Anger, the Most Useless Emotion
Posted: January 17, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: anger Leave a comment
Someone who does not know me well recently called me a “nice person.” I was a little taken aback. I looked at her as if she had two heads and considered that she was being sarcastic then I thought a little more. Well, to her I guess I was nice.
As a younger person my childhood family might not have characterized me as “nice.” I think that some of them might have described my younger self as angry, but never nice. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I am much “nicer” and less “angry” than I used to be.
As I was growing up somewhere in adolescence I learned to use humor in all situations, when I was mad, or being nice, but it took a long time not to appear angry. I have no idea when I finally gave up anger as my go to emotion, but I certainly think my health improved since I did. Don’t get me wrong, I can get mad, really mad, but I am less likely to take that anger out on anyone now so perhaps others don’t notice it as much.
For me anger is a big waste of time and can cause derailment in living a healthy life. I was talking to a friend about someone who had publically said how much she disliked me. He mentioned that I was awfully nice to this person. I replied that I was not angry with anyone who did not like me; it really did not affect me, just them.
Letting go of things I can’t change or that hurt or make me mad has enabled me to just be more balanced in everyway. I still can have a sleepless night over something that is going wrong, but I am much more likely to get over it or see a problem as less important more quickly now.
I’m sure that through my life I must have “eaten my anger” because no one gets to be as fat as I was without eating for a reason other than hunger. Of course eating is something pleasurable so it soothed over one problem just to create another. Now I try and deal with one problem at face value and not let it multiply and turn into many problems.
Anger is one emotion I have realized has very little redeeming quality in the life I live now. I don’t have to fight with anyone to stay alive unlike cavemen. I do try and look at the funny in situations that used to make me angry. I have no idea if cavemen used humor but it certainly is a more evolved emotion, at least in me. I am in no way completely anger free, but I must be fooling enough of the people that someone mistook me for nice. I am waiting for the day that some thinks of me a quiet. I probably will actually be dead when that happens.
More Cook Than Gymnast
Posted: January 16, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: sore mucsles 2 Comments
You really have to be coordinated to take care of your own sore muscles. This is something I am not, meaning coordinated. Exercise is a major part of my day and I am not one of those women who live to workout. I exercise for one reason, to lose weight. I am not particularly interested in having a really tight and hot body. The time for that is so long past. I just want to get to a regular size that I can maintain and still get to eat every once in a while. I do not experience any out of body nirvana from exercise, other things perhaps, but this is a PG rated blog.
Since I have been on the big push to reach my skinny clothes closet contents I have upped my exercise considerably. Yes it works as long as I combine it with strict portion control and really smart healthy eating, blah, blah, blah – no secrets, no tricks, no short cuts, boring.
My trainer, who I see twice a week for half an hour, you can hardly call that much work out, has upped the weights I lift and the reps I do when I am with her in an effort to help tone, I guess. Since I am doing the crazy amount of cardio at home I am happy to do something different at the gym. The only problem is that heavy lifting is making my muscles ache.
I know that aching equals working, but I really hate pain. Tiff, my trainer told me to get a foam roller so I can roll the pain away at home. This sounds like a great idea, except that the muscles in my upper thighs that hurt the most are hard to roll when you are a klutz like me.
I have to perch myself on a big foam tube, and when I say foam it is not something spongy and soft, but a cylinder of hard torture. Once I am lying with one leg on the roller and all my other parts sprawled out to keep me balanced like a seal on a ball, I am supposed to be able to roll my whole large body back and forth with the only contact being the already aching leg muscles on the hard roller.
Needless to say I am not good at this. Twice I have fallen right on my face because I rolled too far and could not stop my forward motion combined with gravity. I told Tiff this was not working out for me and I needed more help since my leg muscles were about at the point that I could not lower myself onto the toilet without holding on to something.
Apparently the answer was a roller I was much more familiar and adept with, my rolling pin. Now I take my little used kitchen tool since I certainly am not making any piecrust and push it hard on my sore leg and roll back and forth from where I am told the pained muscles attach to my bones. Why in the world did no one tell me about this before? It is so much easier to roll my own muscles in a seated position and not be expected to balance myself at the same time.
I’m sure the foam roller is considered the best option since it take the weight of my whole body and pushes it against my taxed muscle, but since I am not trying to make any Cirque du Soleil team I am just going to use the rolling pin.
I’m Obviously No Cinderella
Posted: January 15, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: black tie 1 Comment
Fashion is not my thing. I have never really been interested in following trends or wearing the latest and greatest clothes. I have always liked fairly classic and timeless stuff and thanks to a number of friends who sell or have sold clothes in their homes for Doncaster, Carlisle, Etc. and Worth I have tended to buy good enough quality of those more timeless pieces.
Since shopping for clothes is more of a chore than a treat for me I tend to hold on to what I have. This has proven to be a good strategy as I have lost weight. I currently have full-on wardrobes in between six and eight sizes. The bad news is that if I gain weight I have something to wear, but since I am on a downward slope the good news is that I have something to wear that is smaller and practically new to me.
Yesterday I went to my closest of skinniest clothes, otherwise known as the closet of dreams. It has been about five years since I could wear most of the items housed in this crypt of reminders, “you were fairly thin once.” I went to this closet because I have a black-tie affair to go to next week and when I put on my current closet’s choices they were all too big.
This would normally be most women’s dream come true. For me it is more like a pain in the you-know-what since I hate to buy something new under a deadline and I certainly don’t have much time in my calendar to shop. Once I started flipping through the rack I decided to try on the smallest items just to see where I fit in the Dana’s endless wardrobe continuum. Much to my surprise I was able to get in all but the very smallest size, and of those there were not many. I promptly moved a few season appropriate items to my regular closet. I tried to weed out some of the too big items to go to a third location that I hope I never have to visit again, but I still have a lot more trying on to do.
The bad news was I did not find a dress I want to wear next week. I found a good blouse, but no bottom. I found a bottom that I could take in, but no top that went with that. Now I am thinking about shopping, ugh. You would think that shopping for a newly skinnier person would be a joy, except for the sales people, the money I don’t want to spend on a dress I hope to shrink out of, the driving hither and yon. The only good part for me is possibly the steps I would get walking from my car to a store and throughout a store shuffling aimlessly, gathering choices and going into a poorly lit dressing room where I don’t want to take my shocks off because the carpet is so nasty, but looking at myself in a black tie outfit with my short black socks on is so unattractive that I become discouraged.
Why can’t I have a fairy godmother who with the twist of her wand-laden hand could drape me in the perfect outfit fit for a ball, complete with perfectly fitting beautiful shoes? I would not even care that I would have to get home before midnight, or bear the embarrassment of being seen in my normal tater wear, we all know that I will be home by ten no matter what. I also guess I need to remind Russ about this event so he can get his twenty-two year old wedding tux out of the closet. I guess you can say I was his fairy godmother since I convinced him to buy his tux for our wedding knowing he would get so much use out of it. I wish women had that same option.
One Last Simple Pleasure Gone
Posted: January 14, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: ice, ice maker 2 Comments
As a person who has been working on losing weight most of my life I decided long ago not to drink my calories. I really like to eat and that usually means solid food. So I stopped drinking alcohol at 23, and yes if I found my lost underpants I might take it back up, but that’s another blog. I never drank sodas because as a child the only time I ever was given cola was when I had a tummy bug so I forever associated soda with vomiting.
Since juice is nothing but sugar that has been banned from my glass leaving me with two basics drinks I down in gallons daily, iced tea and water. I do drink a decaf espresso as a treat on some afternoons, but other than that I have a fairly limited drink menu.
Since my 20 ounce glass is almost always by my side with a cold drink I am very attached to my refrigerator icemaker that dispenses crushed ice. I really like a lot of ice and not big giant cubes that can fall forward on your face while drinking and splash tea all over the bodice of my shirt, but the tiny small pieces that let the liquid filter through them as you tilt the glass up.
My friend Jan and I both really like the small-aerated ice pieces that sonic drive-ins have. She has deeply researched those types of icemakers only to discover they are only available commercially with no plans on making a home model. Good thing since I don’t have a place to install one anyway and therefore remain dependant on my refrigerator.
With all this build up about my love of ice, really when you are as calorie started as I am, zero calorie ice is a big thing, I am now going to complain about my icemaker. Two weeks ago the four-year-old machine just stopped making ice. Russ tried all the factory recommended tests that you have to have an IEEE for (that’s a master’s in electrical engineering) with no luck.
I called the factory authorized repair service and was told I had to wait more than a week for someone to get to Durham, as if it were a small town in the middle of Montana. Today the repair arrived and although I had already told them that we needed a new icemaker and to bring one with them they did not bring the right one.
After testing to confirm what my overly qualified husband repair man had determined was the case and calling the factory to consult one hour and many dollars later I was told that a new unit had to be ordered and I was going to have to go without machine made ice for another week. I am also going to have to wait at home for the repairman to show up one minute before the three-hour arrival time window ends. How horrible.
Ice is one of my last pleasures in life. Yes, I buy ice at the store and I could put an ice tray in the freezer, but I am addicted to the filtered water, crushed clear ice that comes from my machine. If we had a sonic in Durham I would go there and buy ice, but alas I am not going to drive to Mebane for my fix.
Palette Expansion
Posted: January 13, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: new spice Leave a comment
Do you ever go to a clothing store and buy something and when you get it home and put it in your closet you discover you already have five items that are its twin? You don’t even have to go look at your closet to say yes, especially if you are a middle-aged woman. Naturally we are drawn to the same things over and over again. In your defense as far as clothing goes you probably already know which colors and cuts look best on you, but there is something about looking at a store full of clothes that draws your eye to what you already have.
The same thing happens when we go to the grocery store. A giant building full of thousands of different products and you probably buy mostly the same things over and over again. Now you don’t have the “that soup looks good on me,” defense, but you may say, “I already tasted that and know I like it.” There is one unattractive word for this buying the same thing over and over again phenomenon, “RUT.”
I am not a clothes expert and I do own more black pairs of pants than I can wear in a season, so I don’t know how to solve the clothing problem. Of course you can buy something out of your element and it can hang, tags still on, in your closet never worn. So the clothing rut is a more expensive problem.
But as far as food goes I do have a few suggestions to spice up your eating. Actually spice is my suggestion. Next time you go to the grocery stand in the dry spice aisle and blindly pick a new bottle of something. Now if you are not that adventurous pick wide-eyed, but chose something you have never used before, like turmeric or smoked paprika. Once you are at home with your new ingredient just do a Google search for recipes that use that spice and make one.
There is a great website called Smitten Kitchen by a blogger who takes great cookbook recipes and creates them in a step by step way with good photos, so if you are a truly unadventurous cook you can follow the steps easily. If you really can’t find a recipe that uses your chosen ingredient message me and I will help you.
The whole point of this exercise is to expand your and your family’s taste buds with very little investment. What you end up making does not have to be so foreign if you are just using a new spice with some familiar ingredients like a chicken or carrots. The point is just to push yourself one step beyond where you normally go.
I seem to have every spice in the grocery store already so I can’t do the blind picking, but I do have a number of very exotic spices I bought on vacations and have never used so I will practice what I am preaching and am going to open one up and create a new recipe with it.
The good thing about trying this palette expansion with a spice is that it probably has few if any calories. That makes January the perfect time to experiment. So post back to me what you end up buying and trying. I’m here to help so get out of your rut.
Roast Green Beans, Pearl Onions and Cherry Tomatoes in a Balsamic Glaze
Posted: January 12, 2014 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: balsamic vinegar, cherry tomatoes, green beans, pearl onions Leave a comment
I walked on my treadmill and needle pointed today after Church and could not think of anything to write about so I went to the freezer to see what needed to be used up so I could create a recipe for the blog. I found a lovely bag of frozen pearl onions from Trader Joes, a bag of fresh green beans was in the veggie drawer and a pint of cherry tomatoes on the counter. Here it goes
1 lb of pearl onions- I used frozen so I thawed them in the microwave
1-½ lbs. of green beans with the stem end cut off
1-pint cherry tomatoes
1 T. honey
3 T. Balsamic Vinegar- I used a really good one that is thicker than most
Salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. On a half sheet pan covered with foil and sprayed with Pam put the green beans in a single layer and put in the oven to roast for about 20 mins. or until browned.
On a second sheet pan covered with foil put the thawed pearl onion in a single layer and place in the same oven and cook until they are brown, about 20 mins.
When both are cooked put the cherry tomatoes in a skillet and put on a medium high heat on stove, add the honey and vinegar and cook until the cherry tomatoes just start to burst. Add the green beans and onions and salt and pepper to taste.
The Walking Desk Report
Posted: January 11, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: walking desk 6 Comments
Two weeks ago Russ put together my new walking desk. I have gathered a crazy amount of data based on my fitbit, my walking desk and my scale and I think that the results are worth reporting. I will start with the bottom line so if you are actually interested you can read on. In the two weeks since I got the desk I have lost 4.8 pounds.
A little more than two pounds a week is a very good rate for me given the following factors: I am a fifty two year old woman, in the two months before I got my walking desk I had lost ten pounds. So this 4.8-pound lost was not new weight I was losing, nor just water weight loss that is normal when you just begin reducing.
Thanks to my friend Jan who turned me onto my fitbit I had been trying to get 10,000 steps a day since the end of October. It was hard. I just met my goal most days by having to run around the house late at night. I think that the late night push to get to 10,000 steps did not help my sleeping and I don’t think that walking around the dining room table was the best way to keep up my pace. But I was losing weight at 10,000 steps, which was a big improvement from before the fitbit.
Enter the walking desk. I started doing all my computer work and walk at the same time. Some things started happening; the bills were paid ahead of time, e-mails were responded too in a timelier manner, I wrote my blog earlier in the day, I was reaching my 10,000 goal by two in the afternoon.
I upped my goal to 12,500 but my daily average was more like 15,000-17,000 steps a day. I was sleeping better because I was not exercising after 7:00 at night. I was doing other exercises to stretch out my legs and get some arm workouts in. My little used office has never been so organized and the laundry even gets folded more quickly because I do it while walking at my desk.
I do write my blog while walking and you regular readers will have to weigh in if the quality has gone way down. I try and proof read things while sitting at my regular desk just to make sure I am making as much sense as I regularly do and you all get what you pay for. I can’t hand write letters while walking unless I want to appear that I have aged about forty years. I can talk on the phone while walking and so far no one has noticed any background noise. I just don’t seem to notice that I am walking while I am working.
I have been asked by a few people to post a video of what it looks like so I am doing that here. Dana’s Walking Desk on You tube. I try and not use this blog to promote products and I get no money from so if you want to know what kind it is, send me a message and I will let you know.
I have been eating the same way so I think that I can say the desk is the only difference. It’s a significant enough improvement to warrant this report. I am not going to do a controlled study and not use it for two weeks to see what happens. We all know I am no scientist.
Take My Card
Posted: January 10, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: business cards Leave a comment
Carter has been home with a tummy ache for the last two days so I have tried to stay close to home. I did some cleaning out of my shirt drawers, the downstairs refrigerator and then some old files in my office. I know it all sounds very random and it was. There is so much reorganizing, cleaning out and throwing away to be done at my house that it feels overwhelming. I know that it might be more effective to pick one room or closet and completely clean that before I move on to a new place, but that requires a level of concentration and dedication that I don’t seem to have.
While cleaning out my office I came upon a business card for me as “Nude Photographer.” Read that as you like! The card was a joke that my great college friend Laura Sherck made for my twenty-first birthday and put in every mailbox in the whole college. The worst part about it was she put my real phone number on the card.
Back in the day if you had a card you were whatever that card said you were! I can’t remember how many calls I got from her joke, but somehow the many cards she got printed up ended up being highly circulated. I do recall fielding an inquiry from so old man who called to see if I would take photos of he and his wife. I stopped him fairly quickly before he got to the question of exactly who would be nude, the photographer or the subjects.
I learned from that experience the power of the card. When I got out of college and had a real job my card read “Sales Engineer.” I sounded so much more highly qualified to sell mail opening and extracting machines as an engineer. Little did anyone know that I barley passed calculus.
While selling machines I also had a catering business on the side. It was a highly “unofficial” business, but I had cards. À la Carter – creative caterers, with just my phone number. I certainly could not put down an address since I cooked out of my home kitchen. No one ever seemed to ask. I had a card that was all they needed to know.
Now a days anyone can make themselves cards on their computer so they don’t hold quite the sway they once did. Now I guess if you have a website you are more official, but just like cards, anyone can make one. I’m just glad that the web did not exist when I was in college. Lord knows what kind of joke website Laura Sherck might have created for my birthday. Luck for me I have changed phone numbers a few dozen times since college but if it was a website it could follow me forever.
The Velveetalike Affair
Posted: January 9, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: not cheese shortage 4 Comments
Picture a cartoon like corporate office, not unlike Mr. Burn’s office in the Simpsons. There sits an old corporate raider, bald, who happens to look just like Mr. Burns, hunched over his gigantic desk with a wall of windows looking out on the factory floor where billions of pounds of Velveetalike are being produced. His office door opens and his sniveling assistant, akin to Smithers, walks in with a big graph showing sales of Velveetalike are plummeting.
Mr. Burnslike: “Smitherslike, what is going on? Why are people not buying our not-real-cheese man made product?
Mr.: Smitherslike: “Well it’s January and the giant fat population of America has been brain washed into thinking that they have to lose weight this month since they ate too much in November and December.”
Mr. Burnslike: “But in February are they going to go back to consuming our liquid gold calorie laden faux cheese?”
Mr. Smitherslike: “Yes in a big way because the Super Bowl is in February and that is the biggest eating day of the year. Velveetalike makes up at least 25% of the calories consumed that day.”
Mr. Burnslike: “Yes.” He says drumming his long thin fingers together in an evil way. “ Velveetalike is perfect on all foods consumed while people talk through football and watch the commercials. I like the newest craze of melting it on Krispy Kremelike donuts.”
Mr. Smitherslike: “Yes boss, but your bonus this year is dependent on how much we sell in the first two weeks of the year.”
Mr. Burnslike: “What? Quick we need a scheme to get people to buy our faux cheese now, since it has a shelf life of 19.34 years it will keep until the Super Bowl.”
Mr. Smitherslike: “All the news and talk shows are talking about is dieting how can we get Velveetalike in the news?”
Mr. Burnslike: Looking out at billions of boxes of cheese, “If we were to tell people that there is a possibility of a Velveetalike shortage come the Super Bowl I’m sure we can get everyone to make a run on the supermarkets now.”
Mr. Smitherslike: “But Boss, we have plenty and there is nothing stopping us from making more.”
Mr. Burnslike: “I know that and you know that. I only said there might be a POSSIBILITY of running out.”
Dana’s Version of Wagamama’s Hot Pot
Posted: January 8, 2014 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: Chicken Hot Pot Leave a comment
I got a bunch of requests for this recipe after my post yesterday about my trip to the Asian Market to buy the ingredients. I don’t usually post other people’s recipes since I try and keep pure to ones I create, but I changed theirs some so here is my version. It makes a great light meal for those of you who are still keeping to your resolutions.
Mine took a while to make since I made my own homemade chicken stock, but after going to all that trouble I feel like a good quality stock in the box would be exactly the same, but a whole lot easier.
3 C. Good Chicken Stock
1 T. Dashi No Moto – that is instant Dashi and the brand at Li Ming is HonDashi
1 T. Mirin, sweet rice wine (You can use vermouth)
1 T. soy sauce
3 boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into bite size strips
1 C. Sugar Snap Peas
1 C. fresh oyster mushrooms cut into bite size pieces
3 C. Napa Cabbage cut in 1-inch strips
4 Scallions cut into ½ inch pieces, green and white
2 C. Mung Bean Sprouts
Handful of chopped Cilantro
4 T. Fish Sauce
Cooked Noodles, sobu, ramen or udon – optional
Siracha sauce-optional
Put the chicken stock, dashi, Mirin, and soy sauce in a saucepan and bring to a boil, add the chicken, reduce to simmer and cook for three minutes.
While that is cooking divide up the mushrooms, cabbage and scallions and noodles if you want them, into four large bowls.
After the chicken is cooked add the sugar snap peas and cook for just one more minute. Ladle the hot broth, chicken and peas over the other vegetables and sprinkle with bean sprouts, one Tablespoon of Fish Sauce per bowl to taste and a little cilantro on top. I like to add siracha sauce for a little heat. Enjoy!
A Gringo at the Asian Market
Posted: January 7, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: asian market, hot pot Leave a comment
Officially it is the coldest day on record for this date in Durham. It is probably a record-breaking day in most of America. Lucky for me it is not snowy or icy, just freezing. Cold days like this are a two-soup day for me.
I started my day being fitted for a new crown on my back molar so the idea of chewing was a little daunting since I could hardly speak normally with half a numbed up face. After the joy of drilling and impression creating biting I decided to stop at the Asian Superstore to get a few items to make a Japanese hotpot soup for dinner. Carter had given me a Wagamama’s cook book for dinner and the last time I was this cold was last March in London with Carter eating at Wagamama’s – it all made sense in my mind.
Bundled in my 30 year old full-length mink coat, big scarf and gloves with only half a moveable face from Novocain I ventured alone into the Asian Market. The place was practically empty since the rest of the world was heeding the don’t-freeze-your-face-off-warnings and stayed home.
Most of the stuff I needed to buy I could figure out by sight, oyster mushrooms, Napa cabbage, snow peas, scallions, cilantro. In the vegetable section I was a pro. I went next to find fish sauce, Miran, a sweet rice wine and dashi no moto, to make a broth with. The Asian market is divided into nationality sections. All the Japanese in one place, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, but they are not marked in English.
Every aisle has soy sauce, hundreds of kinds; thank goodness I was not buying that. Many aisles had noodles, good luck finding the ramen I was buying for Carter. I eventually found the sushi vinegar and figured I was in the Japanese section.
I found fish sauce, and Miran, but Dashi which was my whole reason for going to the Asian market was nowhere to be found. I searched for someone who worked at the store, but they must have stayed home, no one to ask.
Eventually another human came by, a nice Mexican woman who looked as lost as I did. She saw the fish sauce in my cart and pointed at it as if to ask where I got that. I pointed to it on the bottom shelf. I took a chance and showed her the word Dashi on my list. She looked me in the eye and then just over my shoulder and pointed it out right behind me. I could have been in that store all day and missed the tiny jar since it was called HonDashi, sounds like a car to me.
Now my stock is simmering on the stove. I hope this tiny jar of instant dashi is good since my mouth knows what a Wagamama’s real hot pot is supposed to taste like. Even if it is different it will at least be warm and I think that is what counts on a day like this.
Just When You Think It Is A Good Day
Posted: January 6, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: dallas, friends moving 1 Comment
Today started out good. Carter went back to school, my trainer reported that I was winning the January steps contest in the first three days of a month long challenge, I got my haircut, wrote my article for the magazine, had a finance meeting and a good salad for lunch. Russ called at three to check in and I told him I was having a good, productive day without any drama… I spoke too soon.
Just after I hung up I got a call from one of my favorite people on earth who lives here. After she asked me how New Years was and I whined on about missing Christmas she dropped the bomb on me, “We’re Moving to Dallas.”
Suddenly I was back in fifth grade when my best friend announced on the last day of school that her family was moving, same pit in my stomach, what-about-me-selfishness feeling.
Now this move to Texas is a great one for their family work wise so of course I am happy for them, but these are friends that are on the top of our list to spend time with since we like the whole family, they have similar sense of humor as we do and are not just fun, but smart fun. We met them at a dude ranch where we were the least dude like people at the place and immediately bonded over the bad food.
My friend said, “Look, you can come to Dallas on your way anywhere.”
“Yeah, “I mopped, “like on my way to London I can go through Dallas.”
“Yes,” she encouraged me.
“Yeah and on my way to Greensboro, I can go through Dallas.”
I know how these things work. I can go through Dallas, but it will be hard, especially when I have another good friend in Houston who I don’t visit enough. Sure I have always been the Big D and Dallas considers itself the Big D so it seems like I should spend more there, but I also should spend more time in New York visiting friends, and Boston and, and and.
I texted Russ to let him know and his one word response was “F#$k.” He does not say that much about that many. Now I have to have a pity party for myself and one without chocolate, even though this is a friend who I love more than chocolate.
Funny What We Remember
Posted: January 5, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized 3 Comments
My uncle Wilson, Grandad, Granettes and My father, at Pawleys Island 1972
Today while I was walking at treadmill desk folding laundry I had a flashback to a letter I received from my Grandmother when I was in boarding school. It was not a letter about much; in fact it was about so little that I have remembered all these years later. Granettes, as I called her wrote, “Today I vacced the curtains and ran around the dining room table fifty times for exercise.” Oh God! I have turned into my grandmother about twenty years early.
One of my favorite sayings is, “One day I put my arm in my coat and out came my mother’s hand.” I think that Jean Harris, the ex-headmistress of Madeira and Scarsdale Dr. killer wrote that in one of her books, but don’t quote me on that. We just never know when traits of people we are related to are going to surface and usually they appear long before we recognize where they come from.
I think that my boarding school fifteen-year old self thought about my Grandmother vacuuming the curtains as the most mundane and boring thing and worse yet it was committed to paper in her letter to me. Now don’t get me wrong, at boarding school I was thrilled to receive any mail at all, the proof being that I still remember that letter, but it was the late 1970’s and I certainly felt like women had progressed beyond house work.
Certainly my Grandmother had. She taught reading to people who were deemed unteachable well before learning differences were a recognized diagnosis, but she never wrote me about doing that. Granettes also took in people who were otherwise shut out by society, but she did not write me about that, or perhaps she did and I don’t remember.
So here I walk, writing, folding laundry and answering e-mail in a similar way to my Grandmother running around the dining room table to get exercise. “I put my leg in my pants and out came my grandmother’s foot,” in an homage to Jean Harris.
I know that my fifteen year old cannot recognize my traits in herself yet, but they are there. Carter will have this blog to look back at and reference. I wonder how old you have to get before you can see these things?
Repurposing Leftover Torture
Posted: January 4, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: leftovers Leave a commentI am cheep. I come by this naturally from an unnamed relative’s side of the family. Although this relative hates to throw food out even when it has gone on the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide side, that being either penicillin or poison, I am more concerned with food safety.
In order to satisfy both my penurious and life saving sides I took some leftovers and repurposed them. I made a bolognaise sauce from our leftover short ribs that Russ and Carter claimed was way fab. Then I made homemade vanilla ice cream with flourless chocolate cake chunks folded it.
Both of these items enabled me to change what Carter thinks of as leftovers, and therefore is disinterested in them into totally new food. The best part is that they are foods that can or should be frozen so I have significantly extended their shelf life.
The bad part for me is that I can’t share in their deliciousness. Usually repurposing involves making something more fattening in its change up. I have rarely been able to lengthen the life of an ingredient and make it salad ready at the same time. Casseroles, sauces, wicked desserts are better remake candidates.
Soup is the only really good repurpose healthy food. It is wonderful to take a dwindling carcass and some great veggies and make a hearty soup. Sadly I did not have any of those today. I did make myself a really nice egg white omelet with some of my friend Sara’s roast broccoli she brought to my house. I had the egg whites leftover from making the vanilla ice cream and I am certainly the only person in our house that will eat leftover broccoli. The omelet was the perfect answer because I hate creating new leftover ingredients when repurposing other leftovers.
When I was in college a sorority sister Lisa used to look at the weekly menu posted on our hall bulletin board and follow the food through the week; roast chicken – Sunday, Open faced hot chicken sandwiches – Tuesday, Chicken salad – Wednesday and Chicken noodle soup- Friday. Certainly the food service had to add more chicken somewhere along the week, but they were hedging their bets incase it did not all get eaten.
For me the secret is not in the reworking food, sometime the second dish is way better than the first, my issue is making sure I take it out of the freezer and serve it. Since it is rarely in my calorie wheel I have to convince someone else that they want a frozen meal. Being homemade is not the big selling point here. I hope the ice cream goes before I hit some monthly craving and remember it’s in there.
Officially My Least Favorite Day
Posted: January 3, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: putting Christmas away, Return to sender, UTF Leave a comment
Today is officially my least favorite day of the year so it’s nice to get it out of the way so every other day this year can be better. This is the day that I strip my house of all things glittery, shinny and twinkling bright, and put the Christmas ornaments away. To be truthful I am not done putting it all up yet so tomorrow will be my second least favorite day.
See, with 31 hinged-toped crates, nine giant bags, six odd-shaped specialty boxes and seven larger-than-a-piano Christmas tree bags it is a lot to put away. That does not include the flowerpot soldiers, large lanterns, The Happy Birthday Baby Jesus wire glitter tree and the larger and more tasteful wire tree. I also have not taken down this year’s addition to the Christmas extravaganza, the needlepoint garlands. I am not sure I have enough hinged-top crates and this may mean a trip to Costco tomorrow. If our attic ever caves in and kills us in our sleep the headline should read, “Crushed by her love of Christmas.”
The other thing that just happened to occur today that adds to its sadness is the postman returned four Christmas cards I sent as “UTF.” Sounds like a sexual disease, but it means “Unable to Forward” or, as Elvis would have said it, “Return to Sender.” One of the cards is my fault, I had two addresses for my friend Tom and his wife Ev and I chose the wrong one, but the others are for friends whose only contact was the Christmas card.
These people who are not Facebook friends, or that we even have valid e-mail addresses for are probably lost for good. I also got two misdirected pieces of mail that were for neighbors. One was for a neighbor who passed away and the other was for a neighbor who had moved about 16 years ago. Neither of these envelopes had return addresses and I guess that the postman figured I might know where they should be sent since after living here for 20 years we are the longest residence still around. Sadly, I have no idea where these cards should go, so the senders will go on thinking their well wishes were received. Maybe that is better than getting them back “UTF.”
Since this is my least favorite day I finally got around to getting Carter and myself our flu shots. I know it’s late, but I was waiting for the joy of the holidays to be over so I did not ruin a good day.
Good-bye holidays, good-bye the glow of the lights of the tree, hello darkness and cold of January. At least the days are getting a few minutes longer now and I can begin to dream of spring break and summer vacations. Time to start researching foreign lands and new memories to make.
Did You Weigh Yourself Today?
Posted: January 2, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy 3 CommentsI have a friend who worked hard to lose weight last year. She did a great job eating salmon with lemon and spinach at lunch until she got to her goal weight. Today she confessed that she got on the scale this morning for the first time since October and had gained six pounds. When she did the calculations it worked out to just about one glass of wine and half a cookie extra each day in those three months to gain six pounds.
One glass of wine and half a cookie does not seem like much but if she had just 230 extra calories everyday all year she would gain twenty four pounds in a year. Now how does that wine and cookie sound?
I like to get on the scale every morning. I know there are people who say they only do it once a week or once a year at their physical exam, but I need a daily reminder so that I don’t have that extra 230 calories for a couple of days in a row.
If I was not very good the day before not getting on the scale is not going to make it disappear. Accountability to myself means that I have to face the music, and dealing with it right away rather than three months later is much easier. If I ate 400 calories more than I should yesterday I can eat 200 fewer for the next two days and at least get back to a zero sum game. One pound gained is 3,500 calories more than you needed. That is fairly easy to do. 3,500 less than you need is really hard.
That same accountability is what I need for exercise. That is why keeping count of my steps has been a huge boon for me. Carter wanted to go horse back riding today. I said I would take her and get my steps in then. I also brought Shay Shay for a good walk for her. Of course it started raining as soon as we got to the barn. Carter said I could sit in the car, but she did not understand this was the allotted time in my day to get my steps. Since I am not a runner walking 10,000 steps takes some time. Time is a luxury.
Shay and I circled the farm traipsing through horse you-know-what in the rain. When we both looked like wet rats covered in poop we went to the car and stripped down. Carter volunteered to give Shay a bath when we got home which seemed like a fair trade. Tomorrow I am going to have to do a through cleaning of the inside of my car.
Just like calories in, walking, working out or other exercise is already calculated in my day. Without working some of the calories off, and I know that my totally efficient body does not work off half as much as the exercise machines predict it is burning, I could easily stop losing and start gaining. Those tiny amounts add up quickly.
If your resolution is to get in better shape, take note of how hard it is to get those pounds off. The worst thing is to lose them only to find them again, soon and quickly. Trust me on this, I am an expert and I would love to save you the yoyo heartache.
Don’t Hate January, It’s December’s Fault
Posted: January 1, 2014 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: January resolutions Leave a comment
Welcome to January, the month of guilt, regret and deprivation. I swear that December is so naughty just to make you hate January. In December you are practically encouraged to live it up like there will never be another chocolate peppermint stick cheesecake on earth so you better get as much of it as you can in December. Nothing about December encourages health. Go hog wild because January is coming and you know what is going to happen in January, lonely, cold, suffering, withdrawal and denial.
If you lived December as if it were your last then it is time to pay the price for actually staying alive. Every magazine, TV commercial, talk show and the like are now telling you to face the music your wrote in December; the you-ate-too-much-drank-too-much-exercised-too-little song that your hips are now singing. It stinks.
It took me fifty-two year of living to learn not to be seduced by December. Yes, Christmas is still my favorite time of year, but not because of the food, I have learned to love the decorating more because it has no calories, as long as I don’t lick the gingerbread house.
I took on the last two months of the year with great gusto to not gain weight during the “eating season.” Please don’t hate me when I tell you that I woke up this morning and got on the scale and weighed less on the first day in 2014 than I did on any day in 2013, except for the morning I went for my colonoscopy. Now I am still twenty pounds away from a weight I would really like to get to and stay, and stay and stay, but I am thrilled that I did not ramp up in December just so I could jump into January with the rest of the diet resolution population. I actually don’t think I have ever had a year where my resolution was not about losing weight and it still is.
If you are in the majority and are looking to drop those holiday pounds and any others you found this year or in previous years it is never too late to start. There are many ways to lose weight and almost all of them work if you just stick to it. There is one bit of wisdom I learned at Weight Watchers so many years ago that holds true to any diet plan, “Show up, pay attention, ask questions, don’t quit.”
I would like to add something that really helps me, “Make it public.” If you tell people you are trying to lose weight you are more likely to stick with it or get back to it if you veer off than if you keep it a secret. It is rarely a secret that you need to lose weight, if you really do, everyone can see it.
If you want to join me in my twenty-pound push to the goal line send me a message, either privately or publically. I will keep it quiet if that is what you wish, but even just sharing the burden with one person lightens the load.
So Happy New Year! I hope that December did not add to your troubles and that January is the start to your best year yet.
In Need of Juice
Posted: December 31, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: charging, electricity, power Leave a commentIt seems like my life is tied to chargers, not the football kind, but the electrical ones. I know that I am not alone in my dependency on things with batteries that require constant boosts of electricity. My phones, computer, Ipad, fitbit are just the things sitting by me at this moment that are in daily need of charging. There are also those left often used items like cameras, camera flashes, label makers, flash lights and so on that need to be charged and never seem to be when I need them.
It seems I never have the charging cord when I am in the most vital need for a juice up. The worst is to be away from home as you see the battery bars on your most vital device dwindling down.
I know that juice bars are a big thing these days, but they are selling the wrong kind of juice. I would like an electricity bar that has a room full of charging cords for every possible device hanging from the ceiling. Really the juice you drink bar could install the juice you power up with connection center and do double duty. Call it “All Juiced Up.”
Even better would be the invention of cordless electricity. We have blue tooth through the air, isn’t it time to have power through the air? Electricity has existed in the air in the form of lightening bolts as long as the earth has been around so why can’t someone figure out a way to harness it and send it to all our devices on a constant and steady stream?
The idea that a lamp has to be plugged into a wall with a cord seems incredibly antiquated. Cords running hither and yon across a floor are a hazard. I am surprised that insurance companies have not pushed for this idea long ago.
Of course energy producing companies probably don’t want electricity to be free in the air so the first invention needs to be the “through the air electricity meter”. Once that exists then they might be interested in working to create cordless power. I guess the electrical wire lobby has been behind the killing of this “no cord needed” idea, but really I think we can take them if we all band together.
So start pestering all the brilliant electrical engineers you know. Actually, just whisper this idea into the ear of a few brilliant children. I know we can get this sooner rather than later. I need it now because my computer battery is about to die and I don’t want to get off the treadmill desk to go get the charging cord until I have my 10,000 steps. The only problem is my fitbit that is counting my steps is running low on juice too. Hurry, someone invent cordless electricity now!
Don’t Give Your Money to The Government
Posted: December 30, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC Leave a comment
Today is one of my favorite days when Russ and I talk about our charitable giving for the year-end. This year Carter got in on the conversation too. She said she thought it would be cool to be like Bill Gates and get to spend our time making big difference with big time giving. I told her that it’s not just big givers who make a difference, but if lots of people just gave a little it really star add up.
Everyone who knows me knows that the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC is the cause I am most passionate about. The Food Bank is one of those charities that gets the majority of its gifts from people making small contributions. I am always touched when I am manning a collection point for a food and funds drive by the people who come up and press a twenty dollar bill in my hand and say, “I wish it could be more, but I am very thankful for the help I got from the Food Bank myself.”
For that person for whom $20 is a lot of money giving it back to the Food Bank as thanks really chokes me up.
As it is for most Charities December is the most important month in our year. We depend on the year-end donations to make up a huge percentage of our budget. We have a Charity Navigator Four star rating because we are very efficient with the money we are given because we always try and keep those small donors who dig so deep to support us at the forefront of our minds. The problem is that even though we have grown every year in the amount of food, 52 million pounds last year, we are providing to the hungry in 34 counties in NC the need keeps out pacing us.
There is only one day left to give your money to a worthy cause to help save yourself from giving it to the government in taxes if you don’t. I hope that you have a little bit more than you needed this year and that you do not have to depend on organizations like the Food Bank for your most basic needs. If you want to have some fun give some money away in the next twenty-four hours.
If you chose to give it to the Food Bank you can just click here http://www.foodbankcenc.org/HolidayMeals to make a donation online easy as pie. Know that for every dollar you give the Food Bank can turn it into ten dollars worth of food. That kind of multiplier is hard to beat.
Even if you don’t give to the Food Bank I hope that you can get some joy out of giving to something you are passionate about. You may never know the people you impact, be it students at a school you support or musicians at the Symphony or a homeless family who gets a home through Habitat, but if everyone who has a little something extra gives a little it all adds up to making our community a better place.
Bless you and your family this holiday season and know that I am thankful for you all.
Rule Breaking Friends
Posted: December 29, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: hostess gifts part 2 Leave a commentOnce my house is decorated for Christmas I like to take advantage of all the sparkle, twinkle and shine and have people over for frivolity, fun and food as much as possible. I wrote earlier in the season that I really don’t want or expect hostess gifts and even though most everyone who is invited to my house reads this blog, at least once in a while, they all ignored me.
I guess the southern social mores are just too strongly ingrained in the group I hang with, but many even apologized as they came through the door and handed me a bag knowing they were disobeying my wishes. Some even tried to sneak a gift in without my seeing it, leaving it under a table or tucked behind the Christmas tree. I guess I will have to forgive them because I actually like these people and most of them actually brought a very thoughtful gift.
As the party ended last night and the last guest was heading down our front walkway all the lights in the house went out. I was standing at the open front door calling out goodbye as I was suddenly thrust into darkness and I thought, “Wow, they brought a present and took my electricity home with them.” Really, I thought that between giving walking desk demonstrations and running over 500,000 Christmas lights during a party I had blown our whole electrical system. But I looked around and noticed that every other house in the neighborhood was black.
I heard a loud voice coming from the garage as a caterer was calling for help since she was standing in a strange garage full of sharp objects and a hot stove with no flash light. Russ came to the rescue gathering all the lanterns, flash lights, candles and I phones he could find so that we could continue cleaning up and let the help go home.
At last all the plates were loaded in the dishwasher waiting the return of current to run it and all the empty bottles had been taken to recycling. I decided that I would not try and tackle the gaggle of gifts in the dark and took to my bed with Carter who did not want to go to her end of the house alone in the dark. Russ was relegated to the guest room where he watched videos on his Ipad that still had a charge.
The power returned in the night and so by the time I got out of bed Russ had already washed the remaining platters, run the dishwasher and tidied up. Sometime after two in the afternoon I noticed that tissue paper had been pulled from one of the unopened hostess gifts. I look around the bag and nothing seemed too disturbed, but I thought it was as good a time as any to open the loot.
I picked up the bag I assumed the tissue had been in and found a holiday coffee mug with a gift enclosure saying, “from Beth and Mike… Peanut Butter Fudge.” I thought that was an interesting Holiday greeting considering it was a mug. I continued opening, frames, wine, oil and vinegar, my cup over runneth.
Shay came into the living room to sniff around while I was opening. I reached down to give her a snuggle and that’s when I caught a whiff of the distinct smell of peanut butter. I went into the sunroom and found a small perfectly clean Ziploc bag with the corner torn open. I think that explains the “Peanut Butter Fudge” note.
So now I have a new request to all my guests who may read this. Not only do I really just want your company and maybe an invitation to your house in the next ten years, rather than a hostess gift, but if you do bring one and it is food, put it up high, unless it is for Shay. The good news in this story is that peanut butter fudge is one of my favorite things and Beth is a fabulous cook so it is all for the best that Shay Shay ate it and I did not.
The moral of this story is I can’t depend on any of these gift giving friends to be the ones who are in charge of my living will because if they can’t follow my wishes about not bringing gifts they certainly can’t be depended upon to pull the plug on me when the time comes.
Note: This is the first blog I have written while standing at my walking desk. I got three thousand steps doing it.
The Best Suggestion I Got This Year
Posted: December 28, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: walking desk 4 Comments
Not all my blog readers know me or know that sometimes I write things in jest. I often get some helpful suggestions to rhetorical questions. I am never put off by these kind responses to my writing, but I do wonder when I write about some insane idea that is clearly a joke to me if my serious readers think I am just a fool.
I put this blog in the Diet Comedy Blog Category, a group which is very small since most information about dieting is way too serious/boring/or dry. No professionals in the weight loss world are actually allowed to be funny because no one wants to be laughed at about being fat. Luckily I am neither a professional nor employed in the weight loss world. Now, I have known a few funny trainers in my day and they are the ones who have figured out that if you can keep a client’s mind off the torture you are inflicting on them by keeping them laughing you will have clients who will keep coming back to work out.
Sometime this summer I wrote a blog about wanting to be able to walk around and needlepoint at the same time. A college friend, Christy, who is a professional trainer with a good sense of humor, suggested I get a walking desk and sent me a link to the website.
I studied the videos, read the testimonials, searched out reviews then told Russ it was what I wanted for Christmas. Russ is a well trained husband and not only does he actually get me what I ask for, but if it is an appliance he gets me something else that is more personal and fun. I won’t go into those great gifts, but Russ could give husband gift giving lessons for money.
Anyway…three days before Christmas a tractor trailer pulls up to the house and puts a pallet with two giant boxes in the garage. Last night at 8:30 I convinced Russ that we needed to disassemble my whole office and install my new walking desk since we needed the garage for a party today. It was a big job because I had to take apart my sitting desk and move two thirds of it to other places.
Russ is good at reading instructions written by people who don’t talk to humans and was able to put the whole new walking desk together with just some lifting help from me. By 11:00 PM I was walking and working on my computer at the same time. My office is a big mess and I am not going to be able to reorganize it while walking on the treadmill, but I certainly think that I won’t have trouble getting in my steps everyday now. I read the mail and paid some bills and got 1,500 steps just for that busy work. When I checked my fitbit last night I had gotten 14,159 steps yesterday. Next thing I need to help keeping me moving is a flat screen for over the fireplace in my office. I can’t wait until Valentines Day.
The Christmas That Wasn’t
Posted: December 26, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: gifts, sick 5 Comments
Well this is what I get for giving myself one really decadent Christmas Eve meal, food poisoning. And my poor friend Logan, who loves a good meal better than any human on earth, he too got whatever horrible e-coli bug I did. The good news is that the rest of our families some how escaped the gut wrenching bug.
I think the culprit was the last minute kale salad. It was the only raw thing we had and is most suspect. I tried not to eat very large amounts of the terribly rich food, but that night as I lay in bed I told Russ that my system just could not take that kind of food anymore. Through the night I thought I heard the sounds of hooves on the roof, but it was probably the delirium starting to set in and not Santa visiting our house. By morning I was sick as a dog.
So I slept through Christmas. It was pitiful and sad. Russ, Carter and Shay went up to my parents without me. Only Shay was happy to get to run free at the farm and really didn’t notice I was not there.
The part about Christmas I missed the most was giving my presents. I know that I was an unenthusiastic opener myself on Christmas morning when Russ and Carter were so excited about the things they had lovingly picked out for me. I would like a whole do over of the day so I can properly show my loved ones how much they and their kindnesses mean to me.
The only good thing about the whole situation was the three pounds I lost, but I know that as soon as I eat again they will find me. The good news is for my next party I am going to have a caterer. I am doing my best not to kill any guests or myself ever again. I hope you had the best Christmas ever, that all the sweaters you got flatter you and that nothing went right into the regifting closet.
The Christmas That Wasn’t
Well this is what I get for giving myself one really decadent Christmas Eve meal, food poisoning. And my poor friend Logan, who loves a good meal better than any human on earth, he too got whatever horrible e-coli bug I did. The good news is that the rest of our families some how escaped the gut wrenching bug.
I think the culprit was the last minute kale salad. It was the only raw thing we had and is most suspect. I tried not to eat very large amounts of the terribly rich food, but that night as I lay in bed I told Russ that my system just could not take that kind of food anymore. Through the night I thought I heard the sounds of hooves on the roof, but it was probably the delirium starting to set in and not Santa visiting our house. By morning I was sick as a dog.
So I slept through Christmas. It was pitiful and sad. Russ, Carter and Shay went up to my parents without me. Only Shay was happy to get to run free at the farm and really didn’t notice I was not there.
The part about Christmas I missed the most was giving my presents. I know that I was an unenthusiastic opener myself on Christmas morning when Russ and Carter were so excited about the things they had lovingly picked out for me. I would like a whole do over of the day so I can properly show my loved ones how much they and their kindnesses mean to me.
The only good thing about the whole situation was the three pounds I lost, but I know that as soon as I eat again they will find me. The good news is for my next party I am going to have a caterer. I am doing my best not to kill any guests or myself ever again. I hope you had the best Christmas ever, that all the sweaters you got flatter you and that nothing went right into the regifting closet.
Merry Christmas! a holiday greeting from Dana’s elves
Posted: December 25, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized 3 CommentsDana has been sick – and asleep – all day. Too sick to write her own post , but she hopes everyone has had a very Merry Christmas.
Until tomorrow…
Carter, Russ and Shay Shay
Christmas Eve Thanks
Posted: December 24, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Christmas eve, dinner Leave a comment
Our Shay Shay’s confused we are all home today.
Mama’s been cooking the old fashioned fattening way.
Standing rib roast, cauliflower au gratin,
Sweet potatoes with bacon pecan chili topin’.
Gingerbread cake with caramel sauce and apples for sinners
The calories abound at Christmas Eve dinners.
The table is set awaiting friends to arrive
Bringing the greens to fill out the sides.
We’ll start with some cheese – goat is the best
Served on rosemary raisin crackers with zest.
A top I will spread a dollop of jam,
Only slightly less evil than a sliver of ham.
We will not sit down at the table to eat
Until the popovers are popped and full of big heat.
When you starve all year long awaiting this meal
You try not to wolf it down with great zeal.
For Christmas is about giving thanks for our savior
And not about all those holiday flavors.
Fear Not the Take Over of the Machines
Posted: December 23, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Eve of Christmas Eve Leave a comment
With no idea what I was going to blog about today I finally sat down for the first time today — I don’t count driving the car in crazy Christmas traffic sitting. I opened my computer and up popped not just one but two calendar reminder messages with a little alarm clock icon that read “Christmas Eve tomorrow.” No Shit. Does my computer think I don’t know that today is the eve of Christmas Eve? I am no longer worried that machines are going to take over the world.
My computer should know from the lists I have been writing to see who has been naughty and who has been nice that I am in full on Christmas preparation. If the Google searching for the right gifts is not evidence then the Pintrest pinnings in “Christmas Dinner ideas” should scream loud and clear “I am working on the holiday.”
The food searches for gingerbread and Yorkshire pudding and my computer, if it were truly intelligent, would hint that something big was up since I have not looked at a carb recipe in months. But no, the machine feels the need to remind me.
Perhaps she feels neglected since I spent all day Saturday hand writing out 300 Christmas cards. There is a lot to be said for e-mailing cards. My computer probably liked the year we sent a Jib-jab card with Russ, Carter and me in full-blown Afro’s disco dancing across the screen to some Christmas jingle. I like to change it up and send a real card every once in a while, but my computer certainly felt neglected that day.
Maybe my computer was worried I had missed the Christmas is coming hints from the 15,673 marketing e-mails from every store within a 300 mile radius and every online retailer I ever order from since I deleted them as fast as they were clogging up my inbox.
I got it, tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. The presents are mostly wrapped, the Christmas Eve dinner is half cooked, the church service is on the calendar so dear computer no need to remind me again. I’m interested to know if you are going to remind me tomorrow that the next day is Christmas.
Army Diet
Posted: December 22, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Army, Canadian Air Force Leave a comment
This morning on CBS Sunday morning they did a feature on the Army trying to update their mess halls’ food to make it healthier. First I should correct myself, they no longer call the places where soldiers eat Mess Halls, but dining rooms.
The scene was a dining room at Fort Bragg, not too far from us in North Carolina. It was soul food day and the food serving line was full of macaroni and cheese, corn bread, fried chicken and ribs, they did have collard greens, but I think they were cooked in fat back. Come on, it was soul food day of course it was all fattening.
Anyway, the army has brought in chefs from the CIA, that’s the good CIA-Culinary Institute of America to sneak healthy food into the army diets. They also put little signs on the food to show which were the best offerings, green for good, yellow for OK and red for you-better-just-eat-a-little-of–this. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The second you start telling people that they should not have macaroni and cheese often that is all they can think about.
Now the army is in better shape than the rest of America, literally. Only ten percent of them are overweight since working out is a big part of their job, and most of them are young men who still have fabulous metabolisms. It will be better for all of them to eat a healthy diet, but just don’t tell young men that you have snuck quinoa into their apple cobbler, just do it. It is the same thing mothers have been doing for years. Carrots shreds in spaghetti sauce are never noticed and therefore never complained about.
Since our tax dollars are going to these CIA chefs creating recipes I would like them to share them with the rest of America who are something like fifty percent being over weight.
When I was a kid the first exercise book I ever saw was a little paperback my father had that was the Canadian Air force exercise program. I don’t think my Dad knew any Canadians and I certainly had never heard they had an air force of any kind, who were they protecting, polar bears? But they had a great work out routine complete with pictures of how to do lunges, way ahead of its time in 1968.
I guess that if I had a job where I would probably stay alive longer if I were able to run faster while carrying a heavy gun I would be in better shape. Since my hobby job at Durham Magazine and my passion job of head of the board at the Food Bank require only heavy mental lifting I don’t have the needed job requirements for working out. Perhaps the Canadian Air Force could use me as a consultant of some kind. I always liked looking at that little book with cute guys doing push ups.
All Is Right In The World
Posted: December 21, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: frosty, inflatable snowman Leave a comment
Whoever says they don’t believe in Christmas miracles is no friend of mine. We have had our small, and I mean this in the tiniest way, Christmas miracle. The new snowman Russ ordered to replace his beloved ten-year-old 12 foot inflatable one arrived yesterday, a whole two weeks earlier than anticipated.
So against Shay Shay’s wishes, Russ put our new Frosty up today. See Shay is afraid of the snowman and if I thought she could open the front door and let herself both outside and back inside without us knowing I would say she took the last snowman down.
Just as the sun was setting he tied down Frosty’s stabilizing lines and the new and improved lights inside her glowed brightly. A running neighbor, Peggy rounded the corner and exclaimed, “Frosty’s back!”
So for all the children who let us know that our snowman was down in a puddle in the front yard the magic of Christmas has been restored. Thanks for the condolence notes we received about our first snowman. I must have had three-dozen comments in the last five days.
Santa is going to be able to find our house now that we have a glowing white beacon of the season in the front yard. At seventy five degrees today our inflatable Frosty is the only way to go.
I Want a Grinch
Posted: December 20, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: grinch Leave a comment
Then he slunk to the icebox. He took the Who’s feast!
He took the Who-pudding! He took the roast beast!
He cleaned out that icebox as quick as a flash.
Why that Grinch even took their last can of Who-hash!
Then he stuffed all the food up the Chimney with glee.
“And NOW!” grinned the Grinch, “I will stuff up the tree!”
…And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse.
I am looking for this food stealing Grinch
To come to my kitchen, pantry and fridge.
This man who can clean out all of my goodies
And leave me with nothing from those gift-giving foodies.
A Grinch who could follow me around parties
And take from my plate all the fattening tarties.
Perhaps one day I can be an innocent Who
For which a cup of water and a pat on the head will do.
Gifts You Can’t Wrap
Posted: December 19, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: gift wrapping 2 Comments
Today was the start of my wrap-a-palazzo. I don’t know why I wait so late to start wrapping; I’ve had most of my gifts for months. This is the day I discover that I have bought too many gifts for one person and not enough for another. So the gift rebalancing must happen.
Rebalancing is not that hard when you have a family made up mainly of girls. The only problem comes in the monogrammed, personalized area. I guess I could always save a gift for another year, but that certainly would mean that I could forget about that gift all together and find it in April three years later. So everyone is getting all the gifts that I intended to give him or her.
Wrapping is something I am torn about. No pun intended there. I love to create a beautiful package, but I don’t want my box, paper, ribbon, tag and any possible ornamentation to be worth more than the gift inside. I also hate to throw away all those beautiful ribbons.
I know this love of a beautifully wrapped gift came from my maternal Grandmother Mima. Every year the most gorgeous presents would arrive at our Connecticut home all the way from Knoxville, Tennessee. Each gift looked completely different from the next and all were works of art that even Martha Stewart could learn from.
I am in no way worthy to be in Mima’s league. I normally have a color theme and only use a couple of papers but lots of different ribbons, but everything must coordinate. Ribbons are my real passion. I absolutely will not confess to how many ribbons I have, but I probably don’t need to ever in my whole life purchase another ribbon, but don’t hold me to that.
The funniest thing about my love of a beautifully wrapped gift is that I really don’t want any wrapped gifts myself. The only things I want (besides needlepoint gift certificates) are experiences to share with loved ones. OK, I take that back, there is one thing — a magical redo of my closets where all my summer shoes were taken out and all my winter shoes were reorganized as well as all my summer and winter clothes which were organized by size, type and color. This is a gift I probably can only give myself so I wish that I was Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie and I could just blink and with the flip of my pony tail my closets were done, that and I had Barbara Eden’s body.
While I am Jeannie I also wish that hunger could be ended and everyone had good job opportunities, that people were tolerant of the way other’s were born and let’s throw in world peace. See those things could never be wrapped because no wrapping on earth would ever be worthy of making a happier world.
Salad on a Stick
Posted: December 18, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: appetizers, hors d'oeuvres 1 Comment
Recently I was looking for a healthy recipe for an hors d’oeuvre to bring to a party. Normally I don’t need a recipe for something for a party. Lord, I have cooked for at least a thousand parties between my catering business and my own entertaining. But the problem is when I think about an appetizer or finger food my mind goes to cheesy, or bacony, or bready something.
Think about the top ten finger foods:
Ham biscuits, that makes it in two categories
Baked Brie—again two check marks there because it is not just a cheese, but it either has puff pastry around it and or it is spread on a slice of French bread
Spinach artichoke dip – don’t be fooled by the mention of not just one, but two vegetables in the name, the majority of it is mayonnaise and cheese and it also must be served on something, usually a cracker or bread
Stuffed Mushrooms – Just a hollow place for hot cheese or even better crabmeat and hot cheese
Anything wrapped in bacon – of course
Crostini- that’s Italian for toast with something fattening on it
Cheese puffs or anything with the word puff in it– that just means that the butter is so well incorporated into it that is turns into butter air
Fried mozzarella- Fried equals bread and fat together then add the cheese
Mini Pizzas- This could be the mother load if you also put bacon on them
Shrimp Cocktail- – Ta Da- a healthy hors d’oeuvre. The one in ten.
Of course there is the veggie platter. I often am the only one eating it and always want to make a host happy they went to the trouble to prep all those colorful vegetables, but it is not the appetizer that makes most people really happy. Why is it that party food is the last hold out of 1960’s cuisine? If someone could just invent a salad on a stick I could be a really happy guest.
The Loss of a Loved One
Posted: December 17, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: snowmen Leave a comment
We love snowmen in out house. Well, not the real wet kind of snowmen and not in the house. Although there are more than a gaggle of snowmen in the entry hall and probably a few hundred on the Christmas tree, but a few hundred out of a few thousand ornaments is not that many.
Our family love of Snowmen can be tracked back to Dec. 6, 2003 when Carter had her snow princess fifth birthday party. Russ and I found a twelve-foot tall inflatable snowman that greeted Carter’s princess guests as they came to the house. The snowman became quite popular in our neighborhood and somehow I was now a person who displayed an inflatable.
Since the snowman was holiday appropriate we left him up that season until Christmas was over. The next year came and people, especially those with little children asked us where our snowman was. So Russ would go to the attic and drag down the box. Each year more and more people would know us as the house with the snowman. Somehow it was OK with me since it was twelve feet tall and if you are going to have an inflatable it better be just one giant one.
Each year Russ and Carter would have to make some repair to what was bought as one time use item. The base broke apart, but they fashioned a new one out of wood and tie wraps, a hole would open up, but a small bit of duct tape would take care of that, a light would blow out, but new snowman appropriate light bulbs were available at Home Depot. Sometimes the snowman would go down and Russ would announce it might be the end of our beloved. Last year some young hooligans actually set a firecracker off at the base of the snowman, but he survived.
This year on Margaret Jones Honorary Luminary day as I was setting out my 75 white luminary bags I noticed the sun was shinning on the snowman in the most beautiful way. I took a picture of the front lawn with the bags and the snowman thinking about the changes that the snowman has seen in the last ten years.
Little did I know that luminary day was going to be the last one for our wonderful giant friend. After a decade of service the fan motor that keeps the snowman up gave way. He lay deflated in a crumpled wad of nylon on the bare grass.
You never know when it will be time to say goodbye to a family member, even one that is just full of hot air. I’m glad I got that last picture. Russ seemed to take it the hardest. He came right in the house after the no resuscitation diagnosis and got on the Internet looking for a new snowman. I quickly vetoed paying $400 for a 26-foot model. He found a new one and ordered it even though it probably won’t come until after New Years. I guess we are destined to be known as the house with the snowman.
Sweet Potato, Brussels Sprout, Hash
Posted: December 16, 2013 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: Brussels Spouts, sweet potatoes Leave a comment
Carter calls this fancy food, which is the opposite of what a hash is. Any winter vegetables would work in this.
2 Sweet Potatoes peeled and cubed into ½ inch chunks
2 cups of Brussels sprouts halved
1 large onion chopped
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
Pinch of nutmeg
Salt and pepper
To ensure that everything is cooked properly I cook each vegetable individually and then mix it together. In a fry pan, sprayed with Pam put the sweet potatoes on medium heat and add ½ cup of water. Cook until all the water is out and then stir often until the sweet potatoes are soft and brown a little, salt and pepper them. Set aside. Do the same with the Brussels spouts, adding nutmeg and salt and pepper at the end.
Sauté mushrooms and onions in a fry pan and mix it all together with the cooked sweet potatoes and sprouts.
Christmas Card Photo Day
Posted: December 15, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Christmas Card Leave a comment
When Carter was little I never had any trouble making our Christmas card because I literally had thousands of photos from the year to choose from. It is easy when you only have one child to make a Christmas card since you don’t have to worry if a picture is better of one child than an other. I could just pick the photo that was not just cute but really represented what Carter looked like that year.
Sometimes I picked a picture that illustrated a story from the year. My favorite one, which is worth repeating, is the time when Carter was probably five and we drove through the bank and Carter asked why the male bank teller was wearing a necklace. After we drove off I told her that he was wearing a crucifix and that showed he believed in Jesus. Carter announced she wanted an “I believe in God necklace too.”
A few days later we were walking through Sears, it seems like we walked through Sears a lot back then to get somewhere else. As we passed the jewelry section I saw that Crosses were on sale for 85% off. I guess that Jesus has a sale season. So I asked Carter if she wanted to get one. She looked at all the stock available and picked out a small dolphin from the many crucifixes. I told her that was not a Cross and she responded, “No, it’s an I believe in God dolphin.”
Well this year there are few repeatable cute stories that relate to the season. At fifteen not only am I banned from giving out personal information, but also Carter had to have veto power over any photo I might use on a Christmas card.
Since Shay Shay is now included in our card I have the dilemma that people with multiple children have of having to pick the photo that looks good of both of them. Of course Carter did not pick any of my top three choices but then she forgot I have a blog and can publish one here. So included is the photo that will not be on our card.
My cards might get to out the week between Christmas and New Years this year and I am considering that a triumph.
The Exam Period Ruin of Christmas
Posted: December 14, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: dryers, exams, washers Leave a comment
The holidays officially came to a big time pause today. This is exam week for Carter. She may only be a freshman but now-a-days even freshman year counts towards getting into college. It stinks. No parties or fun, no Christmas music, no celebrations or preparations, except for exams.
Of course the pouring cold rain is adding to the need to be studying feeling in the house. Now I can’t help with any of the studying. The test taking is all up to Carter, but I still feel the need to be around to create an atmosphere that is conducive to learning. Even Russ woke up this morning and told me about a dream he had about having to take the SAT and needing to study math. I am sure that Russ could take the SAT without doing any studying and do quite fine so why he is having the school anxiety dream I am uncertain.
Feeling guilty about doing anything fun while Carter was stuck in her study cave Russ and I went out in the cold wet day to do the one thing that she did not want to so, to look at new washers and dryers. I was using this trip to Home Depot as a covert way to get my steps in since I was not going to walk the neighborhood and get soaking wet.
Researching washer and dryers is a horrible job. Yes we have Consumer Reports and all the tools the Internet has to overwhelm us with, but until you throw a really soiled towel in a machine and pull it from a dryer you have no idea if the duo you have chosen is a match made in heaven.
I have been thinking about a new washer and dryer for a long time. When front loaders first came out and were considered practically sexy Carter was about seven. One evening when Russ was on a business trip to China Carter and I went to the mall for dinner. We strolled through Sears on our way back to our car and lingered in the appliance department looking at the cherry red washer and dryer combos on their pedestal drawer units. A bored salesman, thrilled with a potential customer in the empty store quickly asked us if we were looking to buy. Carter in a very grown up way responded, “No, we are just dreaming.”
Eight years later I am still looking at washers, but with a little more urgency. I am less interested in the front loaders now that top loaders have gotten the center agitator removed, but I just don’t know. How much can one person read about machines? It seems like my exam schedule is to learn all I can about the market and make a decision for once and for all.
When Russ and I got home Carter decided it was a good time for us to have a really good mother daughter talk about all things non-exam related. Her procrastination may be fun for me but I eventually had to cut off the heart-felt talk and suggest she go back to the books. I still had load size specifications to review. I hate that exams ruin this week before Christmas.
Christmas as Seen Through Shay Shay’s Eyes
Posted: December 13, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: dog, labradoodle, Shay Shay 1 Comment
Christmas is big in our house, not news. The whole house gets turned upside down with decorations. Parties, celebrations, and general merriment happen almost daily. Vast amounts of good smelling foods are constantly being cooked. Delivery people are coming to the door, sometimes two or three at a time. Wrapping paper, bows, ribbons and especially tissue paper are plentiful. All these are things that Shay Shay, our beloved labradoodle loves. Christmas is her favorite time of year.
Today my friend Lynn, affectionately called Baby Chick in our house and I had a few friends over for a little lunch and Shay was sure the whole do was just for her. She would stand at the glass door staring out as friends, some new; some unfamiliar came to her door certainly to see her she thought. Festive in her big red bow she would stand on her hind legs and greet each guest.
Certain that she was the center of everyone’s attention she circled the table as people enjoyed their lunch, pausing by the person who laughed the loudest anticipating some food might fall from their mouth, but none did.
Shay is fairly well behaved, but she can show some frustration if none of these humans who came just to rub her belly were doing their job. At one point as Shay was demanding attention I told her, “Go jump in Baby Chick’s lap.” Shay turned from me and scanned the room and made a beeline for Lynn, bounding in an unladylike way on to her. Lynn and Shay are fast friends and Shay never misses an opportunity to exploit Lynn’s weakness for a furry lovey.
Although there were plenty of unattended plates of cake sitting right at Shay’s nose she waited to take a nibble until all the guests had left the room and then only had one small taste. She was greatly disappointed it was not a liver cake.
Shay politely waited until all the guests had gone before she took some tissue paper and ripped it into tiny shreds, as is her favorite pastime. When the house was empty she despondently lay by the Christmas tree surveying wondering when the next party would start. Like a small child on Christmas morning after all the presents have been unwrapped, Shay was a little let down.
But the party is not over yet. It is just the beginning of the whole holiday season. More cooking and wrapping, more friends will arrive, the festivities continue and as far as Shay thinks we are doing this all for her. After all she is the baby of the house and isn’t Christmas more magical when seen through the eyes of a child or at least a very cute dog?
Holiday Party Explosions
Posted: December 12, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy 1 Comment
I love to entertain which is no secret to anyone, but I really blow it out at the Holidays. I think that I use my ridiculously decorated house as an excuse to have yet another party. The Christmas is only thrown up for a month a year so how many people can I get into my house to enjoy it? It’s not like I run a Christmas house tour or something, but I love to have friends come and sit at my table and eat, laugh and tell stories.
This obsession with entertaining started early. I remember cooking a dinner for my friends and our dates before a cotillion dance in 8th grade. In college I made a full meal in my freshman dorm before a sorority dance for three couples. Even though I was able to make chicken in my toaster oven and fettuccini Alfredo in a hot pot I did not have the space to serve it the way I wanted. All five guests and myself had to sit on the floor around my trunk, which served as a table. Not the most comfortable for the girls in our dresses.
In my later years in college throwing parties got easier because I lived in a great house off campus that had a real dining room and kitchen. I remember Hugh Braithwaite loved my crab dip so much that when I ran out of crackers he used my dog Beau’s Kibble and Bit’s to scoop up the cheesy hot dip.
Now my dining room is set and ready for guests and having enough food does not seem to be a problem. The dilemma now is there are not enough days to have all the friends I want to come sit. Regular life gets in the way of Christmas merriment.
I don’t care about shopping or gifts. I just want the company of good friends, a yummy meal and lots of laughter to celebrate the season.
Warren’s Durham Day
Posted: December 11, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: warren, Watt's Grocery Leave a comment
After nineteen years of living in Durham my very old friend Warren finally came to visit us. We had been imposing on Warren for years on our family trips to Maine every summer to stay in his Howard Johnson inspired rooms in Rockport. See Warren collects all things Howard Johnson and happens to live on the beautiful clam cove in the mid-coast very near where we go to family camp.
Thanks to a man in Raleigh who was selling a large set of Howard Johnson ice cream fountain mirrors on e-bay Warren finally broke down and drove south to pick up his winning item. I convinced him that he needed to spend one day in Durham to help break up the two days of driving down and two days back. So one day in Durham is what he got.
When we first planned the visit I did not know that he would be here for drive-through-day for the Heart of Carolina Food Drive. When he arrived I gave Warren the choice of sleeping in or getting up early and coming to the Kroger store to help collect food from people and watch me be interviewed on TV.
Warren said he could sleep anytime, but he could not get many opportunities to try and distract me while being interviewed on live TV very often. I am happy to say that he did not run behind me or make rabbit ears or do anything that would make me look bad on TV. I think the highlight of the morning for Warren was the tour of the TV van, which looks more like a spaceship.
We followed that excitement with a tour of the neighborhood and a good walk for Shay, and then we headed downtown. I took Warren to Russ’ office at American Tobacco overlooking the Durham Bulls ball park to show him how great an old factory town can look when it get’s repurposed.
We then headed to Watts Grocery so he could experience real southern food done the modern way that only the brilliant Amy Tournquist can make it. Warren, the consummate Yankee was a chicken and waffles virgin so he was deflowered right there in Watts. There’s no putting that toothpaste back in the tube now that he has had a taste of that true southern specialty.
Following lunch we ran over to Chapel Hill and stopped at the needlepoint store to pick up some finished items and Warren got to meet some stitching buddies. He had to meet Nancy the owner since she has a great love of Howard Johnson for very personal reasons and she had heard all about Warren’s house when I stitched him a Ho Jo’s ornament as a thank you for our many visits.
We rounded the day out by setting up the house for a party, packing up the very large and fragile Ho Jo’s mirrors for the drive home, taking Carter by the mall and eating soup for dinner by the Christmas tree.
One fast day in Durham and it was great to have my friend who has known me for 37 years come and visit. In between all this activity we laughed and reminisced talking about all the friends and some others we have known through the years. I hope that someone else in North Carolina sells Warren an unmailable Ho Jo’s item so he can come back for another visit soon. Our family will certainly be imposing on him in Maine soon enough and I need to do some paybacks.
I’m On TV Tomorrow
Posted: December 10, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Food Bank, heart of Carolina 2 Comments
Tomorrow is the Food Bank’s last day of the Heart of Carolina Food Drive. This is the time of year when people are the most generous to those who have less. The Heart of Carolina is a great way to give to the people in our community who are hungry and is our biggest food and funds drive.
Helping people have enough to eat has changed from being an emergency event to a chronic one. Most of the over half a million people the Food Bank helps are the working poor and children. Our Food Bank is incredibly efficient with all we are given. We can turn every dollar into five meals. Ninety-seven percent of all our donations turn into food that goes right out to feed one of our neighbors.
Your help is needed and appreciated by so many people you may never know, but especially by me. Tomorrow I will be at the Kroger on Hillsborough St. in Durham at 7:30 AM and will be on ABC-11 TV during the local cut in of Good Morning America. If you can stop by and bring food or funds I would love to see you there.
If you can’t come out to Kroger please consider donating online. Last year so many of you donated to my Less Dana fund where you gave over $53,000 to the Food Bank. I will be eternally grateful to all of you who have supported the great work the Food Bank does.
I know that everyone is busy at 7:30 in the morning on December 11 so just click on this link to donate Heart of Carolina Donation. I hope that you and your family are always fortunate to never know hunger. I am fortunate to know you and count all you friends as one of my greatest blessings.
$3,791 a Day For Exercise is Just Too Much
Posted: December 9, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy 1 Comment
It’s raining again. I think the weather has been yucky for the last few days. Of course it is nothing in Durham like it is around most of the country. I am not going to complain about our rain when it could be ice or snow. But officially winter has not started yet and I do live in North Carolina so I feel entitled to nice weather 90% of the time.
Our dog Shay Shay who has never left the state also dislikes rain and cold weather. If we open our front door in the morning and it’s raining she stands at the glass door with a sad sack look on her face and turns and goes back to bed, opting to hold it rather than go out in the rain. I have to drag her outside and then she will go about three feet from the front door pee and run back to the house.
All this rain is not helping me get my exercise done. Yes I still go and see my trainer in the rain, but that exercise hardly registers any steps on my wrist master. I did some time on the elliptical only to discover no steps were registered with that machine. I guess the gliding motion does not count.
My friend Margaret, who lives in Minneapolis, texted me a picture of her gym this morning to show me how she is able to get her steps in. The room must have 300 exercise machines in it. Poor Margaret. When she used to live in Durham I would see her walking outdoors almost everyday. I can’t imagine doing all my steps inside.
Actually I can imagine it because that is what I have been doing the last few rainy days. Today after lunch I went to Costco. I thought I might really be able to get a lot of steps in there and stay dry and do some shopping all at the same time. I looked at my phone to see what number I was starting at. I had only gone a measly 3,005 steps by 1:45 in the afternoon.
With my cart and card in hand I started in at eh big screen TVs. I wanted to make the most of the steps as well as the Christmas shopping so I went up and down every aisle of the warehouse. I tried to keep up a good pace but some elderly shoppers as well as some interesting items slowed me up. For the record no senior citizens were injured in my workout/shopping trip.
I made sure not to miss a single aisle even the automotive one where I knew there was not one item I needed. I found many things to buy to the tune of spending $419. I was certain that I must have taken at least 2,500 steps. As I rolled my full cart out to the far reaches of the parking lot I looked at the step counter. Only 1105 steps!! That worked out to just under forty cents per step. WHAT! At that rate it would cost me $3,791 to get my 10,000 step goal.
I am giving up on getting steps shopping. It is hard enough to maneuver a cart around all those people browsing and avoiding the sampling elves yelling out, “Try my chocolate peppermint bark,” is enough to do me in. I did consider stopping in the Home Depot next door to get steps in without any temptations, but my socks were sliding down inside my shoes and I had a car full of expensive food that I thought I should get home.
I am hoping that the rain lets up soon and I can walk my dog outdoors like a good southern girl likes to do. I can’t bring myself to go to one of those exercise factories like Margaret has in the great cold north.
Step To It
Posted: December 8, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: fit bit, Nike fuel band, step counting bracelt 2 Comments
There is always one day during the season that seems to be more packed with holiday get togethers than any other and yesterday was it. Not only were there parties galore but it was also Carter’s birthday so Christmas and birthday celebrations had to be entwined together.
After Carter passed the driver’s test and was dropped off at school for a basketball ball game I was able to enjoy one of my favorite annual traditions, my friend Morgan’s annual wreath making party. Morgan is a queen of flower arrangements and loves to bring out women’s inner crafter by providing everything necessary to make a beautiful wreath from scratch. I love this party and have made some great wreaths over the years, but my real talent at this party is the bow making part of the craft.
Since I normally spend half my time making my own wreath and half making bows for other people I decided this year to just make bows. My friend Christy is also a bow princess herself so she and I set up shop in the bow room, which was an oriental rug covered room with a garage door that opened to the outside where the wreath making tables spanned the length of the driveway. Inside our room were tables and shelves covered in hundreds of different rolls of every kind of ribbon one could want; burlap, silk, sheer and sparkly. Martha Stewart would be jealous.
As we whipped up many different ribbon adornments for our friends beautiful creations Christy, who is also a Fit Bit wearer said to me, “I don’t think we are getting many steps in making these bows.” That’s when I started marching in place while looping the ribbon back and forth to create a pompom number.
Later that night while at my neighbor’s holiday cocktail party my friend Lee tapped her Nike Fuel band step counter on her wrist to see how many steps away from goal she was. That prompted us to take a spin around the host’s house to help us get closer to goal and visit the bar at the same time. I looked around the room and noticed that many of us middle aged women types had on our step counting bracelets with our cocktail dresses. I had not yet met my goal before going to that party so I needed to keep mine on.
I am happy to report that since I started wearing my Fit Bit I have lost five pounds. It is not all because of the steps I am taking but I have really cracked down on my portion control so that the holidays do not get the better of me. But the step counting is responsible for keeping me on track and acts as a constant reminder. Why would I want to put in all this work to get 10,000 steps a day and then blow it by eating too much?
I ended the day hosting Carter’s birthday get together by taking four girls to the Harris Teeter at midnight in their PJ’s to get some sleepover junk food. I was happy I had gotten all my steps in by then so I did not have to traipse through the store in my flannel nightgown. I’m fairly sure that no one at the grocery store at midnight had on a step counting bracelet anyway.
Happy Birthday Carter
Posted: December 7, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: driving 4 Comments
What would make a teenager wake up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning when she could sleep in? The answer has to be that it’s her fifteenth birthday and she was going to the DMV to take her learners permit test. Yes, Carter is fifteen today.
As I was driving her over in the grey drizzle of the morning light I thought about this day fifteen years ago when I was just looking forward to finally meeting Carter. I could not even imagine getting to this rite of passage then.
I looked over at my daughter who is a good four inches taller than me as she studied her road signs and I just blinked thinking about the day she learned to ride a bike without training wheels. I remember watching her ride with confidence away from me that first time and I cried knowing that it was the beginning of the independence a child feels when they control where they are going.
Of course I get to spend the next year in the passenger seat as she master’s driving amongst the other citizens on the road. Time in the car has always been a place of great discussions, confessions and advice. I am saddened thinking that I have only 365 short days left of our time together especially since I don’t really want her to tell me about her school day when she is driving.
Driving is one big step away from home. I’ve spent the years training her to be ready to go but have done nothing to get myself ready. All these driving courses and learners permits and provisional licenses and what is there for parents? No course in being ready for our child to leave the nest.
I am not a bird who lays an egg and pushes that baby out of the nest to learn to fly and then lays another egg and does it all over again. I have but one little bird, no more to come and although I want her to fly far and high I know I will miss her. I already miss holding the steering wheel.
So, happy birthday Carter. Congratulations on passing your learners permit test. Your father and I are very proud of who you have become and are still becoming. Just remember you are always welcome to sit in the passenger seat and tell me about your day.
Rest In Peace Nelson Mandela
Posted: December 5, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Nelson Mandela, South Africa Leave a comment
As a college student in the early eighties in America my exposure to South Africa was all about apartheid and the pressure on multinational companies doing business in South Africa to end human rights abuses. It was a very one-sided view of a complicated country and one that brought me no interest in ever going there.
Fast forward to 1996. Nelson Mandela had won the presidency two years before in the first multiracial elections after he negotiated the end to apartheid. Things were changing fast in South Africa but the news of the country still left me disinterested in visiting.
Then I was tasked with finding locations to shoot commercials for BT, the British Telephone Company and before I knew it I was on a place from London to Johannesburg. Although I was sick of hearing about South Africa from the years of news coverage I actually knew practically nothing about the country.
My disinterest was immediately replaced with a love at first sight in my first days in the beautiful country. The people I met there, both black and white, were incredibly kind, sweet, generous and interesting. I visited the homes of a tribe of Pedi who wore tartan kilts, game preserves that raised big cats, farms of Afrikaners who raised ostriches, the Kruger Park for safaris as well as the grand palace resort in Sun City.
People would ask me if in America I had heard of what Nelson Mandela was doing in South Africa. The question was posed to me with different inflections depending on who was doing the asking. I told them of course I had heard of him. Clearly things were changing fast in this country. The surprise I felt most is that all the people I met appeared to be the happiest people on earth. I don’t know if they were that way before Mandela’s election, but I have to guess they were inclined that way naturally because it was so genuine.
It came as a little bit of a shock to me since I had spent the fifteen previous years being bombarded by media reports of strife and great unhappiness in South Africa. Of course reality is not always the way things are portrayed in the news, but I definitely got the feeling that much of the good that was happening was due to the work that Nelson Mandela did.
South Africa is still the one place on earth I want to revisit. The people I met there made me feel welcomed and treasured. They were excited about the possibility of my shooting commercials in their beautiful country and showing the British that South Africa was so much more than the country that had apartheid. I am thankful I was able to visit South Africa when Nelson Mandela was President and see what he was doing. God Bless Nelson Mandela.
Sweet Potato Apple Bisque
Posted: December 4, 2013 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: apples, soup, sweet potato 2 Comments
Yesterday I made the trek over to the farmer’s market in Raleigh to buy my boxwood wreaths. While I was there I perused the fruits and vegetables being sold by local farmers. I am known to love a deal or two so I could not resist buying a forty-pound box of sweet potatoes for $20. Carter of course thought I was nuts, but they will keep through the winter in the garage and are the most nutritious starch I can think of. I also bought a half-peck of local apples. I was able to sample the different varieties so I got some pink ladies, honey crisp, crimson crisp and Fuji.
So with my larder full I of course needed to make something for dinner with my haul. Tonight’s dinner is soup that is gluten, dairy and meat free yet still yummy. Now I eat dairy so I garnished mine with a dollop of fat free sour cream. I am very happy.
1 large onion chopped
3 celery ribs chopped
1 T. thyme
4 cloves of garlic minced
2 T. ground cumin
1 t. ground cloves
1 t. allspice
Salt and pepper
3 cups of stock (vegetable or chicken)
1 cup of apple cider
1 cup of water
3 large sweet potatoes – peeled and chopped
3 apples – peeled and chopped
Spray Pam in a large stockpot and add the onions, celery and thyme. Cook on medium high heat for five minutes. Add garlic and spices and cook another two minutes, stirring often. Add the liquids, potatoes and apples, cover and simmer until tender about 25 minutes. Using and immersion blender puree the soup and taste for salt and pepper.
Cooking Contest
Posted: December 3, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy 3 Comments
I need a videographer. That sounds like a big word. I really just need someone to hold my phone and videotape me. I am thinking of entering a contest to get on a TV show that is a healthy cooking chef contest. I don’t have much time. The videos are due on Sunday.
I barely qualify since it is a contest for cooking professionals, but they say past cooking experience is acceptable and catering is one of the categories. Recipe developers also count and since my original recipes appear in Durham Magazine and I have been paid for them that makes me a professional.
The main thrust of the contest is to find Chefs who can take regular recipes and make them in a more healthy way. On that front I consider myself a master. Who better than someone who spends their days trying to come up with ways to lose weight that still involves eating?
My big hope is that they are also looking for someone who can tell funny stories while slimming down a recipe. That would put this contest right in my wheelhouse. But I will never know if I don’t get someone who is skilled at filming, or at least has a steady hand to help me make this five-minute video.
I also have to come up with a dish I want to makeover from something fattening to something healthy and yummy. It has been so long that I have thought about fattening food that I can’t begin to think of a subject to makeover. The whole universe is open to me and I am drawing a blank. I should have spent the day looking at cookbooks and not doing errands. Something will come to me, but it won’t matter if I can’t tape it and send it off.
So send me suggestions of fattening dishes I can makeover and please let me know if you can help me tape.
Leftover Roast Vegetable Salad
Posted: December 2, 2013 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: roast vegetable salad 2 Comments
By now all the good parts of the Thanksgiving meal are certainly gone. If you have any stuffing or pecan pie raise you hand and wave it wildly. No flapping arm fat on you.
For most of us the things that are left are the things you tell your children they have to take one bite of and even then they do it under protest. Don’t throw those roast vegetables away; repurpose them to a sweet and savory salad.
1 lb oven-roasted green beans
1 head of oven-roasted broccoli
½ a red onion minced
1-pint cherry tomatoes halved
¼ cup yellow raisins
2 T. capers
3 T. sherry vinegar
5 packets of Splenda
Salt and Pepper
Mix everything together and watch it disappear.
Turkey Day Calorie Math
Posted: December 1, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy Leave a comment
On Thanksgiving I ate one helping of the regular kind of turkey day stuff, carrots, sweet potatoes, turkey, stuffing, gravy, green beans and half of a dessert. The next day the scale was up one pound. Certainly the salt in the food I ate helped retain enough water to makeup that weight gain because I in no way ate 3,500 extra calories in that one meal.
It took the next three days of nun like eating to rid myself of that one Thanksgiving meal. Was that celebratory meal worth it? Probably not, but depriving myself the next three days was worth getting back on center since the eating season has started.
The only way I can last through the parties and eating reverie that is planned for the last month of the year is to actively and dramatically cut back on all consumption and not give into the carb fest that is the Christmas holiday season. The one meal of Thanksgiving is proof that my body loves those calories so much that when it gets hold of them they holds on tight.
There are no BLT’s in the month of December for me – and no I’m not talking about a tasty Bacon Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich. BLT’s are bites, licks and tastes. Just a bit of Christmas cookie, or sip of eggnog are the calories that stick hard to me. Using Thanksgiving as a guide if I let myself eat one holiday meal at every party I am invited to it will take me over three months of near starvation and constant working out to just get back to where I am now.
But I don’t want to miss a party, or hide away from all the fun just because it is filled with dangerous food. No, I will go head long into the celebration, but I will go armed and ready. If you have invited me to your home please don’t be offended if I pass on your delicious fare. I know others will love it. I instead will enjoy seeing you and visiting with friends. My happiness is not dependent on eating something yummy. My happiness is also not dependent on my scale, but staying the course certainly will not add stress to my life.
Goodbye to Thanksgiving and hello to Christmas. I know we can be good friends and have a healthy holiday season.
No More Stuff
Posted: November 30, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: cash, gifts, stuff 1 CommentNo More Stuff
When I was young, like in the single digits young I really liked stuff. I liked collecting stuff, buying stuff, and being given stuff. My accumulating period lasted a long time, probably until I was about 40. Then suddenly I looked around and I had more stuff than I needed. My house was full, my garage was full, and my attic was definitely overly full. I went from wanting to get stuff to never wanting any more stuff ever again. I reached my tipping point.
Now I am anti-stuff. I don’t want people to bring me anything or give me any gifts, except needlepoint gift certificates because that is about making treasured Christmas ornaments, which are certainly not stuff. When I finished decorating the tree today Carter came up and announced it was “beautiful.” I asked her if she minded all the Christmas being out now and she said no, since she did not have to do any of the work.
With all the Fa-la-la-la-la surrounding us she wanted to know what I wanted for Christmas. “No stuff,” I declared. “I don’t like stuff.” “Well, Mom, what about all these Christmas Decorations?” I tried to make the distinction but she countered me with the “It has matter so it’s stuff” argument. A science minded child has me there.
So now I must be more precise in my language. There are very few things in the universe I want and if I really wanted them I will buy them. If I don’t know they exist then I will never want them. But most everything I don’t want and I don’t want the burden of having it. I am overrun with the stuff I thought I wanted but found out I did not really need until after I owned it.
My problem is now that I am anti-more I have become bad at finding gifts for those who really want, need or deserve something. Nothing fits better than cash, but it does seem lazy and impersonal. It is fine to give to people who really need money, but going to a friend’s house for dinner and giving them a twenty-dollar bill might be considered tacky. But why? Is showing up with a twenty-dollar candle really better?
I hate to fall prey to the gift card cop-out, but the more I think about it the more right it sounds. For those people who might take offense to the cash option a well thought out gift card to a place I know they already love and frequent may be the answer. Whole Foods, Starbucks and I-tunes here I come. That way if they don’t want more stuff either they can just get something consumable and for one brief moment they can think kindly about me rather than curse me years later for adding to all their stuff.
It’s Not Black Friday at Our House
Posted: November 29, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Christmas Decorating, needle point 2 Comments
The only good news about not being at the farm for Thanksgiving is that I was able to spend today getting Christmas thrown up at my house today. It actually is a great thing since the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a week shorter this year.
I’m a Christmas nut. All the public rooms of our house get decorated. Every year I add something major to the decorating. I spent the whole year making needlepoint Christmas ornaments. My goal was to make a dozen. I slightly exceeded my own self-imposed target by just a little. When the last of them get back from the fabricator I will have made 32, only a 266% increase. Don’t let anyone ever tell you I am not an over achiever. Let’s not talk about what I did not get done this year because I was needle pointing.
Since I have a fourteen foot Christmas tree with ornaments in the multi thousands I decided that my needlepoint needed it’s own tree. The problem is that I really do not have a place for another tree. So I decided to run garland around the entrance to the living room and hang the needlepoint there. I like it, but I certainly have a lot more space to fill since I did garland on both sides of the entrance. I guess that I need to keep up my stitching pace if I am going to be satisfied with that décor next Christmas.
Russ felt well enough today to help take the boxes and the tree out of the attic. I have created a child who says she hates Christmas because she dislikes helping get all the decorations out of its off-season storage. Not that she has to do any of the decorating work with the exception of helping put the tree together. Yes, we have an artificial tree. It became mandatory when our real fourteen-foot tree fell over one year and crushed many of my beloved ornaments.
I stayed holed up in my sweats hanging stockings and creating Christmas villages under glass. The tree is up with all its 30,000 lights and the red cranberry garland. Tomorrow I will decorate the tree and the house will be done. It was no black Friday for me. It is red and green Friday at our house!
Less Dana, More Good 