One Man's Junk....

...Is one woman's treasure!  I found this wonderful thing in a yard sale for $2.  It's about chest high on me (I'm 5'6") and the minute I saw it I knew what I was going to use it for.  It was a sickly shade of pink and was pretty banged up but that didn't deter me in the least.  It also had some markings in the middle of the shelves that made me think it might have had drawers at some point.  This is not fine American craftsmanship, it's clearly something someone with less than stellar woodworking skills put together; the wood doesn't quite meet at the corners, nail heads are sticking out in places (tried to bang them in, but they refused), but it's very sturdy and pretty heavy.  It had a million tack holes in the sides, and I can only assume some little girl had it in her room and was tacking pictures to it.  I like its banged-up-ness, it has personality. Still, I wasn't having that pink.  I debated about it for a couple of weeks.  It could have been purple, and I already had purple paint (of course haha) but for some reason it had to be green.  It just couldn't be anything else,.  So green it is, a shade that was called "lettuce alone".  I will also use that green, AND the white, in finishing the little bureau I bought two years ago (wow), whose time is coming very soon.  I might add that the paint cost me more than what I paid for both pieces of furniture.

Can I have my TV back now?

7'2", are you kidding me?  I didn't know they made humans that big.

Well, it's over.  We have been watching the Olympics for 17 days.  Everyone else I know either didn't care or was outright annoyed with all the to-do about it. But we watched it, all of it.  Or at least everything NBC showed.  Here's what I took away from my Olympic experience:

1. More commercials than you can imagine. We recorded it day by day and played it back, and it took about half the time as watching it live.  I love my DVR.
2. Track cycling is the weirdest thing I’ve witnessed since curling.  Plus watching water polo is kind of like watching paint dry, IMHO.  I must admit to pressing the FF button.
3. How is it possible to perform a physical exam on someone to determine their gender and have the results be inconclusive?
4. It made me happy to see the likes of LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Kobe Bryant jump around with glee like a bunch of 5-year-olds instead of the jaded professionals I assumed they were.
5. People who badmouth Gabby Douglas for giving all the glory to God for her win have obviously never seen a boxing match, where men regularly thank Jesus for enabling them to beat the living crap out of each other.
6. Mo Farah needs to gain 5 or 30 pounds. Man looks like a very happy skeleton.
7. How can 17 days go by so quickly and at the same time seem to last forever?
8. I bet the man with no legs never gets used to hearing that he may have “an unfair advantage”.
9. McDonalds’ and Coca-Cola, who produce stuff that no one should put into their body, sponsor an event that involves the healthiest (presumably) bodies in the world.  Does anybody besides me find that strange?
10. I need to go to the gym.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled life.  Since today is a holiday (!!!) I will be spending it painting the bookcase i bought in a yard sale, hemming drapes, and cooking Quinoa with stir-fried veggies at Sparky's house.  That last is an experiment, we'll see if the finished product measures up.

Mystery Fruit

Ah Monday.  Back to the grind.  Actually, when you work for yourself, the grind never stops.  Worked all day yesterday, as powwow is next week and I still have a ton of regalia to finish! Plus the mundane stuff.  I'm thankful to be so busy, people I know are unemployed and hurting pretty bad. Feast or famine, as they say.

I did spend Saturday morning in the best way, tooling around the tri-town area with Sparky, cruising for yard sales and listening to Willie Nelson, and ending up at the farmer's market.  Our usual Saturday morning!  Doesn't take much to make us happy.  I did find a new shelf/bookcase thing for the shop, all it needs is a coat of paint but that will have to wait now till after the powwow.

Where I come from, we call these "plums".  But what do I know.

I haven't revisited the subject of health food, but I'm still making a valiant effort. As a result I'm spending a lot more time in the kitchen, it seems, than I used to but the kitchen is not a bad place to be.  Something else I've learned is that the healthy food thing only works (for me, anyway) if you plan ahead. I never go without a list and a menu for the week, for which my phone's notepad app is indispensable because I can't even tell you how many times I've made a list and left it on the counter.

It also takes me way longer to shop than it used to.  Which is also ok.  I plan for it, and although the grocery store is not my favorite place to be it's a lot less stressful when you're not trying to get in and out as quickly as possible.  I'm doing a lot of reading of labels, and as it turns out there are also quite a few photo ops at the grocery store, like this one.  They used to have a preprinted Stop & Shop sign over the salad bar that read "Sate law prohibits sampling".  Wish I'd gotten a photo of that.

All Hail the Birthday Queen!

I have a friend who used to wear a paper crown to work every year on her birthday, and place this framed Mary Engelbreit print on the counter.  She worked in an extremely busy medical office. She was probably my age at the time, 49, and I thought it was the funniest thing because NObody makes a big deal of their own birthday, and of course you never tell your age.  She told everyone.  I see no reason not to tell my age, because guess what?  Nobody cares!

So yesterday was my birthday, and I treated myself to a day off during which I did not much of anything. It was great.  Went to the Richmond Farmers' Market in the morning with Sparky and Pam, then we checked out the newly opened Bliss Coffeehouse here in town.  Very nice place, will definitely be back!  Later I watched some olympics, did some sewing, and had ice cream and cake with the family.  Plus there was the added benefit of it being Saturday, which means I got two days at home in a row which is awesome.
Couple of weeks ago I was at a yard sale and spotted this bag of odds and ends of cotton yarn left over from someone else's projects; the colors intrigued me, so I had to have them.  The more I looked at them, for some weird reason they reminded me of seashells on a beach; so I had to put them all together with something that resembled sand.  Went to Wal-Mart, where there were several sandy colors, but I just wasn't feelin' it.  So I ended up at Sweet Briar Studio here in town, and found exactly what I wanted. Not only is it sand-colored, but it has a little bit of a texture as well.  I found a granny square pattern that was a little different than the one I've been using, and off I went.  The squares are almost done tonight, and will soon make a groovy summer bag.  It may never remind anybody but me of seashells on a beach, but that's all good.  I had a vision.  It should be done in a few more days  and you can see what you think.

Airlines lost my Mother...

...But fortunately she found her way home in one piece!  Thank goodness my sister was there.  The trip out to California was relatively uneventful; the trip home, beginning with the hotel room in San Fran the night before the flight, was just one event after another.  They were supposed to fly to New Jersey, then to Warwick.  They ended up going to Houston, where they ended up having to spend the night, then to North Carolina, and THEN home, all the while dealing with obnoxious airline personnel.  They also managed to misplace my sister's luggage, but at least they found it and delivered it the next day so all is well.  Pam is here for two weeks, and hopefully when she goes home things will go smoothly.  Crossing fingers.

Sue and I finally did the Richmond Farmer's Market Artisan Day.  Couldn't get my act together last summer to do it, and was starting to wonder if this summer was going to happen either since I missed the June date. It was fun!  We always have a good time, we used to do shows all the time back in the 80s when craft shows were big.  I miss that.  We used to go in with the attitude that we were there for a good time, if we sold stuff it was a bonus.  And boy, did we sell stuff.  As opposed to almost all the other crafters, who put their stuff on the table and sat behind it, we used to set ours up so you had to walk IN (hey, you've got a 10-ft space, might as well use it!) and we never sat down.  Also, if the show was till 4, we stayed set up till 4, unlike the majority of people who would pack it in at 3:30 or even 3 if they weren't doing well.  I can't tell you how many times we sold lots of stuff in the last 10 minutes. Anyway, it was good to hang out with Sue again.   She sold a few things, I sold a few things...but really I accomplished what I wanted to do, which was pass out business cards and get the word out that my store is more than just an alteration shop.  Since I'm too cheap to advertise, this seemed a pretty effective way to get in touch with local people.  I don't think I'll do the August show, too hot, but September seems like a good idea.

Temporary Gym Rat

I survived the first day of the Anytime Fitness 21-day challenge! After my disappointing stint at Curves, I swore I'd never join a gym again.  First of all, I went faithfully, 3 times a week as recommended, for the first 3 months.  I was not expecting miracles, but after three months with NO results whatsoever, it became really easy to find reasons to not go.  I am not a person who enjoys exercise for the sake of exercise;  I like to DO stuff.  So if I'm not seeing results, I find it difficult to make myself show up to do something I'm not enjoying.  I'm a total hedonist; if it's not fun, I don't want to do it even if its supposed to be good for me.  No self-discipline at all.  And second of all, the reason I don't want to join a gym, is that I know me.  I won't go.  Once I'm committed to it, it's just one more chore I have to do.  See above.

But I got this card in the mail from Anytime Fitness, and last time I got one and thought I might join in, I was too late.  I guess there's only a certain number of slots available.  But I went for it this time, and showed up for my introduction on Saturday with a certain amount of skepticism.  After the Curves thing, that is.  Told my trainer right off the bat; I hate to exercise.  The only reason I signed up for this is because it's a limited-run engagement.  We'll see what happens.  After my first session yesterday, wherein I worked my upper body, I actually surprised myself.  For someone who doesn't "work out", I'm pretty strong.  Must be lifting all those amps and speakers.  Today I introduce my lower body muscles to actual movement.  I'm pretty sure that's not going to go as well, but then I thought that about the top half as well, so you never know.

So I was going to talk about meat today.  And about this dietary thing; I'm not posting all this stuff because I'm trying to become an expert.  What I'm hoping is that someone like me who gets lost in all the information you find on the internet in the pursuit of better health, will read what works for me and maybe it will help make a small difference for you too.  All we need is something to start with and we can figure out the rest as we go.

When Preston's cholesterol became a problem, and he needed to take meds for it, I of course wanted to do whatever I could to help, as I am the one who does the cooking. I compared the fat and cholesterol contents of turkey, chicken, ham, and beef (cause he won't eat fish), and at the time the differences did not seem to be that great.  But as I am realizing now, there's no big change to make, just a lot of little changes.  With him, the best thing I can do is switch to leaner beef.  I'm not going to force feed him stuff he doesn't want to eat.  MY palate is way more adaptable.  So I have all but eliminated red meat and pork from my diet, and I don't miss it.  I eat turkey burgers, and switch chicken for whatever other meat I am cooking for him.  I'm a little concerned about not getting enough iron, but I'm looking into other sources. When PJ was here he introduced me to Bison, which didn't taste a whole lot different from beef.  It has less fat than beef, and he informed me that the government regulations for bison are very strict, and they are not allowed to use growth hormones or other stuff that goes into beef cattle.  It's also close to $10 a pound.  So I won't be buying bison on a regular basis.

Volunteers

 Does anybody know what this is?  I have two clumps of them in two different places in the garden.  They were volunteers, I didn't plant them.  When they first came up they looked kind of like squash- or cuke-type-things, see the rounded leaves on the bottom?  And they came up all in a clump, like maybe it was something from the compost.  Could be anything.  But now the leaves on top are all kind of pointed, and I'm at a loss as to what they might be.  I guess I'll find out when they bear...something. Alien pods, maybe.

Came home from work today to find this little goldfinch parked on the corner of Preston's shed roof (and I say "Preston's" shed because we do have his and hers.  Best birthday present I ever got!)  I don't know if he's a baby or not, I don't want to get too close and scare him, but he watched me looking at him and taking his picture and didn't seem inclined to move.

So yesterday I was droning on about nutrition. I think the key is,  baby steps.  One thing at a time.  I started looking at things like cooking methods.  I cook with canola oil, when I use oil at all.  Turns out, that's a pretty good choice.  Olive oil is better if you're putting it on salads or whatnot, but we don't do that and canola is actually better for cooking.  So that's good.  And I looked at the margarine I use, Land O Lakes buttery-taste spread.  Also a good choice as far as margarine goes.  No trans fats.  But I usually use stick margarine when cooking, because it's easy to measure.  NOT a good choice; I found out that all the stick margarine brands, at least all the ones my local store sells, contain trans fats.  So I won't be using that anymore. I don't know how soft margarine will work in baking, but I'll worry about that in the fall when the baking bug bites me as it always does.

I already stopped using salt when I cook, and as I said I don't miss it. Preston misses it, and still puts it on stuff.  But that's on him.  It was salt-free when I served it.

We bought a gas grill a couple weeks ago.  I figure if I can't get him to give up burgers, at least I can use the healthiest cooking method.  We used to have a grill, but it rusted out and we never bothered to get another one, easier to just cook on the stove top.  But I like having it, especially since we have a small house and it's summer, so the more heat-producing things I can move outside, the better.  It even has a side burner, which I thought was ridiculous since there's just the two of us to cook for, but I've used it twice already to cook corn on the cob.

Speaking of the gas grill, it's time to go fire it up.  Tomorrow I'll talk a little about meat and what I've learned in THAT department.