I'm starting to track my food intake and calories, calories from fat, fiber, and protein (when I know or can estimate them anyway; half of dinner last night was impossible to do that for). They're really long private posts on my LJ, with me rambling on about analyses, and I can't imagine anyone else being interested in knowing every single detail about everything I eat during a day.

I'm already seeing a disturbing trend: eating reasonably, except not enough fiber, throughout the afternoon, then blowing it all off the scale with dinner. That's trying to eat somewhat sensibly. I'm getting a little too much fat (not stupid high amounts though, actually, and most has been unsaturated rather than sat. or trans.). I'm getting way too many calories for my activity level, height, age, gender, etc. I'm not getting qoite enough dietary fiber.

I'm going to keep this up for a week, maybe two, then think about getting a recommendation to a dietician. I'll have all that detail ready to give them, which might help. At the very least, it has identified trends in just two days, with the potential for revealing more to me, so it's been useful. I don't want to be a constant calorie counter, but I do want to see where I can make changes. I should start bringing veggies for an afternoon snack to go with an afternoon granola bar (Kashi, not Nutrigrain, so reasonably healthy), and I must stop eating so much for dinner. By, like, half. That's with the exercise I'm currently doing. If I bump it up noticably I could add a wee bit back.

I can't say I've never been more disgusted; after all, we have two cats. However, this was pretty awful.

Remember those bugs (white flies or aphids, not sure if I ever decided which) that showed up on my newer snapdragons? I thought I killed 'em. Even checked a few more times to make sure. Well, I dunno if I was just myopic or what, but I was wrong. Badly. I looked at the pot in good sunlight this afternoon while watering all my indoor plants, and the most robust of the plants (longest branches, biggest leaves) was absolutely covered in them.

So I'm going balls out, and very well may include buying a pack of GPCs and boiling their contents in some wate for their nice bug-deadly nicotine. I took it outside, put it on its stand up against the house (outside so as not to poison the cats, on the stand so the critters don't eat the plants, and against the house so it's less likely to tip). Then, I took my spray bottle I was using, and made a soapy water solution. I dripped in several drops of lavendar essence as well, hoping maybe it'll be poisonous to bugs since it's poisonous to animals (including humans). Hey, if it isn't, it smells nice. Swirled that up some, then just doused the everloving hell out of everything.

The grossest part was looking at my left hand after the initial dosing. Since they'd grown up & over the side to get to the sun, I had to lift it up to spray the underside. I glanced at my hand, and it was coated in brownish white bugs. Ugh. So I slid a bunch more off some leaves with my right hand, then rinsed both under the hose. Lather, rinse, repeat 4 more times. The bugs are just that thick. I can't do that so easily on the little leaves or stems, for fear of damaging the plant, but I must've slid off several hundred of the sumbitches, all in a soapy mess. Then, since that probably removed much of the solution, I resprayed a bunch.

All I have to say to those bugs: It's on now, bitches!

I think I got into the phase where I didn't feel like writing anything (well, I did, but it was too much effort). Plus I occasionally had the vague undercurrent of "no one wants to read about my boringass, relatively drama free life anyway." That's probably still there, and just me being silly anyway.

So, I'm making myself write something here to get back into the swing of things.

Uh, let's see. What all has happened in a full week? Or more than that, since it's been longer than that since I made a "real" update. Let me see if I can make a bullet point summary, then perhaps touch on a few things more in depth. I may or may not be able to get these all in chronological order.

Summary

• Had my 29th birthday
• Went to a big birthday bash on Saturday for lots of August birthdays that was a ton of fun
• Came down with a cold that made me miss another workout class Monday night and work Tuesday
• Started helping stolenmilkcrate with a web project (*hugs* to the Jen!)
• Got to catch up with my sister Monday evening while she was in town
• Got Brennh to level 57, 2/3 of the way to 58, in WoW

Skip the rest if you don't have some time to sit down, hehe.

Birthday ramblings

My birthday brought some fun. The Sunday before J and I went to my parents' house to have dinner with them and my grandfather. My sister and I always get to pick what we want, so I decided I wanted porterhouse steaks 'cause it'd been ages since I'd had any. Mom got 'em at the meat market in Ferguson for half what Schnucks charges, and that's the meat market's everyday price, no sale, and it doesn't get fresher. Ooh, good stuff. Had that with fried noodles and salad plus some wine.

VS had sent me 2 rewards cards, one for the month of August for birthday buyings that was $10 off anything if I use my VS card, the other was one of their routine Angels cardholder specials, which was a free cotton panty (five color choices) plus $10 off any VS Angels bra. So that Sunday during the day J and I went up to Jamestown Mall so he could go shopping for me and I could use my cards.

They have a corset cami in their catalog I want that kinda needs underwear with it to not look weird, but I'm not spending the $28 or whatever for the matching thong 'cause jiminy that's too much for such a tiny piece of fabric, when the cami's only $38. So in addition to the free panty and a strapless Angels bra that'll fit when I'm back to a 34C, I bought 3 silk panties. Was gonna get just a black one to go w/ the cami, but they were $14 apiece or $30 for 3. So... yeah, picked out two more. Plus an impulse short slinky thing. That ended up taking up almost all of one of the birthday checks I got later in the evening (got one from my parents, one from my grandfather; while it may not be as fun not to unwrap boxes with pretty paper, it's much more practical that way ). I'd also gotten a "La Redoute" catalog in the mail, which I'd never gotten before, and which had awesome stuff for really, really good prices (100% silk sleeveless top for $20). So I spent the other check on stuff from there, half of which is backordered, the other half of which arrived yesterday. Wearing the sleeveless cotton top and matching snap-close cardigan right now, actually. (The Cardigan is too warm for outside summer weather, but it's perfect for the icebox that is our floor/wing at work.)

I got two awesome Get Fuzzy collections from J, the first of which I've already finished and the second of which I started the other night. Pplus we went out to dinner a couple times. That Saturday we went to the India Palace, an awesome Indian food place. I'd been introduced to it when it was one of our contractors' last day and that's where he picked, and the lunch buffet was oh-so-tasty. So we went to dinner where it's all menu, and our waiter to really helped us out on ordering 'cause we didn't have a clue. That was yummy, but rather pricy. Probably will do lunch buffet more often than dinner, but we definitely want to go back. Then, on my actual birthday we went to Cannoli's (Italian place close to us that we go to a lot). We'd already spent on a "nice" dinner so I didn't want to do that again two days later.

Party on Saturday

This was a party with the group of friends that includes (only a small subset here) mladyjade, ceraunnos, retropixiechic, and kinje. A shitton of us have August birthdays, and we went both last year and this year to a place downtown called the Downtown Cantina. Good Mexican food, good margaritas (a wealth of choices), and wonderful people running it. They shut essentially shut it down for us like they did last year, and it was good fun once again. J even went this time. A big, big plus was that we also got to celebrate the union of mladyjade and suthainn which was made official on the previous Wednesday, and those few of us who hadn't met the lucky groom yet got to do so. They make the perfect couple, and I wish them many long years together, till they're old & withered & still yet gaming together.

It was a rocking party, and I hope we keep having 'em every year. There were thankfully no medical implements given as gifts, though there were rather a few amusing greeting cards, and hilarious antics.

Sister catch-up

We finally got a chance to sit and chat for a while, and it was nifty. She's absolutely loving her job at the emergency vet clinic, no burnout in sight and thinking a regular vet office would be like watching paint dry. She's gotten a few nice sized raises plus a promotion as well, which means she can start saving for that distance learning vet tech certification as well as not have to work the whole weekend anymore. It's amazing to hear all the things that go on in a vet clinic, particularly of the emergency variety. Also, it sounds like she has a neat house she and her BF are renting this year. It's 100 years old, and amazingly they haven't had any major issues directly related to that fact. Others, yes, but when does anyone get to live in a rental property and not have any problems whatsoever, right? She sounds incredibly happy, and that's awesome.

Web project

I don't wanna go into any details here yet, 'cause it's not even half done. However, I have to say that Jen is so incredibly easy to work with and that's just so awesome. I've never done this before, i.e. done any web stuff for someone else in any kind of large scale, so this is exciting and I'm very happy I get to use my skills to help out. One of the few ways I actually can help in a concrete way over Teh Intarwebs.

WoW

I'm starting to get to the "big kids" content now. If it weren't for the fact I still have a bunch of quests I want to get out of the way first, I probably could've started in on a few Dire Maul groups (at least the easier areas), maybe some Blackrock Spire raid questing, etc. etc. Through the kindness of guild/GoG folks I got 2/3 of the BoE Beaststalker pieces, then J found the belt up for< 100g so he snagged it & CoD'd it to me. I need another level before I can start the upgrade quests to turn 'em into Beastmaster. I have done the first couple legs of the Onyxia chain though, which J helped me with last night. It starts killing shit, then you get a few legs (dunno how many yet) of "take this note to this person over in this other city" stuff, which I only did one of before I went to bed. I need to go tame a few other beasts that'll teach my kitty things she doesn't know yet, namely claw and stealth abilities. Plus, I need to spend time talking to basically the GoG's "lead" hunter (best one we have, she rocks) about talent points and kitty talent points, since I don't know what's worth spending on and what isn't. Well, for Brennh I have some idea, but for Pele I'm not sure, and you can't get 'em all at least at the highest skill level 'cause they only get so many points to allocate. I'm clueless there.

I wasn't keeping up with all the spam sitting in my MovableType guestbook blog... it wasn't getting posted, but it was sitting "pending". All 800+ spammy posts from the last two months or less.

Yeah, that many.

So I'm going through and finding any where some came from multiple IPs (literally half came from two different IPs alone, with only the last block differing) and just junking the rest. It's a very slow process, and it is making me tired. Plus it's wasting time I'd have otherwise used much more constructively. The only reason I'm doing it is because I got a non-spam entry, and am getting an Internal Server Error when trying to rebuild the pages. Nothing's in the error logs, so I'm hoping it's the sheer number of pending comments that it's choking on, since it's not the MTPaginate plugin that's causing it -- I made a template that just spits 'em on one page, which takes less CPU cycles & memory than a paginated template, and it won't build either.

Bleh, spamming assholes.

I haven't actually posted one of these in quite some time, though I have remembered a few mornings to weigh myself. I've kind of tapered off, just from not having time or not making time. Anyway...

Weight as of August 8, 2006 @ 6:50am: 139.2 pounds.

Weight at Dr. Novinger's office (new general doc; went there for my hand & wrist pain) as of August 3, 2006 @ 2:30pm: 146 pounds.

Also, I forgot to toot my own horn a bit a couple weeks ago. Two weeks ago Monday, which would've been July 24, I was running too late due to work to make my workout class (didn't make it that Wed. either ) so I did a workout on my own. I spent about a half hour or so doing body toning class exercises, mainly abs, plus I used the exercise machine to do the not-hurting-my-wrists equivalent of pushups. Then, I spent a half hour on the treadmill. I hit and sustained 3.8 mph! Sounds slow to you, but remember that this is walking, not jogging or running, and that I only have a 27" inseam. Most I've ever sustained till that point is 3.5, maybe 3.6. And, I did this for 14 minutes of my 30 minute workout. I averaged 3.5mph including a smidge at or under 3mph at the beginning and ends as quick warmups and cooldowns. That's walking 1.75 miles in that time. I'm quite jazzed about that, seeing that it'd been at least 2 months since I'd last done any cardio to speak of. My heels didn't bug me either, that night or the next day.

My left eyelid on the outside corner is twitching. It started last night around 9ish, and it was with me when I woke up. Not a big deal healthwise; it's just a tic. Damn if it isn't ridiculously annoying though. There isn't any getting used to it either.

Also: worst coffeemaking experience evar. So I'm pretty tired today, and I went for some coffee. The other pot was low, and the full one had enough room for that coffee in it after I was done pouring mine. I poured the low one into the big one to make fresh in the now-empty pot, as one's supposed to do. I got the filter ready, poured water from a gallon bottle into the pitcher with the line on it, etc. etc.

I forgot to put coffee in the filter.

I had put the filter back, then gotten the water. My mind was tickling me that I wasn't quite ready to pour the water yet, but it was a fleeting thought and someone else who'd come for coffee had been nice enough to lift the little lid thingy off the spot where the water goes in. So I just poured away. Then I had the fleeting tickle again, and it was confirmed as I saw slightly yellow water running into the pot. *facepalm*

Of course, more people had to come in for coffee, to get in the fridge, to use a microwave, etc. Who immediately saw the predicament. It eased the embarrassment somewhat to hear a couple of them say, "It's happened to all of us." I just couldn't imagine this being something others had managed to forget, but I guess it could be. I mean, when making coffee, who forgets the coffee, right? But there it was, and there I was waiting for all the water to run through so I could pour it back into the pitcher, put actual coffee in the filter, and start it going the right way.

If I'd been awake enough not to make such an error I wouldn't have needed the coffee, right? *sigh*

I wasn't sure who to call about the road construction issue, so I looked up Florissant's website. I called their public works department, and explained the situation. It turns out Lindbergh is a state road and managed by them, and Florissant Rd. is a county road. She said I should try the state first, and gave me both the state number and county number.

I called the county number, gave a quick explanation and the guy knew exactly that intersection, knew about the construction, and said "Oh yeah, I know what you're talkinga bout. I'll take care of it." That was it.

Hopefully that means we won't have a month of having to go straight or right and turning around, just to go left. As bad as that left turn can be in the morning, somehow in the afternoon that lane is often even longer with people wanting to go that way in the afternoon around, oh, 5pm or so. I can only begin to imagine the hell that would be if people can't even turn left there. It'll be bad enough with the arrow, since that single right lane that's left open will back way the hell up with people wanting to go all three directions, but without it would be a nightmare.

They've completely bollocksed up an intersection with construction, and done nothing to give a workaround as would be normal.

See, I live on a little street off a road called Florissant. It's a fairly decent sized thoroughfare, and it connects to an even larger street called Lindbergh. Florissant runs north-south, Lindbergh runs southwest-northeast there (it goes north-south a bit later, but up in our area it turns and heads in a somewhat easterly direction, thus it crosses Florissant and other north-south streets).

They've been working on Florissant for a while now, mostly on the shoulders but some in the outer lanes. It's two lanes each way, and in the stretch they've been working on there's no middle "suicide" lane. So it's been one lane each way. Last night coming home from work the barrels were moved and it was through both lanes both ways. "Yea!" I thought. Heh. Until this morning.

They're switching things so they have the outside lanes open. The problem? Where northbound Florissant reaches Lindbergh, there are three lanes: left turn only, straight-or-right, and right turn only. They have the left turn lane completely inaccessible, and the middle lane the barrels stop just short enough to get two cars in it at the end.

The problem? The left turn arrow only comes on if someone triggers it by being in the left turn lane, at least X amount of time (15 seconds? 20? not sure) before Florissant is going to get its cycle. If no one's in that lane, there is no left turn arrow. There's no green left turn yield, and the middle lane specifically has a straight arrow only. Once the left turn arrow is gone, it goes yellow and then red, and that's it.

This means no one can, right now, make a legal left turn onto Lindbergh from Florissant. At all. The best anyone can do is go straight to the other side, turn around in the Jiffy Lube parking lot, and come back out to make a right. Of course, that means waiting for another light, because by the time you get turned around Lindbergh has the green lights, particularly SW-bound Lindbergh, and you're not necessarily going to have a break in traffic enough to turn on red.

Did I mention pretty much everyone wants to go southwest in Lindbergh in the morning commute?

Yeah. So I need to figure out who to call, to either get that left turn lane accessible, or to get the lights to not wait for the left turn lane trigger to get a left arrow. Since the girl at the middle lane with no left turn signal, sat and stared at the light completely, not going anywhere (I presume she wanted to make a left and was confused, but couldn't be arsed to use her signal) even to go straight to turn around, I ended up making a right since SW-bound Lindbergh had the left arrow, going down to the next street, and turning around there. No way that should be SOP for this construction, given it's likely to be in this state at least a month if the other construction is any indication.

I had no idea there were people espousing using mothballs in the gas tank for better performance. Fortunately, the car talk guys thoroughly debunk the idea. Remember folks, just because it burns doesn't mean you should put it in your gas tank.

If you've never gamed, maybe if you've never played WoW or another MMO of some type you might not get this. However, I found it quite amusing.

Posted by ladyriv and originally available from this page on LLBBL.com.

Meatloaf cake, with ketchup glaze and mashed potato frosting. So very clever! (No, J, I don't want one. )