Being in New York I’m faced with the reality of my past. It’s not a bad hit for me, it’s a good one. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my friend Lucy, and I’m itching to get in touch with Pat but he’s been very busy lately. His band, Stealing Jane, is doing absolutely amazing work these days and they just recently launched their first ever video. I’m so proud of these guys. I remember going back to my high school days and hanging out at the Rock Lobster to watch these guys perform. They were great back then, and they’re even better now. So to give their band the extra push that I think any band needs, I’m linking their new video here.

I can assure you that you’ll enjoy what you hear, so head on over to StealingJane.com and show your support.

PS: Pat’s on Sax

I’m still waiting patiently for all of the hosting to be moved over.  My personal stuff is moved to the new data center, the clients have proven to take a lot longer.  I’m not sure why it’s taking so long, I was told 3-5 days and it’s pushing more along the lines of 8 days.  Hopefully everything will be resolved soon, I’m being charged double for hosting this month because of still having the initial accounts with the old data center.  I just hope everything will resolve itself before I head up to NY next week.

Come Tuesday (24) I’m loading up the car, throwing Sean in the passenger seat and trucking it up to Long Island for a few days.  Dad’s birthday is on the 26th, my sisters is on the 29th and there’s quite a bit of family that I haven’t visited in over a year so I figure the trip up will give me an excuse to do that.  I’m driving the first half while Sean and Bella sleep in the car, then the second half he’ll take over and I’ll have Bella on my lap.

I bought my father a BBQ and a lot of accessories to go with it.  I’ve loaded my sister up with a huge gift basket and the rest just kind of goes from there.  I just want to leave very early on Wednesday morning, figure Midnight (25th).  By the time we get up there it’ll be about 4am.  This gives us plenty of time to get in and to just head to bed for the night.  Then the next morning we’ll take the gifts out of the car and hide them in the house after Dad’s gone to work.  I’ll get some minor grocery shopping done for Dinner on Thursday (Dad’s birthday) and then that should basically take care of everything.

Up until that point I’m going to be working.  I have a few different projects going on right now that are bringing in some fairly decent change, this is how I was able to afford the $200 I dropped on presents this year.  Guess I should get myself back to work now though, few emails to go through.

It’s been one of those weeks where everything is just confusing. As of Wednesday, Karen decided that she was going to put Candy down, only because she believed that Candy just wasn’t going to bounce back from what we now know as seizures. On Friday, however, Candy kind of sprung back to life and was then, what seemed to be, back to her old self. Her sister showed up on Friday evening with her kids, all of them are sick right now but she’s determined to buy a house down here and sick or not she needed to be here this week, not only for the house hunting but for Karen as well, Candy’s health is beginning to take it’s toll on everyone.

Last night Candy collapsed and made that horrible noise again. We still don’t know what it is but if you can imagine something that’s a cross between a dog crying, screaming and barking then you can kind of understand what the noise actually was. She shook for a few minutes and then popped up like “What happened?” because she’s completely zoned out during the time it typically happens. Last night she did return to her regular chipper self after she vegged out in the bedroom for a little while. She did eat quite a bit which was the most she’d had in a few days. Hopefully there isn’t another episode today, I don’t know what would happen.

Is it selfish of me to hope that if Candy is going to just go to sleep one night and not wake up that it happens during the week and not on the weekend? The closest emergency vet after 6pm (and on weekends) is over an hour north and by then who knows what could happen to her. During the week there are two vets offices down here where she could be taken care of. But that’s only if whatever is going to …take her life… happens between 8am-6pm on Monday through Friday. I know it seems wrong to think like this but I also know that Candy is literally considered to be Karen’s child. Having to sit in a car with her limp body for over an hour because there’s no one down here to help would not be something I think she could handle.

I honestly don’t know anymore. Things right now are more confusing then they should be, it’s just going to be a crappy week. And at the same time I hope to god I don’t get sick from her sister and her sister’s kids because she’s got bronchitis (which is borderline pneumonia at this point) and one son has a very high fever, the other is coughing up all kinds of goodies. I honestly believe there’s a hospital visit in the works today.

I finished dinner a little while ago and I’m still too full for words.  Since my father hasn’t had a home cooked meal in quite some time, I went ahead and fired up the crock pot at about 4am in order to start some sauce.  Tonight I made lasagna with sausage and meatballs.  I was very good at keeping my portions under control.  It was hard considering it’s the only thing I’ve eaten today but I woke up about 2pm so by the time 7pm rolled around I was hungry enough to not care that I hadn’t eaten earlier in the day.

Everyone seemed to enjoy dinner, so that’s always a plus.  I did sneak in a little bit of bread but when you go out of your way to bake it for everyone else, just a small crusty piece isn’t going to kill you, right?  In order to burn off the extra calories I took a few laps around the block with Bella, I then burned even more carrying her home considering her little legs gave out on her.  She gets tired if she walks for too long, not sure how that’s possible considering she’s so low to the ground.

Dieting aside, it’s been a fairly calm day.  I’ve done some laundry, straightened up the kitchen and cooked dinner.  I’ve been unable to work today because Sean has taken captive of my laptop.  I’m considering purchasing another one sometime soon, I’m just not sure what company I’m going to go with.  I don’t use my laptop for anything graphically anymore because of my new iMac.  If I use it for any “big” programs it’s usually Dreamweaver CS3 and having anything less than a gig of ram would be stupid on my part.  I did hear, however, that in order to have Vista on a laptop you’re going to have to have at least 2 gigs of ram because Vista takes a gig to run from the get go.  So factoring all of that in, i figure I’m going to need something in the $650-$700 range.  I’ve been poking around on TigerDirect for a refurb, I’ve also poked around Newegg for a newer one and naturally I’ve been floating around eBay as well.  I’ll hold off for a few months, I just know that my laptop is slowly dying on me.  The lag right now is extremely annoying and it’s also about 2 years old so upgrading wouldn’t be the worst of ideas.

It’s been a while since I posted here, mainly because the rush of the Holiday Season had my full attention.  It’s now January 1st and it’s been almost one month since I’ve last said anything here about weight loss, dieting, and life in general.  This doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy!

My resolutions are the pretty common ones.  I’m continuing with my diet, stepping it up a notch by going onto an actual plan.  I’m unsure if I’m going to take the route of Weight Watchers or the Micheal Thurmond Six Week Body Makeover, but I do fully intend to take the bull by the horns and get myself onto a set program for even better results.  I’m now 50 pounds lighter than when I started my diet, which was no easy task in six months but I’ve accomplished every one of my goals through dicipline and a complete lifestyle change.

The only thing I haven’t changed is my smoking habit.  I’ve been a pack-a-day smoker for quite some time now and I honestly can not handle it anymore.  I run slower because I can’t catch my breath, no matter how many showers I happen to take during the day I still reek of smoke because it’s the first thing I do when I step outside, even if it’s just to dump the garbage.  I purchased ‘Quit smoking the easy way’ a book that has been around for 20 years and I’m confident that if I follow the methods I’ll not only be thin thanks to my diet, but a non-smoker.

Another resolution added to my list is school.  I’ve decided to go to DeVry.  Sean is helping me with the financial aid forms so that I can insure full financial aid.  I’m under the age of 25 and I’m no longer living with my father.  The only job on the books that I have at the moment is paid blogging and other odd-and-end jobs here and there that I work on the side, so figure I’m only making about $12,000 a year.  That’s no where near enough money to fund school and living - so hopefully I’ll get the financial help.  I’ve been paying taxes for years, the least the government can do is give me something back for it - you know?

The day after Christmas I headed down to the DMV, I’m officially a Delaware resident and almost as soon as I get my license down here Sean wants to move up to New Jersey because it’s the half-way point between our families.  I’m not sure of how much I like the idea but I’m sure we’ll talk about it a bit more over time anyway.

I’m currently up in New York for the holidays.  We came up here on the 29th and I think we’re going to extend our stay for a few extra days.  Originally I was only coming up until Friday but I’m hoping to at least finish out the weekend and leave on Monday.  Sean doesn’t seem to mind so I guess that’s all that matters.