Walking and Bell

Well, there is not a whole lot going on over here.....but there are a few things that I've done this week. The walking group I belong to had their banquet on Tuesday which was worth going to. I mean, a whole restaurant room of senior citizens and lottery scratch tickets was entertaining to watch.......boy, they make scratching those tickets an art form by itself and a sport. We had lunch and they pulled some raffles.....right up my alley :) I got my little certificate saying that I walked 39.5 miles this fall.....not too bad and I'm glad someone kept track of it cause I sure didn't. :) The walking group will pick up again in early April and I'm looking forward to it.....

Then this week I decided to teach Jake to ring a bell for his treats. I thought it would be good to get that dog thinking again....LOL! I mean, he gets everything for free, he might as well work for something. So, anyways, it's just a regular typical desk/counter bell and (this was a learning lesson for both of us here) I was trying to think of how to "condition" him to ring the bell for a treat. So at first he didn't associate the treat and the bell at all. He would just skip the bell and paw at my hand for the treat. So I thought and thought (this wasn't suppose to be a brain exercise for me.....ugh!) And then I figured out that if I put the treat under the bell, he would paw at the bell and when the bell "binged" I would lift the bell and he would get the treat........okay, maybe I serious need a job at this rate LOL!! Wayyyy too much time on my hands and I'm just going to end up annoying the whole household with this bell thing. Moving on.....

What else, what else.....tomorrow we are going shopping because my parents want to buy a security camera for this property (three floor apartment building) because someone passing thru our driveway set off the vehicle alarm on the Dodge Ram over the weekend. So now, my parents want to monitor outside activity and these security camera are pretty sophisticated these days......I mean, you can monitor all cameras right from a computer website and if there is any movement activity it will alert you in an email......pretty much all automated.....so, we will go check those out and see what we find.....(yes, I'm very well aware that I will now get two million spam comments on "video surveillance cameras" LOL!)

Okay, I'm outta here. Behave yourself and I'll be back! :) Nite Nite....

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? :)

Walking and Poker League

Hi! I'm still enjoying this awesome weather we are having over here. But heard on the news the temperature was taking a down hill turn starting tomorrow with rain coming in on Thursday. This morning I met up with my walking group and I took Jake with me. What a trooper he is, he made it 3/4 thru the walk and I had to carry him the rest of the way! That's not bad though for his little paws to keep up like he did.......I got pictures! :)

HUH????? What is this all about?? I have no more picture storage availability left for my bloggie??? *clicking on links to see what this is all about*. Okay, Google Pisaca (photo storage website) gave me 1024MB for free, I have used 1023MB so far and can't upload any photos at all right now and if I delete pictures it will come off my blog, SO google wants $5 dollars for an additional 20GB, (that's quite a bit of open storage I think) AND it will take like 24 hours for the darn 20GB to kick in........not even a warning that I was getting near my 1024MB!!!!!! Geez, think they would of told me I was getting close to running out of storage.......guess I'm just writing the blog tonight......OH POOH!!!!

Moving on, ANYWAYS, :) I'm still in a good mood.....technology and software, it's a love/hate relationship. Okay, so where was I? This afternoon, I watched TV all afternoon comfy on the sofa with Jake recuperating (snoring) from his morning walk. So, basically it was a quiet day.

Now, tonight.....*smile* Last week I had signed up for a Poker League on Monday nights at a local bowling alley. I had no idea what this was all about, but I knew it was Free! And if it's Free, it's worth Me checking it out! :) Heehee! So, I hop down there tonight and get there before 7 and I take a looksy around and find that they have four poker tables set up with 7 or 8 players per table. After signing in with my name on the list, I get my seat assignment and we start playing. I did this for two reasons, 1) to be a decent poker player, you can't play poker online forever, and 2) I wanted to get comfortable playing cards live (I was so nervous, my poor heart beating a mile a minute and I thought I was gonna have a heart attack when I was served 8, 9 different suits and, with a whole lotta luck, got an 8 and 9 in the flop, and then an 8 on the turn, and nothing on the river........but see that!!! Loook at it! :) All that right there is called a Full House! Yippee! The guy next to me had a "PartyPoker" shirt on, probably thinking he could intimidate people flashing that little badge on the shirt around. Ha! I took him out in two games. How embarrassing is that. I didn't wear anything special, just a grey simple t-shirt, gym pants, and sneakers, you know, like a sly shy snake, the quiet one, that fits right into the casual company around them, that everyone over looks. And then from Seat 2 (that's me) my unsuspecting players get an unexpected bite with the cold cards I hold, and I scoop up all their chips with my rattle snake tail, show my fangs and dare them to do it again........shhhhhhhhh, it's always the quiet ones, as I rattle my tail right back under my seat so no one sees it. :)

Okay, well, like I said it was a great night! I'm not sure what I'm doing tomorrow! So check back in with me tomorrow...............have a good night! :)

Oh, I had to come back here and leave you with a link of "Glossary of Poker Terms" that you might want to glance over.....okay I'm outta here for good now LOL!

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! :)

Typical Low Keyed Day.....

Hi! Well, I've been moving thru the last two days low keyed and predictably. This morning I enjoyed my walking group and we walked for 1 hour and 15 minutes.....hmmmm, not sure how many miles that is, but it was very enjoyable. Half the walking time I spend talking to others around me, and half the walking time (usually the trek back to the car) I listen to my Blackberry App Pandora tailored to my favorite music. Tomorrow I'm going to join my walking group at a local tennis court to play PickleBall......I'm going to try this game out and what it's all about :) I'm hoping to snap some pictures of this game too to show you what it's all about.

This afternoon I napped on the sofa and watched TV, okay, maybe some internet surfing! :) OH, and I mailed out the paperwork to get Jake certificate for passing the "AKC Canine Good Citizen" test that he passed with flying colors last Saturday at the Animal Rescue League PetStep pet walk event. I had to mail in $8 with the form to get the certificate, and then I'll get the AKC tags for this collar. He loves to brags about his accomplishments......okay, maybe, I brag about his well-doings too! OH, and, you won't believe this, Jake can now have (I had to Google this word) "post-nominal letters" after his name. Don't shake your head yet. I would like you to meet Jake, CGC. Nice ring to it huh, before you write me off as Crazy! HA!

And then tonight, Jake and I hopped in the car and off we went to see Zoey. We met up with Zoey at a local PetCo store and we had a good time exploring the store and saying Hi to other dogs. At the store Zoey's Mom told me all about another dog event coming up next Saturday: Walktoberfest at the Budweiser Plant in Merrimack, New Hampshire. Hosted by the Humane Society for Greater Nashua. There will be a morning dog Walk-a-Thon followed by a day of fun, food, and entertainment for the whole family, including dogs. Click HERE or more information. I hope you have a nice night! :)

Walking And Pretty Quiet Day.....

Okay, after yesterday's Conway train ride and Poker game last night, I still got up this morning on time to meet my walking group, and I brought my Mom with me this time. It was a nice morning we walked way more than 4 miles this morning. Want to walk with me......I got pictures along the way! :)

The rest of my day was non-productive.....But you know what tomorrow is don't cha?? Yep, it's here!! Animal Rescue League PETSTEP! Yay! Jake and I will go there tomorrow and we will have a great day there. And Jake gets to see all his friends (furends) there too including Zoey, the little black cute dog Jake gets along with so well. I better charge my camera for tomorrow, I will be taking a ton of pictures........Have a great night! :)

Walking and Hampton Beach With Jake

Okay, today was a pretty good day! Despite this cold/allergy thing I've got going on, I met up with my walking group at 9am this morning. I'm really sticking with it. The people in this walking group are very friendly to me and mostly (95 percent) over 60 years old. I think there's one or two in their 50's (I am definitely 100% sure I'm the youngest one there). So anyways, we all get back to our cars at 10am and one of the seniors had a baby stroller dropped off to her at where we parked our cars. So I was talking with some other people and the lady with the stroll asked out loud "Does anyone know how to collapse a baby stroller?" Why, oh why, does 15 senior citizens got to swing around and look at me?? Seriously! I was dumb-founded.....as helpful as I wanted to be, I've never touched a baby stroller in my life. So I raised up my hands and shook my head as in telling them I had absolutely, honestly, no idea what so ever. Hopefully they won't call on me for any other kiddie related questions......dog related I can handle, not kiddie related LOL!

So, my new "walking" friends invited me to play Pickleball with them on Tuesdays and Thursday at 10am.......the day and time is easy for me to do, so I think I'll try it. I've never heard of Pickleball so some internet research on my part had to be done quickly. But it sounds interesting......I'll add a link for Pickleball for those who never heard of this game before :) I think I'll start that next week.....stay tuned for that one LOL!

Okay, so this afternoon I went to the new Market Basket that opened today (this grocery store is a 10 minute drive for me from home - not far at all). This place was a complete zoo today! I'll say it again: ZOO! Two reasons why I knew I was in for it......1) people were parking their cars in the roadway to get into the parking lot and 2) the second my foot tapped that sensor for the door to open, and I entered this mob house, I heard on the PA system that cooked lobsters were on sale for $3.99 a pound!! Lines for people to check out with cashiers were down the aisles........nope, I turned around and walked out. I'll try again sometime during the work week........wait a minute....today WAS a work week!!!

So anyways, the rest of my day was pretty good. I decided to play hooky from class tonight and spend time in this nice weather at the beach with Jake. Yeah, I got priorities :) It was perfect weather out......I couldn't resist..... :)

Walking on the beach.....a picture in front of me.....

Turn around, and I clicked a picture behind me......nice huh :)

There he is! :)

Ohhhhh, we are running everywhere.....

We are having so much fun!

This has got to be my favorite picture of the day....he is soooo cute :)

Ohhhhh, look at all the kites.....

Time to walk back to the car.....

The new concert area is coming along nicely....

Yep, every place is closed up after Labor Day,
but I'm sure they are still open on weekends

So that was my day today! Tomorrow we are going on a train ride in North Conway and I have a poker game tomorrow night, so my blog will be done tomorrow afternoon after the train ride......Have a nice night! :)

Monday....Beginning Of A New Week...

Well, I couldn't think of a solid title for this blog posting, so instead of taking up time thinking of a title, I'll snap off a simple title and put more time into the blog posting itself......Okay, this walking program that's I've joined is really working out well.....today we walked a dirt path over at Lake Massabesic in Auburn, New Hampshire.....it wasn't too bad....alot more people showed up for this walk......very enjoyable. Alot of the walkers (okay, I admit, 90% of them are retired seniors) are warming up to me (being a newbie to the group) and today they invited me to join a few of them at Burger King where they stop after the walk for a 53 cent coffee......I love retirees, I really do. They really know how to get the more out of life with just a few pennies, I'm learning from the best! :)

Anyways, it's getting colder out and I have to get some of my warmer clothes out......I'm always cold, but below 70 degrees, I'm freezing. So I dug out a few sweatshirts, jackets, extra thick socks. I sent one jacket to an alteration place today because the pocket was ripped, I'm really trying to save this jacket. So I was happy when the lady at the alteration place said she could re-enforce the lining, replace the pocket, and clean the jacket for $20 bucks. Jackpot there! :)

This afternoon I didn't do too much, hung out with Jake and got some errands done. It's been a quiet night......I'm going to try to extent my morning routine into tomorrow and go to the gym, the Pandora app on my Blackberry has been a real help to for me with walking and motivation.

Today I got some pictures of Lake Massabesic.........

I hope you had a nice day too.......I'll be back! :)

Walk, more than you Talk OR Talk, more than you Walk

Hi! Getting a little creative with my Titles, huh? :) Anyways, I joined a walking group yesterday morning. They get together ("they" meaning about 12 to 15 people) and this group walks in different areas of this city on pre-designated dates (they got a schedule set up till November) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 9am. I love the schedule and I love the time and locations, but we will see if I love to stick with it after a week LOL! I should, if I stay motivated about it all. And it only takes up an hour of my time three times a week, easy to commit too. Well, the walkers gather together when we first meet up there, but at the strike of 9am, feets are moving.......a couple of people brought their dogs that walked with other social butterflies, these are the "Talk, more than they Walk" batch of walkers, they hang back and consciously talk and unconsciously move their feet, and then up in front of me are the "Walk, more than they Talk", they hit the 4 mph speed and it's a constant cruising speed for them. I like walking between these two groups, this middle group is (what I call) the "Complaining and Gossip" group. This group is just right for me cause the less they complain, the slower they walk; and the more the complain, they faster they walk. I like that group because we've got the switching gears on speed going on and the bicking is right there pushing us along. I love it.... :) Ha!

Some talkers walk, some walkers talk, but we all get the 4 miles done somehow.

Some of the "cruisers" in front of me, I never caught up with them,
they were moving right along.....

Just some pictures I took along the walk.....

 I can't catch up with them.... :)

This bridge goes over one of the streets in the city.....

A better look at the bridge...

It goes over this street called "Second Street"....we are still walking.....

Going over another bridge that goes over the highway
and Merrimack River

Walking over the highway.....follow me :)

Here's the highway.....not much traffic at 9:30am....

Another picture of the highway, I'm trying to take the
picture between the fence links

Now, we are walking over the Merrimack River which runs
along the side of the highway....

There's my big city.....and the Merrimack River...

Need a rest??

Another picture of the Merrimack River....

This is where we turned around and head back to where the walk started...

On the walk back, just snapping some pictures...

I made it home, time to take Jake out, he sleeps late.....

Ready to go now....

"That's what I think about mornings....."

"Okay, I'm ready to go....."

Okay, that was yesterday (or what was suppose to be yesterday's blog posting), but I can clearly see I fell asleep in the middle of the posting because when I booted up my laptop now, two pages were open, editing my blog page and my Facebook page.......no Facebooking, until my blogging is done.....LOL!

Okay, today, Jake and I went to this dog event that was advertised in today's newspaper.......it sounded exciting in the article, but when we got there it was just an outdoor small town dog show......

There's my Jake with the sun in his eyes :)

We watch the dog show from here.....

Oh, a girlie Maltese.....her name (yeah I had to ask twice) is "P2",
maybe it's spelled different, but that's what I heard....P2

So, those were my two days......been eventful but routine.....glad I could share it with ya......got some plans for this week, so check back soon :)