I got pissed at my favorite soft dance pad and it being ripped and all from overuse. I tried another softpad and it turned out to be a real disappoinment. I have like 6 dance dance revolution PS2 games plus stepmania on my laptop and I thought it would be a good time to invest in a nice, reliable, metal pad. So lookie what I bought this week:

Dance Dance Revolution iON metal dance pad for PS/ PS2 - Xbox - PC



Me not having a $1600 mortgage payment I can afford these toys for a while. Plus this might encourage me now to dance more to work out and burn calories. I think this is a good investment for the exercise potential.

I think I may have discovered what the root of most of my problems is:

Cable TV. It's not that I am a disastisfied customer, it's just my time can better be spent getting things done and being more productive with my time. TV is a great outlet to relax and escape from life. So can DVD's and video games, which do not cost $110 a month and of which I already have and use infrequently. I wasted most of my day in front of the TV. I got up during commerical breaks to tidy up around the apartment, except when Prince cuddled up to me oh so ever cutely and I could not let the cute kitty off my belly and chest.

I do love the Comcast internet though... That's about half my bill. And I use it often productively. Most sites I visit are livejournal, news, e-mail, and that's pretty much it.

So today I pretty much slept in, watched TV, took an afternoon nap, walked around the park, ate pizza, cleaned my closet of winter clothes and shoes and brough out the spring/summer clothes and realized how much big I have gotten since a few years ago and need to be serious. I generally eat when I am bored.. and must get away from that.

I looked at townhome, condo, and home prices for the areas I wanted to live in. They look ridiculous. I mean, its not naperville, its not san francsico, wtf?

I got despaired, butI think things will only get better.

Tomorrow I've got lots to do at work, tomorrow night I plan on working out, and ironing my wardrobe. I've got lots of chores to do!

My Life Goals

weight - by this time next year I want to see myself at maybe 130 lbs? wearing < 10 size clothes

appearance - I want my teeth fixed. I want better glasses. I want to dress more classy and have my hair look better. I want to upkeep my nails and beauty more frequently than I do now

money - I want the comfort of not having to go into the grocery store and plan my dinner by what's on sale. I want to be comfortable with being able to buy steaks, meat, etc. I want a nice cash reserve in my savings for emergencies.

marriage - I want to be married by 30 or engaged to a man who makes as much or more than me and can provide emotional, financial, and physical security for me and my children.

church - I want (need) to be involved in a Christian church and community. I need to read and learn the bible because my parents never taught me this nor took me to church (terrible isn't it ?)

kids - I want to have at least 3 kids (at least a girl and a boy) and give them lots of love and a hopeful life.

career - I am doing excellent in this life goal. I need to continue to find ways to make achievements

family - I want to marry into a large close-knit family

pets - I hope my cats will stay with me forever..! I want them too have more space too!

house - as much as I am blessed to have a roof over my head and my own private space, I hope to have a nice house in a nice neighboorhood with parks.

community - I want to be more involved in the community

friends - I want to be more involved and closer to my friends and develop new relationships

volunteer - I want to volunteer some of my time (like at a church or habitat for humanity)

education - I want to continue this, but most of my formal education life goal will be completed this May. this does not include the engineering licensure exam I will have to study and pass next year.

recreation - I want to hike on trails, camp in the woods, enjoy outdoor activies, learn to sew clothing, learn home economics, learn how to cook different foods, art, sculpt, etc

skills - I need to continue my career skills but also learn home-life skills such as home maintenance, car maintenance, self-defence, etc..

hobbies - this is explained under recreation

health - I need to stop eating out all the time and eat less fatty foods and more fruits and vegetables.

Another reason to add to my huge list why I want to move the fuck out of my apartment community

Today I see there are signs all over the hallways and one on my door like my neighbors that is in FULL CAPS and say do not smoke in the halls.. if you are caught it will be a $50.00 fine. I want to write FUCK YOU and STOP YELLING at your residents in CAPs like they did on this letter and drop it off in their box. They could have been more polite about the communication.

I pay $920 for this shit?!!!

Help me please!

10 Reasons You Aren't Rich

By Jeffrey Strain

gotten from csixty4

Ordered a frame for my master's degree diploma = $109.99
Car Payment = $500.00
Cellphone Bill = $40
Water bill =$20
Visa credit card bill = $90
Student Loan Payment = $500
American Express Bill (and vacation expenses in there!) = $1100
cable and internet = $110

whew.. and i am thinking to myself.. how am i going to afford a mortgage and etc..

The stock market crash is causing my 401k to lose lots of $$ :( I'm down $500-1000 . This sucks!!!!!

Got my rectifer for my laptop in less than 5 days and it was shipped from Canada!

It works perfectly! I saved like $100 from ordering through ebay

Well this weekend, I don't think a lot got accomplsihed except sleeping. I managed to clean the apartment, for a few days, feed the cats, do the laundry, do the dishes, and do some ironing. Saturday morning I made the mistake of getting a car wash. It was close to the IIT Rice Campus in Wheaton and the Saturday dupage engineer's expo. I was supposed to help at a booth for power engineering but the person running the actual display didn't show up. I ended up hanging out at the IEEE booth and chatting with career legends. It's amazing. I really wish they wouldn't give me that much attention, its like they haven't seen a female engineer, ever, which may actually be the case... anyways.. one of the guys was around when there was vacuum tubes for all the switches used and it retired in like 1990. Wow. I was born in like 1981... they can go on and on like grandpa simpson..(joking) i didn't want to look rude..but I was going to leave after 30 minutes of nothing to do there. Our booth didn't have any big hands on activies for kids so why would they want to stick around there? Oh there was an old 1952 vintage ham radio with its parts all exposed. That technology is outdated! Oh yes, most of the exhbits at the booth was geared in communications engineering, the topic I like least and know nothing!!! Now if there were power systems exhibits them I could have been more *enthused*.

That Saturday night the ice storm raged down badly on Chicagoland I stayed warm and cozy indoors. The lights flickered and I knew there was a power line distrubance. I thought of logging in to work using my work laptop to see what was going on, but didn't. Fortunately the pager didn't go off. I am glad not to be working Storm Duty anymore and risking my life in driving far away in severe weather to sit around to do mostly nothing and getting paid .. nothing.

Dad called me.

Sunday I ate too much. I made the mistake of buying cadburry eggs 3 sets of 4 for $5 at SuperTarget. I already ate 2 cartons since last Sunday. OINK!!!!

I think I just realized my problem. I buy too much food and treats. I buy too much food that is packaged and not fresh. I need to stop buying the crap that is on sale and buying fresh food. I usually buy the packaged foods in the store that are on sale, stock up, and 1 month later actually eat the product, except for pizza.. that usually goes fast. This is how I go grocery shopping. I look at the price.. if it is reasonable, I can buy that. Like meat for example. Most meat I do not buy at the grocery store because it is like $6-10 and I am only cooking for 1 person. I'm not a good cook when it comes to cooking meats like steak, but I do like ham and turkey. I sometimes buy porkchops, which cost $5-6 and then cook them for Joe. this week I am going to be making the prkchops for myself and having 1 chop for dinner each night.

I bought a few items this weekend, like a new dance pad for my DDR games, a rectifier for my personal laptop, groceries, and some junk at SuperTarget.

I feel like playing some more DDR, but bed time is approaching.

Where did my weekend go?

I won the lottery..

I won $7 :)

3 white balls ain't bad.. they were all in a row.. I should extra $ for that :)...

Only if I had the 3 balls and a mega ball.. that would have been $150


I'm going to win big some day :)

I have a tingling to go to the casino after my exam!