Felix J. Palma

I just finished "The Map of Time" by Felix J. Palma which is, of course, a book featuring time travel. But it's not just your average 'person gets thrown back in time' book. This has 3 separate but connected stories involving H.G. Wells in Victorian England.

The storytelling was amazingly well-done and kept me totally intrigued. There is alot of prose and not as much dialogue (I typically like dialogue), but the plot line was so inventive that the story flowed smoothly and quickly.

I'm very curious about his other works, but it looks as though older ones haven't been translated into English yet. He does have a new book coming out this Fall. It appears to be a sequel to this one, so I will request it from the library as soon as it's available.

Chore Wars

I've been using Chore Wars as a way to help keep me on track for my fitness goals. It has pre-set adventures for house keeping and cleaning, but I created my own based on key fitness and health measures that are meaningful to me.

I've created adventures where I get XP for steps on my pedometer, eating my target calories, burning more calories than I consume, eating fruit, eating vegetables, logging my foods in a food journal daily, and more.

When I reach 1000 XP, I'm going to reward myself with a Zynga game card. I love playing Cityville and Castleville games and thought this would be a fun non-food way to reward myself.

I tried to create and score the adventures so that I could earn 1000 XP in about 10 weeks. It has really kept me motivated, and I think before I eat in terms of "if I don't eat this, I'll burn more calories than I consume, so I'll earn more XP."

Fairy Name Generator

My fairy name is Bindweed Goblinfly
She brings riches and wealth.
She lives at the bottom of tangled gardens and in hedgerows.
She can only be seen at midday under a quiet, cloudless sky.
She wears tangled multicoloured skirts made of petals and has gentle green wings like a butterfly.
Get your own fairy names from The Fairy Name Generator!

Kroger Free Milk and Giveaway

From November 13th through November 26th, with the purchase of any four participating General Mills products, you will either receive free milk (up to $3; limit of 2) or to receive $3 off your shopping order**

I'm also sponsoring a giveaway of one $25 Kroger gift card (good at any of the Kroger. Co Family of Stores). To enter, just leave a comment below with your favorite General Mills product. The winner will be selected on November 20th. This is only open to US residents. The gift pack will be sent by MyBlogSpark.

I will need your email address so I can notify the winner, and you can leave it in the following ways:
1) enter it in your comment, but please use "at" instead of "@"
2) make sure I can send you an email via your blogger profile
3) send it me to me using this secure message form

Look for some of your favorite participating General Mills products like Cheerios, Pillsbury Ready to Bake Cookies, Nature Valley Bars and Fiber One Bars

Promotion varies in different locations. Please be sure to check your local Kroger Co. Family of Stores for specific deals and offers which include Kroger, Ralphs, King Scoopers, City Market, Dillons, Smith’s, Fry’s, QFC, Baker’s, Owen’s, Jay C Food Stores, Hilander, Gerbes, Food4Less, Fred Meyer, Pay Less Supermarkets and Scott’s Food & Pharmacy

What’s better than being rewarded for buying your favorite products from your favorite store? Visit Kroger.com for more information and great ways to save and be sure to check out the Kroger Facebook page to join the conversation and share which General Mills products you’d like to stock up on during the promotion.

*Excludes General Mills meal and baking products including; Betty Crocker, Old El Paso, Progresso, Hamburger Helper, Macaroni Grill, Wanchai Ferry, Yoplait

**Promotion varies based on store location; check your local Kroger store for details (Cash Offer: Mid South, Delta, Mid Atlantic, SW Louisiana stores, Central Missouri stores and Dillons Missouri stores)

Disclosure: The Kroger gift card, information, and giveaway have been provided by Kroger and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.

UPDATE: I used random.org to choose a number, and the winner was 12 corresponding to Eliza's entry. The Kroger gift card will be sent by MyBlogSpark.

Weaving (Part I)

For ages, I've wanted to try weaving with rags. So even though my clipped rug isn't finished yet, I decided to try making a loom.

In the book "Fabulous Rag Rugs from Simple Frames", there was a description of a loom made from dowel rods and plumbing fittings. So I bought 2 - 4 foot dowels and 2 - 3 foot dowel rods to make my loom.

Yesterday, I started warping it in a continuous warp. Next, I'll start weaving and take pictures as I go along. I have a bunch of rag balls made from strips (originally cut to make crocheted baskets).

Peeled Snacks

I've talked about Earndit before, where you can earn prizes and rewards for logging your physical activity.

I'd won a $20 gift certificate from Peeled Snacks before, and now they're upping their generosity and letting us earn up to 5 gift certificates.

Plus, they're sponsoring a challenge at Earndit where they're giving away several memberships to their Organic Fruit of the Month Club. But everyone gets a $5 Peeled Snacks gift card just for participating in the challenge!

I'm not in any way affiliated with Earndit or Peeled Snacks - just a happy customer spreading the word

ReminderFox

A couple of months ago, I stumbled across ReminderFox which is an add-on for Firefox browser. It's a reminder program that lets you manage lists of reminders and to-dos.

It pops up in a small box on your screen and "reminds" you that you have something to do that day. You can hit the Snooze button and the reminder will go away for a specified amount of time. Then you mark the to-do as Complete when you've finished it.

You can set reminders to repeat at certain frequencies. I just set one to remind me to clear out my email Inbox every month since it gets really full.

New Blog Template

I'm having a blast customizing the new blog template for my Favorite Online Shops blog. I finally got brave enough to try a new template so that I could change the layout to 3 columns. It was so easy to do. I should have tried this months ago.

The only teeny speed bump was finding out how to center the header, but a quick search gave me the exact code that I needed and step-by-step instructions on how to place it. It worked beautifully.

Eventually I'll change this one, too. I'll play around with different formats and see what looks best. Now that I know how easy it is to experiment. Or I might keep the same layout and just update it a little.

Convert Tealight Tart Burner to Flameless

I love tart burners that melt wax, but I've been wanting flameless ones that use either a light bulb or a warming element.

I have a gazillion of the tealight kind and they make great decorations. So I was trying to find a way to convert my tealight tart burners into flameless. I searched all over the internet for some kind of small heating element and couldn't find anything.

	I decided to dig around the hardware store and found a candelabra clip socket in the lighting area at Lowe's. Since it has a 1" diameter, I got a 1" washer to fit into it to make a stand.
	Here's the clip with the washer over it.
	Here is the assembled stand with a light bulb inserted.
	Here it is in the tart burner cavity. The socket is rated up to 75 watt bulb. I needed a 60 watt bulb to melt my Yankee Candle tarts easily. A 40 watt bulb would work, but it took a long time and didn't have great scent throw.

I haven't tried soy tarts yet with this converted tart burner, so I will report back on that after I try them.

I'm not affiliated with Lowe's in any way

Thunderbird

This weekend, I started having problems with my Outlook Express mail client and lost about 10 days worth of emails. Knowing that OE isn't supported any longer, I figured that it's time to bite the bullet and change email clients.

Since I love Firefox, I decided to try Thunderbird. It has some really amazing features like the option of separate Inboxes for each email account. It was very easy to setup, start using, and migrate all my email from OE. Plus for every feature that I wanted, I could find an add-on that someone had written.

It's so much faster than OE. Granted, I save TONS of emails and use folders for storing emails, so I'm sure I was reaching OE's capability limits. But Thunderbird seems so much more forgiving.

I'm a Thunderbird Community member and the link is my referral link

Customer Service - Kohl's

I had another wonderful customer service experience at Kohl's.

I'd bought 2 denim skorts for the summer in my usual size. I wore them once and they stretched so that they were too big. I was disappointed but tried washing them, hoping they'd shrink. But they didn't and they were still too big.

So I thought I'd try to see if I could possibly exchange them, not sure if I could since I'd already washed them. The customer service clerk at Kohl's was wonderful. She took them back as defective and let me exchange them for the next smaller size, which fits beautifully.

I'm not in any way affiliated with Kohl's - just a happy customer

Notes from the Universe Challenge

I've posted about the Notes from the Universe by Mike Dooley as being very motivational for me. Plus they're wacky and alot of fun. Plus, they're free!! (I have a gadget on the lower right hand sidebar of the blog that displays daily NOTES.)

Mike is now offering a challenge to get more Adventurers to join the club and get the free daily notes. Here's what we get if we reach certain milestones:

If we reach 500,000 subscribers, every subscriber will get "Notes from the Universe" Screensaver Download
750,000 subscribers, every subscriber will get "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Life" 14 Hour MP3
1,000,000 subscribers, every subscriber will get (for the first time in TUT history),NOTES on weekends