Age 2

Mint Green Jawbone Up

I have been entertaining the idea of purchasing a health gadget since the release of the failed first version of the Up and after the Nike Fuel Band. I’ve been reading reviews of the *new* Up, the Fitbit, and the Nike Fuel band. The Up and the Fitbit had the best reviews and after reading about Fitbit users having trouble keeping the clip on their person (the FitBit band is schedule to be released later this Spring) and the Jawbone’s array of colors, I chose the Jawbone. So far I have not been disappointed.

One of the things I love about the Up is the fashionable aspect. It comes with clean brushed steel ends and the band comes in a variety of colors. I happen to really like this Mint Green color.

I also really enjoy the App. It’s very user friendly and has a lot of helper hints that pop up when you first use the app. From the moment I pulled the Up out of the box to the time I had it synced to the app was about 5 minutes. It has great, easy to follow directions and using the Up is super duper easy.

So far I’m tracking my sleep, exercise, and the App has a great program for tracking food intake (you can actually scan bar codes and it adds that food into your log). Even if you cook a lot it doesn’t take too much work to add the individual ingredients into the App to calculate calories. It also calculates far more than calories. As you can see below, when you manually input a food it asks for all sorts of information. I’ve rarely had to input food however, as the bar code scan and the food library has THOUSANDS of entries! It’s truly brilliant.

More than just calorie counting

The analysis of my sleep was the most interesting to me. It shows how many times you wake up, your varying stages of sleep and I found it to be incredibly accurate.

Sleep Tracker

I have to admit, I love syncing the Up to my phone several times a day to see my progress.

(Continued Feb 14, 2013) After using the Up for a few weeks I’m still loving it. I’m not loving my will power, but I am loving the Up. The Up battery is supposed to last for 10 days, though, to keep it charged I’m plugging it in about once a week. It only takes about an hour to charge fully and it charges via USB.

Up until this point (pun intended) I haven’t done much to alter my diet or exercise. I’ve been tracking my baseline, which isn’t TERRIBLE, but it isn’t great either. One of the features I love the most are the comparison graphs. You can choose from at least a dozen points and compare them in side by side graphs.

Comparison Graphs

All in all, this is a fabulous gadget and seems very hardy (four weeks later of wearing it 24/7 and it’s still like new).

I’ve also learned that I eat too much saturated fat and sugar and I sit around too much (which I knew already) but the Up has a fantastic feature. It NAGS me. Like my mother. When I’ve been sitting for too long it vibrates as if to say “Hey fat ass get up and walk ’round the house a bit.” Also, I love the satisfaction of seeing the Calories Burned far higher than the Calories Consumed.

For me the Up might be the weight-loss tool I need. With a price tag around $130 it’s cheaper than Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, or a personal trainer and it completely satisfies my inner nerd.

“So God made a Farmer”

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say,’Maybe next year,’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse with hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, put in another 72 hours.” So God made the farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to yean lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the leg of a meadowlark.”

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and brake, and disk, and plow, and plant, and tie the fleece and strain the milk, . Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says that he wants to spend his life doing what Dad does. “So God made a farmer.”

However, the closer the country got to the presidential election, the more crap and anti-Obama propaganda came into my mailbox and inbox (I wish I had kept some of it for examples). I honestly could not believe so much of my membership dues were going to this stuff. What about the great education, youth, and women’s programs? That’s where I wanted my money to go!

Almost every week I was receiving some sort of Anti-Obama fear mongering piece of snail mail and at LEAST 5 emails. Even now, two months after the election I receive 2-3 emails a week from the NRA  (and I hit UNSUBSCRIBE on every single damn one of them).

Long before Sandy Hook, I had decided to let my membership expire, however, after Sandy Hook you couldn’t PAY ME to become a member ever again. The response the NRA had following the shootings was disgraceful and frankly, as illogical as a fairytale story.

The amount of NRA rhetoric that has been repeated by politicians has me wondering how much money goes to put words into the mouths of those on Capitol Hill. In 2012 alone, the NRA spend over 2 million in lobbying efforts and over 1 million in political contributions and over 18 million in outside spending indirectly supporting politicians supporting the NRA and directly targeting politicians that do not support the NRA. I personally, find these numbers very conservative considering the Washington Post recently reported that the NRA spends over $240 Million per year.

As a gun owner and hunter, I am not opposed to gun control. Guns are weapons that are used to kill and should not be taken lightly. Which is why I am completely for gun education and any legislation that keeps guns out of the hands of unqualified people. The crazy thing is, if you ask any gun enthusiast they will say the same thing. “Guns are dangerous and not everyone should own them.” Yet somehow, when it comes to discussing gun control legislation the NRA has all of their members so terrified the government is coming to take their guns, they just parrot the same old NRA rhetoric.

I’m not buying it and I’ve been privy to all the awesome anti-Obama fear mongering THUR COMIN’ TO TERK ER GERNS propaganda.

I am a gun owner and I refuse to be bullied by the NRA.

Goodbye NRA.

2013 is a year of transition. It is said that the Mother energy is coming to Earth and this planet is about to start a new several thousand year cycle. 2012 was so god awful, 2013 has to be better. In fact, I’m going to make sure of it. So I’m making three resolutions, three promises, three goals. Whatever you choose to call them, I’m stating three things I want to change.

1. I want to lose weight. I don’t care if it’s 5lbs or 50. I want to weigh less/have smaller measurements, be a small size this time next year. But I want to keep my boobs. I want to keep my fat boobs on a smaller body. (I mean… if I’m wishing, go big or go home amirite?)
2. I want to be in a better place. This means spiritually, emotionally, financially. I want to be happier and more stable in every possible way.
3. I want to explore my spirituality. This means going deep in to woo-woo territory. I’ve never been Christian and I’ve always been a bit of a hippie. This means exploring my gift of giving readings and to stop being scared shitless when I dream about dead people talking to me. Often people with anxiety are gifted and they don’t understand what is happening to them which causes the panic attacks. By exploring this I’m working to achieve #2 and #3 which will in turn help #1.

All three of these goals are linked. If I succeed and make progress in one aspect I will succeed and make progress in all three which will lead to a happier me.

2013 is the year of happy.

Grocery Shopping

My Facebook feed is filled with weddings, engagements, awesome job offers/acceptance, cross country moves, amazing European travels and I’m here… not blogging because my life is so mundane.

There are two clichés that come to mind: Good things come to those who wait and Good things come to those that work their asses off.

I’ve done both. Which is correct? There’s another school of thought that states: All in good time.

Well guess what? I’m ready to move on. Three years of treading water and I’m ready to move on. I’m ready to start the next chapter in my life.

So I decided to make an opportunity. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I do know social media and I can teach it to others. So far, I’ve had zero interest despite posting the fliers around town. Short of taking an expensive ad out in the local paper I’m stumped.

But here’s my course of action…

Over 6 months ago I got a job as a front desk receptionist. The job was supposed to be temporary while I found something else. I interviewed for a few really awesome opportunities, but 6 months later and I was still earning $10 in a job where I was taken advantage of and my accomplishments were met with criticism instead of praise. I came to the realization if I didn’t like the job I could quit. So, I did. (Of course, once I gave notice I was the best thing ever and could I please stay? So I’m still working 1-2 days a week as needed, but whatever). I felt really guilty for awhile, because so many people are struggling for work and even if I’m making peanuts for pay and undervalued, at least I have a job right? WRONG. Just because the economy is crap doesn’t mean I have to put up with a crap job. I decided to start my own Web Consulting business. I live in an area that does not have a great presence on the web. The small businesses are struggling with this “Internet stuff” and I believe I can offer my expertise to help them. Now I’m the woman with the business plan, the pricing structure, but no business name.

Identity is something that I’ve struggled with personally. Who am I? What am I doing? Where am I going? How do I label myself? Even this blog has caused some inner contention because, while being an advocate or “agvocate” am I really an ambassador for ag since I’m removed from the farm and don’t even work in the industry? I still ask myself that question and have considered changing my .com to something else. But what? I have no idea. The point is, now I have to come up with a BUSINESS name. Which is a necessary piece to a business (shocker). Amazingly, enough I can’t really *start* a business and get clients without a name. Small things depend on it, like a domain for a website, a social media presence, business cards. You know, all those things that MAKE a business a business.

So Internets, I turn to you. Help me create a business identity. Below is a poll with some suggestions people have given me.  I’m partial to “Shiny Consulting” as I believe it gives a positive professional vibe while satisfying my inner geek with a shout out to Firefly. Almost no one will get it, but it gives me a little bit of pleasure.