I would like to share something with my faithful readers.
I am involved in something new, as in a new blog.
My writer’s group graciously allowed me to be in charge of getting a blog together. Members do the hard part which is to put together a blog entry and then I do the easy part. I handle adding the pictures and do the layout.
We just got the blog started this week after a mis-step or two but I thing it looks great. Please check it and let my fellow writers know how great they truly are.
All of us bloggers read our stats daily.
This is not a secret, we are all crazy enough to blog on a regular basis. And we want to know how many read our blathering each day. Then we want to know which blathering gets the most hits.
The one post in my collection of over 400 blatherings that everyone seems to love is called The One Weird Secret to Losing Weight. Two and a half years ago I wrote about how hard I was trying to lose weight. At that time, I was being tempted by quick weight loss solutions that always included acai berried and a colon cleanser. There was hydroxy cut and whey powders and all sorts of things that were promising quick weight loss. Oh, and I was not going to have to change my eating habits.
At that time, I weighed over 200 pounds. I was snoring so loud, I woke myself up. I was having dizzy spells and sugar spikes that I felt emotionally. If that was not enough, I was growing out of my clothing. I pretended I was a size 16 when in reality I was an 18 or higher depending on the cut. While I would have loved quick fixes, I have not gone that route.
Instead, I have made lifestyle changes. And the results have paid off. My weight has gotten to the 180s. I am no longer snoring and the dizzy spells have disappeared. This took a couple of years to achieve. I made one change at a time.
First thing I did was set up a regular meal plan. This includes a sweet snack in the mid morning. Then I slowly began to change things. I restricted the amount of soda I drink, making it into a once-a-week treat. Once that became a steady habit, I added whole wheat or multi-grain breads to my diet in my daily lunch sandwich. This forces the blood sugar to rise in a slower manner and keeps me happy.
Then I worked yogurt in the diet. The next change I worked in was to eat carrot sticks with my lunch and a salad or fruit with dinner. Here the raw veggies and fruit work as fiber while keeping the sugar from getting too high. But there is another benefit. That fiber begans cleaning out my system naturally. Which meant some days, I needed to stay near a bathroom as my system cleaned out a lot of junk.
But there was one other change I made in my routine. I began walking with the dog every day. I started at a half of a mile and worked up to one mile. Some days I make it over a mile and a half. The dog loves it. My feet usually feel better when I do the walk.
Image by Orchid
This means I am losing weight and inches. As my weight goes down so do the symptoms of diabetes. While I have some other health issues going on, I know that they are going to improve because my weight is less of an issue.
That is the end result of my battle with the weight. I hit my goal weight and lost the muffin top. While I have gained a few pounds back, I believe I will be able to get them off. I have fallen away from doing the daily walk and that makes it hard to keep weight off. So this week, I am getting back into the groove.
Oh, and I have stuck with the original plan of eating less and moving more. It works, it really works. If you are looking for the one weird secret to weight loss, that is the only one.
Move more, eat less.
Funny how simple that really is.
Normally, I would post something about movies today – or at least thinking about it. But today you can see my work over at The 4 Mothers 1Blog. These four gals are Canadians who write about all aspects of parenting – the good, bad and downright ugly. But they do so in a honest manner that I love. I do not read them enough.
But today, after you read my guest post, I would hope that you would read some of their other posts. I read one the other day about how the other three got the fourth to write about her miscarriage. I have read posts about traveling and dealing with hospital stays and the frustration of people who do not get why they have to make classroom snack concessions for your child’s allergies.
Poignant, tangible, touching. I think these words describe their blog and make it worth your time to spend a little bit with Marcelle, Carol, Nathalie and Beth-Anne.
Goats
For those of you visiting my blog for the first time, thank you for stopping by. You will find liberal rants, garden pictures, movie reviews, recipes, and stories of my impossibly cute children and dog. You will also find stories of my battle with weight and book reviews. There is a quilt picture in the archives as well. But that is my house and my life – a messy hodge-podge slowly taking form.
Now if you will excuse me, it is County Fair week. And there is a Red Velvet Funnel Cake with my name on it.
Family Movie Night
By Karyn Bowman
Lately I have been obsessed with ghost stories.
I find myself staying up late at night to watch Ghost Adventures or The Dead Files on the Travel Channel. After I am done watching I swear I hear footsteps in the house, strange noises and such.
I have thought for a long time we have a ghost in our house. Our dearly beloved Flash seemed to be in the house, thumping her tail as she hears one of us coming up the steps. Sometimes, I swear a cat is jumping on the bed but we do not have a cat anymore.
In some ways, it is comforting knowing they want to be here. But I have also asked the ghosts in my house to never materialize in front of me because it would scare the living daylights out of me.
Knowing this I still decided to rent The Woman in Black this week. I guess I like to think I still want a little scare every now and again.
Poster Image from IMDb.com
The story involves a young lawyer (Daniel Radcliffe) going to a remote seaside village to finalize the estate of a client who has passed away. There are many papers to be sorted. What he does not know and everyone else does is that the spirit in the house he must go into is evil and takes the life of a child whenever she is seen.
We know that the lawyer is a widower left with a young son and his grief has taken him to the brink. He has also been told to complete this assignment or he will be without a job. This is why he keeps going to the house.
My 15-year-old and I watched it together. Well, he watched it and I sat in the dining room looking up facts about the movie because I was too scared to watch it. With every scary bit of music, I knew something bad was happening. I knew the woman was making an appearance or another child was forced to take its own life.
I also knew what was going to happen, thanks to some spoilers on various websites, and I wanted to see how they would play out.
I find the movie strangely effective, especially the stuff involving Mrs. Daily. During the Edwardian period, there were many notable ‘mediums’ who stated they could talk to the dead. Slate writing and the spirit speaking through the medium were common.
Daniel Radcliffe has the daunting task of losing his Harry Potter persona in a movie filled with moments to make you jump. He must be believable as the lawyer who is alone for much of the movie, reacting to sounds and bumps as well as dealing with the deep depression of grief. Radcliffe was believable for me.
But there are also good supporting performances by Ciarán Hinds and Janet McTeer, the wealthy couple who has befriended the young man, which shores up the younger actor. They help balance him.
This is probably the last ‘scary’ movie I will ever watch. Not because it was gory but for the fact there was some plausibility in the scares. My son loved the movie, every moment of it. While this is a great movie for early teenagers, I think it would be better to let the tweeners and younger children hold off a few years before watching it.
Until next week, see you in the rental aisle.
When does blogging become glorified navel gazing?
Perhaps when you realize that nothing is happening in your life or in your world at the moment that you want to share.
Underline ‘want.’
There are ideas and thoughts simmering in my brain right now I simply do not want to talk about. Even as I think about them and could probably list them, there is no way I want to talk about any of these because I do not want to deal with the emotional undertones.
Physical ailments for myself and others brings thoughts of frailty I do not want to mull over.
Dealing with a pastoral changeover makes me stick my head in the ground even more.
While there are a lot of political mutterings in my head, thinking about them makes me explode in ways that are not healthy.
So I choose not to write, I choose not to put my thoughts down more succinctly because them I might have to deal with all of that. Lets face it, eating more chocolate or working in the garden is a bit more fun than ruminating over why Scott Walker should have been recalled or if Mitt Romney really has a chance to make it to the White House.
Not only that, I do not want to think about how football players have been hurting themselves, dying younger than most and having cognitive issues. I don’t want to think about the Jerry Sandusky trial and why the accusers are not being allowed aliases. It makes me wonder if the judge has some sort of tie to Penn State or Sandusky’s charitable organization and if there will be anything close to a fair trial for a man who allegedely abused so many boys. That is not a peaceful thought at all.
Nor do I want to think about a number of people in my relative age range who have died recently from accidents and sudden heart attacks. As one of my friends stated, it makes you wonder about every twinge or pain. Some have even started saying what music they want at their funeral and/or gathering after the funeral. (Mental note, remind mom to tell me exactly which Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin she wants at her funeral)What I want to do is enjoy the White Sox as they enjoy sitting at first place in their division and find a new book that interests me. Whether I write about it or not is another story for another day.
What keeps you away from the keyboard?
The past few weeks I have been a little busy as the school year wound down and softball/tee-ball season gears up. I also had a paying job to complete. So I took a little break from the blog. I know some of you make the effort to write something everyday and I applaud you. Sadly, that is not me. Some days you have to say no to something, especially when that something does not pay you.
Today I am going to talk about this and that.
Black Bloc in Toronto, 2010
Photograph by Oliver Lavery, found on ladyoftheheart.blogspot.com
* A week ago, the city north of us had to deal with the NATO Conference, featuring many world leaders. Mrs. Obama took the wives of these leaders to her old neighborhood to show off a positive-action outreach center. Mr. Obama and others worked out how they will leave Afghanistan by 2014. Protesters abounded in the area.
Some, like nurses protesting the closure of mental health centers throughout the city, had a just cause to bring to the public. But then there were the Black Bloc who were there to fight against the police. Reporters heard shouts of “death to cops” and indeed, these people did not show up until the last day wearing masks or scarves over their faces.
On the same weekend in other parts of the city, two young teenage boys lost their lives to gang gunfire. They were not gang members themselves but people who caught in crossfire or mis-identification. If these Black Bloc people really want to do something about the injustices of the world, perhaps they could do something like volunteer in those tough neighborhoods to give kids a safe place to hang out or learn something new. But that would be akin to real bravery.
* Today I saw a story about a Safeway meat department worker who saw a man beating his pregnant girlfriend in the store. So he did what most of us would not and got between them. He stopped the man from beating on the five-month-pregnant woman and hung on to him until the police got there.
So the pregnant-girlfriend-beater was arrested and got off with three years probation. The meat department clerk at first was assured by his manager that his job was safe. The next day, he was suspended with no pay. This is going to make life rough for the man with a pregnant wife of his own.
Thankfully the residents of the Northern Californian town let Safeway know that they made the wrong decision. They inundated the Facebook page of Safeway, picketed the market and had a petition up at change.org. If that wasn’t enough, the police chief wrote a letter of support for the man. And he had the support of the mayor.
In the end, the butcher won his job back. There is common-sense in corporate America.
* When I got dressed today, I put on a tee-shirt that says it is a ‘large.’ The surprising part is that it fits, nicely. Maybe this weight-loss thing is working out after all. I increased my distance for walking, added wheat bread and took out white bread, maintained eating as much fruit and veggies through the day as possible and continued drinking at least eight cups of liquid daily.
Sometimes when I look at current photos, it seems like nothing has changed. It is when I try on a slightly smaller size in clothing that I notice the difference. We take our victories where we can find them. I am taking mine around the block as I walk the dog.
Roses along the Steps
* With this weird warm spring comes early blooming of flowers. My roses are hear before June and a part of my knows I should be worried. But are they not glorious?
BTW, the Chicago Botanic Garden is doing a study on bloom times. It is called Project Bud Burst. They are looking for more people to report the bloom times in their gardens. Great project and I need to sign up.
What is going on in your world?
Notable Quote for the Week
Perhaps not the most accurate depiction but it makes Helen even more beautiful than she was. Image from http://www.annaspooner.com
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Helen Keller
Do you have a favorite quote?
A few weeks ago we went to visit a friend’s farm.
The timing was perfect. It was Earth Day and she had some new lambs. I wanted the kids to see the circle of life, how animals do become food or their hair becomes a product.
Before we went I worried not how to get there but what to bring. I asked and asked the husband but he had no suggestions. Finally I decided on making an apricot bread I have made before and truly enjoyed.
Image from Amazon.com.
This came from the Bread Machine Magic by Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway. My mother gave me this book several years ago and there are some great recipes. The Herb Bread was fantastic.
This bread is a nice, sweet but tangy from the dried fruit. I do not make it often enough.
First things first. I cut up enough dried apricots to fill a 1/3 cup measure. It took about 12 of the dried apricots. I might have eaten a few along the way.
Thinly slicing the dried apricots
I did this first so the next picture will make sense. I love the apricot orange color. After that I gathered the rest of the ingredients.
The Gathering of Ingredients
It takes 2/3 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats, 2/3 cup buttermilk, 1 egg, 1 1/3 cups of bread machine flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/3 cup chopped dried apricots, 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, 3 tablespoons apricot preserves and one packet of yeast.
In the bread pan
I put any liquid in first. So the buttermilk and egg went in first. Then I put in the flours and oatmeal that was topped off with the dried apricots, preserves, salt and yeast. I went with the fruit bread and light crust settings. Two and a half hours later, the bread was ready.
Cooling
The bread smelled good and sweet. It felt light and not too heavy. We took it to my friend and I hope she enjoyed it. I know we loved seeing lambs and chicks and a dog who could play fetch all day long.
Have you made anything tasty in the kitchen lately?
Family Movie Night
By Karyn Bowman
Our weeks get so intense with activities and meetings that I have only one program that is appointment TV.
It is filled with romance, great costumes and beautiful people. There are graceful moves and a whole lot of fun.
I am talking about Dancing With The Stars which airs on Monday nights in which a ‘star’ of some sort dances with a professional dancer and the audience votes on who danced best. Tuesday nights features the “results” show in which the dancers’ scores from the judges and audience’s votes are combined to determine which couple is going home that night.
We love it at our house. OK, my daughter and I love it. The boys will watch if one of the men is someone they recognize, such as Rashon who is from one of the Disney Channel shows.
Shall We Dance 1995 Poster Image from IMDb.com
My theory as to why we are thrilled with ballroom dance starts with the original Shall We Dance (1996) from Japan about an accountant who feels something is missing from his life and takes ballroom dance lessons in secret. This was re-made in 2004 starring Richard Gere as the unhappy man.
I remember a review by Richard Roper who could not believe a man as handsome or successful of Gere’s character could feel such sadness. And yet that is addressed in this movie as well. Gere’s character feels guilt for his sadness because he has so much. He only feels real joy when he finally shares what makes him joyful.
In the meantime we are treated to wonderful scenes of dance as Gere takes lessons from the dance studio where Jennifer Lopez works, trying to forget her sorrow. This is a movie for girls’ night or a couple’s night in, partially because some of the dances are steamy and partially because kids are going to be bored by a grown-up’s depression.
Now there are a lot of dance movies meant for kids. The younger ones have all of those High School Musical movies. And there are the Camp Rock movies that are on Disney as well. Those are fun and do the usual “poor us against rich them” type of storyline.
Poster Image from IMDb.com
For high school students, there is a fun ballroom dance movie starring Antonio Banderas as a dance teacher who volunteer at a high school to help kids build their self esteem. Take The Lead (2006) has a lot going right for it, including a dance number in which one girl is shown in a battle between her boyfriend and her dance partner.
This is one of those movies that might be trite at points but I really enjoy watching it and remembering how a good teacher can be a lifeline to a good kid caught in a bad situation.
But if you want to see ballroom dancing filled with sepia tones, you need to find a copy of a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie. The dancing team made ten movies together and perhaps the best of these is Top Hat (1935). It is said that Ginger did everything that Fred did but backwards and in heels. That might be true but I remember how her dresses would beautifully flair out as she moved. Other movies to catch of this pair are Shall We Dance (1935) and The Gay Divorcee (1934).
Until next week, see you in the rental aisle.
I love cars.
While I am not a gear head, I can look at the insides of a car with basic understanding. Spending a day under the hood is simply not my idea of fun.
However, I do like a great car.
Ferdinand A. Porsche was a man after my own heart. He designed great cars starting at the tender of age of 23. During the mid-1950s, his father – Ferry Porsche – decided he wanted a new style of the classic company car. F.A. Porsche began working in the technical design department as an apprentice after studying at Ulm School of Design during this time.
Image of F.A. Porsche from Global Motors.net.
While many styles had been rejected, in late 1959 F.A. presented his design and it was accepted. He changed the 356 while keeping the sloping lines in back. The headlights retained that ‘face’ look.
The world responded by falling in love.
Some models were meant for us regular folk, others for the rich and then there are the race cars. Hearing the name Porsche still incites a thrill because this company exudes style and class, something it has done once WWII was over and it could build cars again.
F.A. once stated “Design must be functional and functionality must be translated into visual aesthetics , without any reliance gimmicks that have to be explained.”
Image by Alvimann
For those of us who know nothing of design, that means that back slope of the car allows the wind the pass over it quickly – and therefore move faster. We can see that it will happen without someone telling us.
According to a poster on Treehugger.com, F.A. Porsche worked to make models for the regular guy that worked well. He helped to create the “20 year” model with the idea that a car could last for 20 years. Treehugger.com also had a picture of a current Porsche model that is electric. Global Motors.net credits F.A. with designing the type 803 racing car and the Porsche 904.
F.A. stayed with the company until 1972 when he created Porsche Design which created luggage, sunglasses, pens and all sorts of products related to Porsche. He later came back as chairman of the board in the 1990s.
The car that he designed has been modernized over the years but it has never left behind the essential style of the original. And when you see one of the street, there is always a bit of a gasp of astonishment in the beautiful vision before you.
Today, the New York Times reported the death of F.A. Porsche at the age of 76 although a cause was not listed. With it goes another designer who wanted to make the world a more beautifully functioning place.
Image by Clarita
Ahhh…
