Rest assured fasting hasn't left me laid up in bed. Something is up w/the internet connection. It takes me for-FREAKING-ever to do anything, much less upload files. So as long as the video and podcasts are, the connection keeps dropping. It takes forever just to upload my daily pudge pic.

Who even knows what's going on, I swear, if it's not one thing (server issues) it's another. Hopefully I'll be able to upload tonight. I've got lots to share!

I'm still a bit under the weather, I'm moving and my stuff is all over the place, I can't juggle keeping the site current on top of it all.

Be back on the 4th.

I posted 3 earlier podcast shows, days 90-92. Later today, day 93 (today) will go up and then I'm back @ it daily till next Friday 6/30 which will also be day 100. That's why I did the 3 earlier shows, so I can end the month, first ½ of the year and shows on a cool cut off date.

They are fairly short, as I'm doing it from memory and I may not do it daily after day 100 but @ least once a week if not more. What's super cool is now I have natural background noise. Listen to today's show (day 93) or @ least day 92 and you'll hear the birds I wake up to every morning. As I was listening to each show so I could adjust the technical stuff, I heard them.

Hearing an entire show I sat back and thought, "Wow that's a really cool sounding chick. I'd totally subscribe to her podcast."

How vain is that?

The daily Pudge Pics will resume on Sunday.

I'm going to try something diff't around here for a while, maybe forever who knows. One of the beauties of being offline and in the hectic pace of moving is, all my old routines...*snap*...just like that got broken. I'm trying to make new grooves in my daily life. For instance, I gobbled up gossip blogs, lately...notsomuch. I LIVED online as the computer was next to my bed, in coming days you'll see how far apart they are. Now when I'm online, I'm sitting, not watching/listening to TV, just being present w/all I do.

Not having constant email access meant, well, when I was blogging, once I hit post, I didn't know when I'd see a screen again, so I became detached from instant feedback.

This is Renee's auto posting system. She is not available to post @ this time. This is day 120, all those stats and pics and charts and graphs yada yada yada will be updated some time this week, Saturday @ the latest.

Also, there'll be no "Today I Weigh" post. Weekly weigh-ins shall resume next Sunday. For her sake, pray for a 2lber next week.

Thank you.

Have you ever wondered, Hmmm...I wonder what Renee's back fat looked like on day 28.

Or,

Hmmm...What I really wanna know is just how deep was that right side crease on day 42?

Or how about,

Hmmm...Could I ever find a way to compare her left side on day 18 vs. day 62?

Oh...my curious, yet demanding, little friend, you can...you totally can.

Fixing some minor site stuff tonight, layout may get broken from time to time the rest of the night. Added back contact page and a brand new About Me page. In the meantime, join my newly created Frappr group.

I'm still plugging away in redesign hell. If you happened upon the site yesterday and hit refresh every minute w/in a 10 minute span I'm sure the site looked totally different 10 frickin' times.

As of now, all the major blog pages are done and I'll be back to my regular jabber this week. Boy oh boy do I have some tales to tell. I still have a few glitches to make right and caught a few more this morning after viewing it w/fresh eyes. Once I get the entire blog back, I'll bring back the easier pages like contact and my fitness toys page. I'll even add a new about me page b/c it's just about damn time you all know who I am Oh and the comment notify check box is working again. Strange, it got disabled @ some point.

I'm mucho pleased w/the front page, it loads hella quick. Okay not as quick if I'd remove ½ the stuff but much quicker than before. To make that happen I had to make a few executive decisions.

Comments on the front page now pop up in a separate window and to "read more" takes you to the entry page. I know, I know, you were spoiled w/the easy to click drop down. But you know I can be quite wordy and w/5-8 entries each hundreds of words plus all the comments a site like this attracts, I mean I'm no dooce.com...

...but, hey those 1-2 comments per entry adds up ya kno

And I retired about 50 smilies, the majority of them are never used anyway. Still standing are my favorite guys (and one gal) ...

and the common , and faces show up if you type the right characters. Get schooled if you must.

So I hope those minor changes won't scare anyone away, but if it does, ahhh hell...take some time away and come back Friday, the pudge pics have always been a crowd favorite and I'm bringing them back.

Just for you

Made changes invisible to the naked eye but it makes my life a helluva lot easier, esp w/the podcast page. I'd tell ya what I did but then I'd have to disappear ya

Too busy tonight to work on anything else, comments are kinda sorta working the way i want, code is up the look and feel still needs work, cont reading link is still a bust, tomorrow is a wash to get anything done.

i'll be back @ it thurs & fri and pretty much the entire weekend so I should have the major stuff done by sunday and back to my gabfest come monday. If you're wondering how the haircut *cough*today's podcast*cough* went, I'll have a follow up and pictures up by tomorrow night.

down

Posting will be very light this week. If anything it'll all be techie site related stuff as I have my coding hat on. Plus it's driving me crazy that the site isn't matching. I barely want to look @ it, much less post.

Anywayz, a big coup on the front page was I've had a JavaScript error message for eons and whatever I did yesterday made it go away. I had to pretend not to see it, another thing that drove me crazy. I also streamlined some of the stuff on the front page, while others got expanded. All it all it's a way smaller file than before. I also modified the CSS so the gray bar extends to the bottom, I didn't like that is stopped when the content stopped and the way the CSS is layered, the white middle comes up first. It's a minor thing but when the front loaded before, w/it being so huge, the white background was the last to load, so any directory that did a screenshot always had a big space in the middle that only showed the stripped background. Yea, minor.

The white empty square will be filled w/something. Now I'm not sure what. When I first did the design, I was going to put a weigh down chart, but w/the Kick My Ass thing coming up, I don't want to be jumping back and forth, and the pudge pics will be coming back on a regular basis, though not posted here daily, so I have a bit of a puzzle to figure out in the next few days. I don't think I'll get a chance to work on anything this evening or tomorrow. So mid week to weekend I s'pose.

In other startling news, HOLY MOLY, are you kidding me 30+ people listen to the podcast!?!?! Shyte! Last time, about 2-3 weeks ago, I had that little bean counter up it said zero, granted the show was brand spanking new, but with the design I needed to balance out the graphics above it, so I put it back expecting no more than 5, where I know of @ least one person, Hiya Debbi! and figured the other 4 would be me especially since I subscribed to my own show in various directories

But 30? I had to rub my eyes, hard. I thought the coding finally burned out my retinas. Wowza. Now it make sense why my hosting company sent me that friendly bandwidth warning which last time I got one, resulted in seeing this page a few days later:

30 eh? Nice ::rubs palms:: To the 30, don't pay attention to the barely detectable music in the background nor my melodic voice. In no way shape or form am I attempting to mind control the blogosphere in my master plan to take over the world via word, voice and eventually face (when I vidblog, oh there will be vidblogging) all in a grand scheme to make every. single. person. fit. *muhahahahaha* *choke* *hahahahahaaaaaa*

Where was I? Oh, so now I feel the urge to make it a real production. I'm still working on getting background music, another weight loss blogger has a podcast too and he used the theme to Rocky in his show [so jealous] I'm tempted to use tunes I like but will be an angry camper if in a few months I get warnings from the music industry and have over 75 files to go back and fix. So, I'll stick w/the royalty free.

Just to refresh memories, the plan is to podcast for the next 100 days, it serves a few purposes, mainly to get me used to the equipment. Like by the end of last week I didn't even need to read my notes, I knew what settings to use. And I worked out the kinks of the bad mic on my own. As I do it daily, I'll play around w/the software, and along the way figure out how to set up tracks for my theme song and bumper music. After a 100 days, I'll prolly do it on a weekly basis @ least, where, I dunno, depending on where I'm @ weight wise, I'll offer tips and suggestions and ideas on...um...things... I said I dunno

Then by the end of the year, when I'm in school, hee!, I'll have a real show. Where I'll give more *ahem* professional* advice and real world examples based on what I see and learned and tie it in to my experience. As w/all things, we shall see how it goes.

Today's show will get posted later tonight and will be a two part cliff hanger, wherein part 1 I babble about a dream I had this morning involving Nicole Richie and Joaquin Phoenix and part 2 will answer the question, did she workout today?

update - the front page is pretty much done as far as the reorg and layout, code works, test in firefox looks fine. even validates except for an odd error that is due to the entry i wrote not the page, it'll fall off the front page so i'll leave it alone. i have to get comments and cont reading links fixed then i'm really done. will do archived pages throughtout the week and finally the generic contact and about me page, etc. i may not get to those till the weekend so i took off the links for now. off to bed, more tinkering tomorrow.

****

I'm not sure how many peeps go nosin' around the site, but eagle eyes will notice 2 things:

1) The link to my food journal has returned
2) Despite the fact that the training journal was dusted off on 1/28/06, it wasn't *used* again till 3/11/06, don't count the days, I don't wanna know.

I hinted that I'll be working on a redesign, nothing major, the site will still pretty much look the same and I'm sticking w/the seasonal color schemes, if you just joined me post December 21st, you'll have to keep visiting till after March 21st to get my drift.

One of the things I'm going to stop doing for the time being, b/c the new design will make it easier, is cross-posting when I've dropped a new podcast. Especially b/c I *may* get penalized in some podcast directories for posting the same mp3 file twice. If you just can't get enough of my voice, yet it's such a chore to click over to the other section, subscribe to the feed. Or just chill till Mid-Late March when the links to the latest episode will be automatically updated over here as well.

I used to do wild & wacky stuff like food reviews...oh oh and food battles...and DVD reviews!?!?

Yea, me too.

They'll be back soon

Just before '05 ended, I signed up w/Flickr! and still need add new photos to it (Elle where do you find the time girlie? I'm so jealous!), which I'll do once I actually start taking photos.

I so love technology but last year I got overwhelmed by all that's out there. My fantasy device? An iPod that takes pictures, records audio, plays radio, browses the web, updates my blog and is a cell *drool*

This year, in addition to the daily site stuff, I'm expanding the offerings ever so slightly by jumping pudge first into the world of podcasting.

Shure it took me almost 5 years to get a CD player and just about that long to get a DVD player (you'll hear why in the podcast, link to it is below the fold) but I'm on board dammit and that's all that matters. I'll be playing around w/the sidebar over the next few days in order to promote the new feature. Last night I streamlined my feeds b/c honestly having links to Yahoo, AOL, Google, Pluck?!? is really too much. Now you feed-aholics can get your fix via 1 link no matter what feedreader you use and YAY! me I have 15 readers

Don't ask why as I have a bit of a manic personality and really can't explain myself @ times. It has nothing to do w/the convoluted nature of the system I set up. Nor will I admit that even I couldn't figure what I was doing or follow the weekly now-they-are-on-whooops-you-missed-your-chance-to-comment-off-again schedule.

But comments are back on. All day, all night, 24/7/365. Heh, I've been listening to 70's soft rock classics. Some combination of those words appear in about 90% of the songs from that time. Along w/the such gems as "my lady" "boogie" "groovy" "getting high" & "lsd", wait...those last 2 are from the 60's.

I'll update the comment policy later and will go back to just closing them when I write something extremely personal. Everything else is fair game. But I draw the line on trackbacks, they remain closed. Seriously, who on earth, outside of tech geeks & political junkies ever uses them?

So I'm finally getting on the flickr bandwagon. What? It only took me an entire year, big whoop right? But take a gander over @ the far right column, above the calendar, you'll see my pictures. The name of my flickr account is Renee's Atlanta, ironically the first pics are from South Carolina. I tend to be slow @ times. I do promise in the new year, I'll have lots more shots to keep it current and honest to the ATL.

I'll post indoor shots of my moms house and tomorrow we are going to Charleston so I'll get my touristy shots in fer shure. For now, enjoy my kitties, and leave me some comments will ya

The smilies are clickable again, the smilies are clickable again!

In redoing the layout I removed that block where the bee tease has been for the last 12 days. But today, to put an end to the maddening question, "What the hell is the deal w/the stupid bees already?" it has returned for the the last time.

::

Something is throwing off the layout of the front page and pushing the 3rd column, that starts w/"Recent Comments" @ the end where the "Site Bio" is, but it looks fine on my computer @ home. Maybe I'm bugging out.

If it's not just this computer I'll have to try to fix it, so if you too see a big white space on the far right and only the "My Stats" column, can you leave a comment. Thx.

I'm not sure what's up with this site the last few days, comments have been double posting and disappearing. Given that I'm not even playing around w/this site I'm guessing it's gremlins.

In any event, my bad if you're having problems posting. Whether it's doubling your comments or disappearing them. I'll keep an eye on it. Last I heard gremlins don't like water. I can take a hint site, even you want me to get back to water guzzling habit. Point taken.

Lawdhavemercy, I finally finished pruning the blogs on the links page. I'll work updating links to misc resources later. It was good to see that of all the blogs, only 3-5 links were completely dead, and prolly 10 or so peeps haven't updated in over a month. But it balances out w/the 10 or so that came back online. Nice to see you ladies again

And the monster project, the NutriSystem Food Reviews Blog, that has kept me queasy for the last few days is almost done. I got the bulk of work done last night. Let's just say as many times as I've had to install Moveable Type in the last 6 months, I am so over it.

Fortunately b/c I've had to reinstall the damned thing so many times, I can do it w/my eyes closed.

All that's left to do is tweak all the templates, that shouldn't take too long. Unfortunately in my rush I forgot to back up all the placeholder categories I created so I'm a bit irritated, but who knows, maybe it'll work out for the best as I had too much going on anyway.

I still have box or so of NutriSystem food, I keep it as emergency eats for those months I am down to pennies. Next week I'd like to start reviewing foods I have listed as unrated.

I had really hoped to have the review blog humming along by now, but faced w/a lawsuit from a major company. Um yea, I said lawsuit. Let's just say I had to make that rush change happen in the last few days.

Once it's done, next up is another project that fell by the wayside as I became consumed w/news in the last two weeks. I was hoping to have that super secret project up and running by the middle of this month but it's so huge I had to break it into phases.

Phase 1 will be bare bones and should be in place by the end of this month. Phase 2 is a major undertaking so I'll work on it during the fall months and hope to have it ready to go by the start of next year.

All this to let you know I've always got something or other percolating behind the scenes.

So I finally got one of my pet projects launched: the food reviews have moved to their own domain, let reneegetsfit.com's bandwidth rejoice!

Lookit, I even found time to craft a teeny banner:

Been squirreled away all weekend long making it happen, I still have a few odds and ends to tend to, nothing is ever as perfect as I'd like it to be. But for the most part, it's done and starting today the old review site that was on this domain is now being redirected over there.

I toyed w/doing a complete redesign, but I don't feel that creative right now. Besides, the overall page layout works really well. To compensate, I swapped the background & changed the link colors to match, I jazzed up a logo just a smidge and voila, a "newish" site is born.

Oh & my apologies to those of you subscribed to a few entries that got a weird spam email promoting google today. *sigh* that idiot has been banned and luckily I got them after 4 entries, they were well on their way to spamming my entire site.

I've been working offline on a few web projects. I'm getting pretty excited about the things I have lined up, but as per usual, I think of something tiny, like sand grains, and then my brain thinks of pebbles, then rocks, next thing I know I'm in front of a mountain. It's all good, I think all pieces play a role, but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. One of the main things I need to do, is move the NS reviews off this site. The bandwidth is KILLING me. I've been looking into my options on how to do it as smoothly as possible. That's one.

Then I recently set up another site. After having major issues just getting MT to work properly, um I had to install that thing 5, FIVE! times, then gave up and moved to wordpress, then back to MT. *ugh* I'm a bit gunshy on diving into this backend site stuff right away. Blech.

So yea, that's why I'm *hardly* here and all my workout stats are outdated. It'll prolly take me the rest of this week to figure out all the things I'm trying to do, most of it relates to this site, setting up some new features and stuff (which is why NS reviews need a new home, I need that space) and one project is *gasp* totally unrelated to weight loss & health stuff. But it's up, now I just got to get it running.

All that to say, I'm here but I'm not. Beaker Babes seems to be handling themselves just fine. You ladies RAWK! Now I wish I made it a weekly weigh in thing and posted a beaker on the front page that increased with every lb shed. How cool would it be to watch all that gooey fat overflow. NOT!

Laters.

I'm gonna try another way of broadcasting the 5lb Labor Day Challenge. Rather than have a thread pinned to the top each week, I'll leave a brief FYI @ the top with a link to that post. The reason? Well I'd hate for someone to feel bad if they haven't posted or feel pressured to have a good week or obligated in anyway. Plus seeing the reminder thread may lead to avoiding my site. Can't have that now can we

Seriously though, I know the emotional rollercoaster of challenges, starts off high, peters somewhere in the middle and if one is lucky, finishing is icing on the cake. With that said, I'll have a new category labelled Announcements which will provide all challenge info and necessary links.

Ok about the site changes.

Nothing major, revamped the layout a bit, streamlined some colors and links. Most things were done behind the scene. Deleting old files, cleaning up my coding, fixing things like the search (it works again!), updating the logo (I added new phrases for the 2nd ½ of the year) and other technical stuff I can't even remember. For the most part the site is the same, there are a few visual changes that I've added, but as far as the content and focus that hasn't changed.

Without getting into too much detail right now, as the site has grown, so has the expenses to maintain it. For the most part it ends up supporting itself via the advertising links, but as I started shopping around for a movable type friendly host, I saw that it's more expensive than my budget currently allows.

There are many things I'd like to do with the site that I held off on. Mostly due to not having enough on here and lately b/c I didn't want to offend anyone, trust me nothing p0rn0 related, I'd just like to monetize the site some more so I can expand it. I cringe @ even putting it out there b/c I read others and hell none of the journals I read are trust fund babies, so other than a sympathetic head nod I don't want to come across as a cyberbeggar. Which is not my MO.

Rather, the site is a labor of love. The content is what I would do, research, post if no one ever read. It's a combination of many of my interests (googling any & everything, web design, fitness etc) and to have spent the entire weekend working on it to make it just right, isn't a chore, it's my joy. It's not @ the point where it'll replace anyone's 9-5 but if I can cobble together what I'd make if I found a part time job, I'd be ecstatic.

So while my daily jibber jabber isn't changing, I am looking @ my site in a diff't light. Now that there is more on here than I had on day 1, I'll be taking more active role on honing my skills to expand things. In that respect I'd hope not appear to be a sell out, yet if I find a way to earn money doing what I already enjoy, I'm jumping @ it.

That being said, I'd hate to lose visitors who may be turned off, feeling my site has turned impersonal, possibly too commercial (it won't but it may seem that way as the layout changes) but to each his own, I can't let that fear hold me back. No more.

I'm going to resurrect a category, financial fitness, I put to bed b/c I felt embarrassed that I'd come across as a beggar *sigh*. It's coming back mainly b/c money, or lack therof, has a direct relationship on my emotional state each month.

Like the newly created personal category, comments will be closed. That's so I can feel free just to write and not censor myself. After starting it I got a few emails & comments offering help. That added to my shame. I dunno why. But to swallow my fear & shame and address those inquiries, I'll say this.

I try to limit ads shown here based on things I've tried, ie NutriSystem etc. That way if I'm asked, I can give my experience. If you are in the market to try that particular product, I make a few dimes if you get it via the site. If it's something you'd get online anyway, we both score.

Lastly, I'll repost my donation link. I took it down a few months ago (again shame) but now I'll view it as a tip jar. If something I wrote or did moves you the way a good belly laugh from Chris Rock moves me, a tip of buck (or two) would be greatly appreciated. Considering a live Chris Rock show will run ya well over $75 smackeroos, I'm a steal. A steal I tell ya!

But keep in mind, no one, @ anytime, is under any obligation to do any of the above. Ever. I'm not keeping score or track. Other than the financial fitness category where I talk about my debt in general, I won't mention tips received or not and by whom. If someone tips me and they hate running, I won't turn my site into an anti-run rant to appease them. Feel me?

So that's the gist of it. Internally I feel really good. I've sketched out some ideas of the direction I want to take my site in and I'm actively working to make it happen. Over the next few months in various ways I'll roll things bit by bit. I appreciate your patience as I sorted things out this weekend and during the technical glitches that were out of my control in the last 2 weeks.

I'll be back later today with details on my newest 6 week challenge which started today. Today?

Oh shite! My brain got enough working out the last few days, time to get my @rse back to sweating

Hmm...sorry for anyone who had probs commenting from early morn till about 5 mins ago (thanx for the heads up Elle Jay) I *think* I fixed the glitch. Any more problems feel free to email me @ reneegetsfit@gmail.com

*******

Oh and Happy Summer.

You *should* see a yellow/brownish color scheme in place of the green one. It represents the Sun. Gotta put those graphic design color theory classes to good use

I've gotten a few emails about problems with the send button appearing. I just clicked on one of the entries on the front page and the entire layout looks wonky. I have no earthly idea what is going on b/c I am currenlty fixing the archives and those pages look fine...*sigh*...I tell ya if it's not ONE thing...it's another.

B/c jumping around working on multiple things @ once always fuggs me up, I'm gonna finish up what I'm already working on. In the meantime I've relinked (& tested) the contact page. If all else fails, you can use that in a pinch.

Slowly but surely I've been working out the final kinks of the site.

Back for good *crosses fingers*

I finally did what I should have done a week ago, completely deleted everything on the server and set up a brand new folder on my computer to rebuild everything. I didn't think I had to go that far, so I was using my original folder and am guessing the corrupted file that screwed me up, kept following me and nothing ever worked correctly. Now I feel much more confident that all scripts and plugins are functioning properly.

This has been the biggest nightmare. Out of frustration I came really close to just scrapping MT altogether. I'm not 100% sure it's all working.

*sigh*

I lost track of how many times I uninstalled and reinstalled MT. I'm getting a bit queasy just thinking about it. As suspected, the archives are fugged up. There there, but all the links got reset during the import so I've gotta manually fix them. Then there's other technical glitches on the old pages that'll require some more manual labor. W/500 or so files, I'm gonna do a couple every day till it's all caught up.

Lastly commenting, for now I'm using MT's default blue/gray template. When I try mine, it's just not working. It'll prolly take me the rest of this weekend to figure it out.

In the process of the site drama I broke out in a terrible rash. The last few pudge pics, my skin looks really poxy. And the whitish gleam on my back, arms and palms is the cream. *sigh*

Updates will still be minimal, just the poxy pudge pics & a quote or two, till Tuesday.

Is it horrible that this month just started, and I can't WAIT for it to end?

I tested comments from another computer this morning and I see the same prob, it goes to a white screen and my comment disappears. I'm not sure how anyone else has been able to comment...are your comments going thru immediately like before? Are you seeing the white screen?

*sigh*

I'm going to spend this week backing up the entire site and trying to remember all the plugins and scripts I've installed. Over the weekend I'll delete the MovableType software & the mySQL database from the server. Then I'll reinstall everything.

Nothing will be lost (I hope). The biggest headache may be that my links will get fugged up when I import all the entries back to the new database (I do a lot of cross linking) and it's not just this blog, I got the review and recipe blogs too (fun!).

So I don't have excess entries to backup, I'm going to hold off on posting anything new till next Monday. When I pull the site on Saturday, I'll throw up a generic under construction page.

Feel free to test posting comments on this entry. If you can't comment and want to let me know what prob you ran into, use this form.

The lesson? If it ain't broke don't fix it. I am NEVER upgrading again. Unless the new version spits money out of my computer...pffft!...I ain't budging.

@12:57 pm - It's official, comments are toast. I tried reinstalling MT b/c I see what I fugged up yesterday. No dice. *groan*

It looks like I'll have to do a complete reinstall. Which doesn't suck *too* much since I needed to upgrade my hosting plan anyway. But since my hosting company doesn't work on weekends, it'll have to wait till tomorrow and b/c coding is so time consuming that I don't do it very much during the week, all of the upgrades won't be complete till next weekend.

Until then, posting may be light this week, just daily pudge pic and quotes.

*****

4/30/05 - I just upgraded Movable Type and things are a bit off. Bear w/me, comments don't seem to be working correctly and I'm temporarily removing the email notifier for comments. If you have subscribed and got old notifications today, I'm sorry.

- Added Contact section and linked to it from every page.

- Added Birthday Shout Outs to the main page. If you add your birthday you'll get an extra Shout Out from moi when it rolls around. Only requirements are your name, URL and day of birth. The year? Your secret.

Quickie Update: Hmmmm...I just realized the birthday script doesn't email me when someone adds their link. Initially I planned to check links once a week, on Sundays, but now I decided to verify them twice a week. On Sunday and midweek. In the meantime I added See all birthdays link so you can see if your bday has been verified. Oh and verified means nothing more than I ok the link so that it'll show up on the shout outs page during your bday month.

I'm still tweaking the layout of that page, not a fan of the table borders.

Tinkering on the site today. Layout may break from time to time. My bad in advance.

done adding:
- temporarily shuffled around page layout
- added top monthly & all time commenters
- most commented entry
(still playing around w/font size)
- fixed broken smilies
- fixed bad div tag @ end of home page
- contact page

to finish adding:
- birthday script
- cookie to move pinned entry? & if so link on side?

A new spin on the defunct weekly poll, introducing a weekly open discussion category, What Say You? I'm nosy & like learning new things. I want to know the thoughts of others tackling various weight, health, diet related issues. You don't need a blog to reply and I'll try to keep it non-controversial. If any issue makes you want to remain anonymous...make up a fake email...I don't mind. Consider this category an open chat. A place to share tips, tricks, voice your opinion or ways you've coped w/something amongst similar folks. A meeting place or sorts. A getting to know you kinda spot. A blog version of Starbucks even! Too far? Thought so.

I'll keep the topics pinned @ the top for about a week, but if no one bites, I'll post something else. If it's jumping I'll keep it posted longer. Fair warning, I'm an only child and can entertain myself for hours on end. If no one replies, I'll be forced to answer the questions myself. And then reply to myself. Please don't make me look that desperate M'kay?

This weeks topic: You have one choice: A Personal Trainer OR a Personal Chef. Which do you pick & why?

The Fat Loss article from yesterday got screwed! Sorry about that. Thanks Fran for the FYI. I'll have to see if I saved a copy @ home...sigh...that's where the links were. In the meantime, I'm gonna take it down.

Hiya to the people dropping by via (I was blog of the day today!) you're here just in time to vote.

In case you're wondering what is the deal w/all red 'kini pictures, this post guides you thru what's what on my site.

Enjoy your stay, and y'all come back now.

To everyone else, that article I said I'd post today, I'm too beat. I just got thru doing a weights & stretching workout that I really didn't wanna do. I grumbled my way thru the entire 47 minutes and am gonna go sulk for a while.

I'll post it on Monday. I mean it.

FYI - I'm working on the right side this afternoon, the layout may go wonky from time to time.

Update: Finished tinkering for now. I added scripts show comments and more of the entry on the home page. Also updated the master archive page to show a excerpt of the entry.

Next weekend I've got to strip the code some more and make the changes from today effective on all pages.

No I'm not late for St. Patrick's Day ::

It's the first day of Spring. Time to shed the winter blues for green growth. Happy Spring Day!

- added more journal/blog links to the Resource page. I'm not trying to be the be all to end all when it comes to links, but I like finding weight/health related sites. It's interesting to see so many people on a similar journey using diff't approaches. My approach/outlook may not suit someone and perhaps I listed a site that they can relate too.

- added countdown table for the challenge. It'll be updated the following morning.

- updated text on comment policy. Nothing major. I just made a public decision to add my replies in the comments w/in a set timeframe. I've been haphazardly replying. Sometimes in comments, others in email. It's been driving me CRAZY. Me likes order. Then last week I saw a lot of bloggers ask the question on what format is best for replies, w/in the comment or in email. I'm always paranoid someone won't come back so that's why I've emailed.

But the fact that I do have an "email me replies to comments" option nips that dilemna in the bud. What really sealed the deal was finding a blogger, who made a good point on why they reply w/in the comments: it encourages a public discussion.

- closed old comments/trackbacks.

I spent most of the weekend pruning my blogroll since I found out I can use MT to manage it. Now all my blog/journal links are listed, not to thrilled w/the center alignment and 4 columns, but it'll do for now. Thanks to the MT blogroll, I can easily assign a link to on hiatus status and it puts it in the right column AND in alphabetical order.

I'm always scouring for new reads, so if your health/weight related journal isn't listed, leave a comment and I'll add you to the list.

On an unrelated side note, I had to do something I'm not entirely comfortable with. Edit someones comments.

The tone of the comment seemed to solely pimp a product thru my blog, but yet it didn't quite strike me as spam. So I hesitated on deleting it & ended up removing the product pimping text. Still, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't want to start editing anyones comment b/c what if someone disagrees w/me. Will I edit out the disagreeable part? (I won't but just saying as an example.)

I mean who's to say a spammer won't type in a few okay words and then launch into a sales pitch. In this case I left the links that went to a health related blog. I'll just have to handle this on an individual basis I guess.

I am fairly sure 99.9% of my comments don't fall into that category, and don't get me wrong, I don't care if you leave a link and say come see my site, I have quite a few comments like that, mostly people from blogexplosion or blogazoo. No biggie.

I just don't want salespeople, using that tactic under the guise of commenting, to slip thru the cracks.

I joined two cool blog programs: Blogexchange.net not to be confused w/BlogXchng

The former will allow for my button to be advertised across the internets, heh, and thru the latter I've already found some great reads to add to my links page.

Since I've gotten SLAMMED w/trackback spam, I've closed comments & trackbacks on entries older than 30 days.

Last week I set up NutriSystem Recipes section. There are some really creative people on the support boards. Thanks to them I've been making everything into a burrito which explains the low carb wraps, sour cream, salsa and tomatoes I picked up last Sunday

That graph I added to the right is my solution to my rewards dilemma. I don't want to give the impression I'm paying myself to lose weight or valuing myself by the pound. What I'm doing is, for every 1lb I shed, I'll set aside $5, if I lose ½lb, $2.50. This piggybacks on my original daily 5 concept of rewarding good behavior. In this instance my true goal is to save money for new clothes. Given that I manage to lose 1lb a week I can save 20 bucks a month w/o breaking my budget. In the event I gain or maintain, the monies I've saved will stay the same. In other words I won't deduct money.

I've been quite busy today. BuzzZZZZZZ...

I'm not nearly as creative as this chick, but I do try. Last night I made a ? serious attempt to design a button. Five minutes later I gave up. My design creativity only goes so far & this is where it led me:

Go for it. Add it to your button collection. I mean really, who doesn't want a pudgy abdomen adorning their site?

Next up: T-shirts heh

I added an email notification checkbox to the comments form. It's an optional spam free way to track comments to any entry. You can unsubscribe @ anytime.

I put the more common smilie faces onto the page and the more colorful characters are now in a separate pop up window.

Since the fellas are starting to chime in, I've changed the default Lisa Simpson gravatar to a gender neutral icon: dumbbells.

While I was @ it, I updated my own gravatar. Suits me quite nicely.

Carry on.

Thanks to all who assisted my Blogaid donation drive in January. I promised to match all donations, dollar for dollar up to 25 bucks, in the hopes of donating an even $50.00

I didn't quite make the goal of raising $25, but since the difference between what was raised and what's left over amounts to the price of 2-3 value meals, $13, I'm going to put in the remaining amount myself. Besides, I'm sure I've saved @ least that much, prolly more, by not eating out the last week and a ½. I'll consider it my good health donation.

Thanks again.

Joined today. Yes Rebecca one more thing to burn you out and make you .

Heh

Added Morning Musings - my first thoughts after working out. May or may not be coherent.
Added Workouts - recaps, planning & observations.
Journal - all other wrting.

Added food journal link to the navigation menu.

The site logo is up. It was a cringe worthy task, but I am extremely optimistic. I mean from here on out there's no way to go but down.

Before = my side (rolls & all) as of today.
As of = my sides (less rolls please!) when I finish my 10 week training block, and will be updated @ the end of each training block till I reach goal.
Goal = me @ goal, pretty self explanatory.

- Resources section has been updated with more challenges.
- Training journal is up and raring to go.
- Comments are now gravatar enabled. If you don't have on, the default image is: , sorry guys it'll show up for you too . See it in action on this post.

The resources section has been added. It's updated frequently with links to:

1. Blogs/Journals
   
2. Calculators
   
3. Challenges
   
4. Fitness Tools
   
5. Resources
   
6. Forums
   
7. Training Programs
   

If you have a resource you'd like me to add to the list, leave a comment in this entry.

Enjoy!

The last few weeks I've been working fast and furious like trying to set up this site while dismantling the old one. I've been up till almost 1 am every night this week as sections have been posted then pulled, links have broken then fixed, designs have been changed then changed back. All this while trying to post stories I happened upon.

All that to say I'm a bit pooped, but that's my style. Run myself ragged.

Luckily it's Friday and since this is a Monday thru Friday sorta blog my weekend starts now. Taking it one step further I'm going to stop tinkering behind the scenes as well.

Once the site is running to my liking (if ever I have a to do list with 100 items on it) I want to spend the majority of my time getting fitness related content. Articles, tips, success stories, fads, and the like just for your viewing pleasure. (coming next week: my training and food journal & the resource section with links to other blogs/journals. Fun FUn FUN! I tell ya.)

Since the site just went public this week my time has been torn between putting out mini fires and doing too much. Like hmmmm maybe I should make the comments thread style, so people can talk directly to each other. One thing leads to another and next thing I know it's 1 am. Again. I regret I haven't had anytime to respond to emails or comments, but thank you so much for taking the time to write and I will catch up on that this weekend.

Plus I have 8 Netflix movies that needs watching. EIGHT. I don't EVER keep movies out so long and it KILLS me they are getting over on me this month. So tonight & this weekend, I'm gonna veg out on movies, pay some bills, clean my house and try to relax.

Have a good healthy weekend, see ya Monday

I wanted to take a moment acknowledge the tsunami tragedy. For the month of January I'm participating in Blogaid. To that extent, I am pledging all of the revenue I earn during the month of January to Oxfam.

In addition, I will match the revenues generated in January, up to $25, from myself. Even if the revenues are less than 25, I will still donate $25 and add to whatever is there. I am going to keep this post at the top of the front page for the month of January. Thank you in advance.

[2/01/05 UPDATE: Final figures posted.]

Technically I'm shooting for weekends off from the blog, I'll be working behind the scenes but no posting, but I must commerate the first of the year with an entry, for posterity sake if nothing else.

Some of the features I alluded to will be having a weekly poll. Just for giggles. While I don't want the site to get too cluttered I'd like to make the site more interactive. In the original version of my old site, the one started back in the winter of 03, I had TONS of things for people to do, I made myself dizzy. Not this time.

Most of you know me from an old weight loss blog I shall not name since by the time this site goes live and is visited the link will be down forever. Others are here from redirects, search engine hits, webrings or blog hopping. However you got here, let me take a moment to reintroduce myself.

reneegetsfit.com is a health & fitness related blog. The primary focus is the latest news, trends, fads and your commentary. I would love for it to turn into a watercooler of fitness chit chat.

I set this site up for many reasons, mainly because I was tired of talking about myself being up a pound/down a pound. I also loved finding out the latest health news and talking about it with others. From time to time I'll make a note of any significant progress I have made. As the year progesses I'll add links so it won't just be the blog, but my focus is to have discussions about health and fitness.

The format of the blog is 3-5 articles during the week, a girls gotta get weekends off ya kno *wink* and most major holidays I'll be off. In those cases I'll leave a few open threads for ongoing chat. If this takes off, crossing my fingers, I'll love to invite guest bloggers. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Some future content will be product reviews, my training journal, and health related resources. As of this posting the site is maintained by one person and I timed it to have it up and running by the first of the year for all those symbolic "fresh start" reasons.

I hope you enjoy it.