Ken Jennings I am not.

I will not be appearing on a TV near you anytime soon. I took the online test for Jeopardy tonight and I am pretty sure I failed. I did get a question about Hamlet right, but only in the last seconds because I realized I had confused mother and daughter. If "The play's the thing by which I'll catch the conscience of the King", oy! 'The test's the thing wherein I'll show my ignorance." I also missed some pop culture questions. That is totally not my area. I also missed a geography question. Miss Geography bombed out on that question.

I did, however, get a question about a book I read this summer. So at least I didn't totally bomb. I probably got 40-50% correct. They don't tell you the score, but this was my first time taking the test, and I think most people fail several times before they pass it, so I'll keep trying each year.

I have more respect for Marci (her blog is listed to the left.) She's a five time undefeated Jeopardy champion, and now is my hero! :)

Yardsale fever

I'm itching to have a garage sale. I had tons of stuff boxed up last year to have a sale, they are priced, and just waiting for us to be able to have a sale. Because of Dad being so sick last year I didn't have a chance to have the sale, even though I even placed an ad in the paper.

So, I'm already gearing up for this year. I have gathered up THREE more boxes of stuff to have for the garage sale. The money will be likely used for home improvements. It would be a "home improvement" just to get this stuff out of here with some extra money, no less! :)

Mom and I have started a box for gift cards we've won that can be used for home improvement items. So far all that is in it is a $10 Land-O-Lakes pre-paid Visa that I won. Hopefully we'll be winning more before long that we can use for home improvements.

Oh, if this doesn't beat all. . . I was doing some searches today on winzy (a search engine where you search and can win prizes) and while I was searching someone won an iPod shuffle. Now why didn't I search a few seconds differently and maybe I could have won that shuffle.

My Warm Up America squares.

They aren't anything special, but I wanted to finish them quickly. Here is the square I knitted for the afghan.

And her is the one I crocheted for the afghan:

I'm actually hoping to do a few more before the project is over on PBS but these are my first ones. And I even used up some oddball yarn I had lying around!

Wii, Wii, Wii all the way home

I'm so excited. This morning I played a code off of a Slurpee at the 7-11 site and it said I instantly won a Wii.

I'm so excited because I was hoping for one of these, not for myself but for our volunteer fire department to donate to them for their annual raffle. They did such an excellent job of Dad's funeral, and Dad was always so involved with the raffle, I thought this would be a great way to honor Dad.

I've been floating on Cloud Nine all day, and all over a Wii.

I can't believe a lady died in California trying to win one this weekend. Water toxcidity is a very real thing, although I know some people deny it. My way of winning a Wii was much safer, all I had to do was put a code off of a slurpee cup in a form and it told me I won.

Knitting and crocheting

On Paperbackswap.com there is a group doing some knitting and crocheting for Warm Up America. The great part is everyone only has to complete one 7 inch by 9 inch square. They will then be joined into a full sized afghan. This way it's not a huge undertaking for any one person, and by all of us doing a small square we can help contribute to the larger afghan.

I read a book this week about knitting for others. Really a cool book.

Here's some more crafting links to donate items you have made:

Knit for Kids (A.K.A. Guideposts Sweater project

Mother Bear Project

Project Linus

Care Wear (knit for preemies)

And finally, here's a HUGE list of charity crafting links for knitting, crocheting, sewing, and more:

Charity Crafting

Amazon Fillers

Have you ever wished you could find something quickly and easily to put in your cart at Amazon that would bump you up to free shipping without spending a lot more than you planned? I have done that PLENTY of times, so I decided to make life a little bit easier for myself and everyone else. I made a webpage tonight of items Amazon sells that are $1 to $4.99. All are eligible for free shipping when you spend $25, so it's the page to visit when you're so close to getting free shipping. I know sometimes it's cheaper to put something else in your cart and get free shipping than to pay their shipping fees!

So, here's my new webpage:


AMAZON FILLERS

And your pain is?

When I was reading From Chunk to Hunk last year, I came upon where he wrote about what his pain was when it came to losing weight. I thought about this for some time. Someone's pain isn't wanting to fit into a smaller bikini or another "cosmetic" reason for losing weight. Your pain is a health related item. Which, if you are losing weight for a health related reason (maybe wanting to be able to play basketball with your son and not getting so out of breath), you're more likely to stay on a weight loss program and then keep it off. So, if you haven't come up with what your "pain" is, you need to get something in mind to be able to remind you "Do I want this chocolate cake or risk getting heart disease". It gives you more incentive to lose weight.

I found the book From Chunk to Hunk very inspiring and I highly recommend it. I also highly recommend the book Winning By Losing by Jillian Michaels who used to be on Biggest Loser. She shows a safe way to educate yourself to lose weight on your own.

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I don't like limiting myself to diet related posts. I'll still make some from time to time, but blogging is much more fun when I can tell about whatever is going on in my life, such as our leaking utility room I discovered today when I went back to get some items out of the pantry for dinner. ARGH!

Identify your cravings. . .

Over the next few days I'm going to give some of the weight loss tips. I lost over 60 pounds last year and I'll give some advice on it.

One of the biggest things is to identify your cravings. Sometimes you have an emotional cravings where it's something you're wanting to eat, and sometimes you have physical cravings where you are wanting something your body needs.

I learned to identify if I was wanting something citrus-y (usually a physical craving for vitman C), sometimes I wanted cereal (usually a craving for milk), sometimes I wanted a certain texture. . . and here's some great diet snacks for different cravings:

crunchy:
air-popped popcorn
rice cakes (I love the white cheddar kind)
cereal (Malt-O-Meal is low in calories, I once measured out a serving size and it was more than I wanted)

creamy:
sugar free pudding
sugar free hot chocolate

sweet:
sugar free pudding
sugar-free Popscicle
sugar free hot chocolate
ONE Hershy's kiss (25 calories)

spicy:
Southwest Sizzle popcorn topping on air-popped popcorn
salsa

If anyone else has any ideas of great low calorie snacks, just leave a comment! :)

Resolutions vs. Lifetime Goals

I'm not much of a resolution maker. In fact, I don't even make them, but I do have a list of lifetime goals I want to reach. I have about 50 of these goals. The stuff on there is varied, such as "Get a cow milking degree'. I was watching Jeopardy one night and someone mentioned she got a cow milking degree somewhere in Scandanavia. I thought it was the most facinating thing, and so I wrote that on my 'lifetime goals' sheet. Because my hobbies and interests are ever changing, I revise my list nearly each year. Many of the goals are travel related. I don't think we can truly understand the world until we've done some traveling. I understand Isralei/Palestinian politics much more since I stood in East Jerusalem and was stared at by a camel while gazing at the third world living situation around me, when just a few miles back it was a first world country. Walking down the streets of Budapest four years ago gave me a much closer reality of WWII, seeing the damage on the buildings, and then visiting the synagogue where there was a memorial museum in the basement. To see the clothes made out of the Torah made me cry as well as the other exhibits. Visiting Yad Vashem in Israel brought WWII even closer. To see the rocks near the memorial exhibits, I knew there were people who had been there who lost loved ones in the Holocaust. Traveling teaches you more about the world than you can just read in a book.

Some of the places on my lifetime goals to visit are Norway, Russia, Iceland, and New Zealand as well as Australia. I'm hopefully going to be able to cross Russia off my list this year because I'm wanting to visit my friend Donnie and Blythe who ar missionaries there. (You can check out their blog here: http://www.masonsinrussia.blogspot.com/

Other goals are to reach 10,000 feedback on eBay. I currently have 3714, so this is not something I'll accomplish this year or next, but I can keep working at it!

I want to meet a current or former President of the United States. (Probably meeting President Carter would be easyiest as he teaches Sunday School at the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, GA and after worship service he will pose for pictures with anyone who wishes to get their photo taken with him, and of course, it's open to the public!)

I'd also like to get on a gameshow. I'd love to be on Jeopardy or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

I am also on a quest to reach my ideal weight. Again, that likely won't happen in one year since I'm doing a lifestyle change and not a radical weight loss. I lost 60 pounds last year, and my goal this year is 53 pounds, which is less than what I lost last year, so I know I can do it!

How about anyone else? Any lifetime goals?

Here's my link on 43 things if you want to check out my other goals.

http://www.43things.com/person/frequentreader