Just because someone puts on the mask doesn't mean they are going to live up to the role. 

Poor rittle Mini

Dorthy: [To Toto] Now I... I know we're not in Kansas! 

This is the worst snow storm we have had yet.  Too bad I'm still craving pizza since I'm pretty sure no one delivers in this weather.  Oh to be back in "Kansas."  

Pedometer

I've been wearing a pedometer that was given to me to help me make sure to walk more.  I was under the impression that you were supposed to walk 10,000 steps a day, but low and behold it's much simpler than a walking all day long (because that is about how long it takes to get 10,000 steps!).

Buy a pedometer, clip it to your belt, and aim for an extra 1,000 steps a day.  On average, sedentary people take only 2,000 to 3,000 steps a day. Adding 2,000 steps will help you maintain your current weight and stop gaining weight; adding more than that will help you lose weight.

Who knew loosing weight could be so easy and affordable.  Pedometers are cheap, and all you need are a comfy pair of kicks.  


I also thought this was another good tip to help you stay at your ideal weight:

Bring the color blue into your life more often. There's a good reason you won't see many fast-food restaurants decorated in blue: Believe it or not, the color blue functions as an appetite suppressant. So serve up dinner on blue plates, dress in blue while you eat, and cover your table with a blue tablecloth. Conversely, avoid red, yellow, and orange in your dining areas. Studies find they encourage eating. 

And the best tip yet if you have a snuggle buddy:

Passionately kiss your partner 10 times a day. According to the 1991 Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex, a passionate kiss burns 6.4 calories per minute. Ten minutes a day of kissing equates to about 23,000 calories -- or eight pounds -- a year! 

This calls for a soundtrack. 

For more tips click here.

Fwd: Create Your Own Luck by Changing Your Perspective [Self Improvement]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/pEUzzkZzWWE/create-your-own-luck-by-changing-your-perspective

Think you have no control over how lucky you are in life? Psychologist Richard Wiseman says think again. Turns out you can learn to be a luckier person just by changing how you look at the world around you.

Photo by superfantastic.

Wiseman studied the lives of 400 people over the course of 10 years and watched for any lucky breaks or chance encounters—both good and bad—they had along the way. He discovered that some people are prone to worse luck than others, but it may be possible to create your own good fortune by tweaking your perspective on things.

In interviews with the study's volunteers, he realized that unlucky people are typically more anxious and tend to more hyperfocused on the specifics of a situation. Lucky people, on the other hand, are more laid-back and open to whatever opportunities present themselves.

My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

Wiseman says by honing skills like listening to your intuition and simply expecting to be lucky, you can actually increase the chance good fortune will find its way to you. In fact, 80% of the volunteers in his study group who tried this approach, ended up feeling like their luck had changed for the better.

I Love, You Love

I love this song.  I almost don't know what to make of it.  Is is an uplifting love song or a sad yearning melody?  Perhaps it is medley of both?  In one sense it seems to serve the purpose of putting someone in the amorousness mood.  In contrast it can easily be listened to on repeat, aiding a broken heart the needs a good release of tears.  Read the lyrics, they can be taken many ways.  This is one of John Legend's best ballads.  A man with the voice of siren.  It is hard not to be drawn to this lullaby. 

Hush my baby, Don't you cry.

I'll dry your eyes. Fulfill your heart's desire.
Let's go in. Try again.
Careful this time. Broken promises linger in our mind.

I'll give in completely. Hearts break so easy.
I know. Believe me. Oh, I've tried.
But my arms can hold you. My kiss console you.
I'll come and love you tonight.

And I...
I love, I love, I love
Love hurts sometimes
But this feels right.

You...
You love, you love, you love
Though you've been burned
You still return.

Come and share my house, my home, and all I own.
I'd love to give to you.
Aren't you tired of going along this lonely road?
It takes its toll on you.

Give me your emotion, your heart's devotion.
Give anything you like.
And I'll give understanding. Life's so demanding.
I'm all you need to get by.

And I...
I love, I love, I love
Love hurts sometimes
But this feels right.

And You...
You love, you love, you love
Though you've been burned
You still return.

I love, I love, I love
Love hurts sometimes
But this feels right.

And You...
You love you love you love
Though you've been burned
You still return.

Still return
Still return to love (Oh)
Keep coming back to love (Ah oh)

Breathe

I see your face in my mind as I drive away
'Cause none of us thought it was gonna end that way
People are people and sometimes we change our minds
But it's killing me to see you go after all this time

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm
Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm

Music starts playin' like the end of a sad movie
It's the kinda ending you don't really wanna see
'Cause it's tragedy and it'll only bring you down
Now I don't know what to be without you around

And we know it's never simple, never easy
Never a clean break, no one here to save me
You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand

And I can't breathe
Without you, but I have to
Breathe
Without you, but I have to

Never wanted this, never want to see you hurt
Every little bump in the road I tried to swerve
People are people and sometimes it doesn't work out
Nothing we say is gonna save us from the fall out

And we know it's never simple, never easy
Never a clean break, no one here to save me
You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand

And I can't breathe
Without you, but I have to
Breathe
Without you, but I have to

It's two a.m., feelin' like I just lost a friend
Hope you know it's not easy, easy for me
It's two a.m., feelin' like I just lost a friend
Hope you know this ain't easy, easy for me

And we know it's never simple, never easy
Never a clean break, no one here to save me, oh

I can't breathe
Without you, but I have to
Breathe
Without you, but I have to
Breathe
Without you, but I have to

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry

I should take a picture of myself.  I am ridiculously dark.  Yes, there is no better word to describe the beauty that is my hot, sexy, deep, gorgeous tan skin then ridiculously, which happens to be a great verb in this case.  I would take a picture, but then I would have stalkers for life and we just can't have that.  So I will give you pictures of things that can't possibly cause people to stalk me.  Fewf! *wipes brow*

The view from the 18th floor of this ridiculously priced hotel.  Yes, even the NHL people stayed here and had their party.  Who knew En Vouge was still around?  It's a swanky place and they know how to make the most amazing pigs in a blanket.  No joke.  

It's nice to get to read an awesome mystery (Midnight in Madrid) on my awesome Kindle while taking breaks to look at the ocean.  All this while being protected by a wind guard.  AWESOME!  I know, I know...my life sucks big time.  

I'm very tempted to lay in the tub, read MIM, while hearing the soothing sounds of Kenny Ocean accompanied by the Blue Water Ft. Lauderdale Orchestra.  I still have an hour before gym time to do this.  I ate to much awesome salad and chicken fingers so the tummy has to rest.  

And let's just save this cool coffee maker for last.  HAVE YOU SEEN ONE?  They are amazing.  They make a perfect cup of Starbucks or tea.  This would be an amazing I love my J$, daughter, girlfriend, ________ (fill in the blank), etc. gift.  I'm not picky.  

"Pregnancy-related death rate on the rise"

I thought this article from SFGate is very concerning.  Read it if you plan to have children or are a Californian.  *Shakes head*

Nathanael Johnson, California Watch

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The mortality rate of California women who die from causes directly related to pregnancy has nearly tripled in the past decade, prompting doctors to worry about the dangers of obesity in expectant mothers and about medical complications of cesarean sections.
For the past seven months, the state Department of Public Health has declined to release a report outlining the trend.
California Watch spoke with investigators who wrote the report, and they confirmed the most significant spike in pregnancy-related deaths since the 1930s. Although the number of deaths is relatively small, the rate in California is higher than in Kuwait or Bosnia.
"The issue is how rapidly this rate has worsened," said Debra Bingham, executive director of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, the public-private task force investigating the problem for the state.
The problem may be occurring nationwide. The Joint Commission, the leading health care accreditation and standards group in the United States, issued an alert to hospitals on Jan. 26, stating: "Unfortunately, current trends and evidence suggest that maternal mortality rates may be increasing."
To help improve care, the advisory asked doctors to consider morbid obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, along with hemorrhaging from C-sections, as contributing factors to deaths.
In 2007, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the national maternal mortality rate had risen. But experts such as Dr. Jeffrey C. King, who leads a special inquiry into maternal mortality for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, chalked up the change to better counting of deaths. His opinion hasn't changed.
"I would be surprised if there was a significant increase of maternal deaths," said King, who has not seen the California report.
But Shabbir Ahmad, a scientist in California's Department of Public Health, decided to look closer. In 2006, he organized academics, state researchers and hospitals to conduct a systematic review of every maternal death in California from 2002 to 2006. It's the largest state review ever conducted. The group's initial findings provide the first strong evidence that there is a true increase in deaths - not just the number of reported deaths.
Changes in the population - obese mothers, older mothers and fertility treatments - cannot completely account for the rise in deaths in California, said Dr. Elliott Main, the principal investigator for the task force.
"What I call the usual suspects are certainly there," he said. "However, when we looked at those factors and the data analyzed so far, those only account for a modest amount of the increase."

C-sections increase

Main said scientists have started to ask what doctors are doing differently. He added that it is hard to ignore the fact that C-sections have increased 50 percent in the same decade that maternal mortality increased.
The task force has found that changing clinical practice could prevent a significant number of these deaths.
Despite the increase in deaths, pregnancy is still safe for the vast majority of women.
In 2006, 95 California women died from causes directly related to their pregnancies - out of more than 500,000 live births. That's a small number by public health standards. But if California had met the goal set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to bring the state's maternal mortality rate down to a level achieved by other countries, the number of dead would have been closer to 28.
It's not clear which mothers are most at risk, but researchers have long known that African American mothers are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes. That racial association is not stratified by socio-economic status: Even high-income black women are at a greater risk.
While the maternal mortality rate among black women is rising, the task force found a more dramatic increase in deaths among white, non-Hispanic mothers.

Real stories

Each maternal death shatters families. That cold sum - 95 dead - represents 95 stories of people such as Tatia Oden French. In 2001, she was newly wed and had just finished her doctorate in psychology. She was about to have a baby girl she would name Zorah Allie Mae French.
"She's the type of person that just walked into the room and lit it up," said her mother, Maddy Oden.
During the labor, Maddy Oden was at home waiting for a call announcing the birth of her granddaughter. Instead, her daughter needed an emergency C-section.
"I woke up at 4 in the morning and I knew that something was wrong," Oden said.
Then the phone rang. French was in trouble. Powerful contractions had forced amniotic fluid into her bloodstream, stopping her heart and killing the baby. When Oden got to her daughter at an Oakland hospital, there was only one thing she could do: "We said a prayer," Oden said, "and I closed her eyes."
The subsequent lawsuit was dismissed: The doctor had not deviated from the standard of care.

Finding ways to help

Rather than track down the cause of every death and assign blame, the California task force is focused on finding solutions. Bingham and Main have found that doctors and nurses are eager to help after seeing the numbers.
In 1996, the maternal death rate in California was 5.6 per 100,000 live births, not far from the national goal of 4.3 per 100,000. Between 1998 and 1999, the World Health Organization changed its coding system to include definitions of obstetric death, which may have increased reporting of deaths. The California rate was 6.7 in 1998 and 7.7 in 1999.
Because the number of mothers who die is small, the rate tends to fluctuate from year to year.
In 2003, when California put a new checkbox on death certificates asking if the deceased was pregnant within one year of death, the rate jumped to 14.6. And in 2006, the last year for which data is available, the rate stood at 16.9. The national rate was 13.3 per 100,000 live births.
The best estimates show that less than 30 percent of the increase is attributable to better reporting on death certificates. Even after adjusting the numbers to reflect better reporting, the maternal death rate between 1996 and 2006 has more than doubled, Main said.
When researchers unveiled their initial findings to a conference of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2007, there were gasps from the audience, according to participants attending the San Diego event.
The idea that California was moving backward even in an era of high-tech birthing was implausible to some. Confirmation of the trend was noted in a 2008 report written by 27 doctors and researchers. The report was described in detail to California Watch.
The state of California has yet to share the report with the public. Researchers say that, after reviewing the report in 2008, officials in the Department of Public Health asked for technical clarifications. Revisions were complete and approved in the first half of 2009, according to Ahmad.
Al Lundeen, the department's director of public affairs said, "There was no effort to hold that report back. It just needed some more revisions."

Taking action

The California task force isn't waiting to determine the ultimate cause of these deaths. It has started pilot projects to improve the way hospitals respond to hemorrhages, to better track women's medical conditions and to reduce inductions.
Dr. David Lagrew, meanwhile, thinks he may have arrived at an answer. In 2002, Lagrew, the medical director of the Women's Hospital at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Orange County, noticed that many women were having their labor induced before term without a medical reason. He knew that having an induction doubled the chances of a C-section.
So he set a rule: no elective inductions before 41 weeks of pregnancy, with only a few exceptions. As a result, Lagrew said, the operating room schedules opened up, and the hospital saw fewer babies admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit, fewer hemorrhages and fewer hysterectomies.
All this, however, came at a cost: The hospital had to take a cut in revenue for reducing the procedures it performed. Lagrew doubts that any hospital has increased its C-section rate in pursuit of profit, but he adds that the first hospitals to adopt controls on early elective inductions have been nonprofits.
On average, a C-section brings in twice the revenue of a vaginal birth. Today, the C-section is the single most common surgical procedure performed in the United States.
Although the state hasn't released the task force's report, the researchers and doctors involved forwarded data to the national Joint Commission, which issued incentives for hospitals to reduce inductions and fight what it called "the cesarean section epidemic."
"You don't have to be a public health whiz to know that we are facing a big problem here," said Bingham, the executive director of the task force.

Online resources: To read more about maternal mortality rates and pregnancy-related deaths, go to californiawatch.org.

I love the hard life

Pooh

I always loved Winnie the Pooh:

"Promise me you'll always remember: you're braver than you believe,
and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." - Christopher
Robin to Pooh

Sex

Sex sells. Case in point: Dress scandy and stand in front of knock off
designer sunglasses. Males have not only approached the kiosk, but
purchased the replica glasses. I have yet to see a female purchase
anything.

This is a case for...Fabio!

Sushezi

I wanted a Sushezi and luckily got one for Christmas.  It is the coolest contraption ever.  One would look at the contraption and might possibly think that it is bollocks, but never fear.  This shit works!  It's as easy as the following:


1. Buying the ingredients (sushi rice, nori, veggies, fish, sauces, etc.).
2. Cooking the rice.
3. Chopping everything into small pieces.

4. Then you follow the direction or the video on the Sushezi website and fill the contraption with desired ingredients.  
5. Place the rice roll in nori and roll it using water to seal edges.
6. Keep in fridge for 10 minutes so the roll can soften.
7. Using a real sharp knife cut the roll into desired pieces (cleaning the knife with each cut).

8. Enjoy!

Love my horoscope

Jupiter is now in your relationship sector. If you think of all the dishevel you have been through in the last few years then this may be the lucky break you have been waiting for in relation to love. Have a good think on what you really want and what you are willing to do to get it. If you have been finding life ruling you lately then now is the time to take control back and assert your own power. This applies equally to those who have been ruling you and to yourself for allowing this to happen.

Totally applies.

Homework

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.  -  Dr. Seuss

My previous post was a rushed thought.  The point is shit happens.  Sometime you have no control of the world.  We want to hold onto everything so tightly, but we simply cannot.  Something goes "wrong" in our eyes and we become angry, upset, sad, frustrated, furious, etc.  Instead of reacting we should use are brains and feelings to respond in that moment.  What can I do in this moment before I get upset?  Is there anything that I can do to change the path of this experience?  Whether the answer is yes or no, whether one has any small influence, one thing is certain.  The only thing a person can control is how they react and how they feel.  That's quite powerful. 

 Homework.

I think I need to learn to trust the universe.  If you try to hard to control something, you're bound to loose control.  Sometimes you have to relish in loosing control.
 
I know, I know.  Working on it.    

I was having a find day and one little thing had to ruin it.  Next thing you know I'm just so upset.  I have no one to make me feel better, or simply to talk to.  I feel so alone.  You feel the weight of the world at times like this. 

Now this is positive!

My horoscope for the day:

Your partnership potential is looking good over the next several months as joyful Jupiter moves through your 7th House of Relationships. Although you may be disappointed if your expectations are unrealistic, it's more likely that someone special will enter your life and impact you in a positive manner. Whether you discover a mentor or a romance, exciting opportunities abound.

Thoughts

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. - Jonathan Swift

I've come to see that I get disappointed so easily in others because I have such high expectations for them.  Perhaps they can't live up to those expectations?  Perhaps it is not right to expect anything from others?  I also, however, have high expectations for myself and if I fail to meet my own self set designs I am also hard on myself.  This goes hand in hand. 

Then I think about a quote on my friends blog: "You should NEVER settle for less than you deserve. Because the moment you do, you get even less than what you settled for."  This is something to consider. 

So one shouldn't have expectations, but by the same rule set, how does one prevent settling?  I don't want to be a person that live a life of complacency.  If something isn't right, fix it.  Fix your mind, your heart, a negative pattern that has been established.  If that "something" can't be fixed I think that speaks magnitudes in and of itself.

On an entirely different note I read a great book called, "Love and Obstacles."  It's somewhat of a vulgar book about this man who desperately wants to fit in and find himself amidst a lack of positive role models or supervision.  It's told from a collection of short stories that chronicles this mans life that wasn't anything but ordinary.  While somewhat of a "loser" character, it's rather an interesting book and he is rather larger than life.  4 (bizarre) stars.  

I also started reading "A New Earth", which is supposed to be a self help book from the Oprah Book Club, but it blows and I'm deleting it from my kindle.  Yes, I got one for Christmas (aka birth of the boyfriend day).

"On to the next one..."
 

Why are we so hard on ourselves, when the people who love us are so much more forgiving?

This year learn to be kind to yourself.  Learn to forgive yourself.   

Happy New Year

In the endless quest for New Years quotes I settle on three:

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.  ~Oprah Winfrey

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.  ~Benjamin Franklin

Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past.  Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.  ~Brooks Atkinson

I think each quote, in it's own right, offers something important.