Blogger v/s Wordpress

Everywhere you look on the Blogosphere today, you are sure to see mention of Wordpress 2.5 being made available. A lot of bloggers sound really excited about it, and appear to be pretty happy with the result. I've done a little research on the comparisons between Wordpress and Blogger (which I use and love).

Overall, what I gathered is that Wordpress is good for people who want more control over how to open up communication with visitors to their blog. I read that the v2.5 allows visitors more options when they get to your blog. SO if that's what you're into, you will be very pleased with this latest release of Wordpress, I would guess.

Blogger, however, sounds like the better app for blog owners like myself, who want more control over the LOOK of their blog. If want the flexibility to have complete control over how your template is designed, Blogger would be your choice. Wordpad does offer templates for you to choose from, but you can't see the code and make any changes to it, or add any images of your own to it.

In a nutshell, I'm a Blogger girl, and will continue to be as long as they continue to align with my needs as they do now.

311 - All Mixed Up

Taking it back to the 90's from whence came my favorite style of music...Alternative. This makes my heart bleed for 99X.

My Favorite Commercial of the Moment

It's the Talking Stain. Love this!! :-)

Springtime blog makeover

Yes, I finally redesigned this blog. I was SO over winter. Too many sad memories. I am definitely ready for Spring to be in full-force, minus the involuntary reaction to allergens, of course.

You know what I'm working on? Planting a flower garden. No seriously, I honestly want to plant a garden. Just a pretty flower garden that complements the colors of my home. Have you ever seen flowers that make every day look like a sunny day? I'd like to plant some of those right outside of the windows on the bottom level of the house. I want to look out at them while I'm drinking my morning coffee, and eating my egg-white tortilla. Unless, of course, I'm drinking my coffee and eating my egg-white tortilla at 6:30am before the sun rises and I can't see the flowers yet.

Okay, I'm rambling. I can barely keep my eyes open, so I need to go to sleep. I just wanted to note the new design.

Say goodbye to the old design. One last look here:



I hope the new design brings a little sunshine and springtime happiness your way. :-)

Here we go again...

...with the weight thing.

I know, it's a never-ending thing with me. This time around, however, I'm starting in a much better position than usual. I'm already in pretty good shape, and in my opinion I look awesome in my size 6's. However, I'm now embarking on something that I haven't ever concerned myself with in the past. This time, I'm going hardcore: I want to get into a floral print string bikini.

Let me just say that I truly believe that if I lived in some other region of the US, I wouldn't even care about stuff like this. But I live in Atlanta. Most of us are very superficial here, and care a lot about physical appearance (see Miami, LA). It's just the way it is. Or maybe it's just the people that I'm closest too, and whose opinions I care the most about? Hmmm....I'll explore that one later.

So I'm on a serious mission to be bikini-ready by June 20 (beginning of summer). I am actually excited about it! As I mentioned, I'm already tank-top and flip-flop ready. The main motivation for the bikini-feat is the fact that my family is going on a trip to Myrtle Beach mid-July. I have to represent. I do NOT usually do the beach and I don't swim; we're the kind of people that go to the beach just because it's pretty, not to actually get into the water. So I don't usually have a need for a bikini. I typically just wear shorts and a tank top.

Thanks to my friend Vanessa, I'm already on victoriasecret.com looking at swimsuits. Maybe this will keep my Zaxby's-chicken-wing-eating self in the gym at least 4 days a week. Actually, the gym isn't the problem. If I can just remember to use the push-back method I'll be in good shape. (Push-back from the table)

Outside of the CNN Center this morning we have...

...this guy.



Here are my concerns:

1) He appears to be homeless...why is he out waving a flag when he could be earning some money somewhere working?

2) Speaking of earning money, someone is clearly paying him. I would venture to guess that homeless people don't usually spend the few dollars they can scrounge up throughout the day buying poster-making supplies. Or American flags.

3) According to the sign, the feeling is that CNN is unfair to Bush & McCain. You're definitely entitled to your opinion, but I'm even more confused because...

4) Supporters of Bush/McCain/etc... wouldn't be waving an upside-down flag, would they?

I'm analyzing this while trying to work, and it's giving me a slight head jumble.

Raining in the CNN Center

*Video footage and pictures at the bottom*

By now everyone has probably heard about the E-F2 tornado that ripped through downtown Atlanta last Friday evening. A few things standout about this event that make me wonder how anyone can deny that God exists:

First of all, there has NEVER been a tornado in downtown Atlanta. My whole life, I've always understood that if there is really bad weather approaching metro-Atlanta, the best place to be is downtown. Well, this was not the case on Friday evening. The tornado actually went through the heart of downtown.

Secondly, there were two major sporting events going on simultaneously right next two each other in the aforementioned tornado stricken area. The Atlanta Hawks were playing in Philips Arena, and right next door at the Georgia Dome the SEC conference championship game was going on. The SEC game was about to end as the storm began brewing. In fact, the only reason there weren't thousands of people outside in the middle of the tornado is because of a last-minute buzzer shot by one of the players that sent the game into overtime! What could have been dozens of deaths (at least) ended up being only about 20 or so minor injuries, because the game went into overtime which kept everyone inside of the Georgia Dome!

Below is a little video footage I took this afternoon. I work at the CNN Center, so I captured a little rain shower we had inside of CNN today. Our roof, several windows, and other areas of the building are still damaged. I also posted a few pictures I took about 5 minutes after the hail storm that hit my area the following afternoon.



Pictures:

Orlando Trip - Days 3 - 7 in a nutshell

Quick explanation about the Orlando trip posts. As you probably already know, my family visits Orlando, FL every year in late Winter/early Spring. Since my hubby began law school a few years ago, we have started vacationing in Orlando during the week of his Spring Break. It always occurs during the last week of February through the first week of March. Due to my obsession with Orlando, FL, and also my new found discoveries of how to have the best Orlando vacation ever, I blogged during the entire week there last year.

This year, I didn't do that. We were in TOTAL relaxation mode this year, and I just decided not to do anything that would require me to actually have to think and ponder. :-) But, I still want to share the great times and also share a few great tips. What follows is a rushed version of the remaining 4 days of my family vacation; bear in mind that I will add updates to this post for the remaining days of the trip as time permits, but I will mostly likely also move on and start posting about some other things that are going on in my life as well.

Mon, Mar 3 -

On this particular day we ended up going back to Universal Studios. We decided to do things a little differently, though, in an effort to determine whether or not we could provide an even more relaxing, productive day. For starters, we got up a few hours earlier; no sleeping in until noon. We all ate breakfast in the villa. Just a small bowl of cereal for the hubby and I, and pop tarts and milk for the kids. We already understood via experience that by the time we actually leave the villa, drive to the theme park, get through the entrance to the park and get ready to start actually enjoying our day it would be time to eat again within 1 or 2 hours anyway, so why stuff ourselves with the Rooty Tooty Fresh & Fruity? Besides, stuffing ourselves this way previously only made us extremely drowsy by the time we actually got settled in inside of the park. I want to point out that the villa we stay in is located in the Buena Vista area, close to the Walt Disney World manigate. So the villa is not close to Universal Orlando at all. And we love taking the scenic route down International Drive to get to Universal; this day was no exception. On the way to Universal, we pass Pointe Orlando which is an area mostly visited by people staying at the Orlando World Conference Center. It's VERY nice, and there's about a half-mile stretch on this area of International Drive that is really pretty and just buzzing with activity. We thought it would be fun to check some of these things out since we kept driving back and forth past them to and from Universal. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find any activities in that area that were age appropriate for our kids. They were either too small or would have been completely uninterested in any of the things we saw at the time. So we continued on for another 10 minutes until we arrived at Universal.

Our morning breakfast idea definitely paid off. We ended up being able to do a lot more in less time, and we never really felt drowsy at all for the entire time we were in the park. Even the kids, as young as they are, were great the whole time; didn't even need naps. We rode ET: The Ride, one of my classic favorites, watched the Barney in the Park show (the kids' favorite), saw the Animal Adventure show for the first time which I highly recommend, and we also had lunch at my favorite spot Boulangerie. We were already tired of burgers, hot dogs, and fries, and Boulangerie was a great change of pace with its yummy crossaint sandwiches and new potato salad. YUM!

By 4:30pm, we felt content that we had done all that we needed to do for the day. Our tickets are unlimited entry for 7 consecutive days, so we didn't feel the need to pack too much stuff into any one day since we would be in Orlando for another 2 1/2 days.

Orlando Trip - Day 2 (Sun, Mar 2)

The kids didn't go to bed until after 1am on the evening of Day 1. So the hubby and I didn't get to bed until even later. We all sleep in Sunday morning as I feel EVERYONE should do at least one day while on vacation. We don't even get out of the bed until after 10am. Everyone finally gets dressed and we packed the kids carry-along bags for our first day at Universal Studios! We leave the villa and drive across the street to I-Hop. This is as good a time as any to point out that there are a myriad of yummy, delicious I-Hops in Orlando, FL. A couple of them are "meh", but most of the ones I've eaten in have the BEST food ever. Why do ALL of the I-Hops in Atlanta suck so bad??!! The best ones in Atlanta are about as good as the "meh" ones in Orlando. This is a major source of frustration. Moving on. We get a waitress with a New York accent thicker than Debi Mazar. I decide I love her based on this alone. GREAT food and service as always.

We leave I-Hop and drive 15 minutes northwest down I-4 to Universal Studios. (Tip: I bought 2-park, unlimited entry tickets for hubby, son, and myself. Only $83 per ticket, and the tickets are good for up to 7 consecutive days. A total STEAL!) We had a great day. It felt like there was no one at all in the park until later in the afternoon. We spent most of the day just enjoying the gorgeous weather and ambiance, but we also rode the Jimmy Neutron ride, Woody Woodpecker roller coaster, and had lunch at Nathan's Hot Dog stand. The kids got pictures with Spongebob, Dora, and Jimmy Neutron which was also fun! We decided that we would have to visit Universal Studios again the next day to take in some fun shows that we knew the kids would enjoy.

We get back to the villa by 6pm or so. We decide to just have dinner in the villa, and by dinner I mean turkey and swiss sandwiches with chips. We all get to bed much earlier this night, thankfully.

More tips: Most visitors to Orlando (and Florida in general) come from all over the country, not just the surrounding states. According to the Florida Bureau of Transportation, since most people have to work Monday through Friday, most of the travelers to Florida get on the road on Friday evening/Saturday morning. Most vacationers don't get settled in until early evening on Saturday. This means that if you were to visit the Orlando theme parks on a Saturday, the park would be a lot less crowded than some other days. Most vacationers wake up in Florida on Sunday morning ready to hit the parks. Sunday will be your most crowded day at any theme park. There is a different formula to take into account for Walt Disney World based on the fact that it consists of 4 separate parks. I'll get into detail in the *tips* section of the Day 3 post.

Orlando Trip - Day 1 (Sat, Mar 1)

My hubby got up at 7am and took Dutch to the kennel on his way to his 9am Saturday morning class. I got my lazy butt out of the bed, showered, and retrieved my "To Pack" list. I threw everything on the list into my suitcase. The hubby's suitcase was already packed so I brought everything downstairs. I got the kids dressed and fed, and finished a little spot-cleaning here and there while waiting on the hubby to get home from school. He got home around 12:3pm and immediately began loading the truck with our already packed suitcases.

We finally hit the road at approximately 1:30pm. We made 4 stops before we got out of metro Atlanta: 1) Gas from QuikTrip, 2) New portable DVD player from BrandsMart in Morrow (the Titan doesn't have a DVD player and the kids need movies, movies, movies), 3) McDonald's in Jonesboro for the kids, and 4) Zaxby's in Jonesboro. (*Note to self, never consider living in Jonesboro - when did that area become so friggin' ghetto?)

We finally hit the road out of metro Atlanta at 3pm'ish. On the way down, we made a couple of stops at little gas stations in one-horse towns. After making a wrong turn off of the turnpike almost to Orlando, we finally got to the villa in Lake Buena Vista around 10pm. The kids ran inside and were SO excited! We let them run around until about midnight, and then everyone called it a night.

Name of villa: Cypress Pointe Grand Villas in Lake Buena Vista.