This crazy adventure I call life

First, yes, I realize that I titled this post the same as the name of this blog. That's because life is a crazy adventure and I'm feeling adventurous lately. Wanna see why? Ok, I can do that. Here's what life has been about lately....






If you want to see more, you can head over to my newest site, underground ink, by clicking here.


Have a great day everyone! I'll be seeing you around.

Howdy-do

Hello all you beautiful residents of Blogland! It feels like forever since I've been here, or even wanted to be here. I've decided that I really do miss blogging though & that I shouldn't just let my blogs sit around and collect cobwebs (at least TWO of them shouldn't do that....sadly the other ones will, but I believe I've given them a proper sendoff so that's all good.). I've been trying to come back to life for some time now. I think maybe I've finally arrived. I guess only time will tell that story. I hope you'll hang around with me. There are links on my sidebar & across the top of the page. If you have a few extra minutes, maybe you'll be kind enough to check that stuff out. I WILL be back here soon, talking & showing off pictures, I promise! I hope you all have a very merry Christmas & that all your Christmas wishes come true! As always, with love....

Told ya'

Yes, I did. 

I told you that changes were coming and now they're here! What do you think? I like it! The only thing I don't like is that I've lost all your wonderful comments since I changed back to the Blogger comment form from the Intense Debate comment form. But...C'est la vie...Such is life. It will be ok.

I also told you that I planned on catching up on my shows and then telling you what I think. Thank goodness for DVR's otherwise I would have missed out on some good stuff!

Survivor: Nicaragua  

Image via Wikipedia

I was really sad to see Jimmy Johnson voted off the show. I think they really messed up with that one. He's a great leader and could have taken them far. Now that the tribes have been mixed up and they are no longer the older tribe vs. the younger tribe, it's kind of a moot point but I still think he could have been a huge asset. 

I was happy to see Jimmy T. leave though. Not that I think he's a horrible person but I just couldn't stand any more of his whining to be the leader. It was really annoying. If you want to be a leader then lead. Nike™ said it best, Just Do It.


My favorite player (for now) is Marty. I think he's really playing. He's causing things to happen and change without being noticed as the person that's causing it.

Photo courtesy CBS

My least favorite player is NaOnka. I just can. not. stand. her. She's rude. She's hateful. She's no help at all. I wish she would get voted out. Now.

Hell's Kitchen

I'm really disappointed in this season's contestants. I'm not even sure if I could pick someone that I think could run a kitchen. I was happy to see all of the contestants leave that have left up until now except for Boris. I liked him. I don't think he could have run the Araxi Restaurant but he tried to do his best. 

If I was forced to pick a favorite, it would be Jillian. I can easily pick a least favorite: Sabrina. She can't cook the simplest dishes without having to ask how to do it but continuously praises herself on being a great chef. I just don't see it.

The last episode gave us former winners Rock, Christina, Danny & Holly at the chef's tables which was fun. I liked seeing them again. (I can't believe Danny cut all of his hair off!!) It also left us with a cliffhanger which sucked. We won't get to see what happened until November  10th. Grr.

Well guys, I hope you have a wonderful Saturday! I'll be seeing you soon.

Related articles

• 'Survivor' switches things up (theclicker.todayshow.com)
• Survivor Insider: Old vs. Young, Done. Medallion of Power, Done. Suck Continues (eonline.com)
• Hurricane NaOnka doesn't make landfall or dissipate, but Survivor is still annoying (realityblurred.com)

I'm ranting today but I end well

Excuse me while I rant a moment please.

Dear William Dunigan,

Please go away. I do not wish to promote your books. You say Jesus leads you. I don't think He wants you to spam people's blogs. If you want to promote yourself, do it on your own blog. This is my blog and I get to choose what is or is not promoted. I choose to NOT promote you or your books. As a matter of fact, I refuse to even link to your blog during this rant. You start your spiel with "ARE YOU A HIGHLY EDUCATED PERSON?" and then continue on with why Jesus wants me to buy your books. Well, I'm sorry but I just don't believe Jesus is too worried about whether or not I buy your books. Stop leaving your comments here. They will be deleted. Thank you.

Aaaah, ok, I feel better now :)

Now on to the "ending well" part of my post. Like I told Mr. Dunigan above, this is my blog and I get to decide what and who I'd like to promote. And what I'd like to promote today is ME and TWO DEAR BLOGLAND FRIENDS :D

I was very blessed to receive two awards yesterday! My friend William from Williams Poetry Blog and my friend Susan from A Southern Daydreamer both gave me awards! You can click here to see my awards and read all about them. You can also click on the names of their blogs to visit them. I think you'll really like both of them. They are awesome people ♥

Now for promoting myself. I have a Fan Page on Facebook for my cookbook. I'd love it if you became my fan! Click here to go to my FB Fan Page.

See? I told you I'd end well! Have a great day everyone and I'll see you tomorrow.

Amazing

I just got done watching yesterday's premier of The Amazing Race. Not having cable at this time I had to wait until today to watch it online. That's ok though. It certainly lived up to it's name for me! Amazing!

One of the reasons I love this show so much is all the places I get to see. I figure I'll never get to Argentina or China or ANY place outside of the United States but I feel like I get to visit them anyway. The views that Amazing Race provide me allow me to do that.

The preview was very exciting and filled with lots of action including a walk across a 120-foot cable the length of a football field suspended over a valley in Valparaiso, Chile. One couple, high school sweethearts Dana & Adrian, couldn't complete the challenge and were eliminated from the race.

There were also plenty of dumb moves which is another enjoyment I get out of the show. I figure if people do things that dumb on TV then I'm ok with the dumb things I do that no one ever sees. My top pick of dumb moves from this episode was when the father & daughter team, Steve & Allie, painted the inside of someone's home that wasn't part of the race.

But my favorite part was watching MY team, Jeff & Jordan from last season's Big Brother, win the first leg of the race! Woohoo guys! Keep up the great work! I can't wait to see what you do next Sunday!

Now, on a totally unrelated note but still amazing...

I received a prize from one of my Blogland friends, William. I think he is so sweet! Thank you so much William! Be sure to visit my Blog Love blog tomorrow where I will post my award and my thank you :) I would have posted it today but I have already written my post there and didn't see that I won an award until I got here (sorry honey). William writes beautiful poetry and short stories. If you'd like to visit him, click here.

That's it for today guys....I'll see you tomorrow!

Dear Blogger,

Are you sleepy? Do you need to take a little vacation? What's wrong??

I don't know how many of you keep up with the Blogs of Note from your dashboard but I am one of the people that does. Or at least tries to keep up with them. Lately Blogger hasn't wanted me to do that I guess.

The last Blog of Note listed on my dashboard is from January 15th. Isn't it January 22nd now or is my calendar lying to me?

Frustrated, I clicked on the link that says "The latest Blogs of Note" and it took me to a page that has..... the newest Blogs of Note. Will I have to go to this page to see them from now on? Are you really making it that much harder for me to see them?

Ok, I know it's not that hard to go to a new page but I liked it the other way. It made me feel a little special (and spoiled) to have them right there whenever I wanted to see who was new. Why the change Blogger? I don't like it!!

I. WANT. MY. OLD. DASHBOARD. BACK. NOW!!!!!

(can't you just see me throwing a little kid hissy fit right now? I am...trust me...)

LOL

Ok, I'm done griping for the time being.

How about you....Do you keep up with the Blogs of Note? Did your dashboard change how it displays them too or is it just mine picking on me?

Button, button, who's got the button?

I do!

I have been having so many sleepless nights lately that it's starting to get on my nerves. But anyway, that's a different post.

Last night, when I couldn't sleep, I got to playing around and ended up making several different blog buttons. I can admit that I'm somewhat of a nerd. You don't have to tell me :)

I made one for my cookbook:

And I made one for here:

I already had one on my Happy At Home blog but here it is since I'm showing them off:

You can get the codes to each of these buttons from my sidebars of each respective blog. I would be tickled pink if you decided to show off my buttons on your blogs! Just click on the buttons and they will take you to those blogs :)

Then this morning I decided to make a blog specifically for my awards, blog buttons, memes, prizes and other things I love. (I know, like 3 blogs weren't enough already but like I said, I don't sleep much.)

So I give you....

I've just started working on it. I haven't had any visitors yet. (Yes, that's a MAJOR hint!) I'd love to see you there. Click on the button to visit it. It's just a place for me to show off all my love ♥ I plan on putting a few tips there too (like how to make your own blog button for example) but it may take me a little bit to get it done. I promise it will get done though!

So....

I hope to see you at all my blogs.

I will see you at yours!

Have a great day!

This one's for you Dan

As most of you know, I love my blogs. Not just the ones I write (sometimes I'm not such a big fan of myself) but also those that I read. And as I've not so discreetly mentioned 5000 times, I adore comments. Because of that it really makes me happy when those people whose blogs I follow also follow me or at least leave me comments every so often.

I have a point here. I'm not just rambling I promise.

The other day on my Happy At Home blog, one of my favorite bloggers Dan from The Art of Panic left me a comment and part of it said the following:

And note that your strategy of posting about TV (which I rarely if ever partake of) forced me to come over here to comment today. {*bloort*} <- that's the sound of a wet raspberry!

First, LOL Dan :) That really made me smile.

I'm getting closer to my point I promise...

I've been working on a friend of mine's blog layout for her (she's pretty cool too so if you get the chance to visit her please do. Her name is Britt and her blog is HERE) and I decided to put her blog on Technorati. Two of my blogs are there. This one and my Happy At Home blog. (The link to follow me there is on my sidebar on each blog) They won't let my cookbook be there because they think it's spam. I don't get that but anyway...

While I was submitting Britt's blog, I thought "well I haven't been here in awhile, I wonder how my blogs are doing.." So I go to my profile and click on the title to this blog and this is what I see:


Look a little closer...Do you see that little green thing over on the right hand side?


Here it is REALLY closeup...


Yep, I made the list of TV related blogs. And made it into the top 100. I didn't realize how much I talked about TV until I saw that. Which is ok with me because I do love my TV but it's probably going to get me an even bigger raspberry from Dan :D

Does this ever happen to you?

Sometimes I wonder just exactly what I've done to Blogger to make them hate me. Let me explain...

First, see that widget down there on the right hand side? Ok, I know there's more than one so I'll be specific. The one I'm referring to is NetworkedBlogs on Facebook. I actually have this blog, my other blog, Happy at Home, and my cookbook listed there but that's kind of beside the point.

The point is that Blogger doesn't send my updates to them half the time. Then when I force it to publish my latest posts, Blogger decides it's time to update them and I have double and sometimes triple posts of the same stuff. It's very irritating!

Of course I could be blaming Blogger unnecessarily. It may be Facebook that hates me. Even though I log into Facebook 20 million times a day. And I practically beg people to follow me there. I'm still blaming Blogger...

They apparently love Twitter though because those updates happen almost instantaneously. It seems like when I hit "Publish Post" here, they are on the screen there. It's pretty cool. Mentioning Twitter brings me to my next Blogger related complaint...

I found one of the blogs I follow on Twitter. It's a pretty cool blog, The Savage Legend. He started following my Twitter so I went to his Twitter page and decided I liked him and started following him. That led me to his blog and I decided I liked him even more so I started following him there too.

Here's the issue: I can't leave him any comments. If you know me, then you know I love leaving comments as much as I love receiving them. It's killing me.

I had an issue before with leaving comments on his blog and it turned out that he had comments disabled. He fixed that.

Then this morning I visited him. He had links listed and I tried to comment on those and let him know I'd visit them soon plus tell him that I really liked his new blog layout. I used that layout when I had this blog on Wordpress. It wouldn't let me tell him that. It kept telling me 'Service Unavailable'. Grr.

So I went to his next post about coffee. I love coffee Jonathan. I tried to tell you this but after I typed my comment and the word verification popped up, it was cut in half...hang on, I'll show you what I mean...

Ugh.

Maybe it's just your blog that doesn't like me.

I guess I shouldn't blame Blogger. It seems now that I've written this out that it's just Facebook and Jonathon's blog that hate me. I'm done complaining. :) I hope y'all have a great day.

Promises, promises

Hey y'all! I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I know I promised the other day that I was going to get caught up with everyone here in blogland and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to do that yet. Now that Christmas is over, I should be able to get back to normal tomorrow...I won't promise anything but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed!

While I've been away from Blogger, I've been playing around with Wordpress. It's pretty neat. So neat in fact, that I decided to move my cookbook over there. I like it much better. Check it out if you get the chance.

So....

If all goes well....

And everyone cooperates....

And no disasters occur....

I'll see you tomorrow!

OH YEAH! And yay! Yesterday was my Blogaversary for this blog! Woohoo! A year!! :) Thank you to Teena in Toronto who left me a congratulations message! That was very sweet and made me smile!

Do you really mean it Google?

Every now and then I pop over to my Google account and look up what search queries bring people to my blog. Sometimes I'm surprised by what Google says. Like today.

Top 5 search queries that bring people here according to Google

1. hate kara dioguardi

Now I know I said I hated her here once, maybe twice, or um three times, but come on Google. Is this really number one???

2. somtimes love comes around

Awww, I like this one

3. but to me this is what i call life

Makes sense...

4. botie call

Um. Ok. Is this perhaps BOOTIE call? What have I written to have this make the list? Was it perhaps the one time I mentioned not being a prude?? Oh my.

5. life and death

I do write about both...

So there you have it. Did one of these search queries bring you here?

Remember me?

Sometimes I wonder how forgettable I am. And sometimes I wonder how much I forget. Sometimes I wonder if I forgot something or someone important. Or special.

If you've ever looked at my profile, you know I follow a lot of blogs. Thankfully I have the Dashboard to remind me of all of them and update me when someone posts. Otherwise I may forget some of them. But I don't think so.

Some of you know that in the last year we've lived without electricity twice. The first time was a little over three months. The second time was right at one month. Quite literally during those times I thought about my blogs and the blogs I follow at least 5000 times. I missed them. I think all of the people I follow are special and have become quite attached to all of you.

I've just recently gotten to be back here and have been doing my best to catch up on all your blogs. I love to leave comments almost as much as I like to receive them. Thank you to the people who do leave them for me. They really make my day (Unless you're one of the spammers. In your case, I don't like you at all.) and bring a smile to my face every time I read them.

I feel like I'm rambling a little so to wrap this up, I'd just like to remind everyone of my blogs.

I have this one of course. It's my news/things-that-happen-that-I-want-to-rant-about blog. I've been writing it almost a year now.

There's my Happy At Home blog (just click on the title to visit it). It's my ME blog. I write in it the most often and talk about me, my life, my worries, my joys and just about anything else I can think of. I've been writing in it over a year.

Then there's my cookbook, The Eat Food NOT Money Cookbook (again, click on the title to visit it). It contains all my favorite recipes, readers recipes and occasionally recipes from other sites that I fall in love with that are inexpensive and easy to prepare. I also do a monthly review for Cooking Light magazine. I've been writing my cookbook almost a year too.

I'll continue to visit all of you that I already visit and any new blogs that I find interesting. I hope you will continue to visit me and check out my other blogs as well. Have a great day everyone!

Be back in 5 minutes

You probably know I have more blogs than just this blog (if you don't you do now...they are here and here) and you may know that I've recently given both those blogs a makeover. I've been searching and searching for a layout for THIS blog too but so far I've been unsuccessful. That may change today. We'll see.

So if you're here and things are changing at every refresh, no need to panic :) It's just me being me and playing around with things. By this time tomorrow This Crazy Adventure I Call Life should be brand spanking new (at least in it's appearance)!

Have a great Wednesday everyone! See you tomorrow :D

My music and you

For anyone that knows me in "real life" this should come as no surprise... I love music. I can not go even one day without listening to music. If there's no music to play, I sing my own. I can NOT be without it.

Some of you may have noticed that music is not playing on this page anymore. I came to that decision after reading first a comment and then a blog written about music on blogs and the comments that were left there.

Actually there is still music on this page. All I did was turn auto-play off. But I figured if it was that big of a deal to people, it shouldn't start on it's own. Of course I honestly don't understand why it should be a big deal to turn the music player off if you are visiting and don't want to hear it but I'm not a fighter. And I hate upsetting people. So to avoid any conflict (and to make people happy because that is very important to me) I turned it off.

If you are like me and want to hear music all the time you can push play and listen until you're happy. I am listening now. :) The player is at the bottom of the page. Click away!

For my what I hope to be new friend that didn't like it, there you go. It's really not a problem for me to turn it on when I'm here and now you don't have to worry about turning it off. I enjoy your comments and hope you keep visiting. I did see a lot of people on your blog that agreed with you wholeheartedly. And I think my solution keeps EVERYONE happy which, like I said before, is extremely important to me.

As an added note my Happy At Home blog (which is my personal/this is me blog) will always have music playing when you get there. Just a warning :D lol You may want to turn your speakers off.

Have a great day everyone!

Peace.

Calling all beach bums!

What could be better than living on a beautiful beach, snorkeling along the reef and exploring an island anytime you got the urge? How about getting paid for it.

Sounds like a dream job to me. But it’s not a dream. It’s exactly what the Australian government is offering. $105,000 plus a rent free beach home to live on this beautiful island for six months. All that’s required to get this job is the ability to swim, be able to speak and write English and not be shy.

The person who gets the job will be expected to talk to the media, keep a blog and provide video and photo updates. Australia is trying to bring more tourism to the country, specifically to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.

I can imagine the scene all too easily which probably means I’d love this job. Just the wildlife alone would be worth it to me. Plus you get to live on an island! Now that feels too good to be true. I’m already very jealous of someone. I don’t know who will get the job, but whoever it is, I’m jealous!

If you’re interested in applying for this job you can click here, but I’m warning you A LOT of people are interested and therefore the site is so busy it’s very hard to get to it. I tried for over half an hour before it would finally go to the site.

If you do make it to the site there are links to all the relevant issues pertaining to this job. There is a full job description you can download and details on the responsibilities, criteria and benefits.

If I had nothing else to do I would definitely apply for this job. Six months would go by so fast. Especially on an island. I wonder if it’s a one time deal. Or if you can sign up for another six months after the first ones have past. I imagine that answer is in the FAQ section included on the site. I think I’ll go read them now and have a little daydream about living on the beach.

Note: Today's news revealed that because of the high volume of traffic to the application site it crashed. It took several hours to get the site back up and some portions are still unavailable.

Busy little bees

One of the blogs I follow is Linda’s Bees. I’ve always avoided bees. I’m highly allergic to them. But because of Linda and her wonderful bee blog, I’ve really become interested in them.

I’ve already learned a lot about these tiny creatures from Linda and the various links she provides. I went on a site yesterday that she had mentioned and I watched bee movies. They were really neat. I enjoy learning new things.

Then this morning I came across a bee story out of Fresno California. With my new found bee interest I decided to read it. It seems the citrus farmers and the beekeepers are having a battle.

The citrus farmers say that the new seedless variety of tangerines that they are growing do not require bees attention. As a matter of fact bees ruin these tangerines by pollinating them and causing seeds to grow when seeds are unwanted.

The beekeepers say they are losing a lot of bees right now due to the lack of nourishment during the winter months. There just isn’t enough food for all the bees and they have to compete for the food that is there. The tangerine groves provide that much needed food.

The story read to me a little like an elementary schoolyard fight. The beekeepers say if you don’t want the bees doing what comes naturally to them, net your trees. The citrus farmers say make your hives smaller. Less bees equals less competition. And if you don’t like that, move.

I’m leaning towards agreeing with the beekeepers but probably not for the reasons you think. First, the whole let’s mess with genetics and chemically manipulate a fruit that human beings are going to eat thing doesn’t sit well with me at all. Cloned sheep is another no-no to me. Or those people that clone their dogs. I just couldn’t do it. It’s not natural.

But I digress. The second reason I agree with the beekeepers is they’re right. You can’t blame beekeepers for bees pollinating your trees. Even if the beekeeper wasn’t there with their hive, bees would still have access to your grove. All a beekeeper in the area does is increase the amount of bees. I think trying to blame the ruination of your crops on a specific group of bees is like saying there’s a little water in the ocean. It just doesn’t work.

And the work begins

I only have about nine of my posts from my original Crazy Life site that I can post here. It's ok though. You live and learn. I just keep telling myself that. So...

I'm going to go ahead and do the work to put those nine posts here. It's nine more than I would have had if I was starting from scratch. I understand I am starting from scratch really. But what can you do?

You have to laugh

So many of you that have spent time following my ramblings knows that I can be a royal, for lack of better words, goob. I had the idea that I could move my website over here to Blogger and therefore save us a little money each month. It wouldn’t be a ton of money, but every little bit helps.

I proceeded to know that I could import my already existing Crazy Life blog to Blogger and all would continue on as it was before. I set up the blog from my dashboard. I hit import blog. It said importing blog. Then it said oops!

Oops was not really the word I was hoping to see. Something along the line of success! would have been much better. But alas, my goob self decided it was not a problem. I would just leave my website alone. No loss no gain.

No issues with that, right? Right (said with pure sarcasm in my voice). No issues. No blog, but no issues. I have to say the deleting of my cookbook a week or so ago was a lot worse than this. This time I didn’t cry. I just sighed and said to myself that I should have known better.

All of my links lead you to this page that you are on now. At least I got that part right. Or so it seems. I’ll have to go through the three million places I have my links posted and make sure they all work.

I do have some of my posts saved. Not all of them. Not the last months worth. But it’s ok. You live and you learn and you go on because to do anything else would just be silly.

I’m not going to stress over it. I’ll go through the posts I have saved and repost any of them that I like on this site over the next few days. And then I’ll just start over. It will be ok. And at least I’m laughing.