Finally Getting Fit

Hello and happy Monday everyone!

Today I’m doing something a little different…

When it comes to the healthy changes I made (some whether I liked it or not, hehe) after I moved to Australia, I will be the first to tell you the many, many ways those changes helped me. That’s why I am happy to introduce you to Sandy Power’s Organic for Healthy virtual tour.

Sandy is touring around the internet this month with her book (pictured right) Organic for Health. In it, Sandy tells us the many reasons why we should go organic.

An excerpt from the book:

‘I call them “The Big Offenders.” These are the guys that add hormones and antibiotics to dairy cows, beef cattle, sheep, and chickens. They inject these hormones into cattle and sheep so the animals gain weight faster. The faster weight gain reduces the waiting time for the animal’s slaughter, speeding the meat to your dinner table. Dairy cows are injected with hormones to increase milk production. This increase in milk production requires frequent milking which in turn leads to udder irritation and infections that require antibiotics. Since the infections don’t always completely clear up, the government permits a certain amount of pus to remain in the milk.’

If you would like more information on Sandy’s tour, you can check out Virtual Book Tours for Authors. She’ll be stopping back here this Friday with a guest post about going organic. I’ll also be posting a review of her book here after that.

Have a great Monday!

OrganicforHealth.com

Hi all! Man it seems like forever since I’ve been able to post here. Do you feel the same?

Anywho, because of what happened, it came to my attention just how many people read here that have no way of getting in touch with me when the site is down. For the majority of you, that’s not a problem. Either you have my email address or you’re just not that upset about not being able to contact me for whatever amount of time. And that’s okay because I’m not always the best correspondent.

However, it would have been very nice to be able to let you know what was going on.

Because of that, I have been ‘inspired’ to tell you about a few of the other places you can find me, should something like this happen again. (Let’s all hope that it doesn’t.)

Twitter

Facebook

I’m at other places to, but these two are the ones I generally check in on every day. If you have any recommendations of other things I should join, let me know. Just keep in mind that I’m usually quite lazy and I’m proud of the fact that I have two social sites that I visit daily.

Feel free to friend me on any of these sites. It would be great, though, if you could let me know that you’re friending me because you saw this post. (“Hi, I’m ___. I read you on ___.) That’s not possible for all the sites, but I will definitely appreciate it if you put it in when you can.

Thank you all. Now it’s time for lunch.

Hi everyone!

Phew! We are back in action (as you can see). Did you miss me? I missed you!

Group hug!

Too much? Okay. I’ll behave.

I am very glad to be back in action and posting here on site. I apologize for all the down time, but as happens with technology sometimes, we had a bit of a technology burp. Apparently some drives and servers went down at headquarters and things were a bit messy for a while.

Don’t ask me to go into it further because it’s probably, ultimately, quite boring.

Thank you all for your patience (and for coming back after such a long gap). I know that going too long without posting can be a bit of a ‘virtual death’ for any site, so I doubly appreciate all of you who have been checking in with me via email, twitter and other things.

If any of you are interested in alternative ways to contact me (should the sites ever go down again, heaven forbid), leave a comment and I’ll post up some of my information.

I would like to reward everyone who stuck around through all this by holding a contest. I know I just held two big contests, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hold a few more, right?

If you have any ideas for a contest, please let me know. I’ll be taking your suggestions for the next few weeks so we can hopefully get something going soon.

Once again, my apologies, and thank you to everyone for your patience. I’m very glad to be back.

Have a good one!

Hello everyone.

As you likely already know, many of the sites on the 451press network are down and have been down for some time (what seems like forever!).

I would like to apologize on behalf of 451press for the technical difficulties we have been experiencing lately. There are problems at 451press headquarters right now involving the equipment and machines we use to keep the sites up and running. The good news is that these problems are being addressed and hopefully we’ll get things up and running sooner rather than later.

Thank you very much for your patience. At this time, about half the sites are down so a lot of people are unable to post and a lot of readers have been left in the dark. If possible, if you know other people who read blogs here at 451, please let them know that the problem is being worked on and the sites will hopefully be up again soon.

Thankfully, this site is still up and working and I will continue to post here for as long as I can.

Remember, if you need to contact me for any reason, you can use the contact me button below the site description on the right. If these sites go down for any reason, you can also find me twittering away at http://twitter.com/JaimeMcD . Just remember that I’m in a different time zone so responding to you might take a bit longer than you anticipate.

Thank you again for your patience. Hopefully things will be back to normal soon.

Hello everyone!

As you have all probably well and truly noticed by now, 451press blogs have been having a few… problems lately. The sites take a long time to load sometimes and it’s not always easy to comment.

I want to apologize for all the problems and let you know that you aren’t the only ones having difficulties. It’s not just you, not just your computer. Even we bloggers are having difficulties just posting.

Why is it happening? Well, going by the amount of spam comments I have to clean off my sites every day, I think being attacked by one or more spam monsters is driving our servers down into the dumps a bit. Day in and day out of offers to increase the size of your man parts and show you free cartoon porn would do that do anyone, I think.

Hopefully we’ll have everything sorted out very soon and will be back up and running normally soon.

Always remember that you can feel free to contact me using the ‘contact me’ button under the site description. I’m not sure if anything would be so urgent that you would need to let me know, but hey, I’m always up for a casual chat as well.

Please bear with me as all this stuff is happening. It’s not fun for any of us and we certainly don’t like it when our readers are unhappy.

And, just to occupy your time, here is a link to one of my favourite web comics:

Questionable Content

Dear Readers,

Recently my blog posts haven’t been coming up at all regularly. Sometimes there have been no posts for a length of time and then BAM a lot of posts, and other times it has been at least a little steady. I want to apologize to you all for not at least warning you that my life has been a bit wonky lately.

A few weeks back, I got sick enough to take me away from the computer some days. While I tried to stay caught up, it wasn’t easy.

Beyond that, a job opportunity recently came up. My husband and I discussed it and, while it was completely my decision to go for it, we could definitely use the money. I am paying bills just fine with my freelancing, but I’ll be paying them for the next ten years if something doesn’t change.

So I had to put together a resume and then go for the job interview after the week or so of being sick and along with road trips and volunteering.

Even with all this, I do know you all understand that life gets in the way of blogging sometimes (as it should). Despite that, I still wanted to apologize for things. As you can see, I have been a bit busy.

Thank you to everyone who has been commenting and participating in the contest going here until June 5th. Remember, we have to reach 100 comments before the 5th so someone can win the lovely Aussie prize pack I have on offer.

Thank you also to everyone who stops by, contest or not, and chimes in. It’s always nice to know I have readers out there who care enough about what I am saying to say something back.

Hugs and appreciation to you all. I hope each and every one of you has a wonderful weekend.

Yes, I’m not holding just one contest – I’m holding two. On two of my blogs you have the chance to win some very sweet treats just by doing one simple thing…

Stopping by!

Having recently celebrated my first wedding anniversary, I want very much to spread the love and happiness to the most people the best way I know how: my blogs. That’s why I’m holding contests that are easy to win and have some (in my opinion) lovely prizes to win.

On Long Relationships you have four chances (we haven’t had a winner yet) to win a very yummy block of milk or dark chocolate. (Be sure to let me know what kind you like just in case you win…)

On Fiction Scribe you have three chances (we have had one winner so far) to win either a block of milk chocolate or a (very cute) stationary pack along with other goodies picked out by yours truly.

On both sites I have a special prize pack to give to the 100th commenters. I have some very nice Aussie prize packs full of Aussie goodies I love and have picked for this contest. (Ever heard of chocolate covered honeycomb?)

All you have to do to win either contest is stop by and comment (on posts on or after May 5th). That’s right; it’s that simple. If your comment lands on the right number then you can win. As long as you leave a valid comment (no spam) then you’re in the running.

Best of luck to everyone who enters.

That’s right; I’m not weighing in today.

Today I am taking a break from dieting, exercise, and everything else. Today is the day I truly enjoy myself…and my husband.

May 5th is the day I celebrate my first wedding anniversary. Last year at this time I was nervously pacing and getting everything together so I could have the wedding I had dreamed of, getting married to the man I had always dreamed of.

We met online, me from the US and him from Australia. We went through a lot of hard times because of distance and so-called ‘friends’. But we made it through and met in person when I took a plane ride to Australia nearly a year to the day after we met online.

Seven months after we started living together, we got married at the local park, surrounded by our friends.

It wasn’t long after that that I got serious about my getting healthier. I knew that if I kept on my current track, my life would probably be a lot shorter and with a lot more complications. I’m a greedy sort and want all the time I can get with my husband, so I began on my journey.

Nearly a year later, celebrating our first anniversary, I am more in love with my husband than ever and I love myself as well. We have lived, learned and grown so much in the last year and the time has gone by so fast.

I can only hope that we see the success and abundance of love this year that we had sustain us last year.

Be well and happy.

Well, there it is. I’m going to the doctor. I have to call and make an appointment today. Hopefully I can get in on Thursday, but it might be next week instead.

I have a lot (and by ‘a lot’ I mean deep-rooted, serious, and by the dozens) issues with going to doctors. From the going to the doctor to the doctors, I’m just a big ball o’ issues.

But I have to. I can’t do this anymore. I know in the past I have said I should go to the doc and probably would…eventually, but this is a whole new ballpark. (And I swear I’m going to scream if I start crying before I finish typing this.)

I mean, I enjoy losing four pounds in a week any time, but when it’s because I feel gross most of the time (I have a late afternoon window when I feel food in my stomach is not an evil thing) I think something just might be wrong. Plus, I would just really like to get through a day without crying, as I seem to have an inability to do so lately. (Today is out. I cried this morning.)

So cross your fingers for me that I get Thursday. Or tomorrow. Hubby has a trip, but I could go along and we could go to the doc straight after.

But anyway, cross your fingers it’s soon. (No crossing for Friday, non-Australians. It’s a holiday here.) I can’t take much more of this without some relief. Or at the least, some answers.

EDIT: It turns out my doctor is working the holiday and I go in on Friday. Phew!

Interested in reviewing books on your blog? Would you like to interview authors?

We are seeking qualified bloggers who would like to become tour hosts for our clients. If you are a blogger who would be interested in either interviewing our authors, letting them guest post on your blog or would be willing to review their book and posting their review on your blog (or any other type of promotion) on a certain day that both you and we set up together, we would be interested in talking to you.

We are only looking for blogs who receive substantial traffic and are updated frequently.

All our tour hosts receive a link on our sponsors’ page (if you prefer hosting your banner, that’s fine, too), links on our in house blogs, and will receive copies of books where applicable for their time and effort in hosting our authors. You will also receive substantial traffic on your blog while the author is touring as we highly publicize each and every one of our tour stops.

We also spotlight our tour hosts at random in our monthly newsletter. All tour host spotlights will include blog information and an interview with the blog host as part of their feature in the newsletter. More added exposure! And…not only that…we will include your link on this page so that others can see what an outstanding blog you have.

If you are interested, you can visit Virtual Book Tours for Authors, look in the right hand sidebar for the list of authors touring, and let us know which author you would prefer to host.

Once you have decided which author you would like to host, copy and paste the below information into an email and send it to us at thewriterslife(at)yahoo.com. Please put “I Want to Be a Tour Host” in the subject line of your email.

My dear friend Jenera has awarded me with the Great Blog Friend award. While I know a lot of people get annoyed with memes, tags, and awards, I like them a lot and am happy to have Jenera award me with one.

At this point I get to name people I would like to pass the award on to. I love giving awards out to people and would like to give them to everyone I know, but I have narrowed the list down to five lovely ladies who have been good friends and have the wonderful ability to make me smile.

Randi of If You Can’t Say Something Nice
Elisa of Watching Dr. Who
Jummy of Getting Crafty
Emma of Treehouse Jukebox
Lyndsey of Lez Keep It Real

These five ladies have been great friends to me with help in abundance whenever I needed it and a lot of great conversations.

Randi and I bond a lot over our shared condition PCOS and our having divorced certain family members.

Elisa has trusted me with the care of The Book Stacks after writing for it for a long time. She also sent me my first care package after I arrived in Australia.

Jummy is a craft goddess in my eyes and I love getting ideas from her site. She’s always cheerful and enthusiastic.

Emma has been a good friend for a long time and never fails to have strangely awesome timing at saying or doing something that makes me smile.

Lyndsey is a lovely lady who has been a great friend to me from the start. We have a lot of fun when we talk.

And there you have it! Feel free to take this award and pass it out on your blog.

Let me know if you do in the comments section. I always like to cruise around new blogs.

With that, I hope all of you have a lovely weekend filled with laughter, bonding, and good food. I’ll see you back here on Monday with the next weigh in. (Fun, fun. )

Interested in reviewing books on your blog? Would you like to interview authors?

We are seeking qualified bloggers who would like to become tour hosts for our clients. If you are a blogger who would be interested in either interviewing our authors, letting them guest post on your blog or would be willing to review their book and posting their review on your blog (or any other type of promotion) on a certain day that both you and we set up together, we would be interested in talking to you.

We are only looking for blogs who receive substantial traffic and are updated frequently.

All our tour hosts receive a link on our sponsors’ page (if you prefer hosting your banner, that’s fine, too), links on our in house blogs, and will receive copies of books where applicable for their time and effort in hosting our authors. You will also receive substantial traffic on your blog while the author is touring as we highly publicize each and every one of our tour stops.

We also spotlight our tour hosts at random in our monthly newsletter. All tour host spotlights will include blog information and an interview with the blog host as part of their feature in the newsletter. More added exposure! And…not only that…we will include your link on this page so that others can see what an outstanding blog you have.

If you are interested, you can visit Virtual Book Tours for Authors, look in the right hand sidebar for the list of authors touring, and let us know which author you would prefer to host.

Once you have decided which author you would like to host, copy and paste the below information into an email and send it to us at thewriterslife(at)yahoo.com. Please put “I Want to Be a Tour Host” in the subject line of your email.

I love the Thursday Thirteen memes (no comments about me being a list addict…) so I have decided to bring my addiction to this blog as well.

Lists are fun and easy as well as being a facet of this ‘tell me in five seconds’ attention span world.

This week I have decided to start with a bit of motivation, and I encourage you to do this meme either on your own blog or in the comments section if you don’t have one. (If you want help setting up a weight loss blog, feel free to let me know.)

So without further ado…

1. I want to have a healthy body to carry a child with.
2. I’m younger than my husband. I want my fitness to show that.
3. More energy! I could always use more energy.
4. A better sex life. (Yeah, someone had to say it.)
5. To not look silly dancing. I love dancing, but fat dancing doesn’t always look the greatest.
6. To not have to hunt around in the plus size section of stores. Gah.
7. Because I’ve been overweight for as long as I can remember.
8. To feel beautiful and happy about how I look.
9. So my husband has a hot wife.
10. To stick it to everyone I know back in the States.
11. So I don’t have to deal with evil looks from people.
12. To avoid diabetes.
13. To prove to myself that yes, I can do it.

Check out my other Thursday Thirteens at Fiction Scribe, Write Anyway, and The Book Stacks

Hello everyone!

I’m JM. You may know me from my other blogs here at 451, which include Fiction Scribe, The Book Stacks, and Long Relationships. I’ve been blogging for this network since October 2006.

I was born in and used to live in the States, but a few weeks before I started blogging here, I moved to Australia. In May 2007, I married my Australian love. I’m addicted to sushi and travel as well as spending time with my husband.

Along with being a blogger, writer, and Aussimerican wife, I am also one of the millions of overweight people on this planet.

I am also one of the many overweight people who are making life changes in order to get a healthier body and longer life.

The thing to remember about losing weight is that we’re living in a world where still not everyone can agree whether eggs are good for you or not. No one thing is going to work for everybody. No one thing is a huge evil.

I have opinions. You have opinions. The world is full of them. I happen to be the one writing here, so my opinions are going to shine through occasionally in my posts. There might be times you disagree with me. I’ll make you a deal, though. If you discuss nicely with me, I’ll discuss nicely with you.

Disagreements are no excuse for insults. We have something in common: the want to lose weight. Let’s focus on that and help each other along.

Let’s get to it, shall we?