I Said No… Well, Sorta

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, FoodLeave a comment

Wow, this diet must be really messing with my head because I said no to Taco Bell today.

I went to the grocery store before Darrin came home to buy him some fried chicken and macaroni salad and I also bought him some macaroni and cheese just in case he wanted it.  I also bought some salad stuff for myself.  But when Darrin came home from work he was carrying a Taco Bell bag.  UGH!

So we went in the house and he had 3 of those .99 cent double beefy cheesy burritos or whatever they are called and a .99 caramel apple empanada.  I was going to say no thanks to them all but I just couldn’t.  I only ate 1 burrito and the empanada.  I did say no to the other 2 burritos though.

Well, technically I didn’t say no, I put them in the fridge.  I’m sure he will end up eating them but that’s ok.  I’m ok if he does.

In order for me to be successful with my weight loss I have to say no as much as possible.  I don’t think 1 burrito and an empanada (which is an apple pie) is going to hurt me though.  But tomorrow I’m definitely going to eat a salad and hope that he ate all my burritos hehe.

He isn’t working tomorrow so he can have the burritos for lunch and the fried chicken for dinner (or vice versa) and I’ll just eat my diet foods/shakes.

New Amazon Kindle DX Coming This Summer

On By Michel McDonaldIn KindleLeave a comment

Amazon has announced their new Kindle DX which will ship this summer.  It’s new features are a 9.7 inch screen that measures 8.5″x11″ so it’s the size of a sheet of paper.  Also when you turn the Kindle DX sideways the screen auto rotates very much like the iPhone.  They have also added more hard drive bringing it to 4GB.

Those are some pretty cool features, except that it still is not in color and it still doesn’t have an SD card slot.  AND the price went up from $359 for the Kindle 1 and 2 to $489 for the Kindle DX.

WOW that’s just too much money to spend on something that’s just going to be outdone in another 6 months or so.  When they have their 4th generation Kindle is that going to go up to $600?  So what do people do with their old ones?  Recycle them?  Ebay them?  Or do they just live with it and feel stupid for wasting their money when they could have waited 6 months?

I’m going to wait.

Preoccupied

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I haven’t been blogging the last few days but I’m still here.  It’s unusual for me not to blog since I typically blog 1-5 times daily lol.  But I’ve been preoccupied with other things.

We just had new tenants move in on May 1st and so I helped them carry boxes in the house from the U-Haul truck and I’ve been watching TV.  Catching up on Stargate SG-1 on Sci Fi as usual.

I have noticed some weight loss thanks to my new way of thinking about eating and stuff.  Before I was just riding hoping that would be enough to lose the weight considering I lost nearly 20lbs last year with exercise alone.  It doesn’t seem to be enough now so I’ve been measuring my food and drinking slim fast for lunch too.

I’m afraid of talking about my progress because it seems to never fail, I talk about how much I’ve lost then the weight loss stops completely then I plateau for a couple of months before I give up.

About maybe 5 years ago I was eating nothing but salads and snacking on sliced cucumbers and baby carrots and I remember I was 212lbs and then one day after about 2 or 3 months of this diet I decided to weigh myself and I was 172lbs.  Well from that day forward the weight stayed the same, it just stopped then I got frustrated because I plateaued then gave up and the weight came back almost as fast as it left. That’s because I started bragging about how I lost the weight.

All I’m going to say is that I’m working on it.  I’ve decided that by not talking about it I’m not bragging about it and if/when people come up to me and tell me OMG you’ve lost so much weight I’m just going to say thanks and move on from there.

As long as I’m eating right and not over eating and exercising I think I’m going to do good and lose the weight I need/want to lose then I can get back on with my life.  But not talking about it lol.

Weight Loss

On By Michel McDonaldIn DietLeave a comment

I’m going to be brief because I just took an ambien about 30 minutes ago and it’s kicking in.

Yesterday and today I’ve been following a new way of eating.  Muffin for breakfast (today bran muffin yuck hehe) and slim fast shake for lunch then whatever for dinner.  Tonight we went to Young’s grocery store and got the Chinese food but only ate half of it.  I’m saving the rest for tomorrow nights dinner.

So far a couple lbs lost.  Tomorrow I’m going to ride the bike with this diet and we’ll see how it goes as far as how hungry I will be and how much energy I have from taking Slim Fast Optima.  We will see.

Will The New Diet Stick?

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, ExerciseLeave a comment

Yesterday I went to the grocery store and bought about 10 power bars and 4 tigers milk bars for my bike rides so that should last me awhile.  Well, at least 14 rides anyway.  Actually that should last me the whole month since I ride 3 days a week.  Plus I bought 2 cans of Slim Fast Ultima.

I also bought a box of muffins because they were reduced for quick sale.  It had 2 bran muffins and 2 blueberry muffins.  I ate 1 blueberry muffin for breakfast and a slim fast shake for lunch then nothing all day until dinner time and we went to Que Pasa for dinner where I had a 2 item combo, beef Enchilada and beef burrito with rice and beans on the plate.  Then with my ambien I had a banana.  Food helps the ambien kick in faster.

It seems to have done some good for me because I’ve finally noticed some weight loss on the scale.

While I was at the store yesterday I bought 2 bags of the salad mix so when dinner rolls around I can eat some salad instead of the usual pasta or pizzas that we eat.

It’s time for me to start taking responsibility for what I eat and just say no when confronted with certain foods that I like.  I REALLY want to lose this weight but at the same time all this food is coming at me left and right, sometimes I just can’t say no.

I was going to ride today but my thighs are just in so much agony so I’m going to just stay home.  Our new tenant moved in yesterday and I’m going to help them with the rest of the heavy stuff in the U-Haul.  It rained yesterday from about 3pm until late last night but the street seems to be dry as a bone now.  I was going to use that as my excuse for not riding but frankly I can’t lol.  I’m just going to say that my legs are tired, I’ll do it tomorrow.

Todays Work

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

OMG What a day this has been. Ok so right after I blogged this morning saying what I was going to do I got up and got dressed and got my bus pass and went to the bus stop and as I’m walking towards it the bus going the opposite direction passes me which means the bus I needed to catch already left. The bus I needed always comes before the bus across the street. I look down the street and see it way past the grocery store. All I see is the back of the bus. So I figure I could either sit here for 20 minutes and wait or I can go back home and get on my bike and ride there.

So I rode the bike to the mall. I get to the Sears Key booth which is like a little building a little bigger than an outhouse lol. I hand the lady the keys and say I need 2 copies of each. I wasn’t paying any attention to what she was doing. I pay, she hands me the bag with keys and I get on my bike and head home. On the way home something hits me. The price is like $2.59 for a key (yeah I know, when did that happen?) and she said they had a special buy 3 keys get the 4th free. So I’m thinking great, I’m getting 8 keys done so 2 of them are free. But when she charged me it was like $10 something. I didn’t think anything about it because I’m just happy the price isn’t really high. But as I’m on my way home I think about it a little more and realize that 3 keys would be $7.77 right? I also bought these 2 .50 cent keychains to put the sets of keys on. So I pull over and look in the bag, there are a total of 4 keys in the bag.

CRAP! I gotta go back there. Luckily I hadn’t gotten too far away from the mall so I went back. I got back to the Sears Key outhouse and I have to wait in line because there are now 2 people standing there. I finally get up there and tell her “I said I needed 2 copies for ALL of the keys on this keychain and you only made 2 copies of only 2 of they keys. I need then ALL copied”. She apologizes but of course I get no discount. Whatever. Total I paid about $18 for keys OMG! Good thing 2 of them were free.

So I get back home and by the way that counts as exercise lol. So anyway hehe. I get back home and start right in on my “chores” for the day. I clean the patio which took maybe an hour, maybe 2. I also hose the back yard too because it was dusty. Oh and I opened the side gate and the neighbor used his blowy gardening thing to blow all of our leaves in OUR yard over into a pile. I guess I can appreciate that because I just have to shovel it in to the green can but on the other hand who asked him to do that? When he did that most of the dust and dirt got in my back yard. UGH!

So I’m done with the patio and the back yard. So I go to the garage and start moving boxes in there to make some room for the boxes from the shed. It doesn’t take very long, I had to sweep the inside of the garage first. So then I put the lawn mower and the pressure washer inside the patio so nobody would steal them in the driveway. I then start carrying boxes with the dolly from the shed to the garage. What back breaking work that is especially with all the crap we have. Plus my dolly had 1 flat tire. Just a bike pump doesn’t work, you have to use compressed air to put air in a dolly tire, well at least ours anyway. There is no inner tube, it’s just a tire so the compressed air forces the tire against the metal wheel. But if you hit a bump the air comes out and you are left with a gimp wheel lol.

So I get most of the boxes into the garage and 3pm is coming so I decided to take a 1 hour break to watch Stargate SG-1 and to rest my breaking back and painful heels. When that ended I felt better enough that I could continue for a little while longer. I go back to work and I quit for the day at 5pm so I only had 1 more hour in me. But the good news is that I got about 90% of the shed into the garage. Unfortunately now there is absolutely no room in the garage now lol. That means we gotta really go through our junk and get ride of most of it. Use it, sell it, trash it, maybe burn it lol.

At least I made an easy path to the Christmas tree and the Christmas decorations boxes. Which remind me, I found 2 more Christmas boxes so this year we will have even more crap on the tree lol.

My back and my heels and legs are in SOOOOOOO much pain right now. I need to get to bed. Later.

Busy Day For Me

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I hadn’t planned on doing anything today, just resting my legs for tomorrows bike ride but then something came up.

Our new tenants are moving in tomorrow and there isn’t very much that Darrin can do over at the little house because of his job.  So, he had me go to buy some keys for the new tenants, 2 copies of 4 keys.  That’s fine, I was going to take the bus but I decided to ride my bike instead so I got some exercise in today.

But then he dropped the bomb on me.  Our shed is filled with boxes and furniture.  Well, the new tenants want to use the Shed and Darrin told me that he told them that we have our stuff in it.  I told him in all fairness that shed does belong to that rental so they should be able to use it.  Me and my big mouth.

So, today (right after I click the publish button) I gotta go put our stuff from the patio inside the house then hose the patio and hose our back yard too because our lovely neighbor blew all of our dead leaves from our grapefruit tree all over the place to make a big giant pile for me to shovel into the green cans.  I guess I appreciate it but I would’ve liked it if he didn’t get all the dust and dirt all over my back yard.  Anyway, off topic hehe.  I have to hose our patio and back yard.

While the patio and back yard are both drying I gotta move a piece of furniture from the living room to the bedroom (it’s a dresser and there was a dresser taken out of the bedroom so this is just going to be put in its place.  Then I gotta start carrying the boxes from the shed to our patio which is the space between the house and the garage.

Once all the boxes and furniture is in our patio then I gotta start pulling the stuff out of the garage and going through boxes to see if we need any of that stuff then start stacking boxes from the shed in the garage with our other boxes.  UGH!

I just ate a Tigers Milk energy bar so that should give me a little bit of energy.  Plus I got some coffee already brewed and waiting for me.  I’m taking this time to blog to rest my legs from that bike ride to the mall and back before I start this BS mission lol.

Streakers To Become Sex Offenders?

On By Michel McDonaldIn NewsLeave a comment

Streaker or Sex Offender? Laws Don’t Always Differentiate

Last November 12 college guys went streaking with pumpkins on their heads in Colorado.  I just heard about this this morning on the Fox News channel.  They 12 are facing sex offender status for their antics because they were nude.

Are you joking me?  We are all born naked.  Not one of us is born with a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt saying “I was just in the birth canal and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”.  That is such a joke because there are countries in Africa where people live as nudists.  There are even nudist colonies in America.

What about all the people who are naked on their webcam posing for porno websites?  What about all the people who pose naked for PlayBoy and Penthouse and all the other nudie magazines?  What about all the women who show their tits during Mardi Gras?  Are they going to be sex offenders?

These 12 college guys should have been given a ticket, maybe a few hours of community service and a slap on the wrist and that’s it.  They shouldn’t have to register as a sex offender just for being naked.  They weren’t raping and molesting women and children so give them a break.  It was a college prank for Halloween.

This government needs to lighten up.  They are such tight ass prudes.

Make Your Own Cigarettes

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I woke up this morning to the sound of my doorbell.  I stumbled out of bed and went to the door and there was nobody there.  I said “hello?” and the neighbor kid popped his head out and said “oh did I wake you up?”  I said “yes, you did”.  He said “oh well never mind” I said “wait, you woke me up, what do you want?”  He said “I just wondered if you would do something for me but I know you probably won’t want to do it”.

Kid, if you know I won’t want to do it then why are you waking me up?  SIGH!  – by the way, he is 21 lol I call him a kid because he acts like one.

Anyway, he wanted me to go to the store to buy a pack of Newport Cigarettes for him.  Not just the store next door to my house but the store a block away.  I don’t think so.  It ain’t happenin’.  I told him no because I quit smoking in 1996 and I swore that I wouldn’t go running errands for people wanting to buy cigarettes like I did for people when I did smoke because I’m trying not to support that habit.  Yeah I know, douche ex-smoker right?

So I remembered when we first moved to Bakersfield we met this guy named Troy and he rolled his own cigarettes with this little hand-held machine where he placed a cigarette tube with a filter on the end (it looked like a cigarette but it was empty) and he put the tobacco in the machine and he did a slide motion with the machine and pulled the filled cigarette out.

So I went online and did a search for it and found 2 products.  They aren’t cheap.  I didn’t find the hand-held one but these are still good I guess.  There is the PREMIER Excel Cigarette Injector Machine at Amazon for $34.99 or you can buy it used for $20.  Then there is the Top-o-matic Cigarette Making Machine W/handlewhich is a bit more expensive for $79.99 but you can buy it used for $35+.  I’m sure that any cigarette store sells these for less than you can buy them at Amazon, who knows.  I haven’t been to a cigarette store because they opened right after I quit smoking.

But with these machines you can make your own cigarettes for $1 a pack.  That’s pretty good right?  When I quit smoking the generic cigarettes were .99 cents per pack with tax so about $1.07 total.  Hell when I started smoking in 1985 cigarettes were about $1 a pack for the regular brands.  Now cigarettes are like $5-10 per pack so I think that this is a good thing to suggest to my neighbor so he can roll his own for a lot less.

The reviews that I have read say that the cigarettes you buy and the ones you roll taste about the same.  All you do is buy your cigarette tubes with the filter already on.  Those are about $2 for a cartons worth of tubes which adds up to .01 one penny for each tube with a filter on it.  The tubes w/filters are all different.  You can buy full flavor or lights or menthol or menthol lights etc.

Then you buy your tobacco which is about $20 for a can or bag.  I actually don’t know how much they cost.  I went to PipesandCigars.com and found this one particular brand called Drum and it’s about $21.99 for the can.  I don’t know how many cigarettes or packs or cartons that rolls though.  But you can buy them in your local cigarette shop I guess, they will tell you how many packs you can make with each bag or can.

I am certainly not promoting cigarettes here but I can say that the government is screwing people out of their hard earned money by raising these bullshit taxes for cigarettes and I think that people should stop buying the pre-rolled cigarettes and just roll your own.  It’s time to give the power back to the people and let them decide how much they want to pay for a pack of cigarettes.

It takes less than 10 seconds to “inject” your own cigarette with these 2 machines I linked above.  You can make an entire pack of cigarettes in about a minute or 2.  Hell, you can just roll a whole cartons worth and use the box that the empty cigarette tubes came in to store all your cigarettes then go out and buy a tin that looks like a pack of cigarettes or a cigarette holder like they used to use back in the 20’s -50’s (remember I Love Lucy?  They always had those things).

Watch this video I found.  Oh, it’s not me by the way hehe.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LarY6qeopBY

Edit: I found out that the tobacco to make 1 carton of cigarettes is now up to $29.  YIKES!  But that still beats $45 for a carton I guess.

Hook Worms

On By Michel McDonaldIn Animals, Health, PetsLeave a comment

Well we just came home from the vet at PetSmart.  Our poor defenseless toy chihuahua has hook worms in her.  Poor baby.

The bill was $235.02 YIKES!  But, I guess it’s worth it.  That wasn’t for the medicine though.  The medicine was only $14.  The rest was for all the tests and just to walk in the front door.

Apparently these hook worms live in the dirt and a dog can be walking around in the dirt or even laying in the dirt sunning themselves and the hook worms latch on to the feet and then the dog comes in the house and licks her feet and then the worm gets swallowed.  They drink the dogs blood inside of their intestines.

Here is the link for Hookworms at the Mar Vista Animal Medical Center website.  The medicine that they gave us is called Panacur.  It’s a cheap medicine but it works.

I hate knowing that my dog got this.  I’m going to have to clean out the back yard and just take Flower outside in the front yard with the harness and leash and pick up her poop with a plastic bag for now.  I don’t want her to be in the back yard by herself until I can get out there and clean it up.  I wonder if there is a spray that we can spray on the dirt that will kill all life in the dirt.

I’m also going to have to give her a bath and wipe her paws every time I bring her back inside the house so she doesn’t lick anything that she might have picked up.