Well, I have officially been working out for a week now. Yay! It's been hard, and today I just didn't feel like going to the gym. But I forced myself and while I didn't feel great afterwards, I felt satisfied that I had gone.
But I have to admit, I kinda hurt everywhere. My legs, my arms, and hey I have abs under the fat! How do I know? Because they friggin' hurt.

I'll Procrastinate Tomorrow.....

So I have been having a Hell of a time getting motivated this past week. I do my to-do list and then I ignore it. I think about writing and then I don't. I organize my books then don't crack open one. I find myself in front of the TV a lot watching nothing. And it's no mystery why. I'm like this every time Jason heads back out West. The first 7 or so days I feel like I'm in the twilight zone and don't know what to do with myself. Today I actually got 7 out of 15 required blog articles done. And I did 3 yesterday so I'm slowly snapping out of it. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get even more writing done. Hard to call yourself a writer if you don't write.

Sparkling Water why have tho forsaken me?

I love sparkling water and I always have. When I was younger anytime we headed across to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick I would never buy canned pop. Why bother when I could get the bottled stuff at home? But there was no sparkling water on PEI. Anywhere. So I’d always load up on that.
When they made the decision to sell canned and plastic bottles on PEI I jumped for joy not because I had a fetish for cans, but because finally my precious sparkling water would be sold here. No more rationing it out. If I wanted some all I had to do was hop in the car and drive to Sobey’s. Or so I thought.
I refuse to eat or drink anything with aspartame or sucralose in it. Both are poisons linked to a slew of medical problems. No thank you. But it seems that that is all they put in sparkling water now. Which sucks for me. I hunted high and low last night for sparkling water without artificial sweeter. See, I’d rather be over weight than embalmed with chemicals. I finally found one lone bottle of peach flavor at Shoppers. I gleefully snatched it up and took it home with me. Now I just have to make it last. Cuz God knows when I’ll hit the Mainland again.

Cancer sucks

Say it with me. Puff out your chest and scream it as loud as you can. Whisper it if you want to. But say it, verbalize it with me. On the count of three. One, two, three: CANCER SUCKS!
If cancer were a person, I’d kick it in the shin. I’d spit on it. I’d give it the biggest wedgie ever. I’d make sure no one played with it and that it never got invited to any parties. I’d make it my mission to make cancer’s life miserable.
In the past two years my husband has lost four family members to cancer: his mom, two uncles, and most recently his maternal grandmother. He also has an aunt battling cancer. On the 7th of this month we got the call that his grandmother was near the end. So Jason flew home from Alberta on the 8th. His grandmother hung on until the 16th. We kept constant vigil over her, only leaving the hospital to rush to Wal-Mart and buy new clothes. We slept in the room or in the TV lounge. We sponge bathed in the washroom. We sat around with aunts and uncles and reminisced and got to know his grandmother a bit better. We cried when she finally passed, but we were relieved also. Cancer no longer had her.
Cancer has been a constant in our life. An unwanted friend who just shows up even though no one wants them around. The drunk uncle falling into the tree at the family Christmas party. The guy on the subway who stares at your boobs.
So every day from now on I’ll wake up and be glad that I did. And I’ll say my own little mantra, cancer sucks, taking away a bit of power from it. Making it a little less scary.

Would you like some honesty with that spam?

Okay, today I have to bitch just a little bit about something I'm running into when applying for writing contracts: scams. It's frustrating and I just want to grab a hold of the people running them and beat them over the head with my Webster's Thesaurus. Usually when you read the advertisement for freelance writing gigs you can weed out the ones that are just looking for you to do some free work for them. But Monday I applied for a job for an on line car magazine. A few hours later I got an answer back stating they LOVED my work and could I go to their website and fill out an application? Now, this is an actual legitimate thing and I've had to do it a few times when applying for other contracts. But when I went to the link I was sent to, I was redirected to a sales page about downloading a tool to add "bling" to my toolbar. At first I was confused. Then I was mad. I mean, it doesn't take hours and hours to applying for a contract, but it does take some time and thought. I have to word my cover letter and decide what writing samples to send. And besides, it's just wrong. A few others were taken in by this too, being directed to different sites. I figure buddy was doing two things: one, collecting emails for further spamming and two, getting paid for redirecting folks to various sites. So while I was wasting my time applying, time I could have been writing, I was making him some money. And the kicker? When I emailed him about the job I had to jump through hoops to prove that I wasn't spamming the account. Now how's that for ironic?

Will write for food

So, I went to the gym yesterday. Yay for me! Of course, being me I did the usual and started off way to hard: 20 minutes of cardio and an hour long strengthening class. Felt tired and sweaty but great after. This morning in bed I went to turn over and the pain in my arms woke me up. Quikcly followed by the pain in my neck, legs, tummy, back and bum. I guess it's what you would call a "good" pain. Uh huh. So I think maybe I'll go a little slower and skip today's planned hour on the eliptical machine. Maybe a walk will do.
After being unemployed for several months,and desperately not wanting to get back into customer service, my loving husband had a suggestion: why don't I write? I was like, okay, but I'd like to make some money. And that was when he introduced me to the wonderful world of freelance writing. I figured what the heck? I did some research and started applying on the 30th of April. I was aiming at my first contract in the first two weeks. Well, I was up and writing by the 1st of May. It's not a huge amount of writing or money, but with one more contract like this, I will be making what I was when I left retail. And that's pretty sweet. Plus, every penny I make puts us closer to Jason not working out West anymore and us in our very own home. Plus, I love it. So far anyway. I'll keep you updated.

False positives and sore boobs

So, you may have noticed I was gone for a few days. Kinda weird to start a blog then stop writing after two days, eh? Well I received a nice little email from the fine folks at blogger.com letting me know that I had been shut down on suspicion of spam. Well, I was a bit confused to say the least. So I did some reading and it seems their spam "robot" (their words not mine) sometimes flags real blogs as spam. It's called a "false postive". How cute. Anyway, I emailed them that I was a real person and back up I am. 'Nuff said.

So, I joined a gym. Again. I swear, this time I'm actually going to go more than twice. I have an appointment this morning with the trainer so that I can get a program set up without killing myself. See I tried running a couple of months ago and dicovered somethting very important: fat girls shouldn't run. Along with the sore boobs, I ended up running too hard and pulling the tendons in both knees. Not fun when you live in a basement apartment. Anyhoo, I decided I do need to get in shape and lose some weight ( okay ALOT of weight) so to the gym I go. I'm letting you guys know this because I figure the more people I tell, the guiltier I'll feel if I crap out and stop going, right? Or else I'll finally learn how to lie well.

Canned pop and the end of the world

Okay, so the big day is fast approaching. The day most Islanders have been waiting for. Canned pop is arriving. Yes, folks, canned pop. Now, I'm not a big pop drinker, so I wasn't all whoohooo! when the announcement was made that yes, we would be getting canned carbonated beverages back on PEI. But some people were estatic. Giddy even. Yet others have been bitching non stop about the demise of the glass bottle. Why the big hoopla? The environmental implications? Well some folks are concerned that most of the cans will end up in the trash. The measly five cent return on a can? This is being touted as the reason the cans may end up in the trash. The new deposit cost on other beverages like bottle water? Some people are upset, but hey, I like my tap water. But the real stink, my friends, is over taste. Some folks absolutely HATE the taste of canned pop. Others love it. Personally, I'm a bit curious as to how they'd do in a blind taste test. See, it's all about mind over matter. You think canned pop tastes funny, therefore it does. Here's an example: the first time I went to make chili for my husband, then my boyfriend, he was very clear that it had to be made with "real" beans. By this he meant beans in a bag, soaked over night, and cooked for about 6 days. Now, most of my cooking involves the microwave, so this whole bean thing was a bit of a piss off. But love is stupid so I followed his directions. He loved the chili of course. He also loved the chili the next two times I made it. With canned beans. Oh the trickery. I had previously learned this little lesson and felt I had to pass it on to him. Plus, soaking and cooking food? No freakin' way.
As for my mind over matter taste test, it was served on a pile of fries by my mother. I was a Heinz ketchup girl when I was younger and wouldn't eat any other kind. After I went away to university and complained about the cost of dear old Heinz, my Mom 'fessed up that I had been having no name ketchup for years. She just poured it into a Heinz kethup bottle when I wasn't home. Mind over matter. So you see, bottled or canned, it's still pop. And it's still bad for you. So skip it and have a big ole glas of tap water. You'll thank me later.