Haverty.NET: The Website That Needs a GPS (to Find Itself)

Working with hosting company, we got the the issue somewhat resolved from last week regarding Haverty.NET. I am still seeing issues if I try going to haverty.net where the page will not load. It has to have www.haverty.net to load every time. Again, working with web hosting company to try and resolve. Of course everything should redirect to https://blogger.haverty.net which is my blog, but I want all sites at haverty.net to be secure.

This should not have been this difficult to set up but here I am two weeks later only slightly better. If I can get the issue where the page redirects properly regardless of what address is entered, I will be happy. Work continues and waiting to hear back from hosting company on how to resolve.

More on this later and hopefully by next weekend, this will all be resolved.

Update on haverty.net sites not working and continued troubleshooting

I wanted to provide an update to the status of my website (www.haverty.net). A week ago I started a process to provide secure connection when going to sites other than the blog. It has not gone well. This has broken all sites except for https://blogger.haverty.net which is hosted is still working. I am working with my hosting company as well as domain registration company on the issue. For now, I have tried to set it back to how it was set prior to the changes so that email and some web pages will work again.

If you are having problems accessing Haverty.NET, this is the reason why. I was hoping to resolve it over the weekend, but most pages were not working as of Sunday morning which required me to revert back to prior to making any changes. I am waiting for my issue to be escalated to help with this issue.

Have a great rest of your Sunday and I hope to have an update later this week on this issue.

Thank you for visiting.

Not Working Out, Gaining Weight, and Lost Motivation Since Before Camping Trip in October

I went on vacation and I have not worked out since our trip back at the beginning of November. I worked out one day while we were on vacation and that has been it. I have also completely stopped doing Weight Watchers which is rather disappointing. Going into Thanksgiving Day I had plans to get back on tracking weight this weekend, but the motivation is completely gone.

For three months I did Weight Watchers every day. It worked as I had lost a little over 20 lbs prior to our vacation. I got all the way down to 237. Just a few weeks after my last work out and tracking weight and I am already up to 248. Tough to take off but goes on quick! 

The last time I rode the bike was almost a month ago. So, going camping, vacation, and then enjoying Thanksgiving disrupted my weight loss. I plan to get back to it but taking a break from tracking for now. I plan to not go crazy with eating, but I am not tracking anything I eat. I plan to start it up again in the next week and I want to start riding the bike again too.

I half thought about waiting to track again after December ends, but I think that is too long and it will make it all that more difficult to start it again in January. My goal is to lose about 40 lbs at this point which will get me down to my target weight. To get to my target weight, I need to adjust how I eat. During vacation, and a few times since vacation, I can think of a few times when I ate so much I was full. If I could adjust and keep food to eat later or the next day, this would help a lot. I am happy that prior to going on vacation I lost 20 lbs but now the work needs to start again to continue to my target weight.

Hopefully next week I will have an update of at least getting back on the bike. No plans currently to track food this week, but going to try for moderation of what I eat which can be tough at times.

Until next time, have a great week.

Started Weight Watchers on August 14 and Finishing One Week… Feeling Good and Ready to Keep Going!

I have officially started Weight Watchers. I started last Sunday, so I am finishing up my first week watching what I eat. I have enjoyed the process so far as I use the app to count points and track what I eat. It is all done on-line now and no need to go into the physical location. This is my first time trying Weight Watchers, or really any type of weight management program, so I am excited to see how it works. 

Tomorrow marks my first weigh-in since starting last week. It was a descent start to the program although on Monday, I used up all of my daily points and tapped into weekly points. Friday night was also not a good night for me as I ate more than my daily points, had a few glasses of wine, and a delicious peach cobbler to celebrate Greg’s birthday. I am not expecting to lose a lot of weight this first week, but I do feel really good! It is amazing how much better I feel when eating well, not drinking (as much) alcohol and I am excited to be doing this program.

I have been staying on my bike this week and I am feeling good when I ride. I rode last Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I plan to start the new week riding on Sunday too. I know I have said it a few times the past few months, but I still want to get some jogging in at least once a week before it gets cold. I keep thinking I will start it up on a Saturday, but so far it has not started.

A little more about my experience with Weight Watchers and the app… Easy to use. I can search for foods, or I like it best when I can scan and have it added. I have free foods which include popcorn, fruits, eggs, and poultry. Even though I have items that are free, I have been entering them to track what I am eating. The app works well although it would be nice if I could copy foods from one day to the current day. It seems like this would be an easy process, but the times I have tried to do this step, it moves the food from the day it was entered to the current day instead. I did find that I can connect with others through the app although not sure what it does exactly. I thought maybe I could encourage others, or they could encourage me, but so far it only appears to show anything if a post is written and shared. Still working through the app and what options are available.

We are approaching tailgate season, so I hope to stay on track even when tailgating this fall for Washburn football. Ready to cheer on the Ichabods and do some tailgating now that we have a tailgate parking spot. Excited to get out there for the first game which is September 1.

Watch for future updates on my Weight Watchers status and hoping to have some updates about jogging soon too.

Final Piece of Minuet in G by JS Bach for Beginning Piano Class Final

The last day of my class is tomorrow afternoon at four. I have done well on all the tests, got an A on the paper, and also did some of the extra credit. Now it comes down to our being able to play a piece in class for the final. I made my selection a few weeks ago (see Piece Selected for Final in Piano Class and Now Practice Practice) and although I had planned on practicing it a lot, the practicing really did not start until about Wednesday of this week. I started focusing on playing left and right hand separately and then putting them together. Working on sections of the piece with this process.

Good luck everyone on your finals! Have a great summer!

The time is here for you to be able to hear what I have put together. It is still a little rough. Bare with me as I struggle through the piece. I know I am going to be told that I play too fast. I try to slow it down, but then I really lose track of the notes. So, here we are with my current ability to play.

Minuet in G by Bach.


I am hoping to be able to get through the whole piece with repeats without any problem in class tomorrow. I will practice a few more times tonight before I head to bed, possibly practice again over the noon hour tomorrow, and then be ready to perform for the class. A little nervous as I do not want to not play well in front of the class.

I have a plan to continue playing and practicing after this class ends. That was the point of this class, right? Yes, to be a able to read and play music for the piano. I want to continue learning new songs and add to my knowledge. Carrie has grand ideas of me playing the piano around Christmas while everyone is around signing the songs. I will try, but no promises.

Post your comments or questions about my playing in the comments section. Let me know what you think. Any pointers before I play tomorrow would be appreciated.

Piece Selected for Final in Piano Class and Now Practice Practice

The piece I will be playing for my final has been selected. I plan on playing a piece called "Minuet in G" by Johann Sebastian Bach. There were a lot of options provided by our instructor and we were free to select anything. I had some piano books that came with the piano and then some that my Mom had sent home with me one evening. I actually played this same piece when I was young, but it was a long time ago.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period.

The piece was selected because I enjoy the piece and I think it will be challenging for me to site read and play for the final. The plan now is to begin learning the piece focusing on left and right hand reading the music. As I mentioned last week, we do not have to have the piece memorized, but it is fine if we do have it memorized. If I can get to the point, I would prefer to do so instead of having to rely on reading the music.

Piano at Home with Lights ... Need Music Light Instead

Below is a recording of my warm up and then first few bars of the piece. Not a very good recording, but you get the idea. You can hear a vibration sound which is actually coming from the two lamps on the piano. I already told Carrie we are going to have to replace this with something else as I need something where it provides light on the music and then also does not vibrate. The ones she picked out look great, but need more light and no vibration sound.



I am excited to begin practicing this piece and be able to provide a recording in a few weeks with the final product. I have really enjoyed my piano class. We get a third test back in class tomorrow and will begin chapter four. I came out of the last test feeling happy, so we will see how that turns out with the return of the test tomorrow night.

A lot of practice for me and I also need to start working on the paper that is due in a few weeks. I need to get over to the library to do research and write up that paper. I keep telling myself not to procrastinate and yet the days keep going by and I have not started the paper yet. The plan is to start the paper next week and it should not take more than a night or two to write it up and proof.

For now, I will continue working on "Minuet in G" and plan to post a update in a week or two with my progress.

Test Three Done and Moving on to Chapter Four

Test three is done. Glad to be done with this test. I was not looking forward to the test being on a Wednesday. Not sure why, possibly because the previous two tests I enjoyed being able to prepare for them over the weekend. Granted, I could have prepared over the weekend for this one, but instead, I spent the weekend procrastinating and then on Monday decided I needed to study for the test. Tuesday night was the real cram session though trying to figure everything out.

I left the class and the exam feeling good about how I performed. In the first part of playing the piano for the instructor, that did not go great. She had me play one piece showing cords three or four times. She told me I was rushing or making the second and forth the same. We left it with we will work on that in the future. Other than that little part of the test, I felt good about the exam.

Following class, I spoke to the instructor and believe I have selected the piece to play for the final. Possibly this weekend, I will record a sample of where I am at currently with learning the right hand which has only consisted of playing out a few lines checking to see if I like it. This piece is by JS Bach. More on this later this weekend and hopefully I will finalize it this weekend with it being the piece.

The next step for this class is to write a 5 - 8 page paper on Johannes Brahms. This is due at the end of April, so I have some time. Originally, I thought that the piece we were to play for the final had to be tied to who I selected to write about in our paper, but I was told that was not the case. Looking forward to writing a paper on Johannes Brahms. It has been a long time since I have written in MLA style for a paper. I might need to go to the library to research that process.

The struggle continues with remembering the treble clef and reading notes for my left hand. I came across a cool app last night for the iPhone that is free called NoteTutor. I used it some last night following studying for the test and then during the lunch time today. Easy to use and it makes it a game to recognize notes on either treble or bass clef. I think it is going to help a lot with being able to recognize notes on the staff.

That is all for tonight. Have a  great rest of the week and I plan to record something this weekend to post by Sunday with the piece I selected for the final.

Progress Update in Piano Class with Test Three Wednesday

Preparing for test three in piano class. As the weeks have gone along in piano, I feel more and more lost. So, that is my fault as I have not been practicing the way I should. Doing nothing for the class during spring break did not help matters and then this next Wednesday we have our third exam of the semester.

We are also supposed to be selecting our piece to play for the final. We started reviewing pieces in class this past Wednesday and the teacher would like for us to have what we will be playing selected by the start of April. There are some suggested pieces and some I have heard, but still trying to figure out what would work best for me to play for the class.

No, I have not forgotten about the paper we have to write too. That is due at the end of April, so I need to start working on it too.

Overall, the class is going well. Some of the items that I missed when I was a kid are starting to sink in and I understand them. Reading music with my left hand is still a struggle. I do intend to ask the instructor what next steps are following the class. If she gives lessons, I might do that with her too. Or try working on what we have learned during the course of the class for six months and then do a lesson. I am not sure yet.

The goal for taking this class was to be able to sit down and site read a piece. By no means can I sit down and play a piece even well at this point. Possibly with the right hand, but even then it will be slow. Possibly as I continue to work on this art, I will get to the point.

With our review for the test on Monday, I will be spending Monday and Tuesday evenings studying and reviewing for the test. Wish me well!

To close, I share a piece my mom shared with me with her being excited I am taking lessons. She sees me playing this piece one day. Enjoy! Ok, it is going to take me a while!