Week 14 - broke through the floor

Finally, broke the plateau of 155.5 lbs. that I've been on for over a month, down to 154. I was definitely better about my extra points this week but I wasn't able to nail it down to under 35. With the holiday weekend coming up keeping my extra points to 35 might be a challenge, but it seems to have paid off to at least try.

Here we go.

Pimped up DS Lite

The girl wanted to decorate her DS Lite, so she got a bunch of stickers and she asked for some rhinestones and glue from my craft stash. I suggested sketching out some ideas and layouts but she just yessed me and started slapping stickers on it:

Hmm.

Well, at least it doesn't affect the actual mechanics of the game.

CraigsList got my back

I used to count myself as frugal but despite my best intentions with FreeCycle, I've been struggling with it. For one, I've been impressed/perplexed/disappointed at the frugal Offers: tvs that are "heavy" and need repair, open bottles of Worchesterchire sauce or hot sauce, plant cuttings, pantry foods with "some past the expiration date", etc. Or probably more impressed/perplexed/disappointed that these items are Taken.

Occasionally there are some really good Offers, like a gas grill, tools, chair mat, or sporting equipment, but those go pretty much immediately. It seems you have to be constantly monitoring FreeCycle to snap up a good catch.

Another downside is you can't post pictures because of the limitations of the simple, volunteer-run server. One is allowed to post a link to say, a photo site like flickr, but most freecyclers aren't that sophisticated or want to bother linking a photo of a bottle of hot sauce. This is kind of pain when you're interested in something like a bookcase or table, and you can only go by a description like "white oval table with decorative edging". I can picture a variety of images from classy to cheap to downright cheesy.

And finally, I haven't been able to justify the gas and time to pick up say, old issues of Reader's Digest or that state map of Utah, which kind of defeats the frugality purpose. And frankly, it works against the environmental aim of recycling/reusing with the extra driving.

So though I was hoping to get a bike for the girl from FreeCycle, I decided to go with CraigsList. To me, it still attains my goal of recycling/reusing, plus I can check out the pictures and the prices aren't too bad. Check out this beauty I picked out for $30:

Picked it up and finally (finally!) got the girl on her first bike. The trick on teaching her to ride at a later age of 8 was pushing her from behind uphill so I could keep up while keeping her balanced. But she soon got it on her own...

Hooray!

I'll keep trying with FreeCycle but at least there's CraigsList as a solid backup.

Possibly a plateau

I weighed in at 155.5 again here at the end of week 13. There is a part of me that says I must be plateauing but there is another part of me that says I should be grateful I didn't gain weight. Again, I fell horribly off the wagon, going over by 101 points over the alloted 35. I'm concerned I've become somewhat complacent about the program--I have been consistently going over the alloted extra points (I think there's only been one or two weeks where I didn't) and gotten in the habit of hoping that I wouldn't gain weight because of it. And it's sort of panned out that way, cementing in the habit. On the plus side, I've been consistent on doing 120 minutes of cardio a week. I may have been subconsciously relying on that to keep me from gaining weight. So the new goal is to stick to the points.

Wish me luck.

Save-A-Blade

Until someone pointed it out, I didn't realize that we've bought a lot of stuff off tv. As in "As seen on TV!" stuff.

To our credit we haven't bought everything but enough that folks who visit have remarked on it, like the Table-Mate IIs we have constantly out in the living room. Or the Magic Bullet that we use practically everyday. When I read between the lines of some comments, I hear, I was curious about that product, but I didn't want to be one the suckers who actually bought it.

So I thought, for the benefit of the curious, that I'd try to deliver some reviews of stuff we've bought. As seen on TV!

To kick it off, our most recent purchase: Save-A-Blade.


I didn't realize how much razor blade refills cost until I had to buy them so regularly for Paul (I actually don't use razors myself as I prefer the masochistic options: threading, tweezing, epilating, and occasionally waxing). Anyhoo, it's been eye-opening that these refills cost about (or over!) a dollar each. If it's a brand name refill, Paul says he can get 2 shaves out of 1 refill. Cha-ching! So when I saw the ad for Save-A-Blade, it totally got my attention. At $20, it wouldn't take long for it to make back its money so we tried it out.

The good news is that Paul was pleased that he was able to use a twin blade refill 12 times before he felt it wasn't staying sharp for the amount of time he was running it in the Save-A-Blade. The caveat is they claim you need to start with a new blade and maintain its sharpness rather than try to revive old, dull ones. Paul admits that he was a bit tentative and didn't run the Save-A-Blade as long as he should have in the beginning, but now he feels more comfortable letting it run for a solid 5 seconds as recommended. He does it right after shaving while it's rinsed clean and still wet (as prescribed by the instructions) and I can hear the loud whizzing as he runs the Save-A-Blade on it. Paul also noticed you have to run the Save-A-Blade longer as you try to squeeze more uses out of a refill so he thought 12 was a good point to start with a new refill (got enough re-uses balanced against extra time it was requiring in the Save-A-Blade). He's going to try it next on a refill that has about 5 blades. I'll update if he gets more shaves with this refill, but if we can continue getting 12 shaves per refill, you can color me pleased.

So overall, I give this product a thumbs up. I don't know if one can actually get the "200 shaves from one" refill as promised by the ad, but at the rate we're going, the Save-A-Blade will be earning its keep.

Olympic Spirit

I did this Olympic Spirit layout at Nora's class at the Oasis last Saturday night. I love Nora's style so it was wonderful to get in her scrapping mind and do some layouts.

And speaking of Olympic spirit, how about these Olympic moms winning medals? Did you see that Oksana Chisovitina won silver for Germany in the Vault for Women's gymnastics? 33 years old (about TWICE as old as most female competitors), 5th time Olympian, mother, and competing to honor the country that successfully treated her son's leukemia. She embodies the talent, drive, and passion to be an Olympic athlete and a guiding source of determination is that her "child comes first". And she won silver. And more inspiration comes from Dara Torres, 41 years old, mother, oldest American Olympic swimmer, who retired after the 2000 games and was inspired after the birth of her daughter to compete again. She missed first place by 1/100 of second and won silver in the 50m freestyle, and then later anchored the American Women's 4x100 medley relay to a silver finish as well.

To me, I love when the Olympic spirit comes from the underdog who pulls out ahead on drive and heart. With all due respect to Michael Phelps and his 8 gold medals, I think Jason Lezak embodied the heart and will of Olympic swimming by kicking out that amazing come-from-behind anchor leg on the 4x100 freestyle realy. And frankly, even in that 100m butterfly race where Phelps won by 1/100 of second, was I the only one nearly rooting for Cavic when it looked he would beat the seemingly untouchable Michael Phelps? I could practically hear Do you believe in miracles?! being shouted in Serbia.

And did you see who won Canada's first gold medal for these games? That would be a female wrestler named Carol Huynh, who didn't make the cut for the 2004 Olympic team but didn't quit and focused on making the 2008 team. She upset a world champ (and 2004 silver medalist) who she had never been able to beat. As a daughter of parents who fled Vietnam before she was born, she credits them for not giving up on her dream. Seeing pictures of her crying on the podium was so moving and just capped another amazing Olympic story.

Man, these games are still killing me. I skipped last night to catch up on some sleep but I'm vaguely panicking that I missed something amazing. Perhaps I should DVR the games and get more efficient with my Olympic viewing.

Looking for me?

I'm probably passed out. The Olympics are killing me--by the time they start playing the events "live", it's about 10pm. I've been passing out on the couch despite the near arm-busting antics in the Men's gymnastics parallel bars or the crotch-crunching tumbling on the Ladies balance beam events. Yeesh, these people are tough, tough, tough. Let's face it, a regular person would become disfigured doing this. Are these people made of stone? Is that rubber and steel flowing through their veins? Would they run away from me if I had a chunk of Kryptonite?

On a somewhat different note but related to the post title, apparently googling under "Asian Transvestite" brings folks regularly to my blog because of this previous post. I'm sure it depends on the day, the traffic, and what level of SafeSearch one has, but it would be pretty handy if this keeps up. It's kind of a pain to tell people my blog address because it's so long. So wouldn't it be just great if I could just tell people that they'd find it by googling "Asian Transvestite"? Right now, I'm behind a few folks but if I encourage more people to find my blog this way, perhaps I'd pass the others and reach the top. Eat my dust, Krissy4u and LadyBoy69!