Geekmom is Back and Getting Healthy

 I'm back, ready to just start blogging again. I always tell myself I'm going to but I never do. I had to take this website off of the server because someone has loved to attack it since day 1 so I've decided to redirect it to a google blog.  I no longer have outages on my other websites on a daily basis now so it is really nice.

I'm going to start off today by saying that my weight has always been a struggle and I am tired of it. I only lose when I eat so little that it is almost not eating anything at all. I lose slowly when I cut out all carbs. When I mean slowly, I mean 10 pounds a year. When I eat carbs I gain 10 to 20 pounds a year. By carbs I mean wheat, grains, and sugar. This includes fruit and starchy vegetables.

Honestly, I think eating all of the including bread, almost killed me. I believe I found out in time what I need to do and I'm so glad I did. I went in for testing in 2018. Unfortunately, those records can't be found. My doc said I was overweight, something I already knew, and I told her I'd lose it by going on Atkins.

The woman basically rolled her eyes at me and wrote "too many calories" on the blood tests.

It was really annoying to say the least but without taking her medication for high blood pressure and the steroids for asthma and by going on keto I lose about 50 pounds in 6 months and then stalled. I've been trying to lose more ever since but it is like beating down a brick wall. I really don't eat a ton of food. If I eat "in moderation" like people say, I still gain and I feel absolutely awful. My joints ache, I get headaches, and I'm lethargic all day.

If I don't eat what they recommend and I stick to meat, butter, eggs, and leafy veggies I sometimes lose weight and I feel so much better!

I also eat mostly only once or twice per day. Sometimes I track it and sometimes I get bored.

What I'm going to do now is track my glucose more closely. I'm going to only eat in the afternoon unless I'm feeling week, which never happens, and then ride my bike for about 10 minutes a half hour after a meal. I want to see if it is true that riding the bike will lower the blood sugar.

For example, today around 230 pm my blood sugar was at 93 in the middle of the day. I had eaten some chaffles before. Those are waffles made out of eggs and cheese. I didn't eat anything that would raise blood sugar. I have been sucking down diet soda like it is water so many that is why my blood sugar was 93 instead of 87. I don't know. I am going to ride the bike for 10 minutes and then check my blood sugar an hour after I eat with my new glucose monitor to find out and do it daily so I can track it.

Wish me luck. I'm 214 pounds right now. I started out in February 2018 at 267. It's been a long, long road.

iBotta is Giving Away Money in December!

Do you use iBotta? You should. You can get all kinds of great shopping deals and money back with your cell phone. In fact, in the month of December, 2017, you will get $5.00 for the first $10 your referrals spend and you will get back $75 when you refer 5 friends thought December 25th. Be sure to read all of the details on the website here.

Trying to Be an Adult Today

I'm a little frazzled. My son plays football and the coach is leaving. The kid is taking it better than I am, but still it's got to hurt. You get close to people, you look up to them and then poof! They go off to another team. It seems he was always building up the guys and making them feel great about their team and then suddenly gone. I can't say I'm not disappointed. I think there is something to say about commitment that I can't really express right here. I don't want to put my son in any kind of a bad way with the team by expressing my opinions so I won't. He will have to learn from ti I guess.

So what else? Not much. I am in a funk today because of everything going on and I don't want to leave the house. I can't take a shower. I have no clean clothes. LOL That is a long story. My middle kid decided that he was going to clean the laundry room one day so, instead of putting the clothes into the hamper that were knocked down on the floor (by him), he throws them all away. I'm down to one pair of pants and my plaid pajama pants. Can you believe that? It's just something I deal with. Hopefully he will move soon. He's 22.

All of this stuff going on with my kids and all of my appliances failing and work going slow doesn't help when I'm in perimenpause, either. No, I haven't checked with my doctor. I don't really have one. the only doctors available on my crappy insurance plan (thank obozo) I don't really want to have as my physicians for certain reasons. So, I'm assuming that it is just the beginnings of menopause. It started last year. My cycle usually always starts between the 4th and the 9th then suddenly it started every 3 weeks. Then it was every 2 weeks. Then it got down to 1 week. I was hoping it would dwindle out of existence, but it doesn't. Now it is back to the first week of the month. It's so annoying. I'm 50. It's time now. OK?

So with all of this going on and the hormones off the charts, I'm a wreck. I'm tired. My left shoulder was hurting for awhile, numb. Sometimes in my arm and wrist. I went to the urgent care when it was happening. They did 3 EKGs, but nothing. I was also having ear aches. He gave me antibiotics. Then the pain went away. I haven't made a follow up appointment because I just don't like doctors with 3rd world degrees. Sorry.  So I'm stuck. I think it's a nerve problem with my shoulder when I picked up a rather large screen tv that I got off of freecycle. I don't know. I moved it again the other day and guess what? The pain is back.

So now I'm totally tired and bummed. I think I'll just go take a middle aged nap and let my worries fade away for an hour or two. With my luck, my ex-husband will come over to harass me. ugh. Sorry this isn't upbeat. I'm looking for my positive side, but I think the hormones are hiding it.

Ordering Chilis Online for Birthday Boy

Today was pretty slow. After having the flu for a week, I found myself really tired but excited to feel better. My 16 year old son developed a rash over his torso and arms so it was off to the doctor again and another missed day of school. He misses quite a bit of school because of issues, but he's always passing his tests and getting his homework done managing a 3.6. If he wasn't on the football team I'd suggest he would do that independent study so the absences aren't such an issue with the fascist state, but whatever.

So tonight we tried Chili's take out by ordering online. It was okay. It wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be, but it wasn't as good either. Of course, the meal was only $10 for me with 2 entrees and 3 sides, but it just seemed like something was missing. Maybe it was the fun of sitting at the table. Birthday boy wanted it delivered and that is good because I'm not leaving the house for fun until my water heater is fixed. It's getting pretty depressing with all that going on.

Tonight I borrowed his AllCast which is similar to a Chromecast. I was hoping to watch Netflix on it so I didn't need to watch it on my little tablet. Unfortunately, you can't stream Netflix so it isn't going to work on the Chromecast. This is a real drag. I don't see what the problem is, it's not like I'm showing it to a bunch of people as it would only be streaming to my television. Why do criminals have to make everything so difficult for all of us? If people would just be honest then those of us who actually are wouldn't have to go through extremes to get things done.

That's about it. I have a serious migraine so I might just miss my show Bates Motel tonight and watch it tomorrow. I wanted to watch it on my big tv :(

Cheap Webhosting

I've been blogging since the 1990s. I know, you're going to say "but blogging didn't exist until after 2000!" This is technically not true, it just wasn't called "blogging." Back then we used HTML to blog. We didn't have php or any of these fancy blog server packages.

Now anyone can buy cheap webhosting to put up a blog within minutes. In some cases, a domain name and 12 months of hosting can cost a total of $22.00 per year. Unfortunately, this comes with a different cost. These servers are using virtual hosting which means that you are going to share a server with as many other servers as they can fit. When the other servers have a problem then you have a problem. If the IP gets blacklisted, then you get blacklisted.

Wouldn't it be worth it to spend a few more dollars per month to lease server space that is not going to bring your business down?

You could lease a dedicated server, but this is going to cost you on upward of a few hundred per month. If you are a newbie then the cost of paying that much money for a blog is way to costly. What are you to do?

You could use a host like blogger and still use your own domain name. Blogger sites sit relatively high on google when the right keyword schemes are used. Blogger and other large blogging services are also considered safer than most normal web hosting services. They are less likely to get hacked or flood pinged to death and are rarely blacklisted. Your mail server would need to be hosted elsewhere.

Out of the loop...I know

I know, I've been gone for so long. Something took the joy out of blogging for awhile. Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was having so many blogs to keep up with. Maybe it was the economy. Yeah. I think it was the last one.

I'm not here to say that I'm back. I'm just giving a little update. I don't know if I will update this blog daily. I don't seem to have the same interests as other blogging moms and I'm not going to fake it. I don't do a lot of cooking because my kitchen is just horrid. Both my convection oven and my gas ovens are broken. My sink needs a huge over hall because one day it just clogged up and no one can find the problem. That crappy health insurance bill release by obama lost me about $30,000 in business to where I was down to pennies and now I've been able to rebuild some, but not much yet. Unfortunately, I hear the Republicans are going to pull the same kind of stunt with more legislative garbage. Same forced government BS, different day.

So what to do? I have another project that I work on. It keeps me afloat. I don't like it, but I'm working hard on yet another project that I do like. This one will take awhile.

I'm at a loss. What would I want to do? Run social networks and servers for companies. That is what I enjoy doing. Working in the background. Not doing customer service. Not recruiting people. I have never found really what I wanted.

My Son Brought Home Two Kittens....

My son, who is rarely home, brought home two cute little kittens that I am now forced to feed and get shots for because he has no job and is never here. So when they come it to sleep in my room he gets all bent out of shape. Sorry, if you were here to mommy them then they might be sleeping next to you.

I really miss having a cat. I grew up with cats. My cat that our friends gave me on a road trip to Seattle lived for 20 years. She was an amazing cat and I just couldn't really get close to one after that for a very long time. I still don't think I can, but this one is growing on me. She insists on crawling up on my chest and sitting there while purring away and begging for my attention.

I remember coming home with a dog from the fair. I think we all might have done that once or twice--see someone with a box of kittens or puppies and just take one home. Fortunately, my mom was a good mom and let me keep it and I, against my better judgement, let my son keep the kittens. But no more. He can't bring home anymore.

I Love Influenster!

I have been trying out Influenster to test out new products and blog about them. Sometimes it does seem like a lot of work for what you get, but I figure it's also giving me content on my sites so it is pretty cool.

My first test was the TRESemme Pre-Conditioner product with shampoo. I used it and totally loved it. Since this isn't the place where I'm going to show you the demos as I do this on my other blog, I will say that you should sign up. Since I'm all new to this I don't really know where to find the signup link because their site can be a bit like a puzzle with all of the options and since I'm not exactly getting paid to do it then I don't spend a ton of time on it.

If you're a product junkie like I am though, I  totally recommend it.

CashPirate Always Pays to Make Money Online

I Just received another amazon dot com payment from CashPirate again today. I always love cashing in on the money they send for testing games on my phone. It's pretty easy to cash out with CashPirate and the payout is instantaneous.

This is one I don't do surveys on, I just install the games. I usually don't do surveys on the phone because I'm pretty terrible at texting and the time it takes to enter the data just infuriates me more.

The funny thing is, I'm doing a few of these while I watch my tv shows like Criminal Minds and Law & Order at night. I also do InboxDollars. I have yet to be paid with InboxDollars because their first payment is by check and the payout is $30.00. Since they pay nothing for surveys that I am not approved for and their offers are usually items I'm not interested in, I just do the get paid to read mail. That is so little pay that it will take me a year to get anything. LOL

Within a month I've been paid at CashPirate almost what I would have been paid on InboxDollars in a year. Lucktastic is almost the same, the payout is way faster. SwagBucks can be a little slow. I don't see how people do $400 per month with SwagBucks, but it is still better than InboxDollars.

I know, you think I'm crazy for doing these at all if I'm already making money blogging and elsewhere. I think the game testing is fun because I like the games. OK? I do actually end up keeping some of the and playing them until I need room on my phone. I might even do some advertising on a few of my own that I've developed once I perfect them.

I started the get paid to programs when I really needed the extra cash flow and I just never stopped doing it. It's not like I'm taking time from my business because I do them while I'm waiting for dinner to cook or I'm watching TV. It's like the millionaire who penny scrimps on coupons. Why not?

On many of these, the money you make is because of the residuals. When other people signup then you make more of a percentage. I can't say the same for a game like Qriket. I only make a buck per Qriket referral, which is kind of a drag but it helps the payout go faster.

To signup with CashPirate, click here and then enter my referral code JDZNMG at signup to get a 500 coin bonus when you earn 1000 coins. Then all you do is install the games they want you to test and do surveys if you like then watch the money pile up. At this time, you can get payout on Steam, Amazon, and PayPal as well as other services.

Why I Do Surveys from Swagbucks and Not InboxDollars

I don't do a lot of surveys for cash online because it takes up too much time when I could be marketing my products. When I the surveys, I do them through Swagbucks and not other sites like InboxDollars. There is a good reason for this. InboxDollars is great at what it does and that is paying people to read the emails and check out the products. For surveys, however, it isn't the best site.

Some surveys take just a few minutes of time and that would be fine, but there are several that can take up to 20 minutes or more to finish. Personally, I know that 20 minutes of blogging and marketing will eventually pay me, but sitting down and taking a survey for 20 minutes and then finding out 5 to 10 minutes later that I do not qualify for that survey because of my demographics does not help me at all.

Sites like InboxDollars simply offer up another survey and no points or dollars which is why I won't use them. SwagBucks will give me at least 1 or 2 points toward my goal if I do not qualify. Yet, even the amount SwagBucks offers is why I just do not sit around doing surveys all day long. It's not worth the money. I would rather put that time toward actual money for dollars by the hour or on a residual basis. A survey does neither.