March 26, 2003

Spent the day thinking it was Thursday.  Told Delena it was this morning.  Checked the lunch menu and assured her of hotdogs.  Don't know where I got it in my head, especially since I know I wanted the special extra episode of Scrubs last night.  Oh well.  I guess I'm just... twisted or something.

Took the long walk again today.  I couldn't figure out where to walk (don't picture me standing in the middle of the road, looking fraught, wailing "WHERE DO I GO??  For the love of God, WHERE DO I GO?"  It wasn't like that.   It was more about the complete resistance I have to exercising for reasons I can't figure.  When I was a child, I wasn't a runner, skipper, twirler, etc.  I was a sitter, a reader, a fine motor skills player.  I hated gym class.  It was torturous.  That left me a little chunky as a child, then the summer before 7th grade, I started riding my bike a lot (purely as transportation), which slimmed me down quite a bit.  The next year, I happened on "Lilias, Yoga and You" on the educational station and did that regularly, just because it was fun and felt good.  The least I weighed as an adult was 119 when I was 17 and I looked rather skeletal.  I usually hang out around 135-140 at my healthiest, which was about 15 years ago.  Back then, I ran three miles every morning, setting the alarm for 5am to get up and do it before Paul went to work.  On the weekends, I'd do five.  I hated every step, but did it for 2-3 years.  I looked wonderful, but my personal life was a shambles, so didn't really get to enjoy it.  One day, I was wearing a really old, fraying pair of sweats as I ran and the inner thigh broke through and started rubbing as I ran.  I got a wicked chafe (any of you who have not had this happen might as well group this with childbirth, kidney stones and other things you just can't completely grasp painwise unless you've personally experienced it.  It HURTS, dammit, for DAYS!) from it and couldn't run the next day.  After about  2 1/2 years of rain or shine or snow running, I just stopped and I never did it seriously again.   I would give it a shot for a few weeks at a time starting out slowly and easing into it.  Still hated it.  Hated walking.  Hated everything I've done so far except racquetball back when we could use the military gym.  I also liked working out on the nautilus machines.  Checked into gyms here in the area and (insert maniacal laughter here) while the monthly fees aren't back the hundreds of dollars you have to pay up front are totally prohibitive.  So that's where it is.  I'm still just making my walk home from taking Dylan to school last about 35-40 minutes longer, which including the 10 minute walk to school isn't too bad. 

So today, I wasn't sure where to walk and let Nathan tell me.  He was antsy in the stroller and pushing 30-40 pounds of kid in a stroller is easier if antsy isn't in the picture, so he did better if he got to direct.  He picked some nice routes, but was a slave driver, not taking us home when he could easily have done so.

At one point, I realized how lucky I am to be alert to small, silly things to make me laugh.  I think that came up when we were in such dire digs last year and laughing was about all we could do.  As I was walking (all in residential), I saw an elderly woman drive up, walk up to the door of a house and emerge with another elderly woman (about 70 years old or so, I'd guess) and they got in the car and sped away.  Interesting or ordinary?  Depends on your point of view.  Depends on whether or not you notice that the car they got into and sped away in was an immaculate, snow white 1968 Corvette like the one to the left.  The prestige plate read, "Proud1."  I would think she borrowed her grandson's car, but she definitely knew her way around a stick shift and had no qualms about leaving a bit of tire on the pavement as she took off.  I would love to know where they were going. 

It made me think of an incident last year when I was (guess what?) walking around the block.  Came up to a very nice looking house, magnificent garden, finely manicured, perfectly painted shutters, beautiful wide driveway.  A tiny little old woman was at the bottom of the driveway with a squirt bottle.  She was perfectly petite, snow white hair, lovely little dress, stockings and grandma shoes.  As I powerwalked by, I smiled and said, "Hello."  She scowled, squirted again and said in her little old woman voice, "Fuckin ants."  I thought I was going to fall over into the road.

Two movies on the slate for tonight, compliments of Netflix.  An oldie, "Dog Day Afternoon" and a newbie, "One Hour Photo."  We watched "The Miracle Worker" (the old one, I actually found a movie Netflix doesn't have, which is the new one with Patty Duke as Anne Sullivan and Melissa Gilbert as Helen Keller) the other night and last night, Eric went to pay a bill and a woman was speaking to a salesperson both through an interpreter (whose hand she had cupped in hers as he used sign language a mile a minute) and through a Braille typewriter.  The woman was both blind and deaf and the husband (who was interpreting) was deaf.  They were carrying on their business completely, or at least seemingly unhindered.  The salesperson spoke sign language and it was just flowing.  I love connections that happen that way.  See the movie, see it in action in this time period.

Speaking of Netflix, I come here to pimp it, not just to praise it.  Sage and I decided to get into some affiliate programs to try and get money to keep the site alive.  I wanted to be really, really sure that we only support businesses that we have personally used and love.  Here are the ones we picked.  If you order through any of the banners, you'll be racking up a few cents for Eye on Soaps, where this journal is hosted.  You can click on any of these banners to access the sites.  So here are my faves:

I mentioned Netflix and I really, really, really love it.  Eric and I have been members for many months and Sage was a member even before I was.  You get 10 days free, then it's $20 a month after that.  This is through the mail DVD rental and their selection is way, way too large for any one person to totally peruse.  They have almost everything, including wickedly obscure stuff.   It's a delight to look through their lists.  Before, we would pay $4 or so per new release and three bucks or so for the older stuff from Blockbuster, then usually end up with a late fee tacked on, sometimes returning the movie without even having a chance to watch it.  With Netfflicks, the $20 covers your rental and the postage both ways.  You keep a running list of movies you want to see in the order you want to see them.  They send you the first 3 you choose. When you return one, they send you the next one.  We are in California and I'm not sure where they are based, but when I send in a DVD, I get an e-mail the next day saying they've received it, another saying they're sending out the next one and the following day, I get the new video.  You keep each video for as long as you like.  No late fees.  No hassles.  Just a flat $20 a month and all the movies you can watch 3 at a time.  We've watched SO many movies since we joined.  It seems like there's always a wonderful movie waiting for us.  Also, since we can have 3 at a time, there's no back and forth trying to find a movie Eric and I are both going to enjoy.  In fact, he can have a movie, I can have one and the kids can have one.  It's absolutely great.  Unfortunately, they are only serving the US right now (my son Joe in Canada would go mad with this!!) and they do not have videos.  The little sleeves the movies come in look very vulnerable, but every DVD I've gotten has been in perfect condition.  I am totally enamored with this company and can't recommend it highly enough.

This company is SO COOL!!  They sell a coupon book that has more savings than you can ever imagine.  Almost EVERY fast food chain has 2 for 1's in it and it pays for itself in the first page.  It also has Denny's and other non-fast food deals as well.  Eric and I really like to eat out away from the kids, but as you know, we aren't exactly blessed with tons of money, so this coupon book lets us do so at about half the price.  On the days that Eric can't take his lunch, he save a ton of money by using the fast food coupons and getting two sandwiches instead of a whole combo meal and he is able to actually get filled up more on less money.  The people who we are affiliated with for this coupon book are really super and the customer service is outstanding.  Again, big, big recommendations from me. 

A friend of mine works customer service for GTMPC and always talked about how great it was.  Eric was always skeptical about it being a gateway for hackers to move in on your computer, so I gave it a narrow view until Sage recently visited his sister, Marji and was able to use the program on his brother-in-law, Sal's computer.  Sage was able to access his own computer at home and check his e-mail from a remote location and said it was just incredible.  The company has taken extreme measures to protect their customers and offer a pamphlet a mile long detailing how safe the connection is from hackers.  If you are in a position to use both computer, this will be a miracle for you.

 I am the e-bay queen.  I buy wonderful things for just a couple of dollars and there is very little I can't find with a little digging and a little time.  Since I don't have a lot of money, this is a way that I can have treasures for almost no money.

We have also used e-bay to sell things during tough times.  I am not as thrilled with the selling bit because I find their costs for selling a little more than I like to pay (yard sales are free) and it's a pain in the butt to lug stuff to the post office.  I really admire the people who use e-bay as a business venture because it is a LOT of work.  I use it to find stuff I need and can't find anywhere else.  E-bay is *sigh* just wonderful.  It's like the world's biggest yard sale.

When I first started Eye on Soaps, my son Joe showed me Bravenet and I was hooked.  If you have a website, they are your #1 source for free, wonderful, fun web tools.  They have chat rooms, voting booths, mailing lists, mini-polls, guest books and all kinds of web goodies.  Any time I need anything for the site, Bravenet is the first place I go.  Dave and Brad who run the site are very customer friendly and are constantly working to improve the site and add new geegaws for people like me who like to play with toys.  :-)  It's easy to set up an account, most of their services are free and it's just absolutely the best thing going.  I fully and wholeheartedly endorse this company!

I was very disappointed to hear that MotherNature.com had gone out of business, but lo!  And Behold!  They are back and even better stocked than before!  These are the ultimate source for loose herbs, homeopathic supplies, every kind of vitamin, mineral or herbal supplement imaginable and lots, lots more.  It's like having a natural healing store right at your fingertips.  OK, well, it's exactly like that. . . plus postage, but that's OK.  They have super fast shipping, great customer service and a gargantuan assortment of products.  It's fun to check them out just to look at the cool things they have. 

*sigh*  It's like e-bay jr on permanent "buy it now" status.  Nearly every time I go in there to order a book, i can get it for $2-3.  It's great.

And with that, I must go because the load time on this is through the roof.  There are lots of other great affiliates I will personally endorse at www.eyeonsoaps.com/announcements.htm.  I love'em all.

Night night, folks,
 

Good God, She's Verbose!  There's More!