about how to design this thing better. If you haven't ever seen her blog before, you should check out Kristine at Wait in the Van. She is hilarious! She has an "ask the van" section that I guess I'm going to have to raid for help with this sucker. If you all know of some other humorous type blogs, let me know about them.

I have been reading blogs more lately than I've been writing in this one because I've been getting ideas and seeing what people are following. Of course, mostly it's all about me, so come to terms with that and you'll be fine. If not, just suffer in silence please.

Football season is here so prepare to hear me vent and/or brag on my teams on occasion. I am a huge Steelers fan, and in college it's pretty much Penn State and THE USC. Let's be clear from the start that anytime I mention USC, it is the first USC. The one that has been in this country the longest and is not named after a condom. The real USC would be the University of South Carolina, no matter what those crazy people in Cali think. Just so you know... Now let's hope my boys don't get slaughtered by Auburn tomorrow after I just set them up on that pedestal. But if you see me ranting about the Gamecocks or hear me hollering GO COCKS, you know I'm not talking dirty to ya.

I found out this week that my great-nephew received some "Aunt" clothing from an Aunt on the other side of his family. I was not thrilled with that. Don't they all know I'm the professional aunt, and now have the title of Great Aunt?! If there is "Aunt" merchandise to be purchased, that is my job dammit! At least I can still say I bought him his first one.

To clarify something I mentioned earlier, no I don't have a movie theater in my town, just like I don't have a Walmart. See why the internet is my link to the outside world? Mom jokes that I have to "come to the big city" on occasion just to go shopping. The town they live in is 45 minutes from me, so I am usually making the trip with a list in hand. Try seeing how easy it is to only go to the grocery store and Dollar General for things and see how long you last. It's peachy, I'm telling you.

Learning Spanish for my retirement

My sisters and I have been kicking around the idea of retiring in Panama. I was born there (as the child of a military family), and after recently reading that it's one of the top 10 places for Americans to retire, I am all about it! Hey, what's better than living in a place where the weather is always warm and there are no hurricanes? One sister (Pam) is worried I'll find a man and get married and not do it, because she is determined. I told her if that were to happen, he'd just have to move with us. But I'm not holding my breath that that will happen. Sherry wants to go, but her boyfriend is not thrilled with the idea.

Do you know how many perks they have for Americans to move down there? For one thing, you don't have to pay property taxes for 20 years if you buy a house there. So we figure Pam will buy a house first, and then I'll buy it from her later if we're both still alive by then. You can import a car tax-free every so many years, I think it was 4 or 5. You don't have to worry about the exchange rate because they use American currency. They say Panama City is more American than Miami. There are daily flights back to the States, the closest flight to home being Atlanta which works for me! As far as I can tell, our biggest worry would be if Pam tells me she's going to the beach, she'll have to specify whether it's the Atlantic or Pacific today. :) They even have groups of Americans down there who meet and do things together, including helping each other find homes, etc.

My only concern is that I need to check with the State Department to make sure there won't be any issues with my citizenship. Since I was born there, I don't know if I would be subject to the same rules as my sister. I sure don't want to go there and not be able to come home.

Anyway, Sherry has been learning Spanish (or re-learning) to be able to communicate with her boyfriend so he can speak Spanish to more than just his family back home in California. I decided to sign up to the same website (livemocha.com) to learn it with her. I figure it can't hurt to be able to communicate in Spanish when I move to Panama, right? And then I'll know when the natives are bad-mouthing the crazy Americans. It's been so long since I had Spanish in high school that I am basically starting over with the basics. So you might see us commenting to each other on here in Spanish like I did to her on Facebook on her birthday. It's just us trying to practice and not us trying to hide anything.

Some realizations

Have you ever watched someone learn a life lesson in a movie, and thought, "Holy crap, that's me!"? Well, welcome to my world. The man I considered the love of my life left me many years ago. I pined for him for so long that I really didn't give many others a chance. I even had one guy I dated for a while tell me he couldn't live with the ghost anymore because I would only let him so close before he could feel me pulling away.

Well, while watching a movie, I saw an overweight woman discover that she had slowly put on the weight to keep herself from being attractive to others so she couldn't be hurt again. I don't think that's why I put on the weight, but I know it was a bit of a defense mechanism. I am a comfort eater, and when I'm not happy I eat. Now it has become just plain habit! I have so far to go that I get frustrated along the way. I'm hoping this blog will help keep me honest so that I feel like I have someone to answer to, even if no one ever reads it.

Now, am I doing this to find a man? No! I am doing this because somewhere along the way I have lost Krissy. I used to be this outgoing person who did all kinds of activities and had all kinds of friends. Granted, some of my friends have moved away, but that never stopped me from making new friends before. I just want to get healthy and active again and be able to feel good about myself. My dog, Bailey, has even become a bit overweight, and that is just unacceptable. She is young, and I want her sweet face alive and healthy for many years to come.

Do you feel like you have lost yourself, too? Do you find yourself making excuses for reasons not to do things with friends and family? My doing that started when I first got a place of my own with no roommates or anyone around to worry about my every activity. I was also living in the country, so it wasn't like people were popping in on occasion. Now I live in town, but I live in a very small town, and I live about 45 minutes from family.

I have been saying for a while that there are things I'd love to get out and do in this state, but I always put it off. I hope this will be the start of me moving on and moving out of my shell! Who the hell crammed me into that shell anyway? When I turned the dreaded 40, I started having really depressing thoughts about what my mark on this world would be. Well, if I can break out of this shell and help someone else do the same, then I think that's progress. I know I have to start with getting off of my butt to do things, and I need to eat much more healthy foods. I just have to keep reminding myself that my life and body didn't get this way overnight, and it's going to take small steps to get back on track.

I have a lot of friends on Facebook who I think are in the same type of rut. I hope some of them and others will come join me in keeping each other encouraged and moving forward. We can do this if we lean on each other and figure out that it's okay to vent. We all make mistakes, but we just need to pick ourselves up and move on.