Photos from my phone

My phone takes really bad pictures but I still use it very often to snap photos of things around me. So if you ever see a fuzzy, poorly lit photo you know my Blackberry did it.

I saw the cutest old man at a red light this weekend riding his bike.  He had his safety helmet and vest on.  Absolutely adorable!

One of the biggest rainbows I’ve seen in a long time, it went from the horizon to horizon. Hope you are able to see it in this photo.

I’m dying for these shoes.  They didn’t have them in my size or the color I wanted.  Debating whether or not to pay shipping to order them from the website.  They are a fall must have for me!

My A/C went out the last two days.  Just got it fixed this morning.  Here is where I’ve been camping out the last two nights.  Steve, the A/C guy said some wires were loose because of how a random tech put them together, and of course it wasn’t their company when they came out just 2 months ago, it must have been the tech over a year ago.  That makes sense.  Steve also used my bathroom and didn’t wash his hands and left the seat up for me.  He knew I was standing right outside the door too, at least do it for appearance sake!
  

Loving my little 1 egg pan.  It’s great for making, well one egg, but also to keep it perfectly circular for sandwiches. I enjoyed my low calorie bacon, egg, cheese biscuit for dinner tonight. 
100 Cal Arnolds Sandwich Thins
20 Cal Canadian Bacon
70 Cal Egg
25 Cal low fat Swiss Cheese Kraft Singles
= 215 Calories
That’s pretty pretty good!
 

Family Beach Trip

I can sum up the family beach trip in two words: Ice Cream & Rain!  I normally don’t attend the family beach trips because they are usually just to chaotic for me.  I tried to be a good sport and participate for at least half of the time.  I thought at least I’ll get a good tan if nothing else.  But my luck it rained every day all day.  If it wasn’t raining it was super cloudy and windy.  Apparently the day after I left and every day after the sun was shining.  GRRRRRRR……   despite all the gloom it was fun.  I just wish I had chosen the sunny part of the week instead. 
Here are some of my trip highlights despite the gloomy weather.
 

There was a whole lot of ice cream eating…I ate it every day I was there.

 

 

There was also a whole lot of this…sad little babies.
 

A lot of hat wearing & sharing….

I realized that the older I get the more ADD I get.  I can’t just sit still so this…

lasted about 5 minutes until I was like “ok what do we do now?”  
So I took advantage of all the little kids being around to build sandcastles. So we all built a mega castle with shell walkways and a moat.
          

Then we made a turtle in the sand just for fun.

We also made a lot of silly faces for the camera.  Mainly sad faces because we were hungry and our food was taking forever.   

Family photo time…it was very windy and my hair got a little crazy, frizzy and big!     

Big Hair Nancy
  

 

Callie & Megan BFF!
 

And there was my beach trip!
 

The Highs & Lows

Today was full of ups and downs for me. 

The Highs:
1. Didn’t have to go to work in the morning, slept in a whole 30 extra minutes
2. Free lunch at the Mit Romney Fundraiser that boyfriend’s mom put together
3. Got to see some of my favorite men: Daddy Gene & Gary Larson
4. Only worked 3 hours today
5. Company gave 6 extra vacation days to managers to use this year!!!!
6. Made it to Pilates tonight and the new teacher tonight was awesome
7. No frogs came in my house after me

The Lows:
1. The 2lbs I thought I lost showed back up this morning
2. Ironed my dress and by the time I got to boyfriends house it was wrinkly again
3. Didn’t get to finish my dessert at lunch
4. Horrible traffic on the way home: 1st 10min stand still for construction 2nd fire drill at the middle school on my street had to wait for the ENTIRE school to cross the street!!!
5. Production at work was very poor today
6. The plastic card for the Gym broke off my key chain and I was informed it would be $5 to replace it!  Isn’t my monthly membership enough to cover a replacement???
7. The kitchen sink is full of dirty dishes again, the trash is piling up in the kitchen (missed the garbage man by 2min this morning), where is boyfriend when you need him.  He sure is shirking his household duties. 

Music Monday: Celebrities that put down the scripts and pick up a microphone

Actors are all or mostly talented in the arts.  Other than acting some sing or dance, appearing on Broadway or doing the snippet of song on a movie or TV show.  But then there are those actors who limelight as musicians. Here are my Top 10 Celebrities that can act and sing.

1.  Ryan Gosling – he makes it to the top of the list because he is the most surprising to me.  I always thought of him as this dull actor but apparently he sings, plays piano and guitar and has a fascination with the supernatural, hint hint his band’s name is Dead Man’s Bones.  He has song a little in his movies, mainly Blue Valentine.  Him and his friend Zach have this weird little band that has these zombie like children for a small choir to accompany them.  However his voice is good. 

2.  Zooey Deschanel – Love her!  I first heard her sing in the movie Elf.  I think most people first heard her there.  She plays Will Ferrell’s love interest where they do a accidental duet of “Baby it’s Cold Outside” in the work bathroom.  She is in a band called She & Him, probably because there is her and than this guy.  They sing some pretty catchy songs and do a few well known hits.  I love the vintage sound in her voice. 

3. Robert Downey Jr. – I don’t know if he is still in a band or not, but he did release a CD at one point. I discovered he could really sing when he was on a season of Ally McBeal.  He does this great duet with Sting to “Every Breath You Take” but I couldn’t find a good clip that I could embed in my blog for you to see.  He surprisingly has a great voice. 

4. Leighton Meester – She sings in the movie Country Song and has a very sweet voice, check out her song “Give in to Me” from the movie.  Leighton has released her own pop album recently as well.  I kind of like her voice but I don’t know how well she will do in the music world.  She should probably just stick to singing in movies.  I think she should switch from pop to country music, I loved all her songs from the movie Country Strong, here is one from the movie.
 

5.  Robert Pattinson – He is a singer and the best vampire ever.  He even has two of his songs on the Twilight Soundtrack.  I like his voice it’s kind of mysterious and you would have no idea it was him singing it especially after being well known for soft spoken Edward.  Musician Robert is kind of dirty looking so I prefer actor Robert.  Sorry for the poor video but all the ones of Robert singing were very poorly lit. 

6.  Bruce Willis – I’ve decided Bruce can do no wrong.  He is a great at action and surprisingly very funny!  And he has his own blues band.  Everything he does is just cool.  He may not be the best singer in the world but he sure looks great doing it.

7.  Gwyneth Paltrow – She doesn’t have a band but I really like her voice. Another one from Country Strong movie.  Gwyneth also has sang in a couple other movies and is married to a the lead singer of Cold Play, so maybe he helps her with her vocals. She has some other good songs in the movie too. 

8.  Kevin Bacon – just like Bruce Willis, can Kevin really do anything wrong?  I mean people measure their success by the 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon game, where every actor can trace back to working with Kevin Bacon through 7 people.  Try it, it’s a fun game.  This is also a kind of lame band, The Bacon Brothers, and I don’t think they are around anymore.  But we gotta still love Kevin bacon!

9.  Hugh & Anne – ok these guys are not in bands or think of themselves of musicians (well at least I don’t think they do) I know they both do Broadway, but I remembered this great opening number to the Oscars back I think in 2009.  It’s kind of funny and they both can perform really well.  Hugh also apparently can dance. 

10.  Will Ferrell, Jack Black & John C. Reilly – ok this one is purely for fun.  Jack Black actually can sing and I want to say he does perform, but I really don’t know.  I thought this performance at one of the Oscar shows was fantastic and very funny! The clip ends at about 5min in. 

Favorite Outfits of the Week: Fall is Coming!

 

 

 

No Program Scheduled

We have been deep in that lull of summer TV.  You know what I’m talking about.  All your regularly scheduled shows are over and their reruns are now primetime.  And there is only so much Keeping Up With the Kardashians, reruns of Seinfeld and Sex in the City I can handle.  I just flip from one rerun to the next.  Luckily Netflix Instant Play can provide some relief to this reoccurring ailment we all suffer with year after year.  I’m not talking about watching movies.  I’m talking about watching TV series on instant play.  Sometimes you are not in the mood to commit to a 90min to 2hr movie, but you can commit to multiple 40min episodes.  That is when you flip on your laptop and see what Netflix has for you in the TV category.  I have several suggestions to help with your summertime TV blues.  And if you have already seen these shows they are almost so good you could watch them again. 

If you have some time on your hands or just like routine, these are some great TV shows you may have missed when they originally aired or couldn’t keep up with. 

I remember when Ally McBeal was on TV.  I don’t remember watching all of them and I also remember thinking it was kind of weird with dancing babies and imaginary visions always appearing out of the main characters neurotic world.  But now I think this show would fit in fine with television today.  It’s funny, dramatic and witty.  I don’t find the dancing baby weird at all now, well maybe just a little.  This series has it all with a lot of interoffice romance and crazy, quirky court cases.   

I didn’t watch this at all when it originally aired on USA.  I discovered it recently and loved it.  Tony Shalhoub is hilarious as an OCD detective. He solves all his unique cases and does it with a nerdy flare.  It is kind of depressing at times because in his spare time he obsesses over his wife’s unsolved murder and is terribly lonely without her. 

   Bones is still on TV, about to go into I think the 6th season or 7th, can’t keep up.  But I love this show.  Dr. Temprance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist/novelist who helps FBI agent Booth solve his murder cases by studying the bones of the corpses.  This just isn’t any old murder mystery show, there is of course underlying tension between the two main characters, will they ever fall in love?  Plus also what all good TV shows need, interoffice romance. 

If you can’t commit to 5 plus seasons of endless episodes?  Here are my favorite shows who’s lives were cut way too short.  Why do the good always die young?  With only 2 or 3 seasons to watch these are the top contenders. 

Veronica Mars is yes a teen show off the CW.  But it’s worth it.  Who knew Kristen Bell was sooo witty and funny, love her!  Her dad in the show is an ex-sheriff now private investigator and she has picked up a few tricks of the trade to help solve cases here and there for her school, classmates and random town’s people.  But the biggest case she is trying to solve is the murder of her best friend, with the wrong man behind bars. Being outcasts in her own school because her and her father suspect the family murdered her best friend, she has a lot of enemies.  Most of all it is just fun to watch her spin off a quick witted line. 

  I never heard of this show when it aired, but it is just full of whimsy and sweetness.  Ned has a unique gift of bringing things back to life after they die by touching them.  But if he touches them again they will be dead again forever.  His childhood sweetheart is killed and he accidently touches her at her funeral and he can’t bear to touch her again so he let’s her live.  He teams up with a local private eye to touch murder victims to tell them who they thought killed them.  The whole show is part reality part fantasy world.  Has a little bit of a Dr. Suess feel to the town. 

   Not sure if this show was canceled after 2 seasons, maybe it will reappear again.  This is a off beat comedy about a work place. No it’s not copying The Office.  The boss isn’t the wacko, its all the employees this time.  Ted is a normal guy in middle management trying to deal with all the interesting personalities that work at his very unsympathetic corporate office.  Very funny show, I hope it comes back for more seasons. 

Feeling Nostalgic?  Watch one of these great classics available!  There are so many I couldn’t list them all. If you have Netflix check out the instant play shows to fill in for the next month until the fall line up starts. 

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Target why did you do it????

I am a person of many pet peeves.  One of them being when companies think they need to give their websites facelifts.  I hate it.  Nothing works right when they do that.  I can’t navigate it like I used to and it just doesn’t make sense.  If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  When my bank decided to redo their site it was so fancy with flash my dinky home laptop can’t even access it, I can only pull it up from my work computer. This issue has led me to start thinking about leaving my bank after 12 years of being a loyal customer, all because they decided to go fancy.  Well now Target did it to me.  They went and made a new fancy site.  I can’t seem to figure out where to log in with my Amazon account anymore.  I tried logging in saying it was a target account and it had me reset my password but none of my information is stored, no past orders or receipts, no credit card info saved, nothing.  Why did they do it, WHY????

Pumping Iron

I’m at the point in my health regime that I’ve hit a plateau.  I’ve been told by all the work out gurus at my work that I need to start focusing on less cardio and more weights.  However recently when I would lift weights at the gym I would get a little light headed. It wouldn’t happen all the time, just when I would focus on more weights over cardio. I thought this was because I was not eating enough potassium in my diet.  I had read that low potassium can cause muscle weakness.  My Fitness Pal says I need 3500mg a day!  I say this is IMPOSSIBLE!!!  there is not enough food out there with high potassium and if I were to reach that target everything I ate would have to have high potassium levels.  So I did what I do best and ignored this and ate what I wanted.  Then I started reading about Iron. 

Apparently 80% of the world has an iron deficiency making it the #1 nutritional disorder in the world!  The recommended daily allowance for adults between the ages of 19-50 are:  8mg for men & 18mg for women (unless you are breastfeeding then only need 9mg which I find interesting, but if your pregnant you need 27mg) Without enough iron you will have low energy and immune system is compromised.  Also the more you exercise the more you are at risk of not getting enough Iron into your system.  Your body loses iron through sweat and exercises uses stored iron to get oxygen to your muscles. 

Now I need to figure out what foods I need to eat to increase my iron intake.  But there are foods that can reduce your bodies ability to absorb iron, such as tea, coffee, bran and dairy products.  After researching the top foods rich in iron, I soon realized I’m most likely part of that 80% because I rarely eat the food or want to eat the food on this list.  Also some of them are very high in calories.

1. Red Meat – HORRIBLE for a low calorie diet
2. Egg Yolks – the worst part of the egg
3. Dark Leafy Greens – I can do this I love spinach
4. Dried Fruit – usually high in sugar
5. Iron rich cereal/grains – once again got to watch the sugar and calories on cereal
6. Mollusks – I do love scallops and oysters
7. Turkey or chicken giblets – I don’t even want to know what a giblet is
8. Beans, lentils, chick peas, and soybeans – I’ve been wanting to incorporate more beans into my meal plan
9. Liver – NO WAY!
10. Artichokes – this is not very practical to eat on a daily basis

Also eating a lot of food with vitamin C will help your body absorb the iron in the foods you eat.  I’m going to put my focus on eating more beans such as chickpeas (hummus) and grains (flax bread).