knitting ninja

Jorge Lorenzo seemed destined to Estoril. Just like his debut season last year, this weekend he was also impressive in the circuit and won the Portuguese MotoGP on Sunday (4/10/2009)

Ironically, Hitler’s bunker just one block from the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. If the existence of Hitler’s bunker almost mysterious, the Holocaust memorial was crowded visitors.

I finally finished my first sock! No, it’s not the petite half of the chewbaca sock (I got bored with the sea of stockinette on that baby so it now lives in my UFO pile like a sad alien. Get it…ufo…alien…haha. Perhaps only I find that funny . The sock I finished is the toe-up blueberry waffle sock I mentioned a few days ago. Waffle Pattern..huh?? Now, if you’re looking at my sock shaking your head and thinking "Hmmm…that doesn’t look like the waffle pattern??.." you’d be correct. For who knows what reason I ended up with what looks like 2x2 rib despite the fact that I followed the pattern to a T. It’s not a pattern issue, it’s more of a "Morgan knits too tight" issue. On top of that, I don’t know if I like the colour. This is the yarn I dyed a few weeks ago and absolutely loved, but yeah, now that it’s been knit up I’m not so sure. Again, my too dark yarn obscured the pattern. None the less, these socks (or uhmm…this sock until I find the motivation to knit the other one) is exceptionally warm and cosy and will make a perfect gift for my mom to keep her feet warm during the California winter. Oh, and in case you’re like me and prefer knitting socks toe-up, Emma is putting the finishing touches and the toe-up version and will be releasing the pattern shortly so stay tuned!

I know that before I became a gym rat, exercise was intimidating. There’s always the sense that people are judging you; it makes you want to be in shape BEFORE you even go to the gym. A catch-22 for sure. No one gave me any exercise tips, but I wish someone did. Eventually, I did find some exercise tips that work for me. So here are four exercise tips I’ve found the most useful.

Make it a commitment. If you’re like me, you make bigger commitments to television shows; really, no show is worth taking you away from the life you want to live. What if you took one hour away three nights a week to make yourself feel better, look better and to be more healthy? By the way, this is making a commitment to exercise, NOT necessarily a commitment to a fancy gym. In fact…

You don’t need a gym. Of all my exercise tips, this is the hardest to wrap your head around. But where will I exercise? Anywhere! You can job down the street. You can do sit-ups and push-ups in your bedroom. You can bike, rollerblade or swim in any number of public places. Now, I’m not saying don’t go to a gym. I feel like some people get stuck in expensive and long-term contracts to a gym. All of a sudden, gyms are an obligation - exercise, believe it or not, can be fun. If you have the mind-set that you HAVE to go, because you’re paying for it, you’re attaching negative energy and thoughts to every work-out.

Find a way to make exercise fun. I think this is the most important of all exercise tips. There’s all sorts of activities that can help promote physical fitness, help you lose weight and get in bathing suit shape. Remember how much you liked riding a bike when you were a kid? Who says you have to stop liking it now? Get on it and go pedal! Did you play a sport in school? Soccer, softball, basketball? You can certainly find adult leagues to join. Not only are you getting a workout, you’re meeting people and having fun! Like anything else, enjoyment in the process is a key factor in achieving high results; the more you enjoy your workout, the better you’ll like the results.

Mix up your workout. The worst thing that can happen with your exercise routine is that you can get bored. As I’ve mentioned above in the other exercise tips, if you enjoy the workout, you’ll enjoy the results. So try new things - yoga, rock-climbing, pilates, kick boxing. There’s no end to the number of different physical activities you can partake in to help you get the body you want.

Follow these exercise tips - or make your own! THe most important thing to remember is that you can control the workout - there’s no "right" workout plan. The only right workout plan is the one that works for you!

If your credit score is poor, you know that you’ll have to take steps to improve it if you hope to regain a footing in the world of credit. You’ve probably seen websites, or received email solicitations promising fast credit repair – for a price, of course. Your best bet is to avoid these scammers. That’s why this situation is a matter of definition. Fast means with all due speed. A good analogy might be that of a poor, tired out old horse trying to compete in a race. While the poor horse is proceeding with all due speed – going as fast as he can, he’s not going to win the race. In credit markets, digging out of a financial mess takes time.

Even if you now have plenty of cash on hand to retire old debts, this does not constitute a fast credit repair job. While satisfying old debts will make your credit picture look a little better, you need to do more. As with most things in life, improving your credit score requires a slow, methodical process built around a good plan. The only viable and truly fast credit repair job comes if you’ve come into a windfall of cash. Of course, ironically, you don’t need credit anymore.

Here’s how to approach credit repair in a sensible way that gets you to your goal, with all due speed:

1.Examine your budget and cut out all unnecessary expenditures. For example, let’s say you went for a bundled package of three telephone services, such as call waiting, voice mail and equipment repair, a while back. These may be costing you $10 a month. Are they worth it? That’s $120 each year, which might be better spent on the kid’s back-to-school clothes, or applied to a high interest credit card.

2.Open your wallet and count how many credit cards you find there. The average American sports nine of these. Stop using the ones with the highest interest rates, but continue making all of your payments, as possible, and on time.

3.Do not incur new debt. Many people fall into the trap of applying for even more credit cards, thinking they can leverage off a new one in order to make the minimum payments on existing plastic. Creditors are wise to this strategy. Instead of achieving a fast credit repair job, you’re only making the situation – and your credit score – worse. You’ll find that this strategy results in higher APRs, as well as heftier late fees if you fail to make the minimum payment. Your card may be canceled and there you are with an even worse credit score and more debt.

4.For fast credit repair – at least as fast as possible, you’d be smart to contact one of the debt consolidation services. When looking on the web, choose services with a ‘.org’ suffix to their URL, not ‘.com’. Why? Non-profits have the ‘.org’, while commercial ventures are ‘.com’. Non-profit debt consolidation services are always cheaper and their mission is to help people get out of debt. They have all the connections and expertise to negotiate lower interest rates and are sometimes able to eliminate some of those late fees. They can work out a plan whereby you make a single, lower monthly payment to retire all of your debt, over time. Creditors look favorably on a borrower who opts for debt consolidation and consistently makes those payments on time.

5.Use the money you save with a debt consolidation plan to address old debts, still on your credit report. Every old debt you wipe out improves you credit rating.

Depending on the amount of debt you owe, it can take anywhere from 12 months to three years to repair your credit and regain an excellent credit rating. As we all know – now – banks were a bit too quick to hand out the plastic and the first to run for a bailout. We ordinary folk don’t have that option, as we’ve learned to our chagrin. That’s fast credit repair, in a nutshell.