Crossposted from sun_salutation.

This is a great video if you just can't decide whether to do yoga or abs today.

It is only available on VHS, but if you check out Amazon, you can usually find it for $.69 plus shipping. I actually got my copy for $.01 plus $2.50 shipping. Also, don't forget to check your local library.

It is important to remember that this is not strictly a yoga video. The warmup section at the beginning has a strong dance flavor and also incorporates elements of qi gong.

After about five minutes of warmup, Ms. McDonough moves to her standing postures sequence. I really like this set. Back when I first started doing this video, as a yoga beginner, it was a real challenge. Today, returning to the video after a long hiatus, I found that as an advanced beginner, it was a lovely way to stretch, sweat a little, and enjoy my morning yoga practice.

Ms. McDonough then moves to a pilates set for abs. It has been a while since I did any specific abs toning – these days all I do is yoga for my workout – and I could tell I will be feeling this tomorrow. It was about a ten minute set. I don't know any pilates terms, and she did not name the moves. Reviewing a list from a web search, it looks like we did rollups, leg circles, side kicks, and a few other moves, including a challenging side lift thing, omg.

She moves back into yoga again via a modified Bridge, done on one leg, with the other leg lifted. This may also be a variation on pilates pelvic curls. This leads into a backbend sequence based on Bridge, Cat and Caws, Locust, and Bow. It's a nice, not too difficult backbend set, especially nice for anyone who wants to get in some decent backbending, but who might not be comfortable yet with Wheel and Camel.

She closes with a really nice supine sequence, though I go back and forth between being amused and annoyed by the use of the term "Goddess Pose" for Reclined Cobbler.

I am glad I have rediscovered this video, and I definitely recommend it. However, it does have a few drawbacks.

First, Ms. McDonough's teaching style sometimes reveals her difficulty holding back her inner aerobics instructor. Second, the women demonstrating with her appear to me to be dancers, and their extreme flexibility is remarkable, even in the world of yoga videos. And I find the smirking blond woman v. annoying. *is petty*

Most importantly, Ms. McDonough gives very little specific instruction on how to do the yoga portions. You should go into this video with a good foundation in the postures, so when she says to do Triangle pose, you can just do it, without a lot of explanation from the instructor.

This is a video I enjoy. If you can find it for sixty-nine cents plus shipping, I highly recommend you add it to your home practice library, if only because you'll never have to decide between abs and yoga again!

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/862507.html"

On this day of giving thanks, I want you to know that I am very grateful for my friends here in journal land. My life wouldn't be the same without you all!

Thanksgiving Day is underway. Got up and wrote for about an hour, did goof off stuff for about an hour.

When The Barbarian peeped, went up and got the rug rats. They've watched a Scooby Doo while I cleaned dishes. They are watching a second Scooby while I *finish* cleaning dishes. Then The Barbarian and I will make gingerbread. Then probably MORE Scooby while I get the pies done.

Then turkey and fixins.

Mmmmmm. Feast day.

And it's foggy and damp out. Perfect weather for a feast day. Though it would be nice if sometime this weekend it dried out so we could bag up the rest of the leaves.

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/861982.html"

Lots of really unlikely stuff happened. Still, I bought in. And the effects were freakin' amazing! Totally believable! Scary as heck, too.

This post brought to you by my qwerty phone. Teenagers must be really bored, to be using these stupid things all the time. Srsly.

There is a little boy at The Barbarian's school who is completely smitten with her.

He's five, according to The Barbarian's report. She says he is in pre-K.

When she leaves, he makes a point of saying "Bye, Barbarian!" to her. And he watches her adoringly as she leaves.

Then there was T, the guy who used to bite her, who also made her his Queen, then showed her off around the playground, then got really mad when she decided she was tired of being Queen and went back to playing with her friends.

Possibly, I've got a little heartbreaker on my hands.

She got very offended the other day, when I suggested she might play with boys.

"I don't play with boys!"

"So what do you do? Do you kick them and run away? Or kiss them and run away?"

*giggles*

"Kiss them and run away!"

:D

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/861806.html"

Anybody have any favorite science projects they have done with their 10-12 year old? AG33 needs ideas.

UPDATE: I think we're doing a Mentos thing - but if you have ideas you can zip off in 50 words or less, I still wouldn't mind hearing them!

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/861626.html"

Back from flu clinic. They were running a tight ship there. You could tell they were READY to vaccinate 12,000 people in 8 hours. It was moving so fast *I* actually held us up by filling out the forms too slowly. And for the second time this fall, I learned that if you want a vaccine, you should just show up at the flu clinic and see what happens. I was up front with everybody there that I wasn't expecting a vaccine and I wasn't in any of the groups and they gave me a form then stamped it OK and in I went and got the nasal mist. So. Me and the kids are now H1N1 vaccinated. Still haven't been able to get the seasonal one for the kids yet, but I was much more concerned about H1N1, so yay! Nasal mist was much less unpleasant that I expected, but it has given me a runny nose and sore throat. Hoping that will go away by tomorrow.

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/861347.html"

For all the mothers out there who watch Supernatural.

( Cut for HUGE spoiler on Thursday's Abandon All Hope )

I hardly ever have dreams I remember anymore.

( But last night was full of weird anxiety dreams about my reluctant criminal alter ego )

Long, crazy night, I guess.

Possibly this is what come of sleeping in for three extra hours. Too much REM sleep! :D

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/860800.html"

My new computer is running Vista.

Since I got the new computer, my printer has had an odd problem. It prints fine, but if I request two copies, it ignores the request and simply prints one.

So yesterday, I went hunting the answer (which turned out to be that I needed a new printer driver).

HP's site wanted to run a diagnostic. IE would not allow me to run the diagnostic, because it required an active x control that IE could not validate. No button to acknowledge and give it permission. It just said, this active x control is not OK, bye. So. I spent about 10 minutes clicking random places in settings and IE and after checking three likely looking menus, I found the button to click to tell the computer that when I say I want an active x control to run, I really DO want the active x control to run. One problem fixed. Not really related to my printing problem.

Active x control is USELESS, but before it even finished I had already located the necessary driver and downloaded it.

Then, I needed to tell my printer to use that driver. Clicked on printer, pulled up it's properties, found the advanced settings tab to change the driver, and the tab is greyed out.

I click, knowing I'm being an idiot, and it tells me that I have to be an administrator to do anything in this tab.

This was a problem I used to run into on Boss' Vista machine. Boss was an adminsitrator on his machine. I am the administrator on this machine. And yet, both computers tell me I do not have administrator priviledges.

I figured out how to fix that problem. Apparently, just being an administrator doesn't give you administrator privildeges. You have to go into the user screen, click on a button that takes you to the screen where you uncheck a box so that you actually HAVE administrator priviledges. Then, in the system tray, Vista proceeds to pout about it. Forever. And complain at least once a day that your computer settings are unsafe. *rolls eyes*

I find this to be a big problem with Norton, too. You take actions so that your computer will WORK, but these actions, apparently, make your computer unsafe, and Norton perpetually warns you about these settings FOREVER. THere is no way to acknowledge and get Norton to reset to normal, so that when a REAL problem arises, like a worm or a virus or something, the Norton warning thing will actually mean something. Basically, my Norton's default setting is FIX PROBLEM NOW, and it always will be because the "problem" is exactly what I want it to be.

Anyway, fixing my printer, I learned two or three really interesting things about Vista.

Meanwhile, Boss has moved to Mac, of all things. And I am considering just leapfrogging over Vista and seeing if I have a free upgrade to Windows 7, as I just bought this stupid computer a couple of months ago.

Vista learning curve. Do. Not. Want.

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/860456.html"

So, another reason I hate Microsoft. I have Vista on this machine. And it uses that windows index thing to search. But it REFUSES to index certain folders. It doesn't matter WHAT I do. It won't index them. It has to be a bug. So it won't index these folders, yet it offers me no otehr way to search these folders. So I do a search on a word that HAS to be in the folder, and I come up with a zero search result.

What happened to the search doggie. He wasn't fast, but he was very effective.

Dear Microsoft, please don't dump working software. Your new software is fucked half the time. Let us at least keep the old stuff that actually worked.

No love,
CK

PS, I also hate Messenger. Just so you know.

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/860293.html"

So. If you fail to listen to your lawyer (or in some appropriate situations, your lawyer's knowledgable assistant), then you deserve what you get.

First person received questionnaire (which person did not complete or return). Made appointment. Blew off appointment. Disappeared for 45 days with no contact. Reappeared with questionnaire. Got bent out of shape because spouse contacted us in meantime and now probably has the priviledge locked up. THEN this person refused to believe me that it was her husband, despite the fact that he does not have an at all common name and the liklihood that he is a different person is very, very slim. Still. Could be massive coincidence. I am working on confirmation now through appropriate conflict checking channels.

Second person. She dismissed and restarted a case in an attempt to please her husband. Boss warned her he might just do the same jackass thing anyway. *I* strongly encouraged her to listen to Boss, because her husband is a jackass and is likely to just continue to be a jackass. But in her judgment, the course of least likely jackassness was to dismiss and refile. And, of course, Boss was right. Oh well.

It's only what you pay him for, after all.

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/860069.html"

So, after my feats of yoga last week, Jules demanded video. (BTW my yoga powers of Wednesday have totally vanished, as my attempts at the new arm balances were laughable this morning. Anyway.)

The problem with this is that my body makes, um, unladylike noises during yoga. This is one reason to do yoga on one's own.

I mentioned this to the spammers. And uisgich says:

You could do your own version of Mr Kest's DVD, throwing your hair around and being moody in the intro :D

Then show that the truth of practising yoga isn't just about beautiful people easing into positions, but also involves unruly bodily happenings :)

I think I will be laughing at this concept all day.

:D

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/859900.html"

Traffic was so light this morning, I'm concerned that everybody else knows something I don't? Is there a nuclear strike on DC today or something? Major biological attack? *hides under desk*

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/859549.html"

So I'm listening to Marketplace last night.

Apparently, pharmaceutical companies are having a new problem. They want to advertise new medications on the Interent, but they are having trouble presenting the necessary legal notices about side effects in the Internet milieu.

The drug company rep says, "We can't just ignore Twitter."

What the fuck, drug companies. Drugs are not an impulse buy. You cannot make an educated decision about a drug in 140 characters. Doctors cannot make an educated decision about a drug for a patient in 140 characters.

Of course you can fucking ignore fucking Twitter. You are not a 14-year-old girl.

And if you cannot responsibly ignort Twitter on your own, Twitter's owners should ban you from their service, because probably nobody on Twitter wants you fucking Tweet spam anyway.

And if the service owners can't or won't ban you, then your regulatory bodies should.

OMG. Sitting around Tweeting: Oh, think what fun it would be to be syphylis-free, pls use Nosyph.

Fuck you drug companies.

Hmmm.

I wonder if I'm about to have a pissy day? Woke up with massive sinus headache and when I sat down at the computer this irritation had to be written down. Maybe a good day to enter timeslips and not answer the phone...

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/859139.html"

...and he's holding it!

Argh. Sexting. Another reason NOT to give children technology. Stupid, stupid phones. Of course limiting your own child to no phone or one that has no camera feature isn't a guarantee, as OTHER stupid children have camera phones. *glares*

Meanwhile, I was amused yesterday by NPR's story about the Gossip Girl script with the threesome in it. The NPR thing was about how do you handle it when your kid wants to watch a show with sexual topics. And there was no discussion at all about WHY a threesome might be OMGBAD. It was just assumed by the story. Honestly, single, college seniors who know how to have protected sex and use birth control. I'm not sure I have a big problem with the idea of a threesome in and of itself. There are about 100 issues that revolve around the idea, but assuming those issues are addressed, hard for me to really be that worried about it. I was also laughing at the story, because it was an interview with the president of some parents group that supposedly encourages parents to teach their children about objectionable shows, rather than censor those shows. But the woman being interviewed actually did not allow her 16-year-old son to watch the episode. And she was AMAZED that he knew what a menage a tois was. Dude. *I* knew what one was when I was 12 in 1982. You think every 16 year old in the WORLD doesn't know what one is in 2009? I felt like saying to both the interviewer and interviewee are you KIDDING me? Give me a break.

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/858746.html"

You know what is really disconcerting.

When you boot up your computer and double click Outlook and the computer gives you a popup box saying "Preparing Outlook for first use" and starts a countdown bar while it flashes through several important file names.

It's especially disconcerting since you used Outlook not 48 hours ago.

Stupid, stupid idiotic Outlook. How I hate you.

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/858431.html"

So, back at the beginning of FaceBook, when I used to friend everybody who asked to friend me, I friended this guy who is a friend of my brother's. Actually, he's pretty funny and it's cool. But he plays some game called Mafia Wars. So periodically on my feed I get his requests for help with jobs and hits. *eyes him*

OMG. Feel fantastic. First, 25 solid minutes trance dance. Then
Solar Flow 1 (minus about half the crazy backbend section and all the
handstands). So probably about an hour and ten minutes of yoga. I
managed at least an approximation of every one of the arm balances, so
I *will* pay tomorrow, in the form of not being able to raise my arms over my head. I finished at 12:15, so slapped a note on the
door for Sears saying "Back in 5, grill's behind you, start if you want"
and had a fast hot shower. Now slouching around in jeans and my
favorite rib knit shirt, kushy socks, and wet hair. I LOVE ME DAY!
Sears hopefully did not leave in a huff during my 5 minute shower.

The only bad thing. I timed my breakfast wrong, so started my
practice with undigested egg, bacon and toast in my tummy. Not a lot,
but had a slight tummy ick feeling all through yoga. However, I have had some gingerale and a Gondorian Muffin (or two) and now feeling much better.

So. Now edit, edit, edit, change bed, dust bedroom, vacuum bedroom, edit, edit, edit, write. Cook dinner. On the one hand, Husband made my life easier by deciding he did not want steak in the middle of the week. So no trip to Costco needed. On the other hand, he requested that I run ALL the bedding through the wash as allergy control (not too hard) and de-dust the bedroom. I think the total of the requested added chores will be about half the time the trip to Costco would have been, so in all a net gain in my day, plus good for Husband's health.

Dinner will now be Yorkshire Pudding (made with a piece of steak), swordfish on the grill, shrimp in a pineapple sauce, and probably broccoli. I will probably eat the overcooked stead, husband the swordfish. The Barbarian will gobble shrip. AG33 will eat puddings and I think I'll toss some chicken in sweet and sour sauce into the oven for him, too, for his protein.

Arms a little shaky. How I love a good yoga session.

*luxuriates*

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/858267.html"

Thank you, to all the veterans out there, who made a commitment to this country and lived up to it.

This is not a Federal holiday I usually get off.

( The saga of today and how I accidentally got a day off work. )

A true, me day. Unheard of. Unbelievable. Amazing.

So, my plans for the day.

Gondorian Muffins, already baking
When they come out, nap til 7am
Kids up at 7am and out the door
Back by 8am to get the call from Sears about the grill maintenance (which needs a whole other post, I was so excited Cellmate was scared)
Prod AG33 til he practices his flute and either catches the bus or gets a delivery to school
Back home - rest of the day will revolve around whatever time Sears guy shows but will include the following
Trance Dance - 30 to 40 mins
Solar Flow 1 - 1:40
Shower
Nap (maybe)
Go to Costco
Prepare dinner: Yorkshire Pudding, "Outback" Steaks (the secret ingredient is lots and lots of salt!), Salad
Edit 39 pages of hydropunk
Finish the remaining writing on hydropunk and off for beta if at all possible

The key will be when the Sears guy shows, but still, the 39 pages of editing can pad into any weird cracks in the day. I want to put the Trance Dance and yoga together, but that's not critical and I'll split them out as needed. Supposedly Sears guy will call and let me know when he's really coming, but his "window" is 8am to 5pm, so... And the Costco trip will be kind of a stupid waste of time, because there will be 40 minutes travel time in there, which is 40 minutes I could be doing something constructive, but eh, whatever.

( Why it is so exciting to get the grill maintained )

Now, to check the muffins and grab my little morning nap. Stupid cat woke us up at 4am. Stupid cat.

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/858041.html"

Crossposted from sun_salutation.

I started out doing yoga on wall-to-wall carpet in my living room. I quickly added a yoga mat, and that was my practice surface for a couple of years. Mat on carpet.

Then we moved to a house with hardwoods on the main level, so I tried mat on hardwood.

Terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. It hurt my heels in forward bending postures. It crushed my feet in seated postures. Rolling over my toes hurt.

So in this new place, I was doing my yoga in the basement, where I could have carpet again.

Then, Husband began yoga mat shopping. Husband is much taller than me and broader in the shoulder. He was using my standard yoga mat, and finding it too narrow. So we shopped mats for him. And we found this: ( Read more... )

So.

Surgery performed at covered surgery center. Therefore, all services at the center are covered, even if providers are out of plan.

Out of plan provider bills insurance company. Company covers service. By sending a check TO US. And telling us we will receive a bill from the non-plan provider. And we should deposit the check and pay the non-plan provider's bill.

Now. This is possibly an improvement on the system where invoice comes to us directly from non-plan provider, and we have to pay on demand then request reimbursement from insurance company, because we are never out of pocket.

But isn't there a third option? The insurance company is holding the stupid invoice RIGHT THERE in their metaphorical hands. Why not, oh, I dunno, just pay the stupid bill?

Why all the handwaving and fussing? There's wasted paper and postage all over this deal, not to mention excessive clerical staff on all sides to handle the double mailings.

Top that off by the fact that for MY surgery, back in the spring, we already did this dosido, except, we got the payment, but no demand for payment. Except tha last week we got a demand for REPAYMENT back from the insurance company, saying due to clerical error they overpaid us by ONE THIRD and want their money back.

Now, this is a non issue. ALL the money is still there. *I* have now called the provider to ask would they like their money, please send an invoice. But this does not invoke any kind of confidence in the process, especially because the amount of this payment for Husband is 34 times the small amount I received for my surgery issue. I will be pretty damned pissed if six months from now, they review their paperwork and decide that we own them one third of THIS amount back, AFTER we have paid it to the provider. Who I called to ask that they please send an invoice so we can give them their very large sum of money.

So they have COLLECTIONS involved in this process, too. Due to the fact that they are dealing with us instead of dealing directly with the provider. And what is the point of all this?

It's amazing out quickly you see the problems in the system once you start actually USING the system. The only reason that this reform hasn't happened quicker must be because not enough people are sick enough to use it. Too bad we can't have a giant leg-breaking or something...

And nothing really bad has even happened to us. This is only slightly annoying and I can already point to half a dozen obvious sources of waste in the system - going back to the suggestion that I have three cyst biopsies under general anesthesia.

Truly amazing.

Crossposted at "http://muck-a-luck.dreamwidth.org/857508.html"