Hallmark Card Studio 2012

I always loved CreateACard and had every updated version of it since my first computer in 1992. The program had been tossed around from company to company a few times and there's really no support for it and it's fallen by the wayside. It had worked on all versions of Windows  in some form until Windows 7, which stopped it cold. Nobody can get the program on this OS, so those of us who adored the program had to seek out something different for the first time in over a decade.

I had gotten a free trial of some version of Hallmark Cards at some point in the past and saw that Hallmark Cards 2010 had just been released the same time I bought this computer in 2009, so purchased and installed it. It's still not as good as my old CreateACard version 3, but I'm desperate and kept it.

But it never printed cards right. Well, it would print, but each time I wanted to print another card I would have to reconfigure the printer for 2-sided printing within the program. I did on-line searches and saw that many others were having the same problem. I kept checking every few months and saw there was never really a fix to the problem. People who worked on the official Hallmark help site (Soft City?) would ask all sorts of questions and eventually the people asking would give up and wander away, problem still unsolved.

Again today I went to print a card and it wanted to configure it all over again. NO! It was time to stop the insanity!

I searched and searched and searched some more and finally found the solution elsewhere on the Soft City site. As it turns out, even though our programs would ask us if we wanted to check for updates and we said Yes and they found none, but there WAS an update, and it came out years ago. I wish all the people who worked there knew about this patch AND the not-updating issue. It would have solved a lot of problems years ago.

Hurricane Sandy Aftermath - Bayonne, NJ

My hometown didn't avoid Sandy's wrath, either. Here are a few videos taken by various residents.

Down the waterfront where the Elco Marina used to be but is now occupied by condos with their own private marina:

View from 16th Street Park. At the 2:25 mark the person landed at the lower level of the park and it's already underwater with surges coming in from Newark Bay. By the time the storm was at its peak the water completely covered those low fences and went part-way up the hill:

A nut driving around in total darkness after the blackout. It's because of people like him that the mayor called a 6pm-6am curfew during the 8 days without power:

First Street. This street floods during every storm, including sun-showers! Old-timers on the block own their own sandbags and know when to start putting them out. But they didn't do a bit of good with this storm. The street borders the Kill Van Kull, and the people who live here can look out their front windows and see Staten Island, a place that really got hit bad by Sandy. The mayor called for everyone on First through Third Streets to evacuate BEFORE the storm even hit, so it's their own damn fault if they got stuck and had to evacuate with water around their knees DURING the hurricane!



And this last one looks like it was shot within walking distance of my home. I walked right past that tree at the 2 minute mark the same day this video was shot!

Too bad the camera is messed up and everything is echoed and off-color:

The power was out for 5 days for some of the city, 8 days for most of the city, and here we are, more than 2 weeks later, and some people are still without electric.

One of the long-term problems on the east side of the city is the oil. Bayonne was heavily industrialized, the city of oil refineries. Standard Oil, now known as Exxon, started in Bayonne, and they weren't the only refineries in town. When they all closed up and left, they left a lot of contaminated land behind. When Sandy flooded the eastern part of the city it pushed a lot of that oil in the contaminated land out, leaving an oily residue on everything it touched. Not only have a lot of homes been condemned but a church was devastated, too.

Hurricane Sandy Jersey Shore YouTube VIdeos

If you're reading this at work you may want to press MUTE.

The following are from The Highlands, the town our grandparents had lived in from the early 1960's through the mid-1970's and the scene of Kevin Smith's movie Jersey Girl. Even after they died, my husband and I used to bring our son here each summer just to roam the beach and stop in Bahr's for dinner. 

As a kid, my brothers and I played in Veteran's Park,  especially when the grands were having a family cook-out and the adults were getting drunk and rowdy. We bought comics in Katz' after church right up the hill. My dad and I used to take fishing trips in the ocean on boats out of Bahr's. How scared I was walking up those stairs at Twin Lights and so proud of myself when I finally did it. I learned how to drive on the dirt road between Bay Avenue and the hill, behind the stores right off of Waterwitch Avenue. Remember, that was pre-1970! The city is so built up now compared to then. In the video below where a guy rides a bike or ATV through the streets, that "dirt road" now has the fire department and a load of homes on it and is fully paved.

And I remember when ANY hurricane was forecast my grandmother would pack 2 overnight bags and my grandfather would get out the sandbags to put around the basement windows and on the top steps blocking the doors on their way out to the shelter at the elementary school at the top of the hill. They usually only had to stay overnight, because all the land at the bottom of the hill - where all the stores and most of the housing was at that time - would ALWAYS flood, and the waters would usually recede by the next day. Luckily the basement was only a crawlspace and not storage, and the only time they suffered any real damage was the year the garage door warped. More than once after a hurricane they had a boat land in their yard (they were only 2 houses away from the bulkhead), and once found an overturned car.

These people weren't so lucky. More housing of cheaper quality means more damage when something like this hits. Sure, a lot of the old converted bungalows, like my grandparents owned, suffered some water damage, and I see many houses got damaged by boats whose owners didn't bother to take them out of the water before the storm, but they're generally intact. I wonder how many of the condemned houses are pre-1950 and how many are post-1970.

Here's that bike ride I mentioned:




This one is the view from the bridge between The Highlands and Sandy Hook:

And just another view of the town in the aftermath of the storm:

 

And who can forget Sea Bright, right over the bridge? This is the town The Weather Channel always sends someone to when a storm is predicted off the coast of NJ. This city, especially Ocean Avenue in the strip between the Highlands Bridge and Shrewsbury River Bridge, is always under water for a while after even mild storms. Across the street from these houses is the Atlantic Ocean, right up those stairs you see in the beginning of this video, and the Shrewsbury River is in their backyards. I used to have an aunt and uncle who lived right on this stretch, my grandfather's brother Pete. When he died, my aunt said she had enough of the water and moved back up to drier urban areas.

The Fantasy of Being Thin

Google it, the "Fantasy of Being Thin" - you'll find hundreds of sites telling you that you don't have to be thin(ner) to get what you want out of life or even be healthy. I believed it for a number of years, getting heavily involved in Fat Acceptance, the Health at Every/Any Size Movement, all the fat and "intuitive eating" blogs and forums and mailing lists, including Overcoming Overeating. I really, really want to believe in it all.

But I've been having a heck of a hard time.

Yes, for a lot of people, and for me for many years when younger, it IS possible to be perfectly healthy with an abundance of pounds on the body, including being double or more of what the height/weight charts say you should weigh for optimal health.

Then I got older. My previously perfect lab numbers started changing for the worse, no matter how I changed my daily diet (no-added fat, plant strong, the diet President Clinton and Rosie O'Donnell *said* they were doing then slid off of). Unlike them, I don't add oil or eat fish - I follow the food plan 100% about 99% of the time and HAVE been for a number of years, long before Forks Over Knives. While other people started dropping their weight like sweat off a fat lady in August (Yeah, like ME on even a warm day in winter), I'm still fat, and even gained a few pounds over the years, and although my lab numbers got a bit better they didn't get that much better. Every nutritional expert I consulted with told me I have to lose weight before those numbers will improve any more, and not the "5 pounds make a big difference" weight loss, but at least half my body size type weight loss.

It's not like I haven't tried, but what more do they expect me to do? Eat less, move more. Yeah, yeah. I've been hearing that since infancy, when my formula was watered down because I gained 3 pounds overnight in the newborn nursery. I was on calorie restricted diets as a baby, toddler, child, pre-teen, teen, young adult, and middle-aged adult. I'm now approaching my senior years and still hear the same tired spiel.

I want it to stop. I want to be left alone.

Disney Characters Audition for Star Wars Movies

Sandy (29th of October)

I would love to be this close to the action! The ocean during a hurricane has such power!

Sesame Street and Hurricane Preparedness

Many years ago, back before Al Roker had his WLS, Sesame Street did a series of shows dealing with a hurricane on Sesame Street. The official Sesame Street web site has a whole page of helpful tips parents can use to help their little ones through Hurricane Sandy, as well as all 4 episodes of the hurricane story.

Many Terminal Cancer Patients Put False Hope in Chemo, Study Finds

Many Terminal Cancer Patients Put False Hope in Chemo, Study Finds

I wish my dad had known this when he was in his last year of life instead of him and my step-mom spending ALL their savings AND taking out a loan to pay for his experimental chemo (ran through all the routine chemo drugs) that gave him just a few extra months of life, all of them suffered in agony with bone-wracking pain and shortness of breath so severe he could no longer eat.

avatars

Dear Netflix

Thank you!

Some People Get Crazy Over Blood Sugar Tests

Who in the world would complain about a fasting blood sugar of 85?? 

Why are they calling themselves "diabetic" if a 1 hour post-prandial blood sugar reads 130?? No, not a doctor, self-diagnosed. 

 Why are men of 5'7" or so calling themselves "fat" at weights below 110 pounds??? 

Why are these same people wondering if "something is wrong" when they get hungry 5 hours after eating a meal of 2 pieces of fruit then going to the gym for a 2-hour workout????
 
Has the whole world gone crazy or just the corners of it that I peek into?

Dr. Deah and the Narwhal Factor

Dr. Deah Schwartz has a great post today on her blog regarding size awareness that she calls the Narwhal Factor Revisited. Go over and take a look and maybe leave her a nice comment if you like what you see.

Celebrate Our Differences - Don't Make Us Comform

The following is a passage taken from Derek Lin's book,Tao of Joy Every Day. I really wish all of those people who insist we all fit into the same esthetic mold read it. Then again, that would be contrary to what the passage is saying. :)


August 27
Day 239

Differences

Have you ever noticed that people have an irrational need for others to be just like them? They want people to think and do things the way they do. They show a definite preference for those who have attitudes and perspectives similar to their own.

Friction occurs when this need is not met. All too often, people encounter others who have different ideas and opinions. Sometimes, the differences are in terms of beliefs, values and political ideologies. The feeling of irritation sets in. They feel discomfort, and after a while discomfort becomes resentment.

This is not in accordance with the Tao. The teachings of the Tao celebrate the diversity of the myriad of things. It is the differences you see everywhere that make life interesting. Imagine a world with only one kind of flower or one kind of fruit, and feel how grateful you are to not live in such a world.

 

The Tao Today
Out of the same spirit of gratitude, affirm the truth that others cannot, and should not, all be the same as you. After all, out of all the countless humans who have walked the Earth, there has never been anyone quite like you. You are absolutely unique, and the many differences between you and others are there for you to explore, embrace and enjoy. We should celebrate our differences.




The Tao of Joy Every Day
365 Days of Tao Living
Derek Lin
2011
Tarcher/Penguin Press
ISBN: 978-1-58542-918-9
http://sites.dereklin.com/author/the-tao-of-joy-every-day
Look inside the book at its Amazon page.

Menopause Mambo

This is the dance being used for the Menopause Mambo Flash Mobs that will be taking place to commemorate Menopause Awareness Month. You can also go to this site for more information on the Menopause Mambo flash mobs to find one near you.

Thanks to Jeanette De Pattie, the Fat Chick, for the instructions.

Bayonne Bridge Work

THIS Is Supposed to be Funny??

Jersey City gym's chalkboard signs create 'laughing fit' thanks to comic's sayings

Published: Monday, June 18, 2012, 3:00 AM

  By M.G. De Guzman / The Jersey Journal 

For a small gym in Downtown Jersey City, Synergy Fitness on Newark Avenue gathers an unexpected amount of attention thanks to their comical chalkboard signs.

“Shed pounds faster than John Boehner sheds tears” and “We’ll ruin your sumo career” are only a few examples of Joe D’Allegro attempts at comical marketing.

Often topical in nature, D’Allegro’s humorous tags have even gathered the attention of CBS, AdWeek, and various blogs.

“It’s snarky, but I try not to be overtly mean or cruel,” said D’Allegro, a former Synergy employee. “I have to be careful not to offend anyone.”

A journalist by trade, D’Allegro works as a freelance writer for a financial publishing company but pursues comedy as a hobby.

He’s taken comedy writing classes and created a comic strip for the Hudson Current.
“I don’t have the gumption to do standup, but advertising is a way to make people laugh and to make a living, and I like to do both,” he says.

Though it’s hard to tell the effect his signs have on Synergy membership sales, it is clear that the signs are popular with locals. Some people even come in to make comments.
D’Allegro started making the signs after noticing people taking pictures with the celebratory tag written for Barack Obama’s win during the 2008 presidential election.

“You get no feedback online, but seeing people laugh it’s great,” D’Allegro said.
“Anything that brightens someone’s day is just great, and seeing the reaction is lovely.”

Currently, D’Allegro produces comedy shows at Lamp Post Bar & Grille in Jersey City and Hell’s Kitchen Lounge in Newark.

 

 

Memorial Day 2012

Bruce Tinsley and his creation, Mallard Filmore, best express the thought for today.

Oh, joy. Another redesign of Blogger.

We've been suffering with the flu in this house since late April, and even though hubby is back at work he's still coughing, and my cough has now triggered the asthma so it's coughing AND wheezing. It's hot in the apartment because nobody has the strength to put the air conditioners in the windows so the bedroom hovers in the low to mid-90's. It doesn't matter much - I stay awake half the night coughing, anyway.

I guess I should be grateful the weather has been so weird, with a warmer than usual winter, milder and longer than usual spring, only because we can survive without the AC's for this long, at least during the day.

But it's this weird weather that's most likely the reason I've been sick for 12 (and counting) out of the 22 weeks of 2012.

And I HAD my flu shot last fall! Imagine how sick I would have been if I DIDN'T have the inoculation!

Miss Fat and Beautiful Contest

This video is for all those people who claim there were no fatties prior to the 1980's.

Now THESE are the sized women I remember from my youth in the 1950's and '60's. THESE women could come to a reunion of either side of my family and fit right in.

125 Reasons to Watch SyFy Channel's Show HAVEN

Spring is Here; More Weight Rants

Well, since we were having spring-like temps throughout most of winter, I guess we went from autumn to spring. Not that I'm complaining!

I've been obsessing over my weight again and the lack of weight loss no matter what I do. I even spent a week eating nothing but fruits, beans and veggies, staying hungry the entire time (while awaiting "real" hunger, not the "toxic" hunger that comes from the body ridding itself from toxins) and besides being shaky, fuzzy-headed, paranoid, tense, and having chest pains from the stress of starvation, I lost a whopping - ready for it? - 2 pounds. I ended this failed experiment by making a pot of spaghetti and vegan meatballs. My husband was happy (He eats what I serve him for dinner and fills up on junk food later on) and my tummy was certainly happy.

I then started searching other web sites for other food plans to follow that might jump-start weight loss.

I glanced over my personal journal and saw that my weight has been stable, within the same 20 pound range, for almost 30 years, with only a few exceptions. Actually, it's been in that weight range since I graduated high school in 1971! I went up 20 pounds higher twice, after injuries that left me unable to exercise, and twice down only 10 pounds during periods of long-term semi-starvation on diets very similar to what I just experimented with and an hour of exercise daily. The weight never stayed that low for long and started coming back on immediately with no change in eating, usually because an injury that kept me from doing that much exercise.

It is so not worth it!!

I'm almost 60 years old. When will I stop behaving like an eating disordered teenager? I guess when society and the medical profession finally accepts the fact that you CAN be fat and healthy.

Dr. Bates's New Tai Chi Video

So far all I see is this short on You Tube, but if he puts it all on DVD I'll probably get it. Be sure to go to YouTube to watch this and read his description of the video. I'm one of the people who wrote him about having 2 left feet and found even the simplest tai chi movements too complicated. To me, this is as complicated as advanced math - I just see/hear it and my brain goes into spasms.

I'll attempt to do these moves, but I've been trying to master just the foot movements of tai chi for decades now and still trip over myself making the turn from one side to another. I'll stick with Dr. Bates's Fun With Qigong videos for now.

Secret Lives?

2 Loves Together - Aardman Studios and Cadbury Eggs

Shopping for Clothes

Has the writer of this comic (Six Chicks) been following me around?

Sister Helen Jean Everett Obituary: View Helen Everett's Obituary by The Jersey Journal

Sister Helen Jean Everett Obituary: View Helen Everett's Obituary by The Jersey Journal


No longer will any child be terrorized by her.

Her mother was a wonderful woman and often wondered why her 2 daughters who were Sisters, especially Sr. Helen Jean, turned out the way they did. Even she was scared of her at times.

Super Bowl Commercials

THIS SITE is the best place to catch all those commercials you missed if you (like me) didn't watch the Super Bowl this past Sunday. It's the official NFL page for the game.

I love commercials! We have a few DVD compilations in our collection already. In Demolition Man, when Stallone sees that music on the oldies station on the radio has been replaced by commercial jingles, I cheered - FINALLY, somebody gets it!

We Go to the Same Doctor!

Better Half comic 2/2/2012

House Salad Dressing - The Chef & The Dietician

I use maple syrup instead of date syrup, and I use one tablespoon of Kikkomon reduced sodium instead of 2 tablespoons tamari, but this is STILL the best tasting salad dressing out there and so easy to whip up, too!

Calphalon Non-Stick Pan My ASS!

In order to bake with no added fat, a GOOD non-stick pan is required. I have old stainless pans that I use for muffins but I have to use cupcake papers with them, and as every baker knows, fat-free baked goods fuse to paper liners on a molecular level so one winds up eating tiny pieces of paper.

I tried various brands of silicone pans, and after a few washings every pan became tacky or developed an odor.

I tried cheaper non-stick pans, and my muffins all stuck unless I also greased the pans.

A few people said the Calphalon non-stick pans were fantastic, so when I saw Target had them on sale the other day, and I had a gift card to use, I grabbed this pan. Here's what happened:

As you see, every muffin stuck to the sides. I had to use a plastic spatula to pry each one out.

Non-stick my ass!

I'll wash it up and try return it next weekend. I'm not even going to bother give it a second chance. I have a cabinet full of pans that all look act like this, so why would I want another. I'm so disappointed, since the griddle I bought the same day worked beautifully for no-added fat pancakes yesterday. I hope they don't give me a hard time.

Edited to add - - -
Okay, maybe I'll give this pan another chance. While I had to pry each muffin out of its cup, once the pan was cool and I went to wash it, it DID clean up nice and spiffy with a minimum amount of fuss. In  that respect, it's better than the pans I already have. I'm now hoping that it was just a fluke, the "first batch" jitters, so to speak, and subsequent batches of muffins release more easily. Keep your fingers crossed.

THE FIRST STEP IS A CINCH

Mikey's Funnies is generously hosted by Agathon Group, website development and hosting with a ministry heart:
http://www.agathongroup.com/

today's FUNNY===========================

THE FIRST STEP IS A CINCH 
By Saralee Perel

"Where have you been?" a neighbor named Stacy said. 

"Where have you been?" my neighbor, Robert, asked. 

I was riding my three-wheeler bike down our road. The bike is made specifically for people like me who are disabled. "Well," I said to the dozen or so neighborhood folks who asked me the same question. "I took time off to be depressed."

I was on my trike that day because of a breakthrough. I can still visualize myself on a recent afternoon when I debated about opening our front door and re-entering the outside world. The breakthrough occurred because of this thought: "If I keep waiting until I want to do something, I'll be waiting forever."

Oddly, this new way of thinking began because of a 21-year-old movie I watched called, "City Slickers." Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, is dreadfully depressed as he takes us through his comical mid-life funk. 

During his journey of recovery, he was taught "the secret of life." But here's the thing: Finding that secret could never have happened until Mitch stopped waiting for happiness to come to him and instead took the first step himself. 

First steps, I have learned, are nowhere near as huge as they sound. They're actually quite simple. They have to be.

My husband, Bob, heard me crying when the movie ended. "I thought it was a comedy," he said.

"It was hysterical."

"Then why are you crying?"

"Because it made me realize I've wasted six months of my life by settling into depression and waiting, waiting, waiting to come out of it."

That was the instant I took that first step. I grabbed my cane and said, "I'm going to ride my trike." 

He tried to stop me. "You can hardly move today. And you haven't been on your trike for ages!"

"Bob, if I don't do this now, I am never going to do it." I knew that. I knew that from the depths of me. I had to do something to help myself. 

And it had to be now. 

Now, I'd have never done this had I thought, "I'm going to grab my cane, get my sturdy shoes, find the bike lock, check the weather," and on and on, ending with something overwhelmingly sabotaging like, "and ride every day for the rest of my entire life." 

I biked down our road, loving every minute. It's a new year, a new me, a new life and all because of one simple decision.

And so, the secret of life that Mitch learned? 

To paraphrase from the movie: "Just one thing," Curly, the wise cowboy said. "You stick to that and the rest is foolish detail." 

"What is that one thing?" 

"That's what you have to find out for yourself." 

For Mitch, it was not about taking an adventurous trip out West; it was merely agreeing to read the brochure.

For Mitch's wife, it was just saying these words to him: "I want you to have that adventure and find … your smile." 

It was when Mitch realized by simply giving his wife one single kiss: "Today is my very best day!"

And for me, it was grabbing my old wooden walking stick. 

------------

Award-winning columnist/novelist, Saralee Perel, can be reached at sperel@saraleeperel.com or via her website: www.saraleeperel.com. Please click "Like" on her Facebook Fan Page: www.facebook.com/4footedcoach. Her novel "Raw Nerves" is now available as a paperback and an e-book. To take a look at it on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0060LNUKK/mikeysfunnies-20

Copyright 2012 Saralee Perel. Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.

Should parents lose custody of super obese kids?

I say FUCK all these people to hell who want to take fat kids away from their parents!!

I was a fat kid since the day I was born and was ALWAYS on restricted food diets, even as an infant. I spent my childhood and adolescent years on a strict 1000 calories a day, all meals served by and eaten in front of my mother. All my relatives, friends' parents, and teachers knew so I was supervised when in front of them. Still I grew up to be a fat adult with hormone and other problems, and NOW all the science is saying I'm having those problems BECAUSE my food was restricted my entire life.

Thanks, Doc. Thanks fat-phobic mom!

And again, fuck you, all you people who want all fat people, especially fat kids, to just die already and not come into your line of vision. Fuck you all!

(click this headline to go to the article)

Should parents lose custody of super obese kids?

BRUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!!!!!!