A lie? From a corporation??

Date: 2011.10.26 | Category: Random | Response: 0

Say it ain’t so! And before we go any further, let’s leave the moralizing about it being Wal-mart and OMG HOW CAN YOU SHOP THERE!!!!1eleven!! elsewhere, shall we?

Wal-mart has a “Match it!” commercial that’s been getting a lot of airtime lately. They’re trying to pimp out their price matching policy. It is, for the most part, a decent policy. Until you try to use it to price match something on their website with the same product in the store.

I’m trying to lose weight. We all know that. So I’m looking for more accoutrements to help in that quest. So I went in search of said items. I found this item on walmart.com. It’s a good setup. I talked with a friend who’s more fitness-minded than I am (HI, MATT!) and he said it’s a good gateway price and to go for it. So I trekked on down to my local Ghetto Wal-mart and found the item on the shelf. I took it to one of the price-check scanners, and it said that it was $21.37. Not a terrible price, but not the $15 it was advertising online. So I took it up to the service center and asked the guy behind the counter about it. He said that they don’t price match any websites. “Even your own?” I asked incredulously. “Even our own. It’s stupid, I know, but they won’t let me,” he said. So I trekked my happy fat ass back to Sporting Goods, put it back on the shelf (because I was taught to put things back where I found them, and I worked in retail long enough to know that it’s a raging bitch to have to put stuff away after rude customers have just left them wherever they want), and left the store, fuming.

Incidentally, I did check the walmart.com Ad Match Guarantee when I got home, and it does state that they don’t match Internet pricing. I can see that, when it’s from some other company, but to not match your own site? REALLY?? Why would you do such a thing? I can buy it online for $15 and have it sent to the store for pickup for no cost in shipping. How does this make any sense at all??

FFF: Have you seen my motivation?

Date: 2011.10.26 | Category: C25K, Fat Family Fitness | Response: 0

I’m still not doing any exercise. I need to figure out how to motivate myself. It’s… suckful, not having the motivation I need to keep going on this. I hate it, and I know that I’m only five weeks from the JBR.

GOALS:

1. I need to do more Wii Fit stuff. I mean, seriously, I’ve got the indoor activities at the click of a Wiimote. Why am I not using it? Because I’m fat and lazy. Ta dah!
2. I need to find out if the parks nearby have any jungle gym equipment. Again, get off my fat ass and walk over there. There are two parks that are 3/4s of a mile from me. That’s a 10-minute walk. Hell, I can take the dog. She’d probably love a good long walk like that. Maybe. Or she’ll hate it and poop on the bed.
3. I need to find out if the nearby high school will let me run on their track. I have the number. All I need to do is call them. I was told that, since they’re public structures, I should be able to walk or run on the track any time. We’ll see.
4. I need to come up with a body-weight workout. Fitocracy has easy tracking stuff on the site. I could rack up metric assloads of points just be doing some easy routines. I need to figure out what I could do. Stuff like push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, stuff from elementary PE classes. It’s not rocket science.

This shouldn’t be tough. I just need a kick in the ass.

We’re not going to discuss food yet. One giant hurdle at a time.

How do you keep motivated to work out and/or eat better?

Mirrored from Fat Family Fitness

Really, Etsy? REALLY?

Date: 2011.10.10 | Category: Random | Response: 0

Say what you will about Regretsy, sometimes they do more than just mock things that deserve the mockery. Such as this little gem.

I have a lot of friends who are independent artists. They work their asses off, and very few of them get the recognition they deserve. When something like the above happens, and a company like Etsy sides with the art thieves instead of the original artists? Yeah, that’s not cool. Not one tiny fucking bit. All of you who are touching yourselves in googly, glitter-covered awe over Etsy need to pay attention to this thing. Etsy doesn’t give two shits about the actual art or the ethics involved with some of the “artists” on their site. If they did, they’d take action against that kind of bullshit. Only, they won’t. Why? Because they’re only interested in getting their own money and not about the integrity of the business. Like any other business.

FFF: Return of the Diva

Date: 2011.10.09 | Category: Fat Family Fitness, Running | Response: 0

Tomorrow, I start back on C25K. I will run in the Jingle Bell Run if it kills me. Which it won’t. And I’ll do it solo, since it doesn’t seem that neither the Princess nor the Drama Queen are going to be joining me. That’s okay, though. That just proves that really, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I am the best.

Of course, I’ll be hitting up folks who want to sponsor me in the 5K. I’m poor and am gonna be lucky if I can afford the entrance fee.

THIS WILL HAPPEN, PEOPLE.

It sucks, though, because The Mom and Big Daddy were gonna try to be there to cheer us on, along with The Leon. We were also gonna see if Roller Boy and Jan Brady were gonna come along, and maybe have a family Christmas a little early. That’s okay; if they don’t want to be skinny and be awesome and have family time, I’m okay with that. I’ll carry the burden for the Fat Family.

mirrored from Fat Family Fitness

It’s like Amish magic!

Date: 2011.10.06 | Category: Random | Response: 1

Sometimes, the silliest things make me happy and proud of myself.

Far and away, my most important super-power is shopping. I don’t mean that I can spend money with the best of them. No, I mean that I can find the perfect gift for anyone, and I can find it at phenomenally low prices. I knit like a fiend, and I’m damn good at it. As well, I’m learning to spin, and I can get pretty damn good singles. I’m also learning how to cook, and I’m learning how to make foods work better for our diet.

Tonight, though, I made butter. Yes, much like the argument Muggles use when I tell them I’m knitting socks, I know, I can get butter at [insert grocery store here] for blah dollars and not have to worry about making it. So very missing the point, darling. I took a quart jar, poured in a pint of heavy cream, screwed the lid on, turned on Castle, and started shaking. By the end of it, I still had what looked like some sort of goo. So I started up Body of Proof. Fifteen minutes into it, I looked at my jar. There was starting to be clear spots in the glass. I watched it while I shook it. All of a sudden, *POOF*! SOLID STUFF AND BUTTERMILK! Holy SHIT, I made BUTTER! I was skeptical, but by the Blessed Saint Elsie (the cow from the Borden logo — whose husband, incidentally is Elmer the Bull, from the GLUE FACTORY! SICK MOFOS!), I HAVE MADE BUTTER! I feel all Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

Yes, I also know that people have been making their own dairy products for millenia. However, this is the first time that I did it. By myself. I feel like the Amish have been hiding their little folk magics away from us on purpose. Just mark this up as one more thing on my Skills List for the Zombie-Pocalypse.

Cafe Writing: Seven Things

Date: 2011.10.04 | Category: Cafe Writing | Response: 2

Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.
~Carol Bishop Hipps

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me seven of your favorite things about Autumn.

1. Flannel sheets: Oh my god, I love the day that we take off the cool cotton sheets and put on the fuzzy flannel sheets. Just the act of climbing into bed, into the natural warmth of them, makes me all cuddly-feeling.
2. Hot chocolate: I’m not a coffee person. It’s too bitter for me. I love the smell of it, but the taste is yucky for me. I do, however, love hot chocolate, so much that friends and family get me flavored syrups and odd hot chocolates when they see them.
3. Tea: I know that a lot of people drink tea year-round, but I’m not one of them. Tea, for me, is something for the colder times of the year, to help warm up, to help calm down, to help with the nesting and hibernation at those times of the year.
4. Soup: I love me some soups, and, much like tea, I don’t do a lot of soups in the warmer months. Something about a big bowl of homemade creamy cheesy potato soup with homemade bread means that it’s getting colder.
5. Changing of the leaves: I lived in California for seven years. The only times it looked like the hills and/or woods were on fire were when the hills and/or woods were actually on fire. In the midwest and the great plains, where I was born and raised, October looks like the world is on fire. There are as many shades of red and orange and yellow in a Wisconsin woods as there are shades of green in Ireland.
6. Samhain: Witch’s New Year. It’s a time for reflection, for honoring the ancestors, for amazing ritual, for sharing loss and stories with coven and circle and grove, and having friends and family to help with the pain of loss and helping you to move a little farther away from it.
7. Halloween!: Gayest. Holiday. Ever. And yes, I mean that strictly in the most positive sense of the word. I love the candy, the costumes, the awesomeness.

Take up the challenge at Cafe Writing.

Return from Brigadoon

Date: 2011.09.21 | Category: Random | Response: 1

To be honest, I feel a little lost. It was an absolutely amazing week, and it just confirmed to me that I will never be the Workshift Coordinator ever again. Met some amazing new people (and one in particular — you know who you are). Had fantastic, transformative magic run over and through me for an entire week.

And now, that time is past again, and I have to dwell in the “Real World” (and, really, the only reason that it’s the “real world” is that there are more people living here than in our community). My re-entry started while I was still high on that energy from Between the Worlds and then quickly bottomed out as I found out that a job that I really wanted was given to another candidate. It was absolutely devastating for me. I tried so hard not to get my hopes up for it, but evidently, I didn’t try hard enough.

Part of what sucks about this is that, for the last 18 months, my entire identity has been about me being in school. Now I [get to/have to] re-invent myself in order to have an identity in the “real world” to which people can respond (i.e., “What do you do for a living?”). As if I’m living to work, not working to live. Whether or not I have a job, I have a career and it’s what I do.

So now begins the Job Hunt. It’s the most demoralizing, hateful thing in the history of ever. All most people do is bitch about having to go to work, how much their jobs suck, blah blah blah. Well, the alternative is to not have a job, and in this shitball of an economy, perhaps you should STFU about your “shitty” job or give it to someone who would appreciate having it.

I don’t want to go back to temping. I’m better than that. I want a real job with real benefits. Temping… sucks. I have never gotten paid what I’m worth at a temp job, and the agencies and clients treat you like you’re slave labor or some kind of leper. It’s shitty to get through a day with nobody talking to you, because they all know that in a week or two, you’ll be gone.

I hate the depressing whininess with which I’m dealing right now. I’ve fucking AWESOME at what I do, and I hate like crazy that employers are such shit right now simply because they can be. And I don’t know how to fix any of that.

Shameless Self-Congratulations

Date: 2011.09.07 | Category: School | Response: 2

So, I graduate on Friday. I’ve gotten all A’s in the last 18 months, with the exception of one B. I’m pretty proud of myself. I knew I was going to graduate with honors. I found out today that they’re rounding my 3.98 GPA up to let me graduate Summa Cum Laude. Yes, it’s just a community college, and yes, it’s just a technical degree, but it’s a ridiculously awesome achievement.

Go me.

Clothing Makes the Man

Date: 2011.08.30 | Category: Random | Response: 1

Also? Tell me I can’t rock the glitter out of a vest.

Twelve Days

Date: 2011.08.30 | Category: School | Response: 0

My schedule for the next twelve days is… a little tight and frantic.

8/31 – 10am Interview (my second!) // Work until 3:45 // 4pm Internship final project
9/1 – 1pm Class (Last COMM200!) // Spanish presentation
9/2 – 10am-4pm Work (last day!) // Last Publisher lesson due

At some point over the long weekend, I’ll probably be getting together with a group of classmates from Spanish to study.

9/6 – 2pm Spanish final // Last Quickbooks lesson due
9/7 – Quickbooks and Publisher finals due
9/8 – 12pm Get my final project back and get my grade for COMM200
9/9 – 10am Graduation!
9/10 – Load the BTW truck
9/11 – Head to Wisteria // Set up BTW // Begin the drinking debauchery Bible Study Naked Gay Pagan Camp PANTASTIC PANGASM!