Appreciating the Holidays during the Shittiest Year Ever

By Crabby McSlacker

So the holiday season has arrived, and traditionally this is a time for joy and togetherness. Yet for many of us, this year hardly seems time for celebration.

And I know, this is a health blog, not a political blog. But I feel like I have to acknowledge the elephant in the room---the scary mean orange elephant, the angry beast who defeated the diligent, highly qualified donkey and now rules the world.

These are scary times. It feels too fake and weird to just pretend everything is normal.

We have a president-elect gearing up to destroy our democracy. Not out of malice or twisted ideology. No, Trump is not some epic villain for the ages with a sinister grand plan--he's just arrogant. Ignorant. Entitled. Vindictive. Uninhibited. Mendacious. Greedy. Narcissistic.

Every day comes some fresh outrage, something that would have, in times past, shocked the populace, made bold headlines, brought down administrations. Yet there are never any repercussions. Well, we get funny SNL skits and Samantha Bee rants and Facebook petitions. They makes us feel better momentarily, but we're still facing the same horrific reality a few minutes later.

Am I offending some of you pro-Trump people out there? I'm sorry.  But I'm offended you elected this racist, sexist, irrational, authoritarian, hate-filled monster to lead our country.

But hey, if you supported Trump and are somehow still willing to put up with my occasional rants, you are still most welcome here!

So what's the health angle here?  It's this: bazillions of studies have shown that feelings of gratitude and appreciation are good for us. Cultivating appreciation, even in the midst of political shitstorms, improves our physical and mental health, and makes us far less likely to be assholes to those around us.

So I thought I'd go first:  what are a few things that I'm especially appreciating this year as the holidays roll around?

Slacker Sunday

So it's another laid-back weekend post, even though Crabby took two days "off" during the week. Does the Crab have no work ethic at all? Apparently not!

Actually, in her defense, Crabby is still not very good at getting away from the blog. She spent quite a bit of the time she was supposedly "off" catching up on some blog chores. So readers are getting Randomness and Blog chat today, as is somewhat customary on weekends. Tomorrow: a real health and fitness post again!

So what were these "blog chores?"

First off, Crabby finally updated the Reader Recommendations for the Amazon ads. She messed up the General Health one and didn't realize that it wasn't rotating for several days. It should be fixed now. Note: some of your helpful suggestions do not seem to have usable Amazon codes, or are temporarily unavailable. For example, Jen at The Working Writer suggested some products from The Firm, but Crabby couldn't do it right, so those of you who are interested might want to go to her fine blog to check it out. Beware of her newest post though: there is a picture of donuts on it that could be dangerous to any Sensible Eating Plan you might be on. (Also, as another warning: if you a writer in the aspirational phase of your writing career, as Crabby is, her main website may cause admiration but also moderate to severe pangs of jealousy).

And going back to the product discussion, Crabby is always happy to hear more recommendations! She will stockpile these and work them in over time. She always likes books, but she's also interested in featuring other stuff too, like DVD's, or gadgets like heart rate monitors or the Best Swim Goggles you ever owned or whatever. The main requirements are some relationship to health and fitness, and that you think the thing is really, really good and others might want to give it a try. And why would you bother to do this when there's nothing in it for you? Because Crabby's readers are Smart, Generous, Discerning, and sometimes they have Opinions to Share!

In addition to the Amazon updates, Crabby has a new sidebar addition: "About" pages! These are (a) Very Ugly and (b) Still Rudimentary, but if you're feeling bored someday, please go check them out. Crabby has never been able to figure out how to do "static" pages on Blogger, so this is just a half-assed solution. These hideous looking GooglePages do, however, provide a little more space than the sidebar to feature Policies and Information and Explanations. Crabby hopes to add to these over time. (She also wants to make sure they actually work and do not have sneaky ads on them that she did not put there, so please report any weirdness you might encounter).

Enough about the blog! Here are your Random Research Posts for the day.

Are you on some sort of liquid diet with yucky shakes instead of real food? Might want to rethink that. A study out of Purdue University on solid versus liquid food found that liquid foods did not seem to fill people up the way solid foods did. Those who drank their lunch rather than ate it consumed more calories during the day.

This one you probably heard already, but it's the sort of Good News study that Crabby doesn't want you to miss. Another study says Dark Chocolate is good for lowering blood pressure, but this one found small but measurable benefits even with tiny amounts of chocolate--only 30 calorie's worth. (Though to Crabby, that seems like a criminally low dosage of an Important Health Food!)

And finally, there's this amusing study, which isn't recent, but somehow seemed perfect for readers of Cranky Fitness. Though Crabby has not reached Old Age yet, she thinks she sees her future quite clearly!

Adsense, Amazon, and Monetizing Your Blog

If you are not a regular reader of Cranky Fitness, but have arrived here instead on a google search hoping to learn how to earn some money:

Ha ha ha ha ha! Tee hee hee. That's a good one.

Sorry, that wasn't very nice. Crabby lured you here on False Pretenses. She has no idea in hell how people make money doing this. But if you skip down to the bottom of this post, someone who claims to know has written a book giving away all the secrets to blog monetization!

Quick, hurry, before all the copies are gone!

(Thundering sounds of footsteps. Fading now... All quiet.)

Whew, are the Googlers gone? Is it just us again? Excellent.

So now Crabby will try to explain (1) Why there are suddenly Amazon Ads all over the place instead of Adsense Ads; and (2) What each of them do. Originally she also planned to explain (3) Why she's willing to be such a shameless Product Whore in the first place. But she couldn't think of a good reason, other than that she's greedy and delusional, so she decided to drop part (3) of the post.

Anyway, as regulars may have noticed, all the weird Adsense ads are gone. ("Milkatraz?" WTF was that about?) Crabby knew they wouldn't make much money. She's still just a tiny blog, after all. But she had no idea they'd be so stupid and repetitive and unappealing! And gosh darn it, her readers may be Cranky but they're not all Old.

Perhaps if she hosted a better, hotter, more exciting blog, Adsense would have sent her better, hotter and more exciting ads. But Cranky Fitness is just Cranky Fitness, and the ads sucked, so they're gone now.

So now the Crab House is plastered with Amazon ads instead. They probably won't earn Crabby any money either--people actually have to order stuff off of them, not just click on the ads, and realistically, how often is that going to happen? But a Crab can dream.

The Amazon Ads, while likely off-target much of the time, do seem to offer greater variety and flexibility than Adsense. Crabby fantasizes that one day, a Needful Reader might actually encounter a Helpful Product, fall in love, and generate a "win-win" situation for everyone!

(Crabby blames her Most Significant Other, a successful businessperson, for making terms like "monetize" and "win-win" sound like actual English to Crabby's ears).

So here's what Amazonian fun we've got going so far. But of course Crabby is still messing around with all this, so it could be completely different tomorrow.

First off, there's a big "Omakase" ad on the sidebar. (Omakase means something in Japanese but Crabby can't remember what. "Easy Code for Lazy Bloggers," she thinks is how it translates). This ad is supposed to magically factor in both the contents of the blog as well as the preferences of readers who already have accounts with Amazon.

Does it? Crabby doesn't know what wild-ass junk you folks might see. For her, Amazon is pretty much ignoring the contents of blog. Health and Fitness? Hello Kitty? Lithuanian Folk Dances? We could be talking about anything here. The sidebar just announces: "Crabby, here's what you searched for last time on our site. Why the hell didn't you buy it? Do it now, damnit, or we'll just keep displaying the same crap until you give in."

Okay. Annoying, sure, but it least it has nothing to do with Wheelchair Exercise Equipment and is thus an improvement over adsense. She's very curious as to what you all are seeing though.

The link at the very very bottom of the page, below all the posts, is an Amazon-generated list of Health & Self Improvement books. Some of them actually look appealing sometimes; others look downright Icky. Crabby trusts her readers to know the difference.

There's also a search box in case you remember, in the middle of a post about Acupuncture, that you need to buy your Aunt Thelma a Needlepoint book for her birthday.

And then there's silly stuff like the ad Crabby put at the bottom of this post. She's mostly just joking about that one. She stuck one at the bottom of the archived IGallop post too, just in case future IGallop Googlers are actually looking to buy the thing and happen to land at Cranky Fitness. But she won't be doing this on current posts unless she's really so excited about something that she just Has to Share.

What would be cool, as long as Crabby is doing the Amazon thing, is to sometimes feature products that you, loyal readers, recommend. Do any of you know of a great health related book or product that might interest other readers? Please suggest it to Crabby and if it's offered on Amazon, she might put it on the sidebar. (This means actual regular readers, though, not Drop In Spammers). She thinks there might be some way to make it rotate, too, to offer a smorgasbord of Reader Recommendations.

Crabby knows that many of you who have blogs do not take advertising or pimp for affiliates, and Crabby applauds you. She hopes she's not driving you readers totally crazy. But if she's going to keep blogging for the long haul, as she'd really like to, she'd like to fantasize that she could earn a few pennies one day. Her plans for an eventually profitable Crabby McSlacker Health and Fitness World Empire keep her safely and happily off the streets. She thus humbly asks forgiveness of all of you.

After skipping over the Silly and Gratuitous Blog Monetization ad, please let Crabby hear your thoughts about ads on blogs. Hate them? Don't notice they're there? Have an idea for a good one you'd like to see on Cranky Fitness? Or Really Really Really Detest them? Or... any other thoughts? Tell Crabby how your weekend's going. Whatever!


(Is this book any good? Crabby has no idea. How's that for marketing!)