Facebook Fun (or not so fun?) and Games

Angel and Frieda Enjoying Milkshakes From Snoopy's Street Fair

My daughter sent me this "Snoopy Snap" which you can do from the game "Snoopy's Street Fair" which is a very cute game, although like SO many other Facebook games it always offers lots of tempting options that cost REAL money.  I mean, I can't blame them, but some games are kind of "worse" than others with what they let you do for free and what they want you to pay for.  I mean, I don't expect to be able to customize Snoopy or Charlie Brown's house down to a choice of JoAnn's or p kaufmann fabric, but sheesh, at Christmas time I don't think there was one "free" decoration for the Christmas tree.  But it's fun enough to play for free, and it's very cute.  These companies have to make money and cheapos like me aren't helping them pay the bills, lol.

So I mentioned in a previous post that I was enjoying Words With Friends.  Well, I'm not enjoying it as much anymore, lol...  I *thought* I was a fairly well-read, intelligent person with a pretty good vocabulary, however, in the first week or two of playing Words With Friends I could not believe how many words people were playing that I had never seen or heard of!!  Ok, I know since I hit 40 the brain cells are starting to die off but, wow!  I am much dumber than I thought!!  Well, finally somebody kindly tipped me off that there are apps and computer programs that you can use to make the best words out of the letters you have - even helping you maximize DL and TL spaces and the like, as well as lists of obscure two and three letter words to play, etc. etc. etc. :-/  Ok, #1 - Um, isn't that cheating?  #2 - If I were playing you face to face I would not, on my turn, turn to my computer to find my next move - would you?  #3 - That doesn't really seem like fun to me - to let your computer figure out some of your moves?  But I guess that's just me.  I'm also not super competitive, so maybe that's part of it.  #4 - The least you can do if you're doing this is LET YOUR OPPONENT KNOW so you can BOTH play with "help" because it's not really very fair to use your computer to help you make words no one's ever heard of while I'm only using MY BRAIN, now is it??   Sheesh!  Blah.  Whatever.  (Btw, I *know* not everyone is doing this, but I'm kind of put me off the whole game - I can't keep track of who seems like they're getting help and who is just playing brain-to-brain with me - it's sucked the fun out of it.)

Have you tried Zynga's Drop 7 game?  That's a lot of fun, but once I figured out some of the strategy the game can last a looong time...although I still am not very good at getting rid of the "1s" - I end up eventually with the bottom rows filled with them...

And of course I'm still playing Farmville.  There's a rumor we may finally be getting "shared storage" across all the farms, but I'll bet that will cost Farm Cash (= real money).  Don't forget to check under the game window for the occasional surveys you can do for a couple of farm cash - I did one today for Turbo Tax, took about a minute.  Over time those Farm Cash add up!  Also, in case you don't know, there is an official Farmville Blog where they publish the "Quest Guides" so you can see what tasks lie ahead and plan accordingly.  And regarding all the quests lately - it got too stressful for me to try to complete them all, so I just look ahead to what prizes are offered and I don't even bother with the quests unless there are prizes I want.  The game is much more enjoyable now.  I have enough stress in my life, I don't need to be worrying about my blueberries withering, lol!

What Facebook games do *you* like that I should try?

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More Thoughts Too Short for a Whole Blog Post

This is me when I was a baby.  Looks like I was already having more thoughts too short for a whole blog post, eh?  :-)

The Husband refuses to join Facebook - which I can understand.  He's heard too many horror stories of stupid things on Facebook hurting people's careers, so he lives vicariously through my Facebook.  (Although, he told me the other day that there's this whole other secret site called UnFacebook where all the people go who don't want to be on Facebook.)

We ran out of Italian Seasoning and when I was grocery shopping I was going to purchase more until I saw the price - $6.10!!!!!!!   For a "vial" of Italian Seasoning????  Are they putting gold in Italian Seasoning these days?????  That was McCormick brand btw - they didn't have a store brand or any other brand.  We are just going to have to live without Italian Seasoning for now cause I'm not paying no $6.10 for it!!!

The Daughter got Just Dance 3 for the Wii for Christmas and it has this great feature called "Just Sweat" for exercising (thank you btw to all those who gave me suggestions on how to get rid of my Christmas Blubber - I'm still looking into/considering ideas).  So far my fave song to dance to surprisingly is Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way".  I can get 4 stars on that one.  :-D

Besides the show "Gold Rush" I am also now hooked on "Flying Wild Alaska" - I've watched all of Season 1 on Netflix and tried to watch as much of the current season as I could remember to.  The Husband is getting worried with my fascination with Alaska and he's already told me we are NOT moving to Alaska, and not to get any ideas - the Adirondacks is as far north as he's willing to go.

Now that the Husband and I have hit our forties, our inability to remember things at times has become quite amusing.  The other day the Husband couldn't think of the word for a particular item and called it, "the fart balloon thingy" (whoopie cushion).

Speaking of being in your 40s...I went for my first mammogram the other day.  I can't decide whether to blog about it or not.  I'm pretty sure my description of the ordeal I went through would give you a laugh, but on the other hand it just might be tmi....lol...

Speaking of laughs...I am reading a book by a local Hudson Valley author called, "A Real Piece of Work".  It's a detective/mystery/thriller story - I'm three quarters of the way through it and so far I'm really enjoying it - not too gritty, just great storytelling THANK YOU!  I happen to follow this author on Twitter and he occasionally tweets lines from the book, such as this, "Briefly I wished I were that other detective, Spenser, who could make a gourmet meal out of vitamin C tablets and an onion." As I was reading, I came across this gem I think should be his next quote, "I rolled over a drift and scrambled behind a tree, my thighs as nimble as two frozen hams."  This books has some very witty lines, lol.  The only thing I'm worried about regarding this book, is that there is a sequel - already written - but the author (Chris Orcutt) won't release it until he sells 1,000 copies of *this* book - gah!  I have no idea how close he might be, but if you want to check it out here's a link to the Amazon page - it's in Kindle format (you don't need a Kindle btw to read it - you can download an app to read it on your pc or ipod/ipad) and it's $4.99 - Chris Orcutt's A Real Piece of Work.

It's actually snowing here today in NY - hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Anyone Know of a Diet that Really Keeps the Weight Off??

Ok, ok.  I know *no* diet will "work" - it has to be a lifestyle change.

Ok, so does anyone know of a LIFESTYLE CHANGE that actually makes you lose weight and keep it off, and isn't torture and doesn't involve eating 10 bowls of cabbage soup a day, or diet pills or anything weird?

I have done Weight Watchers countless times now.  It works to take the weight off - I am able to succeed in that endeavor time and time again.  The problem is, the weight creeps back on and it seems like now every January I have to go back on it to re-lose the weight again and I'M TIRED OF DOING WEIGHT WATCHERS.  I just am.  And clearly once I lose the weight, I don't maintain it.  Because I like to eat.  That's the problem ya see.

So here it is January, and I have the usual Christmas Blubber I want to lose and I just don't know what to do this time.  I really don't have the motivation or desire to do Weight Watchers again...but all the other diets I've looked at require you to eat in a way that I'm sure I won't be able to stick to for the long term.

The *only* thing I can think of is to exercise a lot.  But if you know me, you know I *hate* to exercise and I *hate* to sweat.

Quite a dilemma here.

I need some ideas, inspiration and motivation.  I even thought of "bribing myself" with a new purse or new rustic furniture for our cabin if I could lose 30 lbs.  But I don't even know how to lose 30 pounds other than Weight Watchers.... :-/

If you have any suggestions on how you lost weight and kept it off, I'd be interested to hear what worked for you - please share!!

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