Yeah, it's been a long time..I know..

Ok...where do I begin?

Been doing really well at the gym. I curled 25 pounds with my left arm tonight!! (Ok..I could BARELY curl 10 pounds when I started so 25 lbs. is a miracle! Also, I couldn't curl it with my right arm becasue my right arm isn't as strong as my left arm.) So, yes...progress is being made daily. I've been averaging 3 days a week for the past few weeks. My weight is up but I think it's because I'm getting more muscle mass. ( I love flexing my biceps! LOL) Elisa has been keeping up with me, even passing me up in the upright bench press.

I've been pretty busy the past few weeks. Oh, I caught a damn head cold that kept me down for a few days. I hate head colds! Give me the flu any ol' day! Lay in bed, sip soup, have people take care of you, call out of work for 4 days!! A cold, well...no sympathy, no soup, no calling out of work. ::ugh:: 

TSPR news: We are getting new shirts and a new jacket this week! We (me, Ali and Sue) went back to do a follow up investigation last night. One of our ranks resigned today. This saddened me. I hate to see this person go. On Wednesday night we are going to see John Zaffis (a demonologist) at a local college. Can;t wait! We (me and Ali) were very fortunate to meet John at a paranormal conference in CT 1 year ago. He's fascinating!

Jon: Maybe you know Jon, maybe you don't. He's a good friend of Brian and Kathleen's. A week or so ago he lost his dad to a massive heart attack. Jon's entries are heartbreaking , to say the least. Please hold Jon and his family in your thoughts and prayers. If you read thru Jon's journal a bit, you'll see that a friend of his is missing and has presumably committed suicided. (He left a carefully placed note.) How much can a person endure? You can feel Jon's pain when you read his blog. (Side note: Jon is an incredibly talented and witty guy. Read his journal. I think you'll agree that he has a way with words. And he's as sarcastic as the day is long...and I like that in a person!)

John: My son broke his wrist 2 weeks ago today. He was skateboarding and when he fell, he smacked his wrist against the wood and broke it. He's in a cast for 1 more week and then a wrist splint for another 3 weeks. When I originally took him to the ER, they said that it wasn't broke and that it was sprained. An hour after we got home, they called back and said that the radiologist saw a break in his wrist. So we had to go back to the ER and get it splinted. Then we had to go to an orthopedic dr and get it casted the next day. Aghhhhh...

Ok...I guess that's it for now.

Peace.....

What I did this weekend

Me, Ali and Sue (all from TSPR) attended UNIV-CON in State College, PA this past weekend. It was a gathering of all different sorts of people who are interested in the paranormal. I think I speak for all of us when I say that a great time was had by all! We attended a few really great lectures/presentations and a few really awful ones, too. (I feigned an asthma attack to get out of one particularly bad presentation. I'm sure that I'm going to hell for that one!)

We were pleasantly surprised when we met Jason from Ghost Hunters. He was a nice guy, down to earth. We had a nice time chatting with him. Several of the guest speakers were very nice. Patrick Burns from Court TV's Haunting Evidence was one of the nicest guys I've yet to meet. He did a presentation on EVP work that was wonderful. Ali and I learned a great deal from him. Ryan Buell, a Penn State student (or graduate, not sure) was there. A&E gave him a show of his own titled Paranormal U. It airs in 2007. He was a doll, too. Most everyone there was very nice. There were some exceptions to this, but I'm not naming names.

It was a long ride...4 hours from here. But what a gorgeous ride! The leaves were spectacular on the way home. Too bad I was driving. I would've taken pictures for ya! I didnt bring my new camera with me as it is bulkier than my old one and wayyyyy more expensive. I wasn't comfortable leaving it in the room, either.

Well...I have to get back to cleaning up the mess that awaited my return.

Peace!

Oh c'mon...get over it!

Hey! Life has been busy for me! Sor-ry! (LOL)

Herman has taken the past few Mondays off. Last week we took a hike in the beautiful Bushkill Falls in PA. Yesterday we took a ride to Horsham PA ( a suburban area of Philadelphia) to see where we lived for 2 1/2 years. Then we went to NYC to walk around and grab a bite to eat. (PA and NYC in one day??!! Don't I live in the BEST PLACE ever?!) We've spent a great deal of "quality time" together recently...and you don't see me complaining!

The kids are all back to school. (Can I get a "hallelujah" everyone?!) Rachel has already had strep throat, Becky has had oral surgery resulting in an infected lymph gland and John has had to make an emergency trip to the dentist for a root canal gone bad. They have ALL been on antibiotics for the past week or so. Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come.

Herman bought me a new camera! I got a Sony DSLR 10.2 mb camera a few weeks ago. I'll post photos when I can figure out how to take a great pictures. Give me a couple of weeks. I took the camera on a recent TSPR investigation. Again, I still have to figure out all the settings. It DOES take beautiful pictures, tho...

Speakimg of TSPR: My good friend Gary recently joined our ranks. He'll be a great contributor to our group as he is an audio editor for a national women's cable channel. (I'm not namin' names.) TSPR recently did an investigation in northern NJ. We'll update our site when we have everyone's report. Our website is currently undergoing MAJOR renovations so not everything is current. We're re-grouping and overhauling the website...which is exactly why I'm not linking to our site right now. I'll let you know when it's ready to be unveiled....

I received a phone call today from an old friend from church. I haven't seen John in a very long time...going on a year or so. Considering that I live in a very small town (pop. just above 13,000) it's quite odd that we haven't run into each other. Anyway, he sprung some unsurprising news upon me today: he's getting divorced. I say unsurprising because, as awful as it sounds, I saw it coming. Still, it's very sad as there are young impressionable children involved. Divorce rarely, if ever, has a positive effect on children. (I say this from my own experience...and I've been both a child of divorce and a divorcee. But...this is just my opinion.) I wish John well...he sounds a  bit , hmmm...happier and less stressed than before.

Well...that's about it on my end.

Peace!

Opinions, please!

Whaddaya think of the new color scheme? Anything I should change? Are the links too white? All opinions thoughtfully considered!

Thanks!

Pictures

I'm sitting here listening to the winds of what remains of Tropical Storm Ernesto, praying that my front tree won't be felled by the heavy winds. What a sucky day! It's been pouring since last night.

Herman and I celebrated our 19 year wedding anniversary on August 30th! I can't believe that the time has flown by so quickly! We went to dinner at the Barge, where, as usual, I had the "Special Shore Dinner" that consisted of a shrimp cocktail, a dozen steamers, a cup of chowder, salad, potato and a 1 1/4 pound lobster! I ate every last bite! Instead of the rice pudding that came with my dinner, I had creme brulee. When we came home we shared some champagne and strawberries. All in all, a very nice way to celebrate our anniversary. I'm hoping to be drinking pina coladas on some deserted beach in the caribbean for our 20th, though. (Keep dreaming, Sharon.)

The gym is going well. I made it there 4 times this week. Elisa and I have stopped the circuit training. We are doing some cardio (to warm up) for about 10-15 minutes and then we lift weights. We do 2 body parts (legs, back, shoulders, chest, arms, etc) 3 times a week. Today we did 30 minutes of cardio. I'm going to see if I can get to the gym every day and do cardio. I'll let ya know how THAT goes..LOL!

Well, that's about it for now. I hope that everyone has a great holiday weekend, in spite of the sucky weather!

Peace!

Random stuff

Herman and I were on vacation 2 weeks ago. Instead of going away for a week we decided to just do day trips. Monday and Tuesday were really crappy (rain) so we just hung out at home. Wednesday we took the kids and our 10 year old nephew to Dorney Park. Thursday Herman and I went to Pt. Pleasant, Friday we went to Atlantic City amd Sunday we headed to New Hope, PA. (Saturday we had to attend a party in NY.) All in all it was a nice vacation. We spent the majority of the time alone, just the two of us. The kids all had stuff to do so we just took off without them. Which was kinda nice! Atlantic City (a 2 hour ride for us) was alot of fun! We suck at gambling, though. We'd be up by $2 and we'd cash out! LOL! I have no stomach for losing money, so we only played around with $40 or so. We walked along the boardwalk, hit a few bars along the way, checked out the casinos. For dinner we did the buffet thing at the Trump casino. Buffets are wasted on me. I only ate the turkey and mashed potatoes. Damn...for $19.95 I could buy a whole lot of turkey and mashed potatoes! LOL! Anyway, we had ourselves a grand ol' time. Going back to work was hard, though.

In October our group (TSPR) has decided to take the 4 hour trip out to State College, PA for a paranormal conference. It should be alot of fun! Sue (our newest member) has never done a trip with us. The conference will have all kinds of seminars, lectures, investigation opportunities, etc. The guys from "Ghost Hunters" will also be there.

The gym thing has been going really well! I've been averaging 3-4 times a week. I've actually gained weight as opposed to losing it. But that's ok because there is a noticeable difference in my body shape. I've been told that while I am burning fat, I am also gaining weight from muscle. So this isn't bad. Eventually I will lose some weight. And that's ok with me. My friend Elisa has also started going to the gym with me. She's making great progress! Once I reload the photo software I'll get some pictures up. Which leads me to...

Our computer has had so many issues as of the past month. Poor Herman has had to do alot of work on it. He wiped out the hard drive, reinstalled the recovery cds...crashed again..wiped everything out. This was beyond frustrating. The computer has been running fine the past week or so, but trust me when I tell you that I will be backing everything up from now on!!

School starts on Sept 11...I can't wait for the kids to go back to school. I'm off from work on Mondays and Wednesdays...and I like those days to be peaceful! Rachel starts college on Sept 5..how exciting!

Well...I should start dinner soon. I hope that all is well with everyone...and I'm sorry for the delay in posting (Dar!)!!

Peace!

I'm still here...

Hey everyone! Yes, I'm still here. We've been plagued with computer problems: hard drive crashed, mother board fried...everything was wiped out. All my pictures from CA to Gettysburg to Rachel's graduation: gone. It's very upsetting. Now we're waiting to get a recovery cd from HP. I have no sound, no graphics..ugh. I'm beginning to hate computers as much as I hate cars!!!

Late last month I sprung a surprise (well, not really "surprised") visit on Dar! Becky was scheduled to go down there to visit and I decided to go with her for a few days. Seems that Dar had a feeling that I might be coming for a visit. When she met Becky at the airport, she said, "So, where's your mom?" I ran up behind her, covered her eyes and she screamed, "I KNEW IT!!" LOL! That night just Dar and I went to Outback for dinner. Sunday we went to Sanibel Island....sooooo beautiful! We swam in the Gulf of Mexico and caught some needed sun. Monday we went to a local water park where we had a BLAST! I was chicken to go on some of the slides in the beginning but by the end of the day I had gone on almost every ride/slide! We had a lot of fun! Her boys are getting so big..I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw them. Becky is still down there...she'll be home on Friday night. My flight home was nice..I had the emergency exit row with no seat in front of me! (I have long legs as I'm 5'10" and all legs.) There were lightening storms to the west the entire flight home so it was like watching fireworks for 2.5 hours. Very cool.

Jackie is going back to AZ...and not on my dime, either. A friend of hers in AZ has offered to pay for everything as long as she gets back into the WINR's program in Mesa. My mom threw her out last Friday because she (my mom) was leaving for Disney World with my sister's family the next day. However, she's back there now because she conned my mom into letting her back in til she leaves for AZ. (My mom is in FL til Saturday.) It's frustrating...

It's been freaking hot here in NJ...I think we hit 101 degrees today. They're predicting that the heat wave will break tomorrow night...I sure hope so. We can't even sit out on the deck at night for fear of melting.

The gym is going well. My friend Eliza has decided to tag along lately so I have a training partner! I haven't really lost weight but I am seeing muscles so that's cool.

Well...time for dinner. Hope all is well with everyone.

Peace!