The weekend is here! (Now get to work…)

I’ve got a lot of work to do this weekend.

I don’t want to say that I slacked off on writing over the last week, but well, I slacked off on writing a lot over the last week. Instead, I spent two or three nights solid getting caught up on multiple episodes each of Dexter, Bored to Death, and Accidentally On Purpose, so I suppose that’s an accomplishment of some sort and at least the DVR isn’t as full as a result. The only one that I’m still behind on is Dollhouse, but at this point I think it might be best to leave that one until next week…

You also may have noticed over the last week that I’ve started blogging a bit again here. I’m not really happy with how few posts I’ve written in my personal blog this year and I know I’ve already made several posts like this aiming to change, but hopefully this time will be a little different. My goal is “several” posts a week going forward – some big, some just with links and whatnot – but I’d like to get back to where this blog is more than just an archive of my witty, 140-character banter from Twitter if at all possible.

Plus, I’m getting to a point with my writing projects where I’m about ready to start dedicating more time to actual writing content (as opposed to website development) for a while, so with any luck, the extra writing all around will help to lubricate my creative juices. The more I type this, the more I realize that I actually have a lot to talk about – here’s to hoping that the eighth time is the charm!

Daily Tweets from Twitter…

  • 09:07 First the AC is clogged, then Internet access down, too – AWESOME way to start the morning! #
  • 15:13 "the place get so crowded that nobody goes there anymore!" <— the kind of logic that graces the Tampa Tribune’s comment section #
  • 15:47 RT @sacca: Supercuts is a lottery that normally pays 3x your original bet. But, when you do lose, it costs $19, and all of your self-esteem. #
  • 17:09 Last chance to not forget, folks – October is still Breast Cancer Awareness Month! (tinyurl.com/ygv4gwk) #
  • 23:41 Fun Fact: In 1983, Ronald Reagan had Jelly Belly jelly beans stowed o
    n the space shuttle Challenger as a surprise for the astronauts. #
  • 23:42 Trick or Treat, SPACE VERSION!!! (Thanks, History Channel’s Modern Marvels!) #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
Follow me on Twitter as ssevener

of writing and rejection

Granted, I haven’t even submitted my work anywhere lately to allow myself the opportunity to get rejected, but this was a good read from Merlin Mann about the business of writing nonetheless. Good batch of real-world encouragement…

Writing and Rejection
http://www.kungfugrippe.com/post/227019965/writing-and-rejection

“Write for yourself, get good, and be a grownup. That’s step zero.”

Vacation Teaser Photos

I’m a little behind on putting photos up, both from the cruise we went on almost two weeks ago now as well as from our anniversary spent over at Disney. Well, between the two trips we took a whopping 1,072 photos, so it’s still going to take a while once I finally do get around to them, however in the meantime here are a couple of my own favorites…


awesome night view of Downtown Disney’s West Side from our room at Saratoga Springs


daytime view of the resort


a nice view of Downtown Tampa on our way out to sea


the prettiest beach I’ve ever seen, near the Mayan Ruins of Tulum in Mexico


amazing view of the mountains pulling out of port in Roatan (Honduras)

Daily Tweets from Twitter…

  • 13:02 It seems weird that they sell Guitar Hero at 7/11. #
  • 14:37 Gotta love it when you go to a website and can’t find the specific video that is set to auto-play to turn it off… 🙁 #
  • 17:44 It’s a tense day here at Kentucky Fried Chicken, or Kentucky Grilled Chicken, or whatever the hell they’re calling it these days. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
Follow me on Twitter as ssevener

Then again…

…how am I supposed to “diet” when I know that just an hour’s drive away at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is this incredible, calorie-busting Butterfinger Muffin … or cupcake … really, with that much sweetness, it doesn’t matter what you call it anymore!


courtesy of The Disney Food Blog

Be sure to click through to the actual post for more pictures of the actual dissection – I think I’m getting a sugar rush just thinking about it! So much frosting…

Coming to Terms with Eating Less

Yep, we’re going to try this one more time…

As much fun as it was to throw caution to the wind on our cruise and show no qualms about eating pizza and brownies at 1:00am before bed, now that we’re back on solid ground and my sea legs (and “vacation brain”) have had a chance to dissipate, I suppose it’s time to get back on the wagon with the whole weight loss thing one more time. Frankly, I kinda gave up about a month ago, and even before then I haven’t had a good, solid month of regular workouts since the springtime, but ultimately as the holidays and thereafter New Years approaches, well, let’s just say I’d like to at least have some progress on this one when we ring in 2010 in a short while.

So for starters, this week I’m focusing primarily on counting calories. I know that I tend to eat larger portions than I should, primarily because I’ve actually been gaining weight lately, so I’m tracking everything on SparkPeople now again and I know that it will help put things back into perspective. Sure, it’s a bit of a pain in the ass to stop and do the math before eating a meal, not to mention taking the time to enter everything into the website either before or after, but all in the same I can still vouch that back in the day when I actually was making progress with my weight loss, counting calories made all the difference because it really helped to not only quantify my workouts, but also reinforce them by showing how easily a 30-minute workout could go to waste by binging on potato chips afterwards!

I still need to work on some various menus that I can eat for my different meals to take out the guesswork and help curb that last-minute desire for fast food that I fight when I don’t have everything already planned out – I think this helps a lot, too, because otherwise I find that it gets really easy to get wrapped up in what sounds good and forget that I’ve got a target to stay under by the end of the day. I also need to work at incorporating more fruits and veggies, and less sodium into what I’m eating, however just for this week, I think just getting back into the groove of tracking everything and also doing my best to stick more or less to my calorie limit are enough challenges for one week…

…which is a good thing because next week I want to start going to the gym again and boy, I can already tell that that’s going to kick my ass something fierce! I tried going for my 5-mile loop around our subdivision over the weekend and didn’t realize just how quickly the slacking can build up … I only made it about halfway before I had to call it quits that time, which kinda sucked. If there’s one thing that I’m definitely not looking forward to, it’s that two or three week period of getting used to exercising again where you have to re-teach yourself that exercise is for your own good and you will feel better when all is said and done! Up until then, it’s all battling procrastination and sore muscles, but that’s a blog post for another day. J