Hattie, her sister Phoebe, and I were shopping the other day when we were turned on to the latest “craze” in adult fitness – hula hoops – or “hooping” as it is called. This was something that I loved to do as a kid, and I am desperate to find something recreational I enjoy doing that doesn’t hurt all over. So I went to my favorite place, Google, and started my research on hooping.
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No, I’m not talking about a boyfriend or anything like that (okay honey, you can breathe). I’m talking about Indiana’s governor. He was on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, and boy did he do a great job of representing his fellow Hoosiers.
While I’m reasonably sure he’s not all that crazy about the over-the-top “stimulus” package that defies reason, he would be an idiot not to take the money being offered to the state by the federal government even as a few states (namely Louisiana and Mississippi) are claiming it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Mitch Daniels has done a fabulous job of leading this state. Of course there is much more that could be done and a few of my education friends feels he’s not all that friendly towards public education (I disagree), I believe he has proven himself the right person for the job.
My son, Craig, moved back home after his big adventure over the spring and summer. Along with him came his new favorite food – Ezechiel Bread. For the uninitiated, Ezechiel Bread comes from the verse Ezechiel 4:9. There are many variants on the internet, but what we are doing is the sprouted version, which involves soaking wheat berries and various beans and lentils, until sprouted, then grinding with a food grinder and mixing with oil, water, yeast, honey, and salt to form a dough. Then the bread is baked for a couple of hours in a 250 degree oven.
Right now I have a quart jar full of sprouted beans and lentils, and 4 cups of wheat in a strainer sprouting after being soaked and rinsed for the better part of last week. The wheat has been in storage as part of our provisioning plan for about 10 years, which probably delayed the sprouting process. We are planning to add spelt, millet, and barley to the mix eventually.
We are now looking to buy pails of spelt seed, barley, and oat groats to add to our bread.
I have been a machine knitter for twenty some years and have never taken to hand knitting. I can’t explain why – there’s just no attraction. However there are yarns out there that don’t do particulary well on the knitting machine – namely the fun fur, eyelash, and bulky flake types sold in 50 – 80 gram balls. The bulky yarns knit up so fast, but that still is no comfort for those of us who just don’t do 2 needles.
Something that happened at our house the other night reminded me of this short movie called “Food for Thought.” For 8 minutes, Food for Thought delves into perceptions and how people act in situations based on their perceptions.
I have had the Maytag Epic pair for over a year now. Overall, I am very pleased with the pair. One thing I am not used to is the lack of sloshing water when washing clothes. I had always used the most water possible with my toploaders and I liked being able to control the amount of water. The Epic doesn’t allow me to override the amount of water used during a cycle, or the water temperature for a certain type of wash cycle, or the spin speed. While I get why that’s done, some of us actually do know how to do laundry. The only way I have found that I can override the amount of water the washer uses is to run the soak cycle a couple of times and then run a normal wash. The washer won’t spin out and will continue adding water. I find that trick helpful with towels and sheets, or stained items.
Another thing I don’t do is load the washer to its limit. I still like to wash “like” clothes together (I don’t mix shirts with knits or jeans with anything else), and with only 2 of us, we don’t have big loads unless it’s sheet day. I don’t feel too bad doing small loads since the water usage is very low.
Another great thing about this pair is the dry time. The biggest problem when doing laundry was having the washed clothes stack up while the dryer was drying loads. Now even jeans dry in about 35 minutes. That means I can have a load washing while I dry, fold, hang up, and iron what’s in the dryer (not that I do that all the time – but I could) before the washer is finished.
I consider myself a pretty smart computer person, so imagine my frustration when I tried to load LifeScan’s OneTouch Diabetes monitoring software on my laptop and it could not “find” my meter. I have to say that LifeScan does not recommend putting the software on a laptop because of all the ports. I’m not sure what the difference is between a laptop and a desktop (from a port standpoint), as my desktop has more USB ports than my laptop, but apparently there is an issue.
I don’t give up easily. I installed the software on my laptop a month ago and never could get it to find the meter – other software packages had no trouble – but this one was not going to make it easy. Actually it is easy, if you know where to look, which was a problem as the documentation doesn’t give you a hint as to where to look.
After a year-long hiatus from dieting I am back in the saddle again. I really despise dieting almost as much as exercising, but I haven’t found any other way to control my weight.
Without getting into specific numbers, I’ve regained everything I lost between 2002 and 2004 and added 10 more pounds. Not liking the result at all because I was definitely making headway. So I reactivated my Calorie King membership and started journaling faithfully starting April 24. I haven’t been able to bring myself to start working out yet, but I managed to stay within my calories for the entire week and lost 4 lbs. OK, I know it’s mostly water, but 4 pounds is 4 pounds. My next goal is to add 3 15 minute exercise times per day for the entire week. No, it didn’t happen today, but I was out and about walking all day, so I don’t feel too bad about not doing formal exercise.
Well, the great people at Norm Vogel and Sons came out and pronounced the dreaded news – the washer needed a new transmission at the bargain price of $379. I don’t think so. I paid the $65 trip fee and broke the news to my husband and then signed up for Consumer Reports online. Washing machines have changed so much in the past 10 years that I didn’t know which way to go.
I started doing some laundry today and my 10 year old washing machine started making a bunch of noise every time it tried to spin out. While I was hoping for a quick fix, I knew in my heart that my Kenmore/Whirlpool washing machine was on life support – with a full load of every pair of underwear I own.
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