Archive for the ‘Sponsors’ Category

Total Body TransFIRMation System

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

As some of you may, or may not, know – I’ve been working very hard since April to drop the weight I’ve put on since high school. Now, I admit that I was always a larger girl but when I lost my daily activity and was only really going to work and standing at a register, I wasn’t getting enough exercise to really maintain what I was in school. Now that I’m working from home and don’t really leave the office unless it’s for the sake of doing things around the house, I found myself putting on even more unwanted weight. When I moved down here in January I was about 240. By April I’d shot up to 260. Now after a few months of working on it I’m back down in the 240 range and hopefully I’ll be able to reach my goal of 180 over the course of the next year – if that.

I’ve searched the net for many different forms of weight loss. From pills and food combinations that just don’t work to weight loss videos that don’t motivate me to do much of anything. Today I came across a website named getfirmtoday.com, which is the Total Body TransFIRMation System. I did some searching around their website and came to find that women have lost over 100 pounds on this system and considering it’s my goal to lose 80 (in total) I continued looking into more information with this system.

The FIRM CardioWeight System claims to work because it combines fat-burning cardio and body-sculpting weights to burn up to three times more fat than aerobics alone. They claim that this exercise will melt the fat and reshape your body for results that you can see in 10 work outs or less. The thing for me is, all weight-loss plans will work in the first 10 workouts, that’s why I don’t typically buy into slogans like that. Anyone who’s done their research should know that you’re going to lose weight just by getting off your butt. Anyone who hasn’t worked out in years, maybe even months, is going to see results within 10 work outs because your body has now been jump started. The problem is after those 10 workouts where your body starts to slow down when it comes to reprocessing how it works, then the weight naturally will come off slower than it did previously. In theory, all weight-loss systems work, it’s the amount of time that they work for you that’s the kicker.

The FIRM CardioWeight System is a series of total body workouts that combine cardio with weight training to sculpt your muscles and tone your body. By using the adjustable CardioWeight‚Ñ¢ hand weights, you gradually increase resistance as you become stronger and leaner. They also say that with this program you will be more confident in yourself as well. Their system includes a few DVD’s. The first is CardioWeight, followed by Cardio Overdrive, Hard Core Fusion, Hi-Def Sculpt and a bonus Cardio Party DVD.

Looking further into their program I came across one of their videos.


I know that an important aspect to losing weight is keeping your body active. For now until I’ve lost a bit more and there is less strain on my back, naturally I’ll continue with my daily walks around the complex. After I drop a few more pounds and am more comfortable with working out on a much higher level, I think I may consider getting involved with Total Body TransFIRMation System.

New Resource: Thoof

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

I came across a new site tonight named Thoof, it’s kind of a personalized news based website where you can submit articles you’ve written and are proud enough of them to want to share with a larger audience, it’s more than likely a great way for someone to pick up some hits as well.

I signed up and submitted a post I recently made about Bella, I’m sure I could have found something better but going through all of my archives can be a pain sometimes, especially considering Alexa and Technorati were down today and really putting a damper on my loading time. But anyway… back to the site.

It was pretty easy to submit my post once I was all logged in. You just copy the title and the URL into the required field, write up a very quick 300character description and then go from there. I found it pretty easy to use, maybe I’ll keep up with it and submit a few more articles from other domains. I’ve been writing a lot lately about technology and business on AGN Designs so I’m sure there’s an article in there that someone will find interesting. Most of it at the moment is iPod and even iPhone based so naturally there should be some interest there considering all of the hype surrounding these Apple products – right?

Either way, you should consider checking them out. Maybe you’ll find something cool as well.

Thoof

Maybe we’ll rent…

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

PPP While Sean and I have been considering purchasing our own home for quite some time now, we’ve also looked into houses for rent in the area as well. In the long run it may actually be cheaper for the time being but this doesn’t discount the fact that we’d like our own chunk of land to own in the process – you know?

We’ve been doing some poking around rentals.com and even though real estate is hot in the area at the moment, this doesn’t mean we’re going to be leaving during the summer season either. There’s currently homes for rent in the area that are about $500 a month which is a big discount from the $2500 a month apartment I was living in, in New York. We’d have to pay our own utilities and what not but at least we’d be in a home instead of worrying about apartment living and all the dumb rules and regulations that go with it.

I personally think we should just pool our income and get a home in the complex, but that’s based on whether or not we’re looking to spend about $50,000 on a house and then $1,000 a month in the bills. Either way we’d be spending about $1,000 a month on bills it’s just the question of dropping the big cash on the house itself…heh.

What would you suggest?

rentals.com

New Resource: WebCockPit

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

I found something pretty cool today it’s called WebCockpit 1.0. It’s a pretty large article in regards to how the 1% of the worlds richest people get more done by working less and less hard at the same time. They consider it to be a simple brain hack that allows you to accomplish 300% more work in the same amount of time. Figure you work for 8 hours a day and still feel as though you accomplish nothing. This article, and free site, teach you how to triple your daily accomplishments in 8 hours, and maybe even less.

When you sign up for a free account you’re sent to a page that houses the quick hacks. The first one states that we burn over 10% of our available ‘fuel’ every day just digesting our food. If you chew every bit of food 30 times before swallowing you use less energy – which gives you more towards accomplishing your daily work efforts.

Another hack is in regards to the water myth of drinking 8 glasses a day. It’s actually a wives tail or to be more blunt, it’s a well established urban legend. There’s no scientific support behind the popular 8-glasses-a-day theory. None of the scientists at the American Journal of Physiology state that we don’t actually NEED water, because naturally you need water in order to survive, but as far as 8 glasses a day, it’s truly not helping anyones health.

While you do not need 8 glasses a day, drinking water regularly throughout the day is important. Because most of us are chronically dehydrated – this then causes fatique and it then effects your overall performance. Many people who simply take up the habit of drinking a glass or even half a glass every hour notice that their energy levels skyrocket.

Dehydration making you tired? Dizziness, Chronic Fatigue, Impotance, Hair Loss, Headaches, Low Back Pain, Constipation and more are all linked to dehydration (Resource: Merck Manual of Health).

I found this article to be quite interesting, I think you should check it out. Note that from the get-go you’re only given two of these and you do have to pay in order to gain access to the rest but knowing that you’re going to learn quite a bit, I’d say it’s worth the money.

New Resource: BBWRomance

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

PPP I know I’ve been speaking about dating quite a bit lately but trust me, I’m very happy in my relationship. I will say that for those looking for a relationship, I’ve found a great resource for you. I know that a few of my visitors are larger women and of that percentage I know a few of you are still single. Today I came across a website specifically for bbw singles.

Like other sites that I’ve listed it is completely free for you to sign up to. You create a profile, list your picture and then fill out general information about yourself and the rest goes from there. I know a few people who have spent a lot of times at local BBW nights where larger women are the bells of the ball and men are falling all over them. I’m sure you’re reading this thinking “Eww” but seriously now, get a life. Big girls need love too you know?

Many men find larger women more attractive than the stick figures we’ve got walking around. Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that obesity in America is at an all time high but this doesn’t mean that a love of food and lack of exercise doesn’t mean a woman deserves a lack of love in return.

If you’re considered a BBW by any means and are looking to meet someone who loves you for YOU, all of you, then check out bbwromance.com

BBW Romance

Misinformed

Monday, July 23rd, 2007

I’m someone who’s pretty big on the environment so when I come across anything that’s going to disrupt it in any way shape or form I tend to pay close attention. Today I came across an article on the Chicago Tribune stating that BP oil refinery in Whiting Indiana is planning to dump significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan. This, in turn, would counter act the years of effort it’s taken to clean up the Great Lakes.

Now, there are a few articles in regards to this and BP is claiming that the public is being misinformed in this article. If you do some searching you’ll find a few other articles on the internet, one of which BP claims is a fair and factual article which I assume is based off BP Whiting Refinery Fact Sheet.

No matter what article you happen to read, however, you’re still being told that this company will be dumping chemicals of some form into the lake and there has been quite the uproar about it. I don’t limit myself to just a few articles, I walk around to other ones as well and the two I found on Google, one of which was a direct blog entry, went on to say that there’s no reason to dump anything into the lake and this company should consider taking their waste and using it for other things. Why make anyone surrounding this lake suffer because of their irresponsibility.

I say that this guy has a good point, but at the same time the actual news articles have their good points as well. BP claims that they’re well within legal limits, no harm is being caused to people or the environment, there will be more feul for the Midwest and jobs both now and in the future. So basically speaking, they’re going to need someone to dump these chemicals and they’ll pay you to do it. Sorry but that’s just how it sounds to me.

Talk about UNIQUE!

Monday, July 23rd, 2007

PPP Today I came across a company that offers everything from standard couches to home theater based setups. For a while now I’ve been talking about my dream home and everything I’d like to include. Knowing that from the get-go I’m not going to have any mouths to feed other than my fiance, I know we can spend some decent money here and there on things that we’ve both wanted for quite some time.

A kicker for me, naturally, is getting myself a pretty nice setup for when we have friends and family over. So of course the main concerns for me are the dining room, kitchen and living room being the setups of my dreams. Being as I’m turning into a movie buff and you can only lay on the couch for so long before it becomes annoying, I kind of want something different and what would be better than some kind of a home theater?

There’s a furniture store a few miles up the road that’s pretty big in Delaware, so big that people from Pennsylvania and Maryland even take the drive to shop there. They have three rooms setup with different theater seating based formats and I absolutely fell in love with one of them. It’s completely sound proof and loaded with surround sound capabilities. At the time there was a huge 40-something inch LCD screen playing some random movie that didn’t interest me but I do remember sitting in the chair and being able to feel every single rumble as though I’d just spent $10 on a movie ticket and was inside one of those larger theaters. Now, I know I’m never going to have enough money to get myself a screen as large as a movie theater but this doesn’t mean I won’t convert a basement into a major tourist attraction – heh.

Anyway, the site I found today has a pretty interesting store themselves. With parrots flying around, a play center for children and what Sean wound up drooling over was a 450″ television that is always playing in the background. They also have theater setups and what not but based on the parrot and the television alone – I’d seriously consider taking a trip down to Texas just to walk around this place.

Gallery Furniture

Home Financing

Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

While I’m not someone who’s really into real estate, I can say that I’m someone who likes to get the most out of my investments. I consider purchasing a house in the next year to be a major investment, naturally so I’m going to make it a point to be on top of everything in regards to not only mortgages but just home financing in general.

I came across dragonfi.com after searching for home financing Florida on Google. Naturally I’m not going to be moving down to Florida but knowing what houses go for down there I was just interested to see what was going on. Dragonfi claims to be home financing with wings. The company was created with their customers in mind and it’s easy to use them because they’re lenders, not brokers. They’re a full service home financing enterprise with the capability of funding loans up to $8 million with no catches or craziness involved. Now naturally I’m not looking to take out an $8 million dollar loan because I’d not only be rejected for that amount but even if I were approved my great-great-great grandchildren would be the ones paying it back. Unless I was bringing in about $1 million per year then this just isn’t something that I consider to be possible.

I did some reading around their website and the thing that kind of drew me in for them is the fact that they understand home buying is an intense and personal experience, while any business is mainly about the money, they aren’t going to push unneeded and unwanted resources in your direction and tell them that they’re good for you. They’re going to walk you through the process – step by step – and insure that you fully understand everything that’s going on. They believe in truth in numbers. All customers are given real facts and real numbers right from the beginning.

If you’re looking into more information about this company, head over to dragonfi.com or call up William Cox @ 888.88fi-fly

Planning a party?

Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

I don’t know about you but something I really enjoy is planning a party for friends/family members. If I happened to be in New York for the past couple of months I would have probably had a hand in planning a shower for my friend who is about a month away from giving birth. It’s her first child and she’s so happy about being a mother that the glow on her face could light up a room.

She’s having a girl so I’ve kind of been poking around on sites like partypail.com looking for extra cute and extra girlie baby shower decorations. I just wish that I could actually give her the party but our friend seems to be handling everything. Kim doesn’t know about the party itself, but thank god for AIM or I wouldn’t know anything going on with these people anymore! I’ve always been a fan of cute little ducks for some reason so when I came across this Baby Duckie Baby Shower theme I almost instantly bookmarked it, I sent it over to Jamie first – naturally. She fell over too heh.

I’m doing what…where?

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

I think the one thing I hate the most in the world, and anyone who knows me can vouch for this, is disorganization. I like to be able to walk into a clean house and when it comes to things like cleaning and laundry I have a system that I like to work with. It’s folded the second it comes out of the dryer and then goes into a laundry basket and straight back to the room. There’s no reason for something to just sit there for longer than maybe 15-20 minutes. Again, this is just how I’ve done things for many years.

So you can imagine my surprise when I found out that my new washer/dryer setup was located in the garage. I’m used to it being inside in it’s own little room and completely out of the way from bothering anyone. Knowing that I’m now in a garage doing everything has had me a bit annoyed because there’s so much crap in there that you can barely move, we’re in serious need of some storage cabinets and maybe with a clean-out of the garage we could actually, I don’t know, fit the car in there? It’s being used as a storage room and if that’s the case I don’t know why we can’t take the big bulky door off and turn it into an actual usable room considering it’s a two car garage – that’s a huge extension on the house that could be used instead of abused the way it is now!

Private Education Loans

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

During my continuing search of getting back into school I’ve come across many websites for loans and just other college related resources in general and none of them have really helped me out. Today, for example, I came across a website that offers Private Education Loans to students attending schools basically all over the country but what is really digging at me is the fact that even newer resources aren’t working with internet related schools. I know that there are full fledged colleges out there that offer an online way of taking the classes, there are also quite a few out there who are complete frauds, something I found out the hard way.

I did find a school of interest, I’m doing some more research on it though, unfortunately the entire tuition cost is going to run me in the $50,000 range. I’m completely eligable for a loan, don’t get me wrong, but most of the companies I’ve came across won’t bother to give me one because they feel internet related schools are a risky thing to invest any kind of money in. There are also a few where the loans never actually enrolled the student into school, the school ‘lost’ the check even though it was cashed. I can understand the loan offices not wanting to lose their money but why can’t they just take a chance on someone who’s got a full time job and still wants to get back into school to get her bachelors?

New Resource: Goth Singles / Goth Dating

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

A few days ago I posted about an online dating resource that I found rather interesting. Today, I came across a new one that was equally as interesting to me. This site is in full dedication to goth singles, located at gothscene.com. If you’re living the Goth lifestyle than it’s understandably going to be kind of hard to find someone who you’re compatible with. There are goth based clubs and groups all over the US but when you hang out with the same group of people for too long you’re naturally going to be looking somewhere else. This site is here for anyone in the goth dating scene looking to meet new and interesting people that share the same kind of interest as you. This site is completely free, you sign up and post your profile and from there begin meeting new people. You should check it out. gothscene.com.

Sponsored

New Resource: FitnessDating

Friday, July 20th, 2007

PPPI came across a fitness / health resource today that was out of the ordinary. It wasn’t telling you how to lose weight or how many laps around the track burn off 1,000 calories a day. It’s a site for people who already know this information and is entirely based around fitness, just adding it into the world of using the internet for serious or casual dating in the process.

It’s got the same setup as your typical dating website but it’s entirely based on fitness dating. The basis of the site is not to have people just meet up at the gym at work out together but naturally considering you are posting a fitness personals you may wind up doing that. This is for those who seriously care about fitness and are looking for someone with the same respect for fitness. It’s a completely free site to sign up for. Like every dating site you enter your name, age, location, upload a photo and list your preferences. Then you can float around the database for people who share the same preferences as you, get to talking to them and go from there.

If you’re interested in fitness and looking for that special someone for either casual or a serious dating relationship, maybe even just someone new to work out with, head on over to fitnessdates.com.

FitnessDates

Resources: Celebrity Gossip

Friday, July 20th, 2007

PPP I’m honestly not a huge fan of the whole media world but I have been known to surf around a few celebrity gossip based sites that house everything from celebrity news to celebrity pictures. I’ve been visiting celebritygossip.com for a while now and it never ceases to amaze me about the kind of information these people come across on a regular basis.

I will admit that it can be kind of annoying whenever you turn on the television and all you hear about is Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton, their site also offers the same thing but they actually talk about other people as well, because you know – Lindsey and Paris aren’t the only freaking celebrities in the world – contrary to popular belief.

If you’re interested in reading more about celebrities, information that you’re not going to see on your nightly dosage of E! News, then head on over to celebritygossip.com.

Resources: The Cover Guy

Friday, July 20th, 2007

PPP When I buy my own house it’s important to me that the outside looks just as wonderful as the inside. Call it the interior designer in me but I do have many tricks up my sleeve, mixed with a budget, that will have me very happy with the way things turn out. One important thing for the outside of the house is landscaping, all aspects of it. The grass won’t be cut by the dorks who handle this community. I’ll gladly pay someone to come back once a week but I want to make sure that everything is done right. They leave approximately 4 inches of grass, meaning their blades don’t even touch the ground. That’s unacceptable to me so I’m going to pull out the white pages and ask around about the best people to go through.

A big thing for me, outdoors, is a porch. I’ve been used to having a rather large deck for the bulk of my life. I enjoy having a lot of room that isn’t on the grass to just relax in. Yes, grass is great and all but the last thing I want to do is sit on grass that’s wet from morning dew just so I can tan. Sean and I have drawn up a few plans here and there about how we’d like things to look and one thing we agreed upon was a built in gas grill and a spa, naturally we’d have to invest in Hot Tub Covers to avoid waking up with animals or children floating around in there. A beautiful deck doesn’t mean you have to skimp on safety, you know?

TheCoverGuy.com I did some surfing around the net and came across thecoverguy.com, they offer a five year warranty with their product and the covers can withstand harsh climates and it helps cut energy costs for running the spa because it keeps the heat in. They’re recognized as the number one hot tub cover or spa cover company in the industry and they deliver to all over the US and Canada.

They have some pretty nice looking covers too. They’re priced in the $300 range but that’s not half bad considering the spa would cost in the $3,000 range anyway. I’m not talking about purchasing some huge spa that can hold 10 people, granted it would be nice to have all of that room to relax in but I also do intend to have a pool if there’s enough room in the back yard for it. I’m just a picky person and know that I’m going to get everything I’m hoping for since I’m going to be working my butt off to get it. I’m not the type who’s going to sit back and spend my husbands money, I’m going to earn it myself, more than likely have a hand in building it and then going from there. But hey, that’s just me.

New Resource: PowerOpt

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

I’ve been involved in the stock market for many years, it’s mainly because family members have had stock built up over time that was left to me in a will or just my own investing in general. I don’t pay much attention to the stocks but I do know that one of them is housed with AT&T and since the iPod craze is hitting, I’m certain something has improved. I’ve looked into a few different options to keep myself up to date with things and I came across options trading by PowerOpt. It offers you the control of automatically sorting filtering and analyzing over 2,900+ optional stocks and 190,000+ options online to find investments to meet your profit goals. There’s a 14 day trial so I downloaded it to test it out, I’ll have more information about this program in the future. So far it seems pretty cool but I’d have to play around with it some more to really get a good feel of how it’s going to work out for me.