Hello! A few recent updates...... :)

Hi! Well, I've been slacking off the blog postings and it's time to get back on the wagon again......it seems to me that I haven't been doing much, but actually I've been doing quiet a bit......

Let's see here....just going to throw some stuff out to you and if I repeat myself.....well, that's just me being me..... :)

I'm not too happy with any of the RSS readers I have tried......the problem with the blog readers I try out is that it does not allow me to leave a comment on the blog I'm reading......I want to get into the habit of leaving more comments on blogs that I read......not just read a blog and leave......some people create and update blogs to create a community of interaction, as for me, I just don't advertise this blog.....I just use this blog to mark where I've been, what I've done, and where the heck I'm going next......

My poker league has definitely caught my attention and I've increased my league attendance from just Mondays to Mondays and Thursdays.....I like that......they have two poker league sessions every Mondays and Thursdays but I only sign up for one session at 7pm....and coming in 12th place each week right now takes about an hour and 15 minutes so I'm home by 8:30 with is perfect for me. The second session which is optional for me to sign up is at 9:30pm on Mondays and Thursdays, but that's way too late for my liking, I don't care how much I like poker, that's way too late.......I like being in my jammies and comfy on the sofa by 9pm tops! (yeah, guess how old this old gal is.....no late night heavy partying for this old lady LOL!!!!!)

Another thing I want to talk about is that I went to the monthly neighborhood community meeting this past Thursday. I like this meeting alot, it brings the neighborhood together to tackle local issues and keep everyone up to date on what going on around us. So, this organization wants people to come up with our opinion on how we can make the neighborhood better. Well, we've had some, unexpected changed in our immediate neighborhood, so it has been a turn of improvements around us where we live. There has been less kids running around and traffic has died down a tad with a company going out of business next to us. But, I will brain storm and look around me and come up with some more ideas to make this neighborhood a better place. The one thing that I will bring to the table is that the speed limit signs around us are too high for drivers to pay attention to. The main street in front of our house is fine, we have a stop sign right in front of our house because we live very close to a corner intersection (you can see the intersection from our window), but the back alley (back of our house) is where the speed limit signs of 10 mph are posted on telephone poles too high up. So, I'm going to snap some pictures of that and bring it to the organization's attention. I mean, I could go to the highway department about it, but I want to talk about it at the meeting too. And I can't wait to hear other people's opinion is to improve this neighborhood.

The MYPN 1 hour class about Wordpress on Thursday was great if you don't know how to use Wordpress. It was very basic and alot of people were there (about 25 people). The instructor asked how many people has built a website on Wordpress and only about 3 or 4 people raised their hand (including me). I've seen people switch from Wordpress to BlogSpot and vice versa. Everyone has their preference and I've used both blogging platforms. In my opinion, I think BlogSpot is easier to upload pictures and Wordpress is easier to customize. So they are both different in their own ways. I may even go back to Wordpress someday, but for now, BlogSpot does the job for me to update a blog quickly and easily.

Okay, what else......I have to say that we've been getting nice weather lately. Jake has been tagging along when I go walking with my walking group on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. This coming Monday's walk will be a long walk, so I will leave Jake home and bring my headphones for the music and podcasts in my Blackberry. Jake likes to walk, but I have seen him walk so much that his muscles get so tired that his back leg gives out. So, I bring him to the shorter walks on the schedule so he doesn't push himself too much, but still gets the exercise he needs to be healthy and active.

Okay, speaking of healthy and active and exercise......I've looked online to the Dr. Oz website and saw the schedule of this week's TV programs so I can tailor my treadmill schedule to the shows that I would find more interesting. Story of my life.......LOL!

Anyways, I think I've yap enough for one posting.......don't have plans for tomorrow, but you never know......Have a good night! :)

Walking and Today's Little Project

Hi! I got 103 Podcasts downloaded on my Blackberry (average Podcast is 40 minutes long) I'm waiting for my Blackberry to explode. These Podcast downloads are a real battery killer, big time. My Blackberry battery (now, remember, I got this new Blackberry two months ago) use to last 5 hours......downloading Podcasts and the battery is low in 2 hours. But soooooo worth it. Do you know what a Podcast is? In my own words, a Podcast an audio file downloaded off the internet and updated from a feed. So, in my little world, the Podcasts I listen to are archived talk shows on my favorite topics. I listen to dog talk shows, poker talk shows, comedy talk shows......actually, here's the website I actually pull the Podcasts from to download on my Blackberry. The app on Blackberry is called PodTrapper. I'm on a 30 day free trial, then I have the option to buy the app......don't really remember how much it is to buy, less than 10 bucks I'm sure, but I'm getting alot of use out of the free trial and you know how some apps are cheesy and work half the time or not at all, I've got to say, this one works great so far.

This morning's walk was held at Stark Park and I got pictures. First let me tell you that this walk was mostly thru little neighborhoods and there wasn't much to take pictures of, but I got a few........

Stark Park in Manchester, New Hampshire

Everyone showed up to walk.....see my car, the black SUV, right there.....

Another picture of Stark Park

Stark park is located next to the Youth Detention Center (YDC)

Another picture of YDC

So that was fun. I like my walking group and we are half way thru the walking schedule.....13 more walks to go and that will get me to Nov 11th. We have a little get-together (they call it a banquet) on Nov 15th for lunch and then say good bye to each other until the walking group resumes in the spring. But let's not talk about that now, I still have 13 more walks to go and a whole lot of Podcasts to go thru! :)

So, I bought a little 2 year calendar at the store a few weeks ago and I got a plain, simple one because I wanted to decorate it myself. I'm sure you already know where I am going with this LOL! So, I put some pictures on one of those USB memory sticks and went to CVS to develop the pictures. 11 tiny pictures (double prints) cost me 89 cents!!! Not only do I love little projects, I love Cheap little projects! :)........Okay, that's it, I'm done talking, time to show you what I did, step by step........

First we get the tools together that we are going to use.....

Then we get the pictures out that we developed today....

Then we cut the pictures apart and take the plastic jacket off the calendar...

Then we assemble them in the order we like....

We work from the bottom up, sticking them to the cover of the calendar.....

All the pictures are stuck on the cover of the calendar....

Make sure we do both sides and put the plastic jacket back on......

And that's what it looks like! :) Uh-Oh, we got two pictures left over....

We won't let those go to waste.....

Nice huh!!! :) I love it! And so does Jake!

So, that's what we did today! And then I had class tonight. This blogging class was a 6 week course and it was free and something for me to do. I learned a few little things about blogging I didn't know before, like changing out the blog template to a customized one, but I'm not going to do that, because I like the template I'm using now. So, now we wait a few months for a new class to start. This was held at the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communication. The next class I want to take here is Sports Writing but it's not being offered yet, so I have to wait and I will take another interesting class in between now and then. Sooooo, that was my day today! How was yours? :)

Walk and Class

This morning I joined my walking group as we ventured 4 miles from the West Side Arena all the way to the river walk, it doesn't sound far, but it is. My routine is to talk to the seniors that walk with me all the way down one way and then on the way back I know they have their little circle of gossip, so I go up on ahead of them and on the way back I listen to my Pandora Radio app that is in my Blackberry with my headphones. So I get the best of both worlds, talking with seniors and enjoying their company; and then walking by myself getting into my music. I like that.

Tomorrow I'm going to the gym around 9:45am to make sure I get there on a angled treadmill that faces the TV monitor square on that will have Dr. Oz on for the hour. Anddddddddd, I have my walking routine down to a science too. Since there are many commericals that come on between the TV show; when the Dr. Oz show is on, I put the treadmill in a 2.5 miles per hour walk, 10% uphill grade......you know, the pretty easy strolling stuff, BUT when the commercials come on, I hike up the speed to 3 and up the treadmill grade to 50% thru the commercials, so you see, I get a great treadmill work out for an hour; "cooling down" while the show is on; and "cranking up the heartbeat workout" while the commercials are on. I think it's a win/win situation and I get to watch my show and after my show is done I cool down at the end with my Blackberry Pandora App with songs I like. It doesn't get any more Cardio than that! I'm telling ya, it's like Rocket Science. LOL! :)

Tonight's Blogging class was good, I'm always glad I go. It might be hard to leave the sofa to show up, but it's one of those things where when you get there, it's exactly where you want to be! :) We had to write a short story (very short), maybe like 9 or 10 lines total about a Cherished Memory in our past. Of course I wrote about something simple as my dog. I cherish the times with my dog. If you don't know that, then you don't know me :) We also learned in class about RSS feeds and how they can help your blog in the long run and create followers. You always want your RSS feed address to be available.

As for the rest of my day. I didn't do much at all. I had a nap on the sofa........I'm thinking that's got to be a Cherished Moment right there :)

Anyways, I'm gonna go to the gym tomorrow morning and do my TV show/commercial work out routine on the treadmill for an hour and then come home and take Jake out for a while. I don't have errands to do tomorrow, so I think we will find a park to go to and we will wander around until his little legs are tired and I have to help him in the car and place him on the seat where he will crumble onto the seat and curl up and fall asleep right there in front of me. NOW, whether this actually happens this way is a completely different story. See that!! That, right there, was a prime example of wishful thinking LOL! :)

Have a good night and I will bug you tomorrow and hopefully with some more pictures. :)

Jake's Halloween Costume

Well, it was a good day today despite it rained all day. I woke up at 9am (right on time for a lazy rainy "down pour"day). Lazily crawled from my bed, across the living room floor and finagled myself up on a sofa to watch some TV. Ahhhh, life is good!

You see, my sister and her husband wanted to take me out last night (the highlite of my night is usually going home, putting pajammas on, relaxing on the sofa by 9pm - see the pattern, I'm pretty predictable). Those two invited me along with them last night and it was a nice time until I saw midnight and my body was internally breaking down with tiredness. So I left around 12:30ish (happier than heck) that I'll be home by 1am. It was a nice evening (even if I've mentioned that before), but there are still comfort zones that I need to remain in before I go into mental breakdown outside my comfort zone and in my control zone. My sofa, my puppy, my laptop, my shows on TV, these are the things where I can feel my complete peaceful state of mind.

Okay, I can see the Ambien is doing the talking here now, I'm feeling pretty mellow. I can't wait to get a solid night sleep tonight. But I have to tell you a few more things (Yeah, I know, wish me luck). First off, I found a free poker league very local to where I live. Man, it doesn't get any better: poker & local - Woo-hoo!! So this is a 7 week poker league on Monday nights hosted at a bowling alley. I can't wait to see what it's all about. I registered for the 7pm poker tournament and I didn't register for the 9:30pm tournament as, do I have to explain to you again, what time I like I to be home. LOL! So the 7pm tournament will fit my schedule. It's only Monday's night for 7 weeks starting Oct 10. Okay, moving on.......I'll get more details later as I get closer to the date.

Jake paraded around the house with his new costume on......wanna see?

 "Hello! I'm a scarecrow!"

"Okay, I'm bored, get this camera flash out of my eyes!"

"I'm a scarecrow"

So, Jake was not feeling too good today from 2pm to 7pm, just moping around and going downstairs more than a couple visits to do his duties. He came back up stairs and went to bed. I swear in a half hour, he came flying down the bed steps and march right up to me and wanted to play. So we played on the floor with his toys and his favorite toy is one of those cardboard round tubes from what's left after all the toilet paper is gone. He loves playing with that cardboard tube cause it's so light and he can throw it around the floor. One cardboard roll will probably last him about 4 or 5 days until it's totally destroyed beyond recognition. Then he's start right back up with a new one. It's important to keep these in stock. LOL! But right now, Jake is feeling much better and is sleeping in bed....

I have my walking group to join tomorrow morning at 9am locally to walk 4 miles. I like that. And then tomorrow night I have "Blogging Class" to go to. It's free and I go for the social atmosphere. :) I like being around people I have things in common with and you will always find that in a classroom with a topic that you are interested in :) I'm tired, so it's the end of this posting. I hope you have a great night, and I'll be back tomorrow! :)

I'm in my p'jammies now and relaxing watching TV. I have to watch my "Car Fellas" at 10pm. I love that show and then it's off to bed. Hope you have a nice day tomorrow! :)

Today's Walk....

I know, kind of a boring title.......not too good at these titles....gonna have to hire a "blog title creator" LOL! Today was a nice day, I needed a light jacket, but it all didn't stop me from going out and meeting my walking group. Today's walk was held at a short path I didn't know about at all (seven minute drive from my house). There wasn't alot of walkers (besides us) on this path and we did come across a couple bicycle riders. Another 1 hour successful walk :)

This is how the walking path start out, nice and paved....

In an 1/8 of a mile, it turned to this....

But we kept going....

Yeah, alot of this along the way....

The path opens up a bit and then narrows......lots of trees, I thought
my allergies were going to get the best of me....

We just scouting the area along the way...

uh-oh, end of the line for us. I was told a nice wide path use to keep going....
but not anymore....we turned around and headed back...

See the Honda dealership....we weren't far from the city streets......all these
paths inthe city I never knew about....NOT that I will coming out
here all by myself (yikes)

That's alot of beer cans on the side of the path....

People just let their creative side run wild out here....

Walking on the path under the highway....

Geez.....

Along the path.....

I believe this was the most pleasant picture I took today....

We passed by this bridge and kept walking back to our cars....

So, it wasn't a long walk today, but we got to see alot. After this morning's walk, I went out to lunch with Mom at Ruby's Tuesdays (there was a "$10 off the bill" coupon in today's newspaper) :) And tonight I just had my blogging class, which is just something to do (and free). So today was a good day, but typical. I'm just watching TV now.....have a good night.....oh, and I do have my alarm set to make it to the PickleBall game tomorrow (BUT, of course, weather permitting).....

This Week.....

No, no, I'm not going into weekly postings, I'm still going to try my best to post daily, don't let the title fool ya. But I named it that cause I've just been meandering thru the week. Blog class was great last night, I think mostly cause I get excited about being around people with common interests (go figure) and blogging is my interest (or is it just a nicer word than "yappy") LOL! OH, I was told in blogging class last night I have to create more links within my postings and I was told my a friend (and faithful reader) to add my "keywords" to my blog postings, so you will see more of both in upcoming blog postings.

I've been "yapping" with my Mom recently about a trip to Las Vegas in November (another interest of mine) :), and of course, she was all for it. I see prices on Las Vegas vacations are a little lower than usual (trust me, I would know) :) So I'll let ya know how that comes out in the up coming weeks. We are thinking leaving Wednesday and coming back Monday sometime in the beginning of November.

Okay, let me back up here. I got a promotional advertisement in the mail about two weeks ago from a local auto dealership......one of those promotional packs with a key (yes a real key) to have a chance to win a new car. My chances of having the right key to win the car is one in a 42 million (well, you know what I mean). So, anyways, I run right down to the local dealership and I put my key in the little lock box they have set up (heaven forbid if we have to turn that key in the door of a real car LOL!), and sure enough, my key don't fit. So, anyways, the sales guy does his job and tries to talk me into shopping for a new car but I told him I was unemployed and that seemed shut him right up before the word "Go!" and he was nice enough to bring me a consolation prize. It's a gift card to Restaurants.com. Now this website was easy to use, redeeming the gift card was very easy, but you won't find (in my state) any chain restaurants that we are use to eating at listed on this website. BUT that was okay, because we got to try a new restaurant that we wouldn't of tried at all. So last night, we flipped thru the restaurants listed locally and found a seafood restaurant in Windham called "Lobster Tail". I got pictures :) I did take these with my new Blackberry (I'll get to that story down below)......

No, the restaurant is not lopsided, my picture shooting abilities are.... :)

Some clam chowder.....

I had fish and chips

So, anyways, I had the fish and chips and it wasn't bad at all. I would go back (as I got two $10 gift certificates that can't be used in the same month), so we will go back to the Lobster Tail next month. The lunch menu was reasonable and three of us totalled $33.75 (take away the $10 gift certificate and tax adjustment) brought it down to $23.85 for three of us for lunch and corn chowder appetizer for Dad. The soda was included in the prices of the lunch (Yeah! When is the last time you seen that, if ever!) So, it was a great experience at the restaurant. I can't wait to go back to try something else there on the lunch menu :)

Okay, moving on, I have a few more things on my mind before I leave ya along. My Blackberry died this week and it was a tragic (almost heart stopping) experience for me. I mean, 80 percent of my life is spent online (I know, I know, get a life! LOL!) so I immediately pulled the 8GB card out of the back of it. I don't mind if the Blackberry dies, but don't take me down with it. I had an adaptor ("here" I'll show you exactly what it looks like) and it's super easy to use, and I do mean, super easy. I didn't use the USB one, I used the card slider because I have a sim card reader built right into my Gateway NetBook (no link to Gateway because I see Gateway doesn't even make this model netbook anymore, I bought it in 2008). So anyways, I dumped my whole Blackberry info/pics/folders right onto my NetBook and went out and bought a Blackberry 9330 (hang on, got a link to what it looks like "here", mine is grey). So my Blackberry that just died lasted me exactly 18 months. We shall see how long this one lasts me.......

Okay, last but not least, I've decided to get my lazy butt out of bed in the morning and I'm participating in a free local walking group that walks at 9am Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Even though the distance of 4 miles intimates me a tad, I'm going to try this out. So, I will blog about that tomorrow and tell you how it went! :) Have a great night! :)