The Evolution of My Backside

Yes, I mean My Ass.  Hope that I doesn't offend anybody too bad, but the truth is I do swear sometimes. I don't intend to. I don't set out to.  But it happens. Usually when I'm frustrated.  Truth is you're liable to see more of that happening around here, cuz let me tell you ... I have had some frustration here lately. So there - the truth is out, but y'all already figured I ain't no angel, right? 0:-)

Here it's an anatomy thing though, so does it really count?

You see, I have a problem. I opened that dresser drawer up there last night - I guess I could be fancy and say my lingerie drawer - when I was gettin' ready to take my bath and found that, despite having a drawer full of panties, there were none I could wear.  You see, my butt is growing. And growing. And growing.

Part of that just comes with age ladies and there's nothing much we can do about it except exercise more.  {Ahem.}  Part of it also comes from that so-called secretary's spread for those of us who, most of our working lives, sat in a chair at a desk.  It doesn't seem to matter much if you're up and down five bazillion times thorough-out the day either, you still get it.  How fun!  And there are people who blog full time, and basically sit on those aforesaid rear ends all day still. And... lucky me, seems I also inherited some of it because most of the girls on my Mama's side of the family seem to have naturally "enhanced" buttocks. Let's just say, we all got back.

Most of this I'm gonna blame on blogging. I am!  If it weren't for blogging, I know I would exercise. I swear I would. Really! Okay. Okay. I really do HATE exercise. I used to force myself to exercise and every once in awhile I start back, for two seconds.  But seriously deciding to turn a hobby blog into a full time blog - oh yeah, nevermind that it's a southern food blog - really did do a number on this gal's backside.  So I'm gonna have to buy some new and bigger improved drawers, as in panties, not dresser.

Course, there's always some hope. Yes ladies, these are beautiful Victoria Secret panties so I will save them because ya never know. Sometimes miracles do happen.



But these. These I'm thinking it's probably time to let go.



Yes. Those are thongs. Just sayin'...

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I Traumatized My Puppy

Or, at least I thought I had. What did I do you ask?

I took Boo to the groomer for a bath and to have his nails trimmed.

I did this not because I can't bathe him myself, I can. And I do. But I cannot, no way, shape or form, get him to allow me to trim those nails. I've tried and he acts as if I am about to cut his foot off!  And, he tries to bite me. Heck I even tried to put a little bit of Carmex on his upper lip that he had licked a raw spot on, and as soon as he tasted it, he snapped at me!

So this pet groomer opened shop at the entrance to my neighborhood recently, and off we went to trim those god-awful talons that have been shredding my legs.

One major problem.  Apparently I did not socialize this almost two year old pup.

Which is odd, because in all the animals I've ever had, well, social skills never seemed to be a problem. Apparently it is with this mix of Heinz 57 breed we adopted, because although he grew up around my lab Sally, the cats, and my husband, based on his behavior at our own front door, he doesn't like other animals and he apparently doesn't care for other people either - not the UPS guy, the mailman, or any of the neighbors.

As soon as we got out of the car at the groomer, he heard another dog barking inside and off he went. The owner of the shop, had a stare-down with him as he barked like an insane animal.  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of very loud and aggressive barking, he caved. I put him on the floor, leash in hand, and he started trying to crawl up my leg, burying his head in the crook of my knee.  By this time I was this short of crying myself!  Thankfully the owner made friends with him, picked him up, assured me he would be alright and took him away as I gave the receptionist my information.  There were several other dogs there ahead of us, so I asked how long it would be and she said an hour or maybe more.

It wasn't 30 minutes later I got the call that he was ready to be picked up.

When I arrived he was barking and I asked if he had been barking the whole time. That would certainly explain the speed of his grooming experience.  I thought,

"Oh no. I am one of those people."

Well, the rest of the day, he hated me. Maybe hate is a strong word, but he definitely had an attitude, because not only did he snap at me several times, he actually bit me a couple of times!  This is the first "spirited" breed of dog that I've ever had - every dog I've ever owned has been much more docile and calm. Now, don't get me wrong, he is a good dog. He comes when I call. He listens to direction. He is otherwise well-behaved. But he is very touchy when it comes to being restrained in any way, or if he perceives any harm. Trouble is, he perceives harm where there is none.

Thank goodness by morning he had seemingly forgotten all about the experience and was back to his old self.

I'm afraid though, we may need some obedience classes.


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Stop the VLOGs Already!

Knock. Knock. Is this thing on?

Okay.  First it was just a few of y'all.  Now more and more of y'all are starting to do these video logs on your blogs.  TOO many more. So stop it already would ya?

A blog is a web log. A WEB LOG. Blog. A journal, if you will. Of writing. On a website where users reflect, share opinions, bitch and moan, and discuss and comment - in writing. Nobody ever said anything about videos.

If y'all keep doing that, it means that I will eventually probably have to and frankly I don't WANT to.

You see, the thing that appealed to me about starting a blog really - and eventually creating a part time business of it - is that not only do I have a very short commute, but I also do not have to 1) get dressed (meaning shorts & a t-shirt or sweats and slippers are just fine, not nakedness. Clean up your minds people), or 2) do my hair or 3) put on make-up to blog. Nobody cares what I look like, or about the xx pounds I've gained from food blogging and not exercising. Nobody.

Now some of y'all bloggers are just ruining it for the rest of us by making up video blogs and puttin' them up on your regular blogs - and even FOOD blogs for pete's sake.  If I want to watch a food video I will turn on Food Network, okay?

Besides. I don't even OWN a video camera, and frankly, I don't really want to go out and buy one.  And then, I guess I'd need a camera man too. Seriously y'all. Do you really think The Cajun is gonna go for that?

So stop it already. Geez, criminey.



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The Gremlins Won

Remember that post I did a little bit ago about instincts? Well, here's one instance where I didn't heed the warnings and had to learn my lesson the hard way.

For months now, my laptop has had gremlins. I don't know what it is about laptop PCs but they are the worse these days! I have purchased 3 of them in the last 5 years and granted, while they were not the most expensive on the market, they weren't what I would exactly consider cheap either, so I can't afford to basically replace them every year or so!

Anyway, my laptop has been hanging up and generally misbehaving for some unknown reason for months, to the point that sometimes I would have to restart it multiple times before I could even use it.  You can imagine that aggravation.  I don't think it was a virus since I have pretty good protection, but I couldn't pinpoint the problems either.  I kept thinking that I needed to get my files backed up, but gone are the days when you could back up files to disk. Computers have gotten so capable of holding massive amounts of data, that you have to either buy online storage or get an external hard drive that holds at least terabytes. Yes, in this tech society, we have surpassed even the gigabytes! By the way, 1 TB is equal to 1024 GB - just in case you wanted to know that. 

Do you think I ever got around to backing up my files? No.

It wasn't that I didn't intend to. I certainly did. But, I would think about it, procrastinate and put it off, and forget about it whilst I would be busy with blog work, developing recipes, cooking, messing up my kitchen and taking photographs of it all. Well, except for the messy kitchen part. Then, this past weekend, the inevitable happened. I had a complete system crash. Although I had set restore points - something that comes in handy if you have computer problems because it allows you to go back to a date where your computer did work - it did not recognize any of those past restore points. The only thing I could do to salvage the computer was to do a factory restore - basically a reformat to overwrite the hard drive.

I lost every single piece of work I have done over the past year. All of my documents. All of my recipe development. All of my PHOTOS. Yep. All of my family and personal pictures as well as all of my blogging food pictures - including several that were in the pipes to post... soon as I typed up the recipes. I lost it all because I did not back up my files.

In years past, if something like this happened it was pretty much a total loss, unless you hired a very expensive computer forensics person to try to find your stuff. You see, even though you think you have deleted files on your computer and you can no longer "see" them, they actually do still reside on the hard drive, at least until one of your computer programs overwrites it with new stuff.  So if you do have to reformat to factory new, it is still possible to retrieve your files by using data recovery software and not using your computer. Or you can take it to a geek shop and have them do it for you ... for a cost.

I'm a bit on the frugal side though, and a tad bit hard-headed and determined to beat computer problems on my own, so I'm trying to do it myself, and I'm in the midst of that recovery process right now. It is not a speedy process and the files you retrieve aren't going to be neatly categorized or organized like they were before.  In the midst of my own pictures are pictures from the net of virtually everything from every web page that I have looked at since booting up this computer for the first time. I also have a copy of every single Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress and Facebook profile picture that I have ever viewed, thousands of website buttons, pngs and gifs and other stuff I don't even remember ever seeing.

Granted I'm not complaining, because in the midst of all of that, I am seeing at least some of my pictures popping up too, so I have my fingers crossed that I can hopefully retrieve some of my stuff.

That means until this process is done, I cannot use my laptop though.  And, while I do have an old desktop Compaq PC - I've had it awhile, so long that I've forgotten how long, meaning it's pretty slow. I am fortunate that I have a newer desktop Mac, which I do love, but when you are used to using PCs all the time, it's hard to adjust to using a Mac full time. I am learning that Mac isn't fond of Google products especially in another browser besides Safari - and I've had some challenges with commenting on some of your blogs even with the Mac browser.

Let's just say it's been a frustrating week and it's only Wednesday morning.

Let's just say I'll be busy for awhile.


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