All About Me And A Bag Of Chips!

Cool Website....

I stumbled across this very cool website yesterday whilst serfing the world wide web and just had to share!

alltop.com (<--LINK)

"Alltop is an “online magazine rack” of popular topics. We update the stories every hour. Pick a topic by searching, news category, or name, and we’ll deliver it to you 24 x 7. All the topics, all the time."

Isn't that cool??!! So say you have an interest in "food" or "Books" or "Movies" you can search by category of alphabetically and it brings up the top blogs/sites on the web that fit those themes. You can also click on the + next to a site name and it will be added to your very own alltop page, a one stop page for all your favorite sites!

I told you it was cool, didn't I?? So be sure to check it out and let me know what you think! With that I will wrap things up for today, Have a great one and until next time..TATA!!

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Thinking of trading in my desktop..........

I have been toying with the idea for awhile now of trading in my desktop for a nice laptop. Right now I have my desktop and a Macbook. I really like my Mac, but the screen in just 13 inches, so really to small for me to scrap on, so when I want to do that I have to use my desktop. The problem is my desktop sucks a lot of electricity and I hate being stuck in this one spot all the time. When I was designing I needed all the bells and whistles that a desktop could provide, but laptops nowadays come pretty well equipped for what I will need to use it for. I saw one in the paper this week, a Toshiba with an 18 inch screen, fast graphic card, 4 gigs of ram and a 320 gb hard disk. Anyways, due to some change in the pension rules or something like that starting in July we will be able to withdraw the money that they have been taking out of DH's check for years now. It's not really enough to pay on to our loans, but it would be enough to buy me a new laptop..hehe. Plus the laptop will certainly cut down the electricity use here.

So what do you love about your laptop? What brand is it? What features are a must have? I want to make an informed decision if I am going to take the plunge! With that I will wrap things up for this Thursday, I hope you have a good one and until next time..TATA!!

Techie Tuesday!! (SpringPad)

I haven't had a "Techie Tuesday" in awhile, so I thought I'd feature a new free and FABULOUS site I found a couple weeks ago!

If you remember a few weeks back I was looking for a program or site that worked across platforms and where I could put in my "To Do" tasks, menus, shopping list, ideas and well just about anything I could think of jotting down. I use Do-Organizer here on my desktop and really like it so I wanted something along those lines. Anyways, I was doing my daily blog hopping a bit ago and came across something that looked very interesting...

SPRINGPADIT.COM (<--- link)



"SpringPad is a web-based life organizer built around a system of virtual notebooks. These notebooks, or springpads as they are referred to, are highly interactive. You can create task lists, add and edit notes, create calendar events, and tag every item for easy searching and list generation. Everything in SpringPad can be dragged and moved both within and between the notebooks. Accessing related but scattered data is easy. For example, if you tag items that need to be purchased for your various projects within their special notebooks you can pull all the items tagged as purchases together into a master shopping list. Intelligent use of tags is one of SpringPad's strong points, allowing you a higher level of interaction with your data than most traditional task managers." (Little blurb about it from LifeHacker)

I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am over this site! It's like my Birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. I know, I know, I am a total geek getting so excited, but seriously SpringPad has everything I wanted in an organizer and it's FREE, can't beat the free!!

SpringPad comes with a bunch of already pre made springpad templates for things like weekly menu planning, date night planning, medical tracker, shopping lists, favorite recipes, receipt tracker, budget, gift trackers and SO much more. You can also make you own and add them to your springpad. One of the best features is when I add a task or an appointment or anything really SpringPad automatically adds the tasks into a calendar that you can then refer to online or print them out if you wish.

Honestly I could go on for days about how rawking SpringPad is, but you really need to go check it out for yourself, but I am sure you will be as blown away as I am!!

Well that will wrap things up for this Tuesday, I hope you have a fabulous day and until next time...TATA!!

Working out here I come!!!

How excited am I today! Yesterday the cute little Italian mail delivery person rang my bell (my door bell, get your minds out of the gutter LOL) and in his cute little Italian hands he held my long awaited copy of MY FITNESS COACH for the Wii. Speaking of the cute little Italian delivery person, this is the third time he has delivered something and every time he asks me, in Italian, if I am Italian, to which I reply "no my husband is" Now technically I AM also Italian, but DH speaks it fluently, but that isn't the point of the story, the point is that he asks this IN Italian and I just totally  understand what he is saying and answer him back. I think it is my inner paesano trying to break free! LOL

Ok, back to the Wii game, so I have it now in my hot little hands and have worked out twice with it. Once yesterday and once this morning. So far I am liking it a lot. It really isn't a game, more like a work out video for the Wii. When you first start you need to set up your profile. The trainer, Maya, will ask for your weight, height, resting heart rate and measurements. I skipped the measurements part because I didn't have a tape measure. Your fitness level, what kind of goals you want (weight loss, overall health etc), what fitness equipment you have (step thing, weights, heart rate monitor, ball). You then need to do a little fitness test which include jumping jacks, crunches and a couple other things that I can't remember now. lol You will also be asked to put in the length of the work outs you want and on what days. Taking all this info the trainer will then  create a work out program for you.

I choose "weight loss" as being my top priority and choose Monday-Friday as my work out days. I wanted to start with 20 minutes a day, but the time length increments went up in 15's, so I had to choose either 15 or 30 minutes. I choose 15 for this week and next to ease my self back in. Every work out Maya will suggest a focus for you, you can choose to do her suggestion or choose one of your own. Examples of the focus work outs are cardio, core, upper body, lower body and there might be one more, but I can't remember. So far I have been choosing the ones that the trainer has been suggesting. The workouts themselves have been fun, you can choose from three different locations (there are 8 locations and the rest will open up the longer you have been working out), there is also three different music themes to choose from (again the longer you work out the more open up), the music is just OK, nothing to write home about. A couple times during the work out the trainer will stop and ask how you are doing, you then can click on one of the three choices ans the work out will be adjusted mid work out from your answers. The same goes at the end of the work out, you tell her how you did and the info will be used to set up your next work out.

Overall I am really liking this new addition to the Wii, I have only just begun to use it, so I will come back in a few weeks and let you know how it is going. I tend to grow bored doing the same thing over and over, so hopefully this will help me to stick to a work out routine!

That will wrap things up for today, I hope you have a great one and until next time..TATA!!

Firefox 3 Download Day!!!

If you are a nerd like me, then you are ubber excited that today is the release day for the much anticipated Firefox version 3!! The peeps over at Firefox are trying to get into the Guinness Book Of World Records for the most software downloads in a 24 hour period!! Head on over to their BLOG and check out how you can help them get into the record book!! The official kick off is 10 am PDT. You can see what time that is in your neck of the woods by following the link on their blog! I am pretty sure my excitement over this firmly places me in the "you are a geek Eve camp!!! LOL

In other news, we finished season 5 of Nip/Tuck last night and will now have to wait until 2009 for season 6 to start. I have to be honest and say season 5 was a bit of a disappointment to me. The stories just seemed all over the place and didn't flow well together at all. To many gaps between story follow ups and there seem to be so many plot holes, that DH and I seemed to spend a good amount of time scratching our heads. lol I also didn't like how they changed the characters, they just seem to be so much more unlikable, if that makes sense? I have always LOVED Christian Troy and he is a mean "son of a gun" a lot of the time, but there has always been this "heart of gold" thing that shined through. This last season though he was just mean and angry. Same with Sean..anyways, I hope season 6 is better!!

Well that is it for today folks, have a great day and until next time..TATA!!

Techie Tuesday!

Before we begin this "Techie Tuesday" I have to say how flabbergasted, giddy and excited as all heck I was to check my blog comments this morning and see that THE Chris Orwig left me one! ME, little old amateur photographer ME! Dude, you made my day! I am really enjoying your course BTW! ;)

OK, so on to my gadget of the week this week! Have you guys seen this cool new electronic book reader Amazon has just released. It's called KINDLE and it sounds pretty dang cool!

Now I am a die hard "real" book reader, I just love the feel and smell and look of real books, so I haven't been drawn to the dark side of book readers yet but this one seems to have addressed and fixed all the things I usually hate about book readers! It's pretty pricey at 399 dollars, but with new releases costing 9.99 or less, if you are a big book buyer you would probably save that amount pretty fast. If you click the above link and scroll down a bit there is a 6 minute demonstration video that gives you a pretty good overview of the device. Alas over here in Europe (at least Denmark anyways) we don't have the high-speed data network (EVDO), so this nifty little thing is not within my reach YET. LOL So what do you think? Would you buy it? Tempted? Are you like me and just love "real" books to much to give them up?

Well that is about it for today folks. Not only is my daughter sick, DH is also home sick and my son looks to be getting sick..ya me! All you moms know how this will play out, I'll run around taking care of everyone, nursing them back to health and just when they are all better I will get sick and no one will be left to nurse me! Sigh...the life of a mom! lol Until next time...TATA!

Oh look another LO!!

So my mojo has been in overdrive the last few days and I finished YET another LO! I love the way this one turned out.....

I have a super busy day today but I also wanted to let you guys know about a couple things. Remember a few weeks back I talked about ZINIO? It's the online magazine subscription thingy, well anyways they have have a deal for Earth Day and you can get the April issue of Vegetarian Times for free. Just follow this LINK and it is off to the right and down a little. I believe you will have to make an account though and possibly download the reader, but both are free that that is cool! They were also interviewed on NBC and you can see that interview HERE. This company should seriously pay me for all the PR work I do for them! LOL  Well that is about it from me today, I have a ton of domestic duties  to do along with making a menu plan and grocery list and the weather actually looks promising for a change so I think the kiddies and I will head off to the playground for a bit. Until next time...TATA!

Over the hump and through the week....

to Saturday we will go!! LOL I crack myself up...anyways, I have a bunch of different oddities and news bits to share with you today! First I finished another LO last night. This wasn't for any challenge or anything, just because I was in the mood to scrap and really wanted to use Amanda Rockwell's new NURSERY COLLECTION, this is an awesome collections peeps and you should definitely check it out!! I want to use the boy themed kits next to make a LO with the little man, so without further ado, here is my princess wannabe! ;)

So yesterday I was reading an interesting article about FOOD PRICES on CNN and how it is affecting countries all over the world. It certainly is affecting my grocery bill! My monthly bill has rose 300 dollars in the last couple months and that is with us cutting down the meat we eat to 2-3 days a week. I fear it is only going to get worse before it gets better and that scares me! So what are your thoughts? Have you noticed any changes in the prices you pay for food items?

Onto my "Gadget Of The Day" I was surfing the net the other day and came across this nifty little gadget over on GEEK ALERTS. It's a USB mini aquarium by COMFISH that hooks up to one of your USB ports and comes in red/blue/gold/silver. How cute are they!!

So lastly, how about a little weirdness for this wonderful Wednesday! My friend Mel passed a link along to me yesterday that was just..umm..to odd for me not to share with you all!! So sit back and be prepared to be disgusted and amazed!! LOL

History's 10 Most Terrifying Contraceptives

Well that is it for today folks! Until next time...TATA!!

Techy Thursday!

I just love giving the days of the week theme specific tittles don't I? LOL So OK, I am going to talk about a cool little program (site) that has totally changed the way I get magazines! It's called ZINIO and I first discovered it when the magazine I get through NAPP (Photoshop User) decided to switch their international subscriptions from an actual paper copy of the magazine you received in the snail mail to a new digital online version you can download and read through Zinio. At first I was not a happy camper because I really enjoy getting magazines in the mail, but I popped over and decided to check it out with an open mind! I was wowed and really impressed with the program. I poked around a bit more and discovered that they had a TON of subscriptions available for a lot of big name magazines from all over the world. The best part was I could get a subscription OR just purchase an individual copy at the price I would pay if I lived in the country of origin for these magazines!! This is BIG for me because in the past when I want a magazine from the US for example it usually costs me like 3 times as much! I currently have about 15 subscriptions through Zinio and will occasionally buy individual magazines to try out. You only have to download the Zinio reader and they also have a MAC compatible version. The reader is free, so only the magazine's cost you money. They also have just updated their site to now include the ability for you to just read your magazine straight from your library online without downloading anything. I REALLY recommend this site/program to anyone who loves magazines but hates having them all over the house. If your outside the US this is a great chance to get some cool magazine's at a great price (EU peeps do have to pay VAT, but it isn't a whole lot). OK folks that is it for today I have a bunch of domestic duties I need to do today and from the amount of runny noses, coughs, watery eyes and warm heads I have been seeing today, the plague is about to descend upon us..hold me now. LOL Until next time...TATA!!