Posts by: Kashmere Designs
I am finally going to purchase an iPhone4! The future is now! I am so excited just waiting on some things to pan out and then by the end of this week I should have the phone that everyone has or wants. I know nothing of the capabilities of this phone, so please comment, and leave me some tips, and suggestions on some sweet “apps” to download. I am going to addicted to it I just know it already!
Next on my to-do list…find an IA group (iPhone Anonymous)!
“Once upon a time Martians and Venusians met, fell in love, and had happy relationships together because they respected and accepted their differences. Then they came to Earth and amnesia set in: they forgot they were from different planets.”
Click here to visit the Book’s website.
I read this book years ago. It was interesting to learn a little about the opposite sex. Although even after reading this informative and creative book I was still just as perplexed about men than I was before I read it. I have concluded that no matter how much time one invests in understanding the dynamics of a relationship one cannot even come close to unlocking the secrets of a perfect union between two people. It really boils down to experience, self-confidence, and the ability to be able to have a “give-and-take” outlook on life, love and the pursuit of happiness.
Overall, it is a decent book, but I wouldn’t recommend reading it in the hopes that you are ever going to understand the opposite sex or in the hopes that after completing the book you will land a significant other that is, “the one”.
This book, by TL Hines, was an interesting and quick read. His first novel delivers an interesting story, and a thrilling end.
The main character in the book, Jude, gains some sort of ability to see into the lives of those he meets just by a brief touch. He gained this ability through his many near death experiences, with each experience leading up to the main experience he has in which he solves a major abduction case in the small town he moved to for peace and quiet.
With the help of a woman which seems to be nothing but a fan, or to him a stalker, he finds out that the trusted sheriff of the town is actually the one that has been abducting, torturing and killing children in a radius around the small town, but now within. Jude has an ex-wife and a son that he does not see much since developing severe anxiety and being so withdrawn. After his brushes with death the breaking open of a case so big involving innocent children, Jude comes out of his years of withdrawn and obsessive compulsive disorder-ridden life and emerges a new man left to appreciate his life, and the lives of his loved ones, and makes amends with his estranged father as well.
Click Here to Go to the Author’s Website!
Month 3 of P90x finally came and went, so overall I have shed a little over 20lbs in just 3 months. I have gone down two pants sizes, two holes on my belt, and one shirt size. I really should have taken beginning measurements and I highly recommend it so you may see your progress, but I did not. I drastically overhauled my diet as well. I cut out most the things that I was eating that were not good for me, including eating out a ton. I did not deprive myself though and I think that was the key to my success.
Here is what I have been eating for lunch and sometimes dinner for about 3 months, and at first it was not something I looked forward to, but now that my taste buds have been acclimated to food that is good for me, it is something that I look forward to!
P90x was a great way to whip me into shape! The workouts gradually step you up to more difficult and challenging exercises throughout the weeks and constantly keep you on your toes. Just when you feel you have finally mastered everything, the program takes a turn and you are on a completely new set of workouts. I built muscle that you can actually see, and feel. I feel stronger; my knees are not hurting anymore, my right shoulder, which was weak when starting feels better than ever.
Now after completing the workout I continue to lose weight because the muscle I built during all the workouts needs more calories to maintain. This does not mean that I am done, but I am rewarding myself with a short break then, it is time to get back at is again. I plan to repeat the program once the weather breaks a little (it is really hot right now), as I like to take the workouts out on my deck and complete them outside, and I like to add jogging in and quite frankly right now it is just entirely too hot for that! I am not however rewarding myself with food. Yes, I have the occasional drink, dinner out, or guilty pleasure, but I have lost the urge to overeat. I am fuller much faster, not because of starving myself, but because I am putting good food into my body that burns like a hot coal in a fireplace rather than putting junk food in that burns so fast like throwing a paper into an already burning fireplace.
I hope that my experience with losing weight has inspired you and you strive to get off the couch or from behind the computer (after reading the things I am writing of course) and do something good for your health. Do not make it about wanting to please others around you, instead do it for you!
This past week I finished all three books in the Hunger Games Trilogy. What an amazing set of books written by an equaling amazing author, Suzanne Collins. What soon will be (in less than a year) adapted as a movie, the books met and surpassed my highest expectations.
Recommended these books by a friend and co-worker I was eager to get started on what would be a very graphic journey into this new world in the not so distant future. She actually lent me the first book in the series, The Hunger Games, in paperback. Here is a little background on The Hunger Games, the location, the premise behind it all.
“In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. However, Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival.” Continue reading »
I just finished Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilberts (Thanks Rosemary for letting me borrow this book almost a year ago. I have been reading it off and on throughout the past year. I tried to parallel my own experiences with karma, yoga, and other spiritual journeys with what she experienced. I am convinced however, that I in order to really get outside of your own head, a physical journey is almost required. Just the act of leaving the familiar, and going somewhere far away and unfamiliar, leaving all your issues and everyday worries behind seems like it would be cleansing, and at first scary, would turn out to be very worthwhile. It is hard to move on from feelings that hold you back in life when constantly surrounded by the stimuli that cause those feelings.
Not all of us can afford to leave for a year and go on a spiritual journey, but I highly recommend, no matter the amount of daily duties, or others you are obligated to, to take time out, if not daily, weekly for yourself to reflect on your thoughts. Exercise or meditate (if you can), or just exist and do absolutely nothing, no matter how foreign it feels.
I took away from the book the notion that you cannot fully love, or be love by another person until you love yourself. Loving yourself, well easier said than done. You have to purge yourself of guilt, the past, your faults, and accept all the negative things from your head into your heart giving those things a place to call home, and when they are out of your head, they are no longer bouncing around in your head, terrorizing you on a daily basis. Filling your heart with love and invariably light, and then inviting the “darkness” into your heart, only then is it consumed by the light. For a while, kick everything out of your mind and give you a chance to focus your thoughts and calm your ever-constant fluttering mind. You may just find things out about yourself that you never knew before. However, you move those thoughts from head to heart is yours to discover. Meditation, yoga, or spiritual journeys (physical and emotional), just to mention a few are all ways to get you started.
Whatever path you choose I wish you luck. I hope to forge ahead into the unknown finding my own path to spiritual enlightenment, and peace within.
Click here to View my SWIM FOR MS PAGE
I am completing 12 hours of swim time by June 17, 2011, but I need your help. For every minute/hour that I spend swimming, a monetary donation must accompany that for it to count towards my goal. My goal is to raise $250.00 to provide a Cooling Vest to someone that has Multiple Sclerosis.
Most of us look forward to summer, but someone with MS the increased heat and humidity can cause their symptoms to flare up, a cooling vest does just what it sounds like based on its name, it helps the person cool down!
Please donate if you can! There are many ways to donate.
- Donate online
- Through the mail (be sure to include the Cover Page to give my Fundraiser Credit)
- Through Me (NO CASH PLEASE or I will have to convert it into a check and then you will not get credit for the donation for tax purposes).
Please help me accomplish my goal and help make the life of someone with MS better. This is a great cause and I am asking you to help me, help those with MS.
NOTES AND PROGRESS
6/3/2011:
I have 5 hours now logged of swim time and currently $130.00 in donations. I am still short of my goal by $110.00. Please help me by donating and ultimately you are sponsoring my swims which in turn the money will go to provide someone with Multiple Sclerosis a cooling vest for this summer that seems like it is going to be excessively hot!
P90x by Tony Horton
April was a hard month, but I made it through, and May well it was not any easier, it rained practically all month, until the end. I still pressed on. Now it is the beginning of June, and the weather is warm, the rain has stopped for almost a week now, and I am still hard at it. I am now at 30% of my weight loss goal, and that is the equivalent of 13lbs lost to date. My clothes are fitting me much better, and I can feel the strength in my arms, legs, back, and abs. I feel better inside and out and although I have missed a couple days here and there, I have mostly been very diligent.
I have changed my diet as well. I have been eating more foods high in protein, and low in carbohydrates. I have actually found some very good foods now that I have gotten in the swing of things and used to preparing, cooking and taking homemade meals with me to work for lunch instead of the fast food alternative. I have been eating a lot of Tuna, other Fish, and chicken. Vegetables are a staple, and fruit (although forbidden on some diets) have been pillars of mine in the form of yummy smoothies that not only taste awesome, but also are very filling.
Here is a little background of why I started all this…
It was April 9, 2011, a Saturday. One of the few days a week when I get to sleep in, relax, stay up late knowing that I still have another day left to sleep in. I had my best friend’s baby shower to attend this Saturday, so I showered, dressed, did my hair, much like any other time I am getting ready to go somewhere and want to look presentable to the world. It was hot, humid and had been raining off and on most of the day. The baby shower was later in the day, at 4:00 PM. I had spent most of the day, much like most of my other weekend days, lying in bed watching TV, and doing what I call “relaxing”. After this day, however, the type of activity I previously would have described as “relaxing” would be known to me as “being lazy”.
Turtle Baby Shower Cake 2011
I arrived at the shower fashionably early (per usual for me), and ended up helping in the setting up since the party before had ran over, and the venue had overbooked the two events. No problem, I did not mind helping at all, I worked up a sweat in my “helping”. Soon the guests started arriving and eventually the party was in full swing. We were all decorating baby clothes, diapers, etc, playing games, and socializing. I had brought the cake that day, which had been my first attempt at baking, with the help of my aunt, who baked the cake, and iced it; I had worked for the previous three weeks creating fondant creations. The day of and the cake looked great, and I thought that I myself looked great too. This all changed the next day when I got a message on Facebook. The dreaded, “You have been tagged in someone’s Photo Album”. Being curious to see how horrid the picture probably was of me, but secretly hoping it would be a decent one, I clicked the link and waited for the page to request and load. Deeply depressed by the image that appeared before me I vowed immediately to get active, fit, and healthy. The next day I started P90x, and then a week after that implemented a healthier diet.
START DATE: April 9th, 2011
GOAL END DATE: July 9th, 2011
PERCENT OF WEIGHT LOSS COMPLETE: 30%
My P90x Challenge Started with a picture, a sudden onset of depression and self-loathing, but just like a butterfly emerges from a cocoon, this challenge has turned me into the person I always wanted to be, that person being someone that actually starts and completes something. Even when it has gotten rough, I have pushed through. I have decided to chronicle my metamorphosis from “unhealthy” to “healthy” online inspiring others to try something new.
My previous bouts with weight loss left me hurled over the side of the proverbial ring with the wind knocked out of me. Michelle, in one corner, “Diet” in the other corner and we had battled it out for ages. Most of the time the “Diet” would beat me, and I would leave the ring, crowd booing, and the “Diet” jumping up and down in the middle of the ring with the my pride as the Championship Belt.
This time, although motivated by the same vanity as in the past (to look better), the longevity and dedication has come from a much deeper place in my quest to become healthy. This time it seems that I am less concerned about counting calories or watching the scales teeter back and forth around the same weight. Focusing more on the results that I feel, and not that I see is like skipping down a path not having any idea where it leads. It is bliss. Do not get me wrong I love the fact that I have been able have retrieved a box of castaway clothes from the deep depths of the back of my closet (you know that place where clothes go right before they get donated) and found them to fit better than ever. The fact that I can see my muscles is a new concept for me as well. What’s more, I can actually jog, yes I said jog without collapsing into an asthmatic frenzy.
I hope that by recording my results obtained with P90x, reasonable and tasty diet changes, and new outlooks that I can inspire at least one person to make a change for one’s health and not just for one’s looks. Therefore, 90 Days is the time, a better me inside and out is the challenge.
START DATE: April 9th, 2011
GOAL END DATE: July 9th, 2011
PERCENT OF WEIGHT LOSS COMPLETE: 30%
There was a bit of a disaster that occurred, and my beloved, ongoing website project, is not so ongoing right now. I am still working on restoring everything, so for now, other than a new logo that I created, the site is confusing, unorganized and missing a lot of things that were previously there. I am working to get everything restored. It is not as if it will put a kink into anyone’s day not to be able to view/read anything that I write or post anyway, but for those who do come by now and again this is what is going down!
Here is the deal…
I idiotically decided it would be a good idea to click “Update WordPress” and use the so-called automatic updating process. I received a confirmation message saying the update was complete, and even successful. I tried loading my website in a new tab, the page remained blank, and the new Dashboard was something “to be desired”.
After cursing and literally crying because about a year worth of posts, pictures, and work had seemingly gone down the tubes, I gathered myself and realized that buried in the tables of the database were all my posts, pictures, and work. After minimal time spent copying and pasting all my posts into separate Microsoft Word documents, and confirming that I had my entire picture collection backed up on my computer locally, I tried reinstalling the previously used older version of WordPress. Come to find out that during the automatic update, despite the message received of my screen of the installation being “complete and successful”, it had actually; pardon my French, fudged up the table design on the database side of the site.
I was going to have to start from scratch! No problem, because I had at least rescued all my posts, and found that my backed up pictures on my computer (thank goodness). I had to delete the database that I had originally created almost two years ago, and create a new one, no problem takes literally two seconds, but then there isn’t anything in the database, so that’s where WordPress comes in. Therefore, I unzipped the file and saved all the files within where they should go. Long story short I followed the “Famous 5-Minute WordPress Installation” guide, and I was at least back in business with a basic WordPress Theme and one default page and post.
I then re-created all the pages that I had previously copied and then pasted the text I had rescued from the database tables. I adjusted the “permalinks” to match what I had them as before, made a few adjustments to the code on the navigation page and I was back in business…well sort of. Since you create and online account with WordPress saves your “customized” settings in the Dashboard, and once I aligned everything with what I had before and uploaded pictures and other files back to my site everything fell into place, for a while.
