Zero Calorie Sparkling Peach Slushy
Posted: July 1, 2013 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: peach slushy 3 Comments
I love peaches and peach drinks have always been a favorite. Peach drinks you say, what the hell is a peach drink? When I was a kid my family went on summer vacation to Pawleys Island with my Dad’s brother, Wilson’s family. We almost always went in August, the hottest time of the year to go to a South Carolina beach. I think we went then so that my Dad and Uncle Wilson had a good excuse to make up crazy beach drinks.
One summer about 1972 it was so hot that the blender was going day and night with peach daiquiris. I know there was a virgin version for kids, but I think after a few hours no one knew which one they were drinking. Besides the serving children alcohol issue, the peach daiquiris were very fattening.
Recently I bought a tea at Tevana called Peach Tranquility. As I was drinking it I had flashbacks of Pawleys with Three Dog Night singing, “Joy to the world” in the background. Since I gave up alcohol and really don’t like drinking my calories I created this drink that is fairly close to the peach daiquiri with practically no calories.
1 cup double-strength Peach Tea — chilled
1 cup club soda – chilled
1 ½ T. lime juice
2 Splenda Packets
2 cups of crushed ice
Mint leaf for garnish
To make double strength tea use double the amount of peach tea, either loose tea or tea bags and let it steep for at least 15 minutes. In a blender put all the ingredients except the mint and blend until the ice is completely made into slush.
Pour into a chilled glass and garnish with mint.
No Such Thing As Average
Posted: June 30, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: average, rain 1 CommentAverage is just a math equation, but in the real world nothing is ever actually average. In my opinion it is usually feast or famine, high or low, big or small rarely right in the middle. Take the weather we are having in Durham right now. Rain, BIG Rain, certainly record setting rain for the day, which just happens to be 1.32 inches. Gee, I think we got that much in the middle of the night and now it is raining buckets again and will for almost the rest of the day. We might triple that record, but in the world of averages, will hardly move the average rainfall line at all.
Even though we are up something like nine inches of rainfall for the year compared to the average it is just balancing out the terrible drought we had a few years ago. In the end when you average the two years together you keep the average rainfall about in the same place it was.
The same idea is true for me in trying to move the needle on the scale down. If I eat roughly the same food everyday and work out about the same amount I seem to stay in the same place. My average is what my body has become accustomed too and has learned to live on. In order to make a dent in my average I have to change some things and keep changing them for a very long time.
I just can’t have one day of extra vigilant eating, but I have to have ten and even then the needle might only move a little. That’s the reality of middle-aged-peri-menopausal-woman. I have spent a lifetime of days that makes up my average. To change the average might take the rest of my lifetime.
But of course no one wants to be average, even our own average. We all want to be better than our regular selves, which is just plain hard to do, that is unless you put everything about yourself on the scale. Some days you might have a bad day at working out, but a good day at eating, a great day at work, but a poor day at laundry, a fantastic day at parenting, but a so-so day at being a spouse. You never have an average day at everything, but over time you create a set point for what you are going to be like in every aspect of your life.
The best we can hope for is that we are a little better at a little more today than we were yesterday and that way, given enough time your average will improve. The key is not to throw in the towel on anything if you have one bad day, because a good day is coming that will balance it out, just like the rain, the drought year has been overcome by a wet year.
No Fare at the Ballpark
Posted: June 29, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: DBAP, DUrham Bulls, Hotdogs 2 Comments
You know the saying, “It’s American as baseball, hotdogs and apple pie.” When I think about that phrase it all just says fat. Americans are fat and the hotdogs and apple pie have not helped, but neither has baseball that is unless you are playing it a very high level, say at least AAA. For most of us, baseball means sitting in the stands and watching.
I’m not a baseball fanatic. I don’t know when the last time I watched a baseball game on TV. If I had to guess it was when my Mima was still alive and even though she was legally blind from Macular Degeneration she would “watch” her beloved Atlanta Braves on TV. That was fourteen years ago. Despite my indifference to TV baseball I have enjoyed going to the Durham Bulls since they moved to the DBAP some thirteen years ago. Russ and his business partner Rich decided early on that they needed season tickets for their company, which I have come to love.
A few times a season we go down to the ballpark and sit right behind the Bulls dugout and cheer on the local team. I am regular enough in Russ’ seats that the promotions team members who do all the fun activities on the field between innings know me. Those things like sumo wrestling or when a kid runs the bases against Wool E. Bull, our mascot, are what make minor league baseball so great. This year they have a new one where 8 tiny little children are dressed up in bull costumes and they chase Wool E. across the field. It is called the running of the bulls and is about the cutest thing I have ever seen.
The only thing that is wrong with going to baseball is the food. The choices at the ball park are, hotdog, peanuts and beer of course, bar-b-que, pizza, burritos, funnel cakes, cotton candy, ice cream, snow cones, lemonade and chips. Food vendors come and go at the DBAP. One year someone tried selling a salad and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. At last something I could eat at the ballpark. But I was much too infrequent a visitor to make an impact on salad sales and that offering did not last.
Years ago I could see how only offering unhealthy foods would appeal to the primarily male audience at games, but now even men worry about their physique. I know I am not the only person who thinks about what I can eat before a game since I know there is nothing for me at the park. If someone comes up with a healthy solution and lets everyone know it was available not only might they sell it, but also more weight watchers might come to the games. I’m not suggesting that “It’s American as baseball, grilled chicken and a fruit salad” is the new slogan, but let’s widen the baseball circle to include the health conscious. They might be fans that will live longer to cheer on the team.
Pain in the A#$
Posted: June 28, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: hot water heater 1 CommentThere are so many reasons people eat which have nothing to do with actual survival. Boredom, habit, celebration, anger, thirst, and my big winner today was frustration. I am happy to say I did not let frustration get the better of me, but it took everything in me to recognize that eating would not fix my problem.
This morning Russ got up and took a shower in his normal routine way. I had an early meeting so I was up reading e-mail waiting my turn. After his shower Russ lathered up his face with shaving gel and suddenly stuck his head out of the bathroom and announced there was no hot water. When he said none, it was not that the water was not hot, but that no actual water was coming from the tap.
Last year we installed a tank less instant hot water heater, which had an epic failure this morning. This was not the news I was looking for in the early morning hours. I called for service and was told that sometime a repairman would come, but you know the drill, we can’t tell you when. I asked that they give me one hour so I could go to my meeting and they said of course. There was no chance a repair was coming to my house in one hour anyway.
Seven hours later a nice guy showed up and confirmed that the water heater, new as it was, needed to have the entire heat exchanger along with some ancillary parts replaced. Let’s see, it’s Friday afternoon, do you think I might have hot water today. Not a chance.
The repairman called the manufacturer to order the parts and they were happy to send them for Tuesday afternoon delivery. Nice as this repairman was I got involved with the manufactures phone call to get the parts sent fed ex for Monday morning delivery. Naomi, the phone rep, finally gave in after spending over 45 minutes having me get her to admit that five days without hot water from a one year old very expensive hot water heater with a twelve year warranty was just insane.
So here I sit with four days of no hot water, a full dishwasher of dirty dishes and two loads of laundry needing to be done and me in need of a shower. Frustration was knocking on my door. I got the dishes washed the really old fashioned way, by boiling water and filling the sink and boiling some more so after the soapy washing I could rinse them. I had forgotten how hard on a manicure washing dishes by hand is. I am going to have to not worry about nails since I have a lot of hand washing in my future. At least I can say I did not let the lack of hot water make me eat something naughty, but boy I certainly thought about.
Worse Than a Hair Sandwich?
Posted: June 27, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: sprouts 2 Comments
The other day at Mah Jongg my friend ordered a sandwich that sounded delicious, turkey and melted cheese, avocado with cranberry mayo and sprouts on grilled sunflower bread. Not liking the texture of sprouts she asked the waiter to hold them off the sandwich. Leaving off the only healthy part of the sandwich caused her a little guilt until all the other women spoke up that we too disliked sprouts.
To me the actual health benefits of such a minor player in a dish could be disputed so that part of the guilt should be relived. There just is not much to sprouts except some annoying hair feeling in your mouth, so why add them?
In college I had a friend whose favorite bench-marking phrase was, “Is it worse than a hair sandwich?” So clearly the inference is that anything resembling a hair sandwich is bad and that is what a sprouts sandwich feels like in my mouth.
I am certainly all for healthy food, but adding sprouts to a grilled cheese with turkey and avocado does not turn it into a health food option even if it is on sunflower bread. Does eating the sprouts act as a balance to the rest of the dish? If you want to eat a treat do as my friend did and make a real treat and own it. Don’t accept the pacifying part you don’t like as a pardon for your indulgence.
One true honest to god decadence once in a blue moon is way better than pretending you are having something healthy all the time just because you throw a tomato or some lettuce on it. So don’t be fooled by the existence of the sprouts and for goodness sake, there is no sin on not having them at all because quite frankly they might be worse than a hair sandwich.
The Benefits and the Curse of a Well Trained Nose
Posted: June 26, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: basil, gardenia, Honeysuckle, lavender, magnolia, mint, rose, sage, thyme, tomato 2 CommentsToday as I was outside walking Shay in her normal sniff, sniff, sniff “don’t pull me along mommy I’m smelling everything” walk I just closed my eyes and took a big whiff too. I could really smell the summer. The overwhelming scents of honeysuckle with undertones of magnolia were the first scents that hit me. Once of the best things about living in North Carolina is smell. As we walked past our vegetable garden the basil and mint competed with the flowers. Then I drew in the very distinct odor of the tomato plants.
Shay all along was concentrating on the ground smells of deer that had certainly passed through the property the night before. I wanted to teach her to enjoy the beautiful scents and not just those of other animals so I dragged my hand among the sage leaves and held it to her nose. She pretended to be interested in it for just a moment and then pushed her face deeper into my hand for a good petting.
From the sage I moved to the lemon thyme and then gave Shay another whiff. This prompted her to go right over to the low growing herb and sniff around. I realized she thought it might be a good place to leave her own scent so we quickly moved onto the grass.
As we walked in the yard the freshly cutgrass mixed with the clover top notes to make a familiar bouquet. I stopped and closed my eyes and sucked in the air hard, holding it in my throat like my yoga instructor has taught me to do. For a moment I felt as I could smell the fireflies and the dust on the gravel driveway. With my eyes closed I felt a tingle and the smell changed to something more pungent for just a second, then just as I opened my eyes to see if perhaps another animal was crossing our path I saw a flash of lightening and a few seconds later heard the confirmation of thunder. I think I actually smelled the lightening coming.
Paying attention to smells has served me well in the cooking part of my life. I’ve always been good at deciphering what ingredients are in a dish someone else has made because of my detective like nose. I also have not done things that dull my sense of smell, which can naturally diminish with age and abuse.
The only problem with a well-trained olfactory machine is that if I smell something tasty it starts my salivary glands going and makes my brain think I need to not just smell something good, but taste it as well. So for now I am going to spend as much time as possible with the flowers outside. I have never developed a taste for rosewater and the lavender is supposed to make you feel relaxed. So to combat any hunger pangs I might get I’m just going to go outside and stick my head in the gardenia bush that grows above my lavender and stay then until the feeling passes. Feel free to come and take a smelling tour of my garden anytime your diets needs it, but I suggest you stay away from the sage which may prompt you to go in search of an entire Thanksgiving meal.
Care Package Nightmares
Posted: June 25, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: camp, care package, tiger BEat Leave a comment
What is it about kids and care packages? When Carter starts to think about getting ready to go to camp the first words out of her mouth are, “You are going to send me a care package aren’t you?” I think Care packages started during the war to help feed people who were truly starving. I don’t know when they became the staple of kids going to camp. I think Carter considers it is a badge of how much your parents love you.
One year when she was at camp she told me about a girl in her cabin who did not get a care package and how the child grew more and more despondent at each mail call without a package. Think that the entire camp experience can be ruined by one thoughtless, selfish parent who after shelling out thousands of dollars for camp and hundreds more for a trunk, new sheets and towels, and a crazy creek chair wasted the whole thing by not sending one stinking package.
Camp basically provides a kid with everything they really need to live a fun and carefree existence. But a package from home is icing on the cake. So I succumb to the pressure and send off a package. What I have discovered is there are good things to send and bad things and in the end it is all about getting some totally unhealthy food, which luckily at Carter’s camp girls are required to share with the whole cabin.
In Carter’s case some goldfish and sour gummies are the least bad for her acceptable foods. I also know that a Tiger Beat magazine, especially one chocked full of One Direction photos is a great non-food item. I throw in a new box of stationary just to take up room and a note and I’m done.
From previous years I have learned that the packages that come from “Care Package Providers” are easy to send, but never have food and Carter comes home with all the crap they sent her and throws it away. Also books and clothes are the equivalent to sending coals to New Castle. I get a letter home that says something like, “You sent me a book!”
If only there were some incredibly healthy and desirable things I could mail I would. I think that the camp would frown upon my sending a commercial frozen yogurt machine and the yogurt in dry ice, unless I was sending it as a donation to the dining hall. I think I might have to send an electrician along to rewire the cabin to handle the power load and that is a no-no for sure.
So hopefully my barebones package is the care Carter is looking for; just enough reassurance that her parents love her, but nothing too embarrassingly over the top. If only she could appreciate what having to go to the post office in order to mail it really was like, then she would kiss my feet.
Write to Carter, Please
Posted: June 24, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Camp Cheerio, Carter Lange Leave a commentCarter’s first day at camp and I was looking forward to making some progress on my giant-never-ending-been-on-the-list-for-years house projects. You know the kind of things you don’t want to do, but you really want done, like cleaning out the junk drawer or organizing old pictures. Thanks to my opening my big mouth in the winter and volunteering to research, write and produce ten skits for church this summer I spent the majority of the day writing.
This upcoming Sunday’s skit, which is a take off on “It’s a Wonderful Life”, required me to re-watch the whole movie. I already had the basic idea in my head, but needed a couple of actual lines from the movie, which true to form did not come until the end of the second hour. But I like that I have checked off this job on Monday because I need to start racking my brain about the following Sunday.
Before I wrote that assignment I had to write Carter a real letter at camp so I could get it in the noon mail. I had written her a note to leave on her pillow at camp, but her bunk was consumed by a giant gaggle of girls in their getting-to-know-you session so I could not get close to her bunk and was getting the leave-already look. I forgot I had that note written and wrote another.
Getting mail at camp is the most important activity there is. I think that Carter grades me on how many letters I send her. I have religiously sent her a real letter everyday she has ever been at camp, but since no mail gets delivered on Sundays she feels like I must be slacking off somehow. Quite frankly that is not that much happening without her home so the letters tend to get repetitive. How many times can I tell her Shay-Shay misses her? I know she does not like to here that she should not have left her room such a mess.
This year I am trying something new. As a reader of this blog would you consider sending Carter a note or postcard at camp? It does not matter that she may not know you, but I think it would be fun for her to get an avalanche of letters. You can even put in it that she could share it with someone who did not get any mail that day. If you went to camp as a kid tell her what your favorite camp activity or memory was. Her mailing address is:
Carter Lange
Sequoia
Camp Cheerio
1430 Camp Cheerio Rd.
Glade Valley, NC 28627-9731
I am not telling her about this, but I will report her reaction when she actually sends me a letter. This may free me up to not have to write so much and I can get to my big list of chores, or maybe go to the movies or feel less guilty if I start a new puzzle. Oh no, I am starting a big new list of fun things to do while Carter is at camp, which means my yucky list might stay intact for another year.
The “I’m in love with a teenage boy band” diet
Posted: June 23, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Bay City Rollers, British Boy Bands, One Direction 5 Comments
Yesterday was the long awaited One Direction concert here in North Carolina. When I say long awaited it was Carter and her other fourteen year old friends who were about to jump out of their skin thinking about seeing the British boy band in person. I was merely one of the three mothers who were necessary to chauffer the girls to the arena for the show.
We had been lucky enough to buy a box for the show at our school auction so not only did the girls have great seats all together, but we had a lounge area with food that had glass doors so that we mother’s could sit in club chairs and have the deafening sounded dampened about half of one decibel. I was thrilled that it provided a good needlepoint spot and I was able to complete half of a roof for a gingerbread house ornament during the whole show.
I can remember being Carter’s age and being madly in love with the terribly short lived Bay City Rollers, of S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT fame. The only difference is that I never got to see them live and even if they might have been playing a show within an hour of my house there was no way that I would have considered asking my parents to take me. I was lucky if they picked me to go to the dentist, there was no way they would shell out the big bucks that concerts cost, sit in the ridiculous parking traffic of a big arena and endure the deafening screams of 25,000 teenage girls.
That is unless they knew what I learned last night. Girls madly in love with a band forget to eat and lose all their appetite upon watching them sing. Before going to the show our group of girls got together at one friends house to make their tribute t-shirts. The Kim family made a big spread of food for them to enjoy before the show, but nary a chip was touched. Once we got to the box we had a taco bar buffet, cookies, popcorn and the big “horn of plenty” that consisted of cheese, fruit, veggies dip and crackers. The only thing the girls made a dent in was the popcorn and water.
For almost four hours they stood, bounced, danced, screamed and some even cried a little, but eating was not part of the evening. As we left the arena I offered them food in the car on the way home, but they were too over come with emotion to eat. This is certainly a diet I wish I had known about when my hormones raged big.
Needlepointing is not much exercise and no appetite suppressant. But De and Hannah my other Mom driver friends and I did get up at the last song and danced with the girls. By that point in the evening our daughters were so happy and thankful to us for taking them that they were not even embarrassed by our dancing let alone our existence. I know it was an experience these girls will remember the rest of their lives. Now if I can just remember this bands name and not keep calling them New Dimension I may remember it too.
Bound for Camp
Posted: June 22, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Bow Lake New Hampshire, Camp Idle Pines 1 CommentCamp is in the girls’ blood in my family. Tomorrow Carter goes off for three weeks to her camp. It is clearly her favorite time of year. Loving leaving home for the camaraderie of a cabin of girls is something I completely understand. I loved camp too. When I was in fifth grade my friend Tammy Mongé told me all about Camp Idle Pines in Bow Lake New Hampshire and I begged my parents to let me go with her the next summer. Thinking about swimming in the freezing cold lake, canoeing at night among the singing loons, putting on skits and making tie dyed shirts all brings back happy memories.
Camp food was way better than home food. First you always had dessert, something we never had at home. Second we had milk from a farmer down the road. The whole milk was like cream and the skim was like light cream. It was a weight-gaining situation at every meal. I think we were required to drink milk and if you were someone who did not like milk you might have been allowed to put Hershey’s syrup in it.
Sunday nights at Idle Pines were leftover nights and the cabin with the highest cabin cleanliest score got to go to the leftover buffet set up on the ping-pong table first. If you were first you were ensured some leftover lasagna but if you were last Chicken a la king might be all that was left. It certainly did not bother me because we also had the dessert buffet, which included such offerings as banana pudding with vanilla wafers in it, a molasses cookie called a Hermit with raisins or ice cream made by adding sugar to the skim milk and putting it in the ice cream freezer. Just thinking about camp food makes me gain weight.
The other great thing about Sunday is that it was “store” night. The camp store sold candy, stamps and toiletries. We were only allowed to buy candy one night a week right before we watched an outdoor movie. Our parents would deposit money in our camp bank and we could only spend what we had pre-deposited. I learned the first year that at the end of the camp session we each would get a little envelope with the unspent cash from our bank. The next year I did my best not to buy much from the store so I could take the cash home with me. I think the only candy I bought that year were the penny fireballs, bypassing the quarter snicker bars. That should have been a tip that I could withstand calories for money. I’m sure that after the dessert buffet at dinner I had already had my fill of sweets.
I know that Carter will have great memories of going to camp. Since she is staying over for two sessions Russ asked her if we could visit her during the bridge day. She looked at him like he was crazy. Getting to stay at camp with just a few kids and all the counselors to your self is the most fun day ever. I have to admit I’m a little jealous, but thrilled for her all at the same time.
The Happiest Non-Holiday Day of the Year
Posted: June 21, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: summer solstice 1 CommentIt’s the first day of summer other wise known as the summer solstice or the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. My happiness comes from knowing that I have the whole relaxing season ahead of me. As a kid we used to just live for the school year to end and for the carefree days of summer to take over. Now don’t get me wrong. I loved school and school friends and school activities, but a break was always a good thing.
Even though I have been out of school for thirty years now I still welcome the first day of summer as if it is a gift that was given me even though now summer does not change my in my day-to-day life much. Perhaps it is the increased amount of sunlight?
For me in Durham North Carolina I will enjoy fourteen hours and thirty-six minutes of sunlight today. Fourteen hours of sunlight is a good number. When I lived in London the summer solstice was two hours longer due to it’s northerly location on the earth. Having the sun come up at 4:45 and not go back down until after nine thirty is almost too much daylight.
Why, you ask? I am a morning person so I tend to wake up with the sun. Four in the morning is an early start. An early breakfast means an early lunch followed by an early dinner and then since it is light so late I think it must be time for another meal. So more sunlight means more eating for me. In the winter if I am having a nighttime craving I just go to bed and I have somehow avoided eating in my sleep. In the brightness of summer I have a harder time going to bed artificially early thus the opportunity to over eat.
The eating issue is quickly overruled by the false sense of lack of responsibilities in the summer. This is an issue I clearly need to out grow. I am less vigilant about looking at my calendar. I miss meetings and appointments and people are more forgiving, thinking I must be on vacation. Sometimes I am on vacation so if I don’t show up for something I am apologizing now, preemptively. Then again, fewer meetings are planned for the summer and that could be another reason for the euphoric feeling I get from the summer solstice.
Whatever the reason it makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy too. I imagine I am not alone. I have never heard of anyone who had seasonal depression from too much sunlight. So enjoy your long day today. You might not be able to put your finger on the cause of your happy feeling, but its summer, don’t think too hard about it and just lay back.
Spanx Swim Pants- Where Are You?
Posted: June 20, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Spanx, Swim Suits 3 CommentsSpanx have spoiled me. I love those leg-thinning-long-line-panties that hold in not only your tummy, but also your butt and most importantly your thighs. The advent of Spanx have enabled me to wear more body hugging dresses without the fear that parts of me are giggling in an unsightly way.
I noticed that Spanx in their product expansion to take over the world also moved into the bathing suit arena. Hooray! At last, perhaps there will be a thigh lifting swim suit or at least a thigh covering model, but no. Spanx is yet to figure out how to take their most popular product, the mid thigh firmer and turn it into something that could be worn around the pool.
Spanx has spoiled every woman I know. Nary a friend will leave the house without her favorite foundation garment, but all that squeezing and shaping makes wearing a regular old swim suit a scary proposition. There must be a way to grab those upper thighs by the loose and lumpy skin and pull them up to a place that could be hugged tight by the revolutionary spandex. Reconfiguring our naked selves into a more svelte and tight model is the desire of most females and Spanx has been happy to oblige all these years.
If it means that we are going to have to make a fashionable bike short model swimsuit so be it. Perhaps if the bottom half was nude colored with some strategically place color blocks it might not appear too strange.
So I implore you Spanx designers, get on the long leg design swimsuit. The butt-lifting enhancement is also a good feature. I promise it will be a hit. While we’re at it the waist nipping and boob support all in the same suit will ensure your dominance in the swimwear arena.
For now I will sport the wrap around cover-up skirt and pray that no one is paying attention between by chaise lounge and the water, but a pair of Swim Spanx seems like the answer to my dreams.
Lather, Rinse and Repeat
Posted: June 19, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy Leave a comment
Long ago when I could still read mice type found on shampoo bottles without the aid of shower readers, I found the instructions “Lather, rinse and repeat,” lacking an ending to their story. The idea that someone needs shampoo instructions is somewhat comical. I don’t know about you, but by the time I was able to wash my own hair I had mastered the order and I probably was still too young to read.
I am wondering if the marketing department of shampoo makers thinks we will really keep repeating the three steps over and over until the bottle is empty. The addition of one word might clarify what they mean; “Once.” Lather, rinse and repeat once.” There it is. Something that makes much more sense. They certainly did not mean to keep washing your hair repeatedly until it all fell out.
To me instructions on things like shampoo were put on because some fool drank the shampoo since there were no directions about how to use it. That prompted a note from the legal department saying something to the effect of “For God’s sake tell the morons who buy our products how to use them so we don’t get sued again.” Marketing recognizing a opportunity decides that if one washing is good then more will be better and thus the “repeat” is born. It is shocking that legal has not jumped all over them for that one.
I just bought a new lemon scented bottle of 409 cleaner. It smells very realistic and lemony. I wonder if anyone has sprayed it on his or her fish or in their iced tea? I have not noticed a warning reading “Not real lemon, do not eat.”
What I think American corporations need are not more Legal or Marketing departments, but a Department of Common Sense. Most of us can figure out the obvious use of a product as long as we know what it is. So rather than take up vital real estate on shampoo bottles with unneeded instructions consider putting the word “Shampoo” in a font large enough for us to read without glasses because I just have not yet found a shatter-proof pair of readers to keep in the shower.
Don’t Ignore Chemistry
Posted: June 18, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: chemistry, zone Leave a commentToday is the day that I take Carter on all her appointments like hair and teeth and I get to sit there and needlepoint because I am just the driver these days. As I was eavesdropping on the hairdressers’ discussing a difficult dye job to fix another salon’s mistakes I heard a great phrase, “The chemistry is just not in her favor.” See the client wanted a miracle.
How many things does that phrase, “The chemistry is just not in her favor,” apply to in life? I can think of many. But so many times we want to ignore the chemistry and hope for a miracle outcome.
As the hairdressers discussed the nightmare-multi-processed situation the same theme kept coming up, if only the previous colorist had done the simplest process they could have easily reversed the mistake. Trying more and more complicated scenarios made going back even harder.
This is true with eating. If you want to reduce, trying overly complicated eating programs is harder. You need to figure out what chemistry is in your favor and the most simple. Many years ago there was a popular diet called The Zone. You had to eat an exact balance of protein, fats and carbs at the same time in blocks. Yes the chemistry worked, but it was so difficult that the over complication of planning and creating meals made it not in your favor.
The idea that things are better when the chemistry is right is true in relationships too. How many times do we see couples that are made up of people who are really more like oil and water? The two can be put together but they never will really mix.
The lesson is to pay attention to the elements in their simplest form and work from there. If you get the right elements together the chemistry will work and you won’t be fighting Mother Nature. Simplifying is your friend.
Reunion Afterglow
Posted: June 17, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Dave Harnish, Dickinson reunion, Maria Carson, Mel Kuhn, Pam Kurey, Sally Schoot, Suzanne Farley Leave a comment
Best buddies Suzanne and Dave
Suzanne Sally and I all got the striped shirt memo
I just spent the weekend at my 30th college reunion and with each five-year passing people get better. One of the upsides of being over fifty is most people have softened into their nicest selves. Perhaps our aging eyes help us see people in a more easy-going light or our memories have let go of any past un-harmonies. Mostly I think that by this point in life it is not about what you have, the position you attained or how you look, but really the content of your soul.
There are those close friends who I have constant contact with who make the reunion comfortable and safe. One acquaintance said when I got there he was glad to see me because he had not seen anyone else he knew up to that point and was feeling like a freshman on the first day of college all over again. Those insecurities existed for just a second and quickly people relaxed into their true selves.
I loved sharing with people I have known more than half their lives, but not seen daily. We cut through all the frivolous and got right to the heart of what they were passionate about now, struggled with or hoped for. Of course there was the rehashing and laughing of old stories but people opened up about disappointments or difficult relationships or sadness’s but seemed to be quickly comforted by the love and compassion shown by the group.
The real bonus I find at reunions is getting to know people I did not really know well or deepen new or shallow friendships. I shared a room with my best friend Suzanne and we spent time talking with different people at the gatherings and then late in the night, in of the less than stellar Sleep Inn, we talked in the dark sharing the conversations we had.
Because of world of Facebook and things like this blog I had gotten to know some people much better in the last five years and the reunion was like a hug from a long lost friend. I love that I know Sally, Mel and Maria better now and treasure them even more. Sally even asked me how the reunion food was on my diet and thankfully with all the time being spent talking and very little time eating I lost a pound.
My thanks go out to the whole committee who worked so hard to bring us this perfect weekend. How they gave us weather that was better than any day we had a semesters of Fridays our Freshman year I will never know. A big shout out to Pam Kurey who by virtue of being married to Greg was an honorary member of the committee and seemed to work harder setting things up and taking things down than anyone else who was actually in our class.
No matter what is happening in your life going back to your reunion will enhance it. Don’t miss another opportunity to reconnect, rehash, reminisce and relearn. Everyone is better than you remember and so are you.
Love of Fathers
Posted: June 16, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Ed Carter, Russ Lange 4 Comments
Anybody who knows me knows my father. See even if you never met him you have encountered him in some way in me. I am truly a product of my father. Of course my mother can be seen in me too, in my love of games, my artistic side and devotion to needlepoint, but most of the rest of me comes from my father. My love of cooking, my story telling nature, my sense of humor, my loud voice and imposing presence along with about nine hundred and fifty other traits including the tendency to exaggerate comes from my father.
On this father’s day I want to say thank you to Ed Carter for being such a great supporter, cheerleader, role model and overall generous soul to me. Although he pushed me all the time to be better, do more, try harder he also gave me options and advantages for which I am truly thankful. My dad always thought I could do anything. I am sure that is how I developed my “Not always correct, but never in doubt” personality.
As a child he never missed an opportunity to teach me something that he thought I would need to know even if I wasn’t interested. I might not have been interested then, but now I am glad I know how to take care of my house, earn money, grow a garden, cook anything, travel the world alone, be generous with others, talk to strangers so they quickly become friends, tip generously, nurture employees, spoil friends, love family and most importantly raise a daughter.
Thanks Dad for being a great dad. Because of you I picked a wonderful husband who became a great Dad to our child. Father’s day is not the only day I think about how important fathers are, but don’t let a day go by without knowing that I am surrounded by men who are father’s I love, my own and my daughters.
Reunion Confession
Posted: June 15, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Dickinson, reunion, sorority Leave a commentMy thirtieth college reunion is only half way through and I am already exhausted. It’s a the good type of tired from talking too much and standing and walking and talking some more. At this point in life I only remember about a blink of any eyes worth about my time in college so the reunion is like getting to know people I know I already like all over again. Except for my really close friends who can finish my stories or prompt me to retell something funny or poignant the reunion is a new audience.
Last night my best friend Suzanne and I had dinner with a group of people I had not hung out with much in college. One of them was a guy Jeffery who confessed to me that he was afraid of me in college. I asked him what that was about and he said that I always had an “aura of industry” about me. It is a strange sounding phrase, but really dead on. I was busy when I was here. I was bossy, and loud and organizing things and giving parties and running for office and selling things, not much studying.
In thinking about my industriousness today i thought about one of my college jobs that prompted me To make a confession to some of my sorority sisters today. For two years I was the membership chairman which was the worst job. During rush the chairman had to run the discussion and make these paper bags for all the sisters to put little votes in for the girls they wanted to continue. The first time we did this it took hours to count all the votes and then write the invitations for the girls who we wanted to continue. As I did it there were no real surprises about who got the votes based on the discussion I had heard.
Being industrious I decided, completely illegally in the sorority world, that I was not going to ever count another vote. We put the bags out at every discussion and people would put their slips of paper in, but I would just glance in them and write the invitations for the girls I heard the most positive comments about.
I apologize now for this, but I have to say we had two really great pledge classes who were coherent and turned into great sisters. I may be hauled off to sorority court for this confession, but I think that the statue of limitations was up long ago. I’m not Catholic, but I hear that confession is good for the soul. I know that reunions are good for the heart. So please forgive me.
Reunion Bound
Posted: June 14, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Dickinson college class of 1983, reunion 1 CommentI’m taking my lunch break from my six and a half hour drive to Carlisle, PA at a panera bread in Warrenton VA. I am not breaking my no eating in the car rule and I think this will be my only free moment to write a quick blog posting before I am thrust into the world of old friend nostalgia.
I have not taken such a long car trip alone since I went to my last college reunion 5 years ago. At first I was a little fidgety and feeling unproductive as I just sat, no needle pointing, writing, reading or game playing. After surfing the many stations on the satellite radio I settled into the ’70’s on 7 to get me back into that college mood. Even though I spent more years in college in the 80’s I know with every song from the 70’s
The music has been the perfect way to get back in that college mood. I have way more memories of dancing than I do of classes. Probably not something I should admit, but as I listen to so many of the lyrics I am reminded it was a time of not much to worry about. Really, I can’t imagine a song about leaving the cake out in the rain because you won”t be able to make it again since you don’t have the recipe would be a big hit now.
Most everything I am listening to is about “come dance with me” or “don’t worry baby, everything will be alright.” So now that I am half way back to college I am fully in the laid back mood of college. I can’t wait to reconnect, reminisce, dance and jump a little higher. Now that I think about it I probably should have brought a sports bra.
Faux Whiskey Sour – By Accident
Posted: June 13, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: basil, whiskey 1 Comment
I am constantly on the search for a non-alcoholic-caffeine-free-zero-calorie drink. I gave up drinking almost thirty years ago and that is a story for another day. I have since lived mainly on iced tea, but after 6:00 PM I need to cut back on caffeine so that usually means I am stuck with just water.
Today I made up a drink that tastes practically like a faux whiskey sour and satisfies all my requirements. I was not trying to make a whiskey sour, but somehow the combination of basil and balsamic vinegar turns out like whiskey.
If I had an orange slice and a cherry it would look more like a drink on Mad Men.
This recipe makes one big serving
4 basil leaves
3 T. fresh lime juice
2 Splenda packets
1 t. balsamic vinegar
1 Cup fizzy water – I used San Pellegrino, but club soda is fine
Crushed ice
Whirl the basil, limejuice, Splenda and balsamic vinegar with a splash of fizzy water in a blender (I used my stick blender). Pour into a big glass and fill it half way with crushed ice. Fill the glass with the rest of the fizzy water. Stir. Enjoy.
Driving Hell
Posted: June 12, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: driver's ed 1 Comment
For someone who is not working at a paying job this week I certainly had a day reminiscent of my past workdays. The whole thing started with a carpool to school for Carter and our neighbor Price so they could attend Drivers Ed. Poor things barely got the weekend off after school ended and now they are sitting in a class for three hours with out a break, each day starting at 8:00 in the morning.
After dropping them I ran to the grocery and back home to drop my bags. Back in the car and drove half an hour to Cary for a meeting. An hour later back to Durham for two hours of Mah Jongg therapy with lunch. Go pick Carter up and drove twenty-five minutes to Chapel Hill for her camp physical then back home to drop her off. Back in the car to Raleigh for a meeting at the Food Bank then a forty-five minute rush hour drive back to Church for a meeting. Amazingly I was home at 6:00.
I spent almost four hours of my day driving. Yuck, and to think I used to be in sales and spent everyday driving to customers. With the exception of Mah Jongg everything I did had to be done today so I had little choice, but it certainly felt like a job. The meetings were not the problem, but the getting to them was the part that wore me out.
I can hardly wait until Carter can drive herself places or even drive me. I remember the day I got my drivers license when I was 16. No sooner had I gotten home with that little laminated piece of paper than my Dad handed me his dry cleaning and told me to go to the village and drop it off. Oh happy day! I was given the car and a chance to drive all by myself. I happily volunteered for every driving errand my parents had. I could not imagine not wanting to drive.
I guess that I might feel differently when I am in the throws of Carter practicing driving with me as the passenger, but I can hardly wait for her to drive. Imagine a child who can drive herself. I wonder if it would be too haughty to sit in the back seat and needlepoint while Carter chauffeurs me around? I’m a terrible back seat driver already so I am going to need all the distractions I can get so I don’t scare her to death. When the practice driving get’s bad I am going to remember today and how much I want another driver in the family.
I Think Of You Often
Posted: June 11, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Danny Allanoff, Marelen Ostrow, reunions 3 Comments
Marlene Ostrow and Me
When I first got out of college my Dad was doing advertising for MCI. Phone companies were doing everything possible to get people to make more long distance calls. One memorable ad was a split screen of two old ladies talking on the phone to each other. One said to the other, “I thought you died.” Obviously, she had not called in a long time. The other replied, “I think of you often.” As a twenty-something I could not imagine going so long without communicating with my good friends.
Last night I had the pleasure of getting together with my big sister from my college sorority, Marlene Bodene Ostrow whom I had not seen in over thirty years. We went years without communicating and if it weren’t for Facebook I might still be wondering if she were alive.
But like those two old ladies in the phone ad who rediscovered each other after so many years, Marlene and I picked up right where we left off. Learning about the lost years we quickly discovered that we were now both card carrying Mah Jongg players and had the new Mah Jongg cards on us to prove it. I am thankful that I did not play Mah Jongg in college because it might have caused me to fail out, especially if friends like Marlene would play with me. I can imagine us now yakking late into the night as we built the wall and discarded four dots and green dragons.
Our friendship that started out as Pi Beta Phi sisters merely took a little break and was easily rekindled once we saw each other. Like the old lady in the ad, I had thought about Marlene often, even though she did not know it and we did not talk.
This is my week of reunions. Friday I go to my 30th college reunion. Seeing old friends I keep in close contact with is always fun, but the part about these big reunions I find the most interesting is the conversations I have with people I did not necessarily keep in contact with or even know well. At my last reunion a man who was an acquaintance told me about some small kindness I did for him at a vulnerable time in his college life and how much it helped him and he never forgot it. I had no recollection of the incident, nor idea that I had helped him. If it weren’t for the reunion I doubt I ever would. It meant so much to me to hear about it all these years later.
I met another classmate who had devoted her life to feeding the hungry and although we never really knew each other during school I had a fabulous conversation with her learning about her life’s work. Her story inspired me, but I have not told her since that last reunion.
With the joy of reconnecting with Marlene fresh in my memory I am going to go off on Friday with the commitment to tell people what they meant to me and how they might have affected my life. I wish I had been better about doing this at my 25th reunion because one wonderful friend, Danny Allanoff will be missing at this year’s reunion. Danny passed away earlier this year and he was a kind, funny and generous friend. His smiling face is going to be missed by us all. I don’t want to go another year without letting people know I cherish them.
First Date Eating
Posted: June 10, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: first date, Oreos 1 CommentI was watching something on TV today where women confessed that they ate much less on a first date than they did normally so they did not appear to be pig like. One woman went on to say that it she ate differently in public in general than she did at home alone. She knew that standing over the kitchen sink eating spoonfuls of peanut butter from the jar would horrify anyone who saw her doing it.
I got to thinking about how concerned people are about having his or her eating habits judged. We don’t want people to see how we eat when we do it badly, unless you are a competitive eater, like those people who eat thirty hot dogs in five minutes. But for many of us, appearing to have a smaller appetite or making healthier choices, at least when we are in public, seems to be important.
If you were able to go out to lunch with a girl friend and be satisfied with a green salad with grilled chicken would you make that your choice if you were alone? As long as you don’t go home and eat six Oreos after lunch because you are starving you know that the salad lunch was really all your body needed. No body needs, Oreos, they are a want item.
So the challenge is to try and eat all your meals and snacks as if you are on a first date. Let’s not say a blind date because if you discover in the first five minutes you hate the guy then who cares what and how much you eat. Think of the date as someone you really like, then what would you eat, and do it.
It has been twenty-two years since I have been on a first date, but I still remember what it felt like. If I did not want to do anything horrifying then, I think I would still not like to scare my husband now because I happen to like him even more now than I did then.
If you have a problem with eating from the jar over the sink take a video with your phone of yourself doing it and play it back. I am sure you can cure yourself of that habit if you saw what it looked like. I’ll experiment with the first date line of thinking when I’m out and report back if it helps me eat less, but more importantly I will try it at home when I am alone. Being conscious of what and how much I’m eating is all I’m striving for.
Five Tips to Get Rid of Belly Fat
Posted: June 9, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: bad foods, belly fat, trim down club 1 Comment
Analytics, Data Mining, targeting, optimization, all the tools that Facebook and other websites use to post ads specifically chosen for me keep sending me the same one ad – “Five tips to get rid of belly fat.” Since I write a weight-loss comedy blog it is not much of a stretch to think that I might have belly fat, but what I really want is an ad to tell me how to tighten up sagging skin from weight loss. Come on analytics figure out I have lost belly fat and have another problem.
I think the same advertiser has a companion ad for the “Five foods you should give up to get rid of belly fat.” I guess that belly fat is so universally hated that it causes people to click on through. Finally I clicked on the “Five tips” ad to see if I could quickly see what the information was. Ha! I was taken to a sight for the Trim Down Club and a thirty-minute presentation for their product. It was like a time-share presentation without the vacation
As a public service I sat through the thirty-minute web-presentation to find out what the five foods you should never eat are; concentrated fruit juice, margarine, whole wheat bread, processed soy, and corn, especially genetically modified corn.
Here is what is amazing, I gave all those foods up years ago, and I have gone both up and down in weight the whole time I was not eating them. There is no silver bullet to losing weight and no website that can give you the body you want. I don’t know anyone who actually has the body they want. Everyone I know wants to improve some part of himself or herself and advertisers know that. That is why the “Five tips” ads are so popular.
I could make a list fairly easily of five foods you should never eat if you don’t want belly fat; donuts, a bloomin’ onion, corn dog, funnel cake and any other carb-loaded-deep-fried-carinval-food. For men the list might be, beer, lager, ale, stout and beer. Of course the carnival food rule applies to men too.
The bottom line is eat as many real, whole, non-processed foods as you can. Eat a colorful plate of vegetables and protein. Limit your carbs and cut out the processed sugar. Remember the amount of food, even healthy food you eat counts. Use a smaller plate or bowl and leave the kitchen. It is hard to eat if you aren’t near the food. I just saved you $47 for the Trim Down Club. Consider this my free gift to you along with the thirty minutes you won’t have to spend to see what those five terrible foods in the ads are.
The Pope, Food Waste and Green House Gasses
Posted: June 8, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: food Waste, greehouse gasses, the pope 3 Comments
I got a call last month from a graduate student who wanted to research how the Food Bank helps reduce greenhouse gasses because we keep food waste out of landfills. Then this week the Pope made the health news when in his weekly address he talked about food waste. He said, “Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of the poor and the hungry.”
The average American throws away $390 worth of food a year, according to the US Department of Agriculture. I am guilty of doing that. We just buy more than we need and when it sits around too long it eventually get’s thrown away. I know it is bad for our family budget, but I never thought about it being bad for the planet. Food in landfills is the number one producer of green house gases. And I thought that driving was bad, but decaying produce is worse.
The Pope’s point was not lost on me, but I know it is hard to take food you are not eating in your house and give it to someone hungry. So it is going to take more of an effort on my part to buy less and make sure we are eating what we have before we buy more.
It’s not like I live far from the grocery store. I could walk there if I were a little less lazy. There is a man that lives down the street from me who I don’t think has a car because he walks to and from the store everyday. I know I would eat less if I had to carry home what I purchased at the store, rather than driving it home.
So now it is not just better for my body to eat less and be more thoughtful in my consumption, but it is better for the planet and now that the Pope has gotten in on this line of thinking I guess it is better for my soul. I know that eating less and being less wasteful is better for my fellow man. For the good of the planet and my future generations I am committing myself to being less wasteful with food. My mother always told us that we should leave something on our plate. I think it was her way of trying to get us to eat less. Rather than leaving something on the plate we should just put less on it to begin with.
Living the High Life
Posted: June 7, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: flooding, rain Leave a comment
It’s raining, I mean pouring, and the old man certainly is snoring. This tropical storm Andrea has been dumping bucket loads of water on our already saturated land for over 24 hours now. Carter and I ventured out of the house this afternoon on an errand. We left our neighborhood via Dover Rd. heading towards Hope Valley Rd. At 1:30 the golf course was already completely lake like and the tiny bridge at the end of the course by the Hodges & Burket’s houses was barley peeking above the rushing water.
We went to the mall and two hours later were barley able to make it back home. As we returned via Hope Valley rd. the water had breached it at Rugby and city workers were just about to stop cars from passing. We got to Dover rd and turn down only to be stopped four houses in because the road was so flooded that you could not see pavement for at least a football field and a half.
We turned around and went up to Surrey Rd. I was fearful that the water might have come across the road there, but we were lucky enough to get there before the breach that I am sure happened within moments of our passing. The water was six feet up a street sign, which I knew because I could only see about half the speed limit on the face of the sign. It is still raining and raining hard.
Seeing the homes in the valley’s of my neighborhood where water has engulfed them reminded me of something a friend’s father told me before I bought my first house; he said, “always buy on the high side of the hill because water always runs down hill and water always wins.” No matter how attractive a house was on the outside, if it was in a valley I never bothered to even look at the inside. Why fall in love with something that could cause heartache?
The phrase “taking the high road” also comes to mind today. Sure the quickest route is not the easiest or in the case today, even the passable way to go. The high road took longer, but in the end it got us home.
Nature is going to win. We can fight, but rather than fight, working with the inevitable is easier. Dieting is the same way for me. I have learned what naturally works for me and what might cause me to be underwater and I plan around it. But I always plan to be on the high side of the hill so that I am not caught surprised by a sudden deluge. That means having healthy food in the house and not having to go to the store hungry, or looking at restaurant’s menu on-line before I go out to dinner. I’m not going to win against nature, but I hope that I am learning to stay out of her way.
Eighth Grade Graduation
Posted: June 6, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: 8th grade graduation, Carter Lange, Durham Academy Leave a comment
8th grade graduation
When I was a kid we did not graduate from eighth grade, but today was Carter’s closing exercises for her middle school. For Carter the end of middle school means that she will move to another school campus next year so it is fitting to have a ceremony to commemorate completing four years of school.
As a parent I am thrilled to have middle school behind us. I don’t know anyone on earth who loved the years between ten and fourteen. Outside of the time from birth to two years old, middle school years represent the greatest change a girl makes, both physically and emotionally. In our house the physical definitely rivals the emotional and I think they are both fighting it out to see which one is the winner. Judging from the great differences in the boys in Carter’s class many of them are still in the throws of the great change.
I want to publically thank every teacher Carter encountered in middle school. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, it takes a very special kind of person to want to spend time with adolescents. The most important thing that Carter learned was her own voice.
There is so much ahead for her and her classmates and I hope that they go forward with kindness and respect for all people and a greater curiosity for the whole world. But now at last everyone gets the rest that comes with summer break. Although the sleeping in will be short lived since Drivers Ed starts Monday.
Tonight the kids will have a big party to celebrate their “graduation.” It will be a last goodbye to some kids who are moving on to different schools. Those friends will be missed, but new students will be joining Carter’s freshman class in the fall changing the whole dynamic. Middle school is done forever. Hooray, Hooray.
When Being Fat Is Better
Posted: June 5, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: movies, sitting too close Leave a commentI like to go to the movies the old fashioned way, in a dark theater. I like being surrounded by the movie, the big picture, the surround sound. What I don’t like is being surrounded by people, especially people who have crinkly candy wrappers or are hard of hearing and keep asking their seatmates what the characters on the screen just said.
I like to go to the movies in the middle of the day when everyone else should be at work because I am a lot more likely to have the theater mostly to myself. I don’t mind going to the movies alone, but I love when I go with friends and we are the only people there. Then we can talk out loud to each other during the show.
But heaven forbid someone else talks out loud if they are not with me. That really drives me crazy. The other thing I will never understand is that when the theatre is empty of everyone but my party and someone else comes in and sits right behind us. Really? A few hundred seats to pick from and you feel the need to sit that close to us. Did I really pick the best vantage point and they want to share in it?
I often offend them by getting up and moving and looking right at them as I do it. I have been known to tell people that I am moving because of them and I know it is bitchy, but I want them to learn not to sit near me ever again.
See this is one thing I miss about being fat. No one ever wants to sit next to a fat person in the movies. They think you are going to spill over into their space and you certainly are going to hog the armrest because you are already some kind of hog.
I’m sure people also think that the fat people are going to make the candy wrapper opening noise because certainly fat people all eat candy at the movies.
Being not so fat and not looking like I might not smell seems to just say, “welcome to the seats around me.” NO! Now I have to stand up and sit down a bunch as people are looking for seats and take on as many turrets like symptoms as I can to discourage people from considering my area of the movies. I know I am only entitled to one seat, but for God’s sake if the place is only 2% full spread out and let us all take domain over four or five seats. I may have to start wearing a smelly fat suit to the movies.
Squash, Potato and Onion Tort
Posted: June 4, 2013 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: nions, squash. potatoes Leave a comment
This is a layered vegetable dish. You can use any vegetables you have hanging around. I am coming into the squash production season in my garden so I am always looking for creative new ways to use them.
3 Medium New potatoes – sliced into ¼ inch rounds
4 Summer Squash- I used both zucchini and yellow squash- sliced into 1/3 inch rounds
3 large Yellow Onions sliced
½ c. Parmesan Cheese
Salt and Pepper
1 T. Sugar
Slice onions. Spray Pam in a large frying pan and put onions in it. Place on medium low heat on stove. Cook low and slow, stirring every so often. After about 20 minutes the onions should start to get golden brown. Don’t try and get there faster by making the heat higher. The low and slow develops the onions natural sugar. When they get to the color in the picture sprinkle a tiny amount of sugar on top and stir. Continue cooking about 5 more minutes until they get brown. Putting the sugar on too soon will make them burn. Salt to taste when done.
In a separate fry pan sprayed with Pam on medium heat put a single layer of potatoes, sprinkle salt and pepper and cook about five minutes until browned on one side. Flip potatoes over and cook on the other side for another four minutes. Set aside when done and cook the squash the same way but for just three minutes per side.
Preheat oven to 350º
Using a loaf pan, lay a layer of cooked potatoes, then a layer of squash, onions and sprinkle ½ cheese on top of the onions and then repeat layering. You should be able to repeat again, just ending with onions.
Put the loaf pan in the oven and bake for 25 minutes.
Missing The Window – Again
Posted: June 2, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: attic Leave a comment
Earlier this spring our best carpenter, builder, handyman Joe built some very useful shelves in out attic. See the American Girl world collection had gone up there and nothing had come down so the shelves were Russ’ answer to a problem I had created. When we moved to this house almost twenty years ago a large number of very important boxes moved directly from the moving van to the attic on the promise that I would go through them at the right time.
See the issue is that the right time only happens about three days in the spring and three days in the fall when the weather is just right so that the attic is neither too hot nor too cold. This spring, being as cold as it was for so long, might have only had one day that was just right and certainly I was busy doing something much more important on that day, so it just slipped by me.
I need to post a sign on my bathroom mirror that reads, “Is today the right day to clean the attic out?” The issue with that sign is the answer is almost always going to be no, even if the weather is right. It is not just the temperature obstacle, but also the fear I have that I will find things that will interest me that I need to not spend time with. For instance one thing I know I have in the attic is the entire collection of Gourmet Magazine from the 1980’s. Even though I also have the Gourmet magazine annual cookbooks the magazines include many more stories on travel and restaurants and was written back in the time when real cooks read cooking magazines. I know that each carton contains hours of distraction I just don’t need.
Certainly one could make the argument that I could just throw away every box I have not opened in the last three years because if I did not need it there is no reason to even think about it. Unfortunately, I know that there are things like my diplomas or old photographs I really would like to have, which means opening the boxes to find them. Now some of those boxes are Russ’ old engineering textbooks and I am sure they could go right to recycling, but I think he should weigh in on those things himself. What if he happens to have a first edition book from Goddard himself, how would I know?
At best all I can hope for now is a string of cold rainy days while Carter is away at camp. Of course I want the cold to be here in Durham and not at camp in the mountains where Carter will be…little chance of that.
The heat in the attic could be a great weight reduction chamber like they used to have in old movies, but it would clearly be offset by the Gourmet Magazine fattening recipe enticement. Carrying boxes up and down the pull-down stairs is a great weight training exercise, but could prove fatal, especially if I was alone in the house. It seems like for my long-term longevity I will have to wait until that just-right day in the fall. Let’s hope I’m not already busy that day.
Exam Semi-Hell
Posted: June 1, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: exams Leave a commentIt is almost the end of the school year for Carter. She is about to close out her middle school career and move into the pro-league of upper school, but before she can do that she must complete her final exams. Now 8th grade exams need to be taken with a grain of salt because they do not count on your “Permanent Record,” yet in the world of competitive school it does not feel that way.
Middle school exams are really just a practice session for what high school exams will be. Can you memorize, synthesize, regurgitate, postulate and reiterate a year’s worth of learning? I think the thought of the exams are worse than the actual exams themselves, but that is easy for a woman who has not taken anything more than an eye exam in the last thirty years to say.
I love the idea of learning something new, but hate the concept of being quizzed on it. At this point in life I would not make a good traditional student. I am curious and don’t always want to follow the path of learning an instructor wants to send me down. I come up with questions and theories that I want to discuss when I think of them, not when the teacher wants to teach them. I am sure teachers all around me are as glad as I am that I am not in their course.
The idea of my having to take an exam is horrible, but that does not mean I am not interested in Carter doing well on her exams. I have empathy, but expectations. All that being said, I have to just assume that Carter is studying the right material, using her time wisely, reading the questions thoroughly and is preparing the best she can. I have been fairly hands off this school years so she can learn how to handle upper school on her own.
As her Mom my job is to make sure she has nourishing food, a quite house, and sleep. Somehow I still am feeling the pressure of exams and am ready for it to be over. It may only be semi-hell for Carter since it is middle school, which means it should only be semi-semi hell for me, but I am really not used to any Hell. I am ready summer vacation.
Don’t Watch Me On TV Tomorrow
Posted: May 31, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Food Bank of CENC, stop summer hunger 1 CommentSince everyone I know has something more fun, entertaining or exciting to do tomorrow morning, or you have a child in a swim meet, horse show, basket ball or lacrosse tournament you will not be watching TV at nine in the morning. That being the case I want to tell you now what you are going to be missing. The Streets at Southpoint is hosting the Stop Summer Hunger day at the mall.
I will be appearing on ABC-11 between nine and ten to encourage people coming to the mall to bring non-perishable food and drop it off at The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina’s truck parked by Champs. You do not even have to get out of your car because there will be nice volunteers who will take the food from you.
Summer is a hard time for many families whose children get fed at school. That regular meal at school is greatly missed by many children. Please help the Food Bank feed those kids during this campaign.
If you don’t have food in your pantry you would like to give away don’t go to the store and buy it for us. Just drive through and donate money. One dollar given to the Food Bank can be turned into five meals. If that swim meet is really long you can go online to www.foodbankcenc.org and donate online.
If you happen to be free and want to come donate food and photo bomb me on TV please do. I would love to see your smiling face while I am talking to Anthony Wilson with the camera rolling on live TV. Come early because I can’t hang out since my child has a horse show too. So miss me on TV because now you have heard the message about helping feed kids this summer.
Yellow Squash, Fennel and Goat Cheese Custard
Posted: May 30, 2013 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: fennel, goat cheese, Kristin Heimstra, rock you life, squash Leave a commentKristin Hiemstra of The Art of the Potential radio show has created a TV show called Rock Your Life. She and her camera guy came and spent the better part of the day filming me for her show. Part of the filming was interviewing my while I created a new recipe. Since the first of my yellow squash was coming in I made up this side dish. Kristin is still in the throws of selling this show so if it airs somewhere I will let you know. Until then, just follow the recipe here. It was really quite tasty.
4 Small Yellow Summer Squash- diced
1 Fennel Bulb -sliced and diced
5 eggs – beaten
8 oz. Fat Free Condensed Milk
10 Basil Leaves- minced
1 T. Fresh Thyme Leaves
5 Splenda packets
3 oz. Crumbled Goat Cheese
Salt and Pepper
Preheat the oven to 350º. Heat a non-stick skillet on medium high heat and spray with Pam. Sauté the squash, fennel, salt and pepper for about five minutes until lightly browned and soft. Set aside to cool slightly. In a large bowl add eggs, condensed milk and whisk together. Add herbs, Spelnda and the cooled vegetables and a little more salt and pepper and fold. Spray Pam in individual ramekins and using a ladle fill each one with the mixture. Dot the top of each ramekin with a little goat cheese.
Put the ramekins in an oblong baking pan and place in the oven. Pour enough hot water into the baking pan to come up at least half way of the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 25 minutes. Makes six servings.
May is the Farewell Season
Posted: May 29, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Durham Academy, Ed Costell, Meg, Sara Pottenger Leave a comment
Spring is supposed to be the season of rebirth and renewal, but for me it is usually the season of goodbye. I am late with my blog today because in the last twenty-four hours I have attended three farewell celebrations. Perhaps celebrations is not the right word, but send-offs sounds too casual. I went to a goodbye lunch today for my friend Meg who is moving to Baltimore, then to an ice cream social for Durham Academy’s long time Headmaster Ed Costello who is retiring.
Last night we had the Durham Academy board of Trustees annual thank you those trustees who are rolling off the board and welcome to the newly elected. Many past board members who came to pay tribute to Ed attended the annual event. The board members in the room were keenly aware of the good work Ed has done and the quite way he steered the school.
I was lucky enough to get to make the thank you remarks for my friend Sara Pottenger. I am including them here today not only to pay tribute to Sara, but as a small guide for anyone who is ever asked to sit on a non-profit board, a job with great satisfaction if done right, but little fan fair. Sara, with lots of experience serving many institutions is one to be emulated.
A Tribute to Sara Pottenger
When I realized that Sara Pottenger was leaving the board I got a little pit in my stomach. For those of you who serve on the board with us there is no way you could tell that my goal in life is to grow up to be like Sara Pottenger, but it’s true. See Sara is my board idol. But I am obviously a poor student because I have not learned her ways and it looks like my time has run out.
Sara has a sense of grace about her as she quietly and serenely runs her committees and what a lot of them there have been. We and I mean the entire school is indebted to her for co-chairing the Evergreen campaign with her husband Dave and the Suttons. As the chair of the development committee along with the campaign for the last three years she has done double duty to ensure the money the school needs is there. Sara easily could have just headed one of these committees but she has never asked anyone to do something that she was not willing to do herself. She is by all definitions a true servant leader.
From the day that Durham Academy accepted Sara and Dave’s oldest daughter Tatum sixteen years ago she has been fully involved. Besides all the regular room parent stuff Sara has consistently been a caller for the gift club for annual fund. The Pottengers have generously given to the school every year, without fan fair.
Recognizing talent the board asked her and Dave to serve as chairs as of the New Parents phase in the Cornerstone campaign. You would think after all these years of constantly asking people to fork over their hard earned dollars to DA, people would run from Sara, but quite the opposite. Her kind hearted manner and her devotion to our school has made her the perfect torchbearer for all these years. And many of us have willing followed her into the cause.
We were lucky to have her serve on the board for seven years; Her first in an ex-officio roll as the president of parents’ council in 2004- 05. She served on the strategic planning retreat in 2006 and then the board recognized that her thoughtful and consider council was needed back. So Sara has spent the last six years serving this board. She has had almost every job except President and we all know that being campaign and development chair is harder than being president. Right David Beischer?
Someone was brilliant enough to have her on Trusteeship and the executive committee as secretary for every year she has been on this board. Sara leads by example and is always thinking about the long-term viability of the institution. I have never heard Sara bring up an issue that is really about her child. She understands that her role as trustee is not what goes on with her children, but what is best for everyone’s children.
Sara is obviously a brilliant negotiator because when we got her to head up different development roles she brought along her husband Dave. Together they make a talented team. So sadly we are not just losing Sara, but Dave may be retiring too. Dave is the first to say that Sara is the brains in that team, but I know he is selling himself short.
Obviously, like Dave, I am a faithful Sara Pottenger devotee. I know that I have failed in emulating her in board meetings for Sara never talks out of turn or raises her voice. When I grow up I want to be as hard a worker, thoughtful, kind and gentle southern women as Sara. I hope no one is holding their breath because I know I am not worthy to walk in her footprints and I am fairly certain we will be hard pressed to find another like her.
Hidden Zipper Warning Tags Needed
Posted: May 28, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Department store, hidden zipper Leave a comment
If you are not a seamstress you might not realize how hard it is to sew a hidden zipper into a dress. The beauty of the hidden side seam zipper is it makes the dress able to be more body hugging than a dress that is just pulled over your head without a zipper. Today’s manufacturers have really perfected putting a barely perceptible zipper in the side seam of a dress.
I am a fan of the hidden zipper, but I apparently need a big flashing warning tag alerting me that the hidden zipper exists before I try a dress on in a department store dressing room. As any woman in America knows once you go in a dressing room in a big department store you might as well have fallen down the rabbit hole. You are totally on your own; no matter if a clerk somewhere in the store had said earlier, “Please let me know if I can help you.” What that clerk really means is, “When you check out make sure you tell the next clerk who helps you that you were my customer and I am getting credit for selling you all those items.” Not that any of the sales people actually were help.
Today I was visiting one of those type stores. I am in the market for a summer dress or two and the day after Labor Day is a good slow day in retail, which makes dressing room availability more favorable. Unfortunately the stores also only scheduled a skeleton crew because they know the store will be empty.
I browsed through the dress department and gathered an armful of garments. As I knew would be the case I was the only person in the dressing room area so I had my choice of rooms. Alone in the dimly lit cubicle I started to try on each dress. Too short, weird splotchy print, cheep belt, no luck; I kept trying, but was getting a little exhausted. The next dress was promising; good color, short sleeves, nice length. I shimmied into the dress barely able to squish is over my bust. Perhaps I was wrong. The lining twisted around me making the draping awkward. No, move on, but when I went to pull the dress back over my head I was stuck.
The lining twisted more and the nipped waist of the form fitting dress was stuck with one boob above the seam and one boob below. The material was of a non-stretch nature and I was trapped. I wiggled and wriggled, but this being about the fourteenth dress I had tried on my stamina was waning.
“Hello,” I called out. “Is anyone out there?” Crickets. Only the annoying music was pulsing through the store. “Help, “ I cried. Nothing. I paused and contorted and attempted to dislocate one shoulder so I could free myself. Miraculously I dislodged myself from the dress without ripping it. As I was untangling the mess of fabric to place back on the hanger I noticed the invisible side zipper. If only I had noticed it before I tried to put the dress on I would have known I could unzip it to take the dress off. Something I could not see when my head was wrapped inside the dress.
I think as a courtesy a bright yellow “Hidden Zipper” warning tag would help a girl out. Not only would it make putting the dress on and off easier, but also it would probably sell a few more dresses because no one wants to buy a dress that is more like a straight jacket than garment.
I did find a dress to buy. When I went to the check out and the girl asked me if I found everything OK I really had to hold back from telling her that there was a strangler in the dressing room that I needed saving from. I was in an unusually charitable mood after she told me the dress was marked down from $109 to $23 so I just said it was all fine.
Memorial Day to Remember
Posted: May 27, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Dunk Tank Leave a comment
I know today is Memorial Day and really I should be spending time being thankful for those who made great sacrifices for the freedom I enjoy, but somehow today’s theme was more like I-wonder-how-I-get-in-these-positions. The day started off great with a little sleeping-in which was much welcomed after staying up late last night watching the season finale of Smash and then Mad Men followed by some of the completely outrageous Behind the Candelabra. I fell asleep sometime after Liberace’s face-lift and am going to have to pick it up from there tonight.
I think that I paid for all that TV decadence with my actives today. Carter wanted to go riding and needed to have an adult there to watch in case of emergency. The horse Carter is showing next weekend is a thorough bred named Maggie who is apparently a little too fast and wild for most other riders so her trainer likes to get Carter on her as much as possible to help school her. The part about being fast and wild is scary for a mother to watch, but luckily Carter only went off her once in a fairly good roll.
I brought Shay to the barn so she and I watched Carter ride together. Shay is more okay with horses than I am except when they get too close. After Carter untacked Maggie she asked if I could hold the lead while she took the saddle back to the barn. Shay was none to happy about that so she jumped into my lap and Maggie decided that gave her an even better view of the two of us. IT was not my favorite position to be in.
After riding it was time for me to make my appearance at our club for my dunk tank performance. This weekend is the grand opening of our new pool, which was a huge success. The place was packed and everyone from grandmother to toddlers seemed to be having a big time. Consequently there were plenty of people waiting for their chance to drop me in the tank of fairly disgusting water. Although it was cold it was not unbearable. I think that everyone got his or her money’s worth because it seemed easy to hit the target and drop me in. Climbing back up on the seat was the hardest part of all. I certainly got my upper body workout for the day. I must have gone in at least 30 times. I owe the dunk tank experience to my dear friend Stephanie who convinced me to say yes when no other women would.
Being a person who says yes more than no does get me in some interesting predicaments. But as my friends from college used to say as a dare, “What are you going to remember?” I think I will remember this Memorial Day and maybe next year I will spend it remembering those who deserved to be remembered and not creating some folly of my own.
Happy Day with Russ and Shay
Posted: May 26, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Hom-a-gen, Russ, Shay Shay Leave a comment
One of the blessings of living where we do is that my parents live exactly one hour away at Hom-a-gen, the farm that has been in our family for, well forever. Hom-a-gen was one of the reasons we moved to Durham in the first place. When Russ was looking at business schools twenty years ago being close to the farm was a real draw, especially for Russ and now for Shay-Shay. See having acre upon acre to run free is paradise for a dog that lives on a leash in her home neighborhood.
Carter is studying for exams but Russ finally felt like he had gotten ahead of his work so he and I made a quick trip to the farm after church. My parents were free to join us for lunch at my father’s favorite Mexican restaurant in Danville, El Vallarta. My father is such a regular there that even though the place was full of people waiting to be seated he just walked right in and went to his special corner in the back and magically his regular table was sitting empty as if it were permanently reserved for him.
The wait staff greets him as the big tipper he is and brings the beer my father is known to order. No one asked why we did not have menus as all the people who were seated by the hostess did. No one questioned us seating our self or skipping the line. My father is clearly a charter member of the el Vallarta club.
After lunch we went back to the farm to run, walk and throw the tennis balls to Shay, which was the real purpose for going there. Shay loves to run after a tennis ball as fast as she can. She is also fairly good at catching it in mid air, but bringing back to you is not her thing. She usually will pick it up and carry it to her self-determined home base. This means Russ or I have to walk to were she drops the ball. We usually play with at least two balls at a time with her so that at one time one of us is retrieving and one is throwing. You would think that the labradoodle should be the retriever, but that is not the case.
After the throwing and catching session Russ and I walked down to the big lower pond led by Shay. She knows every inch of the place and only stops to look back to make sure we are following her every once in a while. I swear she is smiling as she walks. If she had a cartoon bubble above her head showing what she is thinking it would be one simple sentence over and over again, “I love the farm. I love the farm. I love the farm.”
After circling the pond, surveying the schools of new baby fish and enjoying the perfect sunshine we walk up the hill to go sit with my Dad outside the office barn. With Shay trotting ahead on the dirt farm road I look over at Russ and I think I see the cartoon bubble above his head, “I love the farm. I love the farm. I love the farm.”
A man and his dog in pure nirvana.
The Murder I Did Not Commit Today
Posted: May 25, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: crazy mother Leave a comment
Here is the news that did not happen, but was so close. Russ and I have needed to buy a new mattress for a while. Russ does not care what he sleeps on. In fact since he hardly sleeps at all almost the worst thing gives him the best sleep. A small loveseat under a florescent light with an infomercial blaring on the TV causes him the best sleep. Not me. Princess and the pea would be my theme. Since he does not care and I do he has asked me to just go buy a new mattress alone. What Russ failed to understand in my princess role I needed him to come lie on each bed next to me and move around so I could test how well partner movement is contained, as they say in the trade.
Finding a time that Russ is free when stores are open is a difficult task so today, rather than enjoying the beautiful weather we went mattress shopping. After leaving disappointed salesmen in our wake we finally settled on one and started to cruise out of the mall. All this lying around had got me plum tuckered out so I asked Russ if I could stop at the coffee bar at Nordstrom to get a quick iced coffee. He happily plopped in a chair and read his e-mail.
I approached the order line and was happy that there were only a couple of people in front of me. As the first person spent a ridiculous amount of time discussing all the flavors of tea with the check out girl I began to become annoyed. Knowing that my blood sugar was low I used my best distraction technique and focused on the mother and her eight and ten year old girls in front of me. Big mistake. I should have pulled my phone out and read my e-mail rather than eavesdrop on this crazy mother.
She was a tiny woman in her early forties with long blond hair and no makeup wearing a strapless top and cargo pants. As I stood behind this mother the one characteristic about her that really stood out was that her bare back looked like a bag of oranges it was so muscular and void of any bit of fat to create a smooth look. I glanced at her arms and I could practically see the sinew in her muscles as if she had no skin covering her built anatomy.
She was the one I wanted to murder and it had nothing to do with her over worked out physique, but the conversation she had with her daughters that went like this, I swear to God.
Mother: What do you want?
Older daughter: I think I’ll have a pretzel
Mother: That’s good. Do you want to go upstairs to Aunt Annie’s?
Older daughter: No, this one here is good.
Mother: (To the younger one) What about you?
Younger one: How about chips?
Mother: No, what about a smoothie?
Younger One: What about a pretzel?
Mother: No. I don’t think a pretzel is healthy enough.
Older One: You said I could get a pretzel.
Mother: No, you can’t. How about edemame?
Younger One: I’ll just get a smoothie.
Mother: Who said you could get a smoothie?
Younger One: You did.
Older One: Wait, what about an Aunt Annie’s pretzel.
Mother: No, why would I let you go there?
By this time the tea discusser had been long gone and the clerk was waiting on this crazy mother to order. I strongly considered stepping in to tell her to stop contradicting herself and order something or step aside. I stopped myself because probably on steroids of some kind. In the end she got herself and iced tea and her daughters two waters. Was I wrong not to call social services?
Come Dunk Me
Posted: May 24, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Dunk Tank, HVCC 3 CommentsA few months ago a friend who belongs to our neighborhood club asked me if I would be willing to be in a Dunking booth on Memorial Day to raise money to buy an outdoor movie projector. Now I am always one for creative fund raising schemes so I said yes.
At the time I thought I would be one of many who would perch upon the unstable bench above a tank of water awaiting the baseballs being thrown at the tiny target. It is all in good fun, and I hate that we rent a projector to show outdoor movies so I was willing to join the team. Come to find out that I am the only woman being dunked and there are only five other men. To top it off, the weather has not been particularly warm so I am sure that the dunk tank water is going to be extra cold.
Now, I am beginning to wonder what I have gotten myself into. Our club is opening a greatly anticipated new pool complex, which is replacing the forty-year-old versions that were ripped out over the winter. Everybody I know is planning on coming up to the pool to celebrate.
My friend Lynn had wanted to take me new bathing suit shopping before the dunk tank and I said no I would just wear an old suit. Now I am not only regretting not getting a new suit, but also not working out much harder in the last month and being more vigilant with my healthy eating. Actually, at this point I wish I had a whole wet suit.
I am beginning to anticipate the screaming I will do while sitting on the bench. The only thing that will possibly make this whole episode bearable is if I can raise more money that all the men. My dunking time is Monday, Memorial Day at 2:30 at the Hope Valley Country Club. It costs $5 for three balls or any donation larger than that.
If you hate me come out and dunk me. If you love me come out and dunk me. If you love watching movies outdoors in the grass come out and dunk me. Make this whole crazy thing worth my while and come out and dunk me. I don’t think you even need to be a member of the club. Just bring your money and take your turn. The worst part is that I am at the end of the dunking time so I am going in after all those men have been dunked. I hope they have not drunk a lot of beer before they sit on the bench. All I can say is please pray for me and Happy Memorial Day!
Unplanned Good Days
Posted: May 23, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Jan McCallum 1 Comment
meeting Jan’s Australian friend Justine
There is nothing I like better than an unexpected good day. Being a natural born planner I usually know what is going to happen during every hour of the day. I like to keep expectations low so when good things happen I can fully enjoy them.
Today just happened to be one of those days when lots of good surprises happened and makes it just a really good day. It started with my trip to workout. My gym happens to be very cool about dogs and I decided that Shay needed some extra attention so she got to accompany me on my work out. Shay is the kind of dog who has never met a person she does not like and even people who normally dislike dogs take a shine to her. Working out with Shay made it go by quicker and feel less painful.
After working out I settled down to write two speeches and two letters that had been weighing heavily on my mind. Normally I don’t experience writers block, but these particular works had been on my list to do for a while without any inspiration. Check, check, check, off the list.
I then went downtown where I met a group of friends for lunch. I have been doing a lot of lunches and dinners out and all that fine dining has not been helping my waistline. Our group had chosen to go to the Art Institute’s cooking school restaurant, The District in the basement of American Tobacco, where my friend Paris was working. Since it is a cooking school restaurant I was not sure there was going to be a healthy choice for me. Boy was I surprised. I had a fabulous chilled melon soup and an avocado and grapefruit salad and all the tea I could drink. Fun friend lunch and really healthy too!
I headed home after lunch and my cohort Jan from Texas called and said she was at around the corner from me and to come and see her. Jan was making a quick two-day stop here to see her new Granddaughter Elliot with one of her Australian friends and business partners Justine. Since I had done a little consulting for Jan and her business I had only virtually met Justine so this was a fun treat to meet her and see Jan. It was a short visit, but as is all things with Jan, wonderful.
I rushed home to write my blog and stopped at the mailbox, which contained four thank you notes and three checks. That is the kind of mail I like. As I walked in the door my phone was ringing and it was one of Carter’s teachers. She said she just had to call to tell me about something wonderful Carter had done in class that brought tears to her eyes and made teaching her a joy; Music to the ears of a mother of a 14 year old.
I am writing this just before we run out the door to Carter’s final band concert. I am hoping that the day of unexpected surprises ends as well as it started. Even if it doesn’t I am cherishing each of the small joys I had today. They add up to a pretty great day.
I Need an Intern
Posted: May 22, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: college, internship 3 CommentsWhen I was in college I worked as many real jobs as I could get in the summer so I could earn real money. I was getting experience “working,” but not trying out careers. Thus, I ended up selling lots of stuff door-to-door, like vacuums and cable TV. I made a lot of money and in turn my “work experience” helped me get a real job when I finished school. Employers liked that I had worked which they thought might be a good indicator of my actual “work ethic”.
Things certainly are different for college kids today than they were back in the olden days. Everybody is looking for internships in actual work places so they can see if they like that possible career path. I don’t know if the “internship path” is the better way to get your foot in the door when you go to look for a real job, or just something to do that you don’t get paid for. I know there are paid internships, but I also have been hearing a lot about kids who are willing to work for free just to get “experience.”
This week alone I have had three calls from college kids who are interested in writing jobs. Since I have been on sabbatical for the last year from real work I did not know that my magazine had already “hired” five interns for the summer. Publishing is such a tough field these days that kids are willing work for free to get published.
I got to thinking about all these out-of-work college students and I can think of about 5,505 things I could teach one this summer if I had an intern. Of course I don’t have any money to pay one, but if someone wanted to learn how to be a full time blogger-community volunteer-board member-writer-recipe creator-farmer-mother-organizer-speech giver-researcher I have a job for you. Tasks for this intern would also include the mundane like, driving places, practicing both basketball and volleyball with my daughter, laundry, dishwashing, purchasing, dog walking and iced tea making.
Spending time as my intern you would look for the absurd in everyday life in order to find blog topics. You would search out healthy new foods and be a taste tester for creative creations. You would chauffer me around so that I could needlepoint rather than drive, in exchange I will tell you life altering stories that will save you years of making wrong decisions. You will write blogs and if they are any good you will be a featured “Guest blogger” on Less Dana.
If you are my intern you will walk away from this experience hopefully thinner because you will have helped me drop my last twenty pounds. You will have learned how to live a healthy life that packs as much as possible in a day. You will have spent at least 63% of your waking hours laughing and you will have been published even if it is just on my blog.
Being a Less Dana Intern might not be the job you thought you were looking for, what with the no money and the decidedly motherly duties, but it could prove to be your go to experience when ever you are asked the interview question, “What have you done where you learned the most?”
Mediterranean Half Cooked Half Raw Salad
Posted: May 21, 2013 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: capers, eggplant, feta, tomato, Zucchini Leave a comment
YUM! This is now a new favorite. I created this salad as a way of using up smaller amounts of vegetables. The creation of half roasted vegetables with their more complex flavors, raw vegetables with their crunch, capers and feta cheese for it’s saltiness and vinegar for the tang makes a really satisfying dish.
Four cups of roasted vegetables – I used Eggplant and zucchini, but you could use carrots, yellow squash, fennel, or even sweet potatoes
1 pint of cherry tomatoes –halved
½ small red onion chopped
25 fresh mint leaves chopped
3 T. capers
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
3 T. rice vinegar
1 T. olive oil
2 packets of Splenda
Salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut the vegetables you are going to roast in uniform sizes about the sixe of a cherry tomato. Cover a cookie sheet with foil and spray with pam. Spread the vegetables in a single layer. Roast in oven until browned and soft about 30 mins.
Remove from oven and let cool. Mix the vinegar, oil and Splenda together. Toss the cooled roasted vegetables with the tomatoes, red onion, mint, capers and dressing in a bowl. Add the feta and toss gently. Can be served at room temperature or chilled.
Shay Shay’s Two Today
Posted: May 20, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Shay Shay 2 Comments
Today I went to Dr. Joe Moylan’s funeral. He was a great man, loved by many and will be missed by all. Although he lived a totally full life with a loving wife, six children, twenty grandchildren, fulfilling career as a Doctor, great educator and founder of the Durham Nativity School he left the world too soon.
I came home from the service and was truly sad about the huge loss to his family and the greater community at large. As I sat down to change out of my church clothes our sweet dog Shay Shay jumped up on the bed beside me and sensing my sadness snuggled up to me and rested her curly brown head on my shoulder tucking her nose under my chin. It was just the comfort I needed at that moment.
As I was rubbing her belly in her favorite way to be thanked I remembered that today was her second birthday. It is hard for me to imagine our family without our loving four-legged member. She makes everyday a joy, except when she chews up my reading glasses.
She can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Fly through the air.
Not just catch a ball, but throw one as well.
But mostly she can love us. Now she loves Russ the most, but who can blame her.
Happy birthday Shay Shay.
Sister C and Sister E
Posted: May 19, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Carter Lange, Ellis Toms, Lynn Toms 2 Comments
Almost fourteen years ago I was at church early saving two pews because my whole family was coming to witness Carter’s Baptism. A tall skinny blonde woman I did not know shimmied into the pew I was saving in the front. In my typically officious voice I announced to her that the seats were taken because my daughter was being baptized that day. She looked at me and said that her daughter was also being baptized that day, news to both of us that we were sharing the day. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that did not start out so friendly.
Carter and Ellis, now affectionately called Sister E and Sister C unknowingly started their life long friendship there and then. Today they were both confirmed together in the same church where they were baptized. This time their parents happily chose to sit together.
Carter choosing to join the church and be confirmed was not a slam-dunk. At first she was unwilling to agree to go through the classes. I told Carter that she did not have to pledge her allegiance to any God, Church or Jesus, but that she had to go through the classes to learn what she did and did not believe in. I know that she was challenging to her teachers in her questions. I am thankful that many smart adults, Taylor, Nancy and her mentor Jamie did not tire of helping this prove-it-science-type adolescent come to an understanding of faith and grace.
I ended up being asked to be Ellis’ mentor as a church elder. It only seemed fitting since I consider her my own bonus daughter. Ellis’ mother Lynn often says of Ellis that she is more my daughter than hers when Ellis is being her natural comedic self.
So today I celebrate not just Carter and Ellis’ confirmation but the years of friendship with the whole Toms family started there at Sister E and Sister C’s baptism and continued on today and for years to come.
Family Ramblings
Posted: May 18, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: broken Leg, Carter, janet 3 Comments
My sister Janet drove down to Durham today to celebrate my father’s 75th birthday with us. My Dad just wanted to have a lunch outdoors so we went to the Washington Duke Inn. We went late enough that the rain had stopped so we were the only people on the terrace. There may have only been six of us, but we are loud enough to be a party of 20 so it was nice to have the place to ourselves. Who knows if we disturbed any golfers on far off holes, but luckily no one complained. My mother has spent her life being embarrassed about how loud we are, but now that she can hardly hear I think she appreciates the volume.
As is always the case when any two or more Carter’s get together we told stories of our childhoods, family trips and traumas or perceived traumas. I love to hear everyone’s different recollections of the same story or the true confessions about things that happened long ago.
Janet, being the youngest of the children by almost nine years, always had a lot of experiences that somehow slipped under the table. Today, she recounted how at age 9 she fell off a ladder onto a Danish friend and broke the girl’s leg. In normal Carter fashion my mother came out and told the girl that she was fine and just to get up and walk.
My mother, having no recollection of either this girl, or the leg-breaking incident said to Janet, “Was this girl living with us?” It was not such a far-fetched question since my parents always seemed to be the shelter for our wayward friends. I can remember more than a few holidays when we had a friend of Margaret or Janet’s living at our house with no apparent plan of ever returning to her own family.
In fact we talked about a girl today who lived with my parents more than a month after Janet had moved away from home. My mother did remember eventually calling Janet to ask her how she might get her friend to leave my parent’s house.
All these true confessions prompted Carter to remind us of a friend she had made once in St. Croix who had broken her arm. Carter said she had fallen on that girl and that was how she broke her arm. Why that child never told on Carter I will never know, but she must have been complicit in the accident to keep that fact quiet.
There is not much of a point to these rambling except as a warning to keep your distance from anyone of us in case we might fall on you and break something.
The Parent Lottery
Posted: May 17, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Ed Carter 4 Comments
My Dad, Ed Carter is 75 today
The other day I was having a discussion about the Food Bank with a group of fairly well off people. One of them expressed the opinion we should stop giving children food at school and make their parents be responsible for making sure they were adequately fed. I know this person is not the only one who feels this way so I went away from the meeting thinking about it.
Later that day the one word answer I needed earlier came to me; Luck. The people in that room were lucky to have born to the parents they had. Some of the children who are given lunch at school need it because they were just unlucky to have gotten the parents they have.
Today is my father’s seventy-fifth birthday and I know I am who I am today because of him. From as early as I can remember my father taught me as much as he knew so I could grow up to be a successful person.
It was often unsettling for me as an adolescent to hear him start a sentence with; “I’m going to tell you this now in case I die soon…” I am sure no one is more surprised than he is that he has made it to three quarters of century. His sense of urgency definitely molded me. In his book, children were never too young to take on what we now consider adult tasks. He made me learn to cook when I was seven, sew when I was eleven, could drive the tractor at age eight and therefore was expected to cut the grass, I was sent door-to-door to sell things, after all he worked at Avon, the company that empowered women through earning their own money.
My father is a great storyteller and he would keep his daughter’s entertained while we did yard work or scraped paint off our antique house which needed painting every year. His stories were more like parables about work and how to be a good employee or boss. He always used humor to teach us something because he knew that way we would remember it.
Although he has high expectations of everyone he also is probably the most generous person I know. That combination means that if you make the grade with him you know it, but if you don’t you know it too.
I recall crying on more than a few occasions when my father pushed me to be more or do more than my natural lazy instinct wanted to. He would gruffly ask me, “Why are you crying?” I would scream back, “I don’t know,” and run to my room. I do know why I was crying. He was always right. I could do more and be better. I was lucky I had a parent who taught me, pushed me and loved me.
Now when people ask me why I do what I do for hungry children I can tell them, it’s not because they just might not have enough food today, but because most of them were not lucky enough to have the father I have. My best way to honor him is to push the world hard to be a better place and not let our next generation depend the luck of the parent draw.
In Praise of Those Who Step Forward
Posted: May 16, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: elizabeth Aldridge, volunteering 2 CommentsToday I went to the Parents Council celebratory lunch for Carter’s school. All parents at the school are part of the parents council by virtue of being a parents, but some parents step forward to do a greater share of the volunteering, organizing, fundraising, idea generation, table cloth washing, book sorting, cup cake baking and general fetching and carrying than others.
In today’s world everybody is busy. I don’t know if I even know anyone who is sitting around eating bon-bons watching soap operas. Oh, now sometime I wish I could, but I think that is just because I really like the idea of a bon-bon. I’m not exactly sure I really know what one is, but is sounds like something fattening and forbidden.
Despite how busy everyone is already there are a few people who generously step forward to do a job that they are neither getting paid for nor are getting thanked enough for. Being President of the Durham Academy Parents Council is one of those jobs.
At our lunch we had a gathering of past and recently elected Presidents who were there to honor our retiring Headmaster, Ed Costello. Chris Mark, Cindy Sundy, Martha King, Thecky Pappas, Anne Lloyd, Hannah Hannan, Michelle Beischer, Demtra Kontos, and Lisa Ferrari all joined this year’s President Elizabeth Aldridge is presenting Ed with the plaque that will name the Upper School conference room for him.
Collectively this group of women represented many years of selfless volunteerism. Although the President does not do this job alone, but leads many, she is still the one who has to cajole people to head committees, speaks at Parent gatherings, worries over budgets, fields parent’s concerns and a myriad of other things daily.
Our system for training people for this important job is fairly robust. Someone, after years of volunteering in key roles, is usually nominated to be the President Elect where she spends a year shadowing the current President learning the ropes. This generally ensures that once she takes over the role of leader she is comfortable with the job.
Sometimes even robust systems have snags and last year just as the President Elect, Margaret Jones was getting ready to ascend the throne her husband took a job moving them to Minnesota. Parents Council needed a new President, one who could step into the role without training. All the stars aligned and Elizabeth Aldridge graciously accepted the challenge and when others might have stepped back she did not.
Elizabeth has led the Parents Association with poise, kindness, respect and good humor. I think she has been an example to many not to fear taking on a big task. Certainly no one agrees to volunteer for something looking for praise, especially Elizabeth. But if you know her, consider sending her a message of thanks. Her willingness to volunteer is a beacon I hope others will follow. If you currently don’t volunteer in your community, look around and find something small to help do. You may find it more rewarding than you imagined.
Beets, Grapefruit and Blue Cheese on Red Cabbage Slaw
Posted: May 15, 2013 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: beets, blue cheese, grapefruit, red cabbage, slaw Leave a comment
Red Cabbage Slaw
1/2 head of Red Cabbage shredded
½ t. kosher salt
4 scallions chopped
Dressing
½ c. apple cider vinegar
3 T. spicy mustard
3 T. Honey
2 T. Olive Oil
1 T. limejuice
½ t. Caraway seeds
½ t. cumin
Put the Cabbage in a bowl and sprinkle the kosher salt over it and let it sit for two hours. Drain any liquid that releases from the cabbage.
Whisk ass the dressing ingredients together. Add the scallions to the cabbage and pour the dressing over the slaw.
Roasted Beets- sliced
Grapefruit Supremes
Crumbled blue cheese
On an individual plate place a small pile of slaw. Top with three slices of beets and three slivers of grapefruit. Sprinkle blue cheese on top. Enjoy.
Naughty Versus Nice
Posted: May 14, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: Chapel Hill Neddlepoint, Nancy 1 Comment
Any one who has known me any length of time knows that I don’t need much incentive to be naughty. Misbehavin’ is my natural state, but motherhood and age have really mellowed me. I think I probably have a large number of new acquaintances fooled into thinking I am an upstanding citizen. It is a façade I have adopted most of the time.
Today, I stopped by Chapel Hill Needlepoint to ask one of my new favorite people Nancy, the owner, how to proceed with a project I was almost finished with. When she looked at the Santa coat ornament in question she said that I was actually done which was music to my ears. Since I had allotted forty minutes in my day to work at the community needlepoint table I just started work on my next ornament.
I love stitching at Nancy’s big round table with the store’s door open to enjoy the perfect May day. There never fails to be any number of interesting women who drop by to stitch and visit. Nancy has a great way of keeping the business running and being part of the conversation at the same time, which is quite amazing based on the large numbers of people who are in and out of her store all day.
Beside customers there are the army of different delivery people who you would expect at a store, the Post person, the UPS and Fed Ex men are normal. But then there is the CSA delivery farmer. If you don’t know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and Nancy’s store is a drop off/pick up point for people who subscribe to one farmer. So CSA customers stop by her store to get their eggs, veggies and meat.
One of my favorite regulars, Ann was at the community table working on a Christmas stocking today. Ann is a few years older than me and does not know me well, but that does not stop us from sharing stories. While we were stitching a young guy in his twenties pulled up to the front of the store in his F-250 diesel truck. He gets out and leaves the loud engine running as he comes into the store. Suffice it to say he is not the normal profile of Nancy’s customers, but Nancy gets up she and the young man go back to the storeroom where the produce is.
Ann and I look at each other, both annoyed by the loud engine and diesel smell disturbing the needlepoint nirvana we thought we deserved. It took more than a minute for Nancy to sort out which box belonged to this CSA customer. I looked at Ann and asked if she thought turning off a truck was hard to do. Her comment was perfectly Chapel Hillian in that it was also bad for the environment. My naughtiness immediately emerged when I said that I could teach him to never leave a truck running again if I went out and jumped in the truck and drove away with it. Ann loved the idea, but then we both agreed that the lesson was not worth my being charged with grand theft auto.
After the young man leaves Ann and I tell Nancy of the plan we held back on. Nancy is obviously much nicer than me because she said he was a cute guy and it probably hard to start the truck after turning it off since it was diesel. I obviously do not have the personality to have a store; I think you have to be a lot more nice than naughty.
Less Dana’s First Anniversary
Posted: May 13, 2013 Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: first anniversary 11 Comments
One year. One whole stinkin’ year. Everyday, not one day missed, I posted a blog for the last year about my journey to live healthier, lose weight, raise money for the Food Bank of CENC, tell some stories, make some people laugh and inspire others.
For the last 365 days I have posted a blog everyday without fail. Actually I post 370 blogs and I am not quite sure how that happened. I started the blog as my way of being accountable for loosing weight and raising money, but somewhere along the way it morphed into my story telling, recipe site.
I know that if you follow the blog even semi-closely you have learned More Dana than Less Dana, so I apologize now for anything you found unsavory or disturbing. Mostly I hope you got a few laughs, discovered some new foods, and if you needed it found some strategies to help you live a healthier life.
A few blogs get read over and over again almost everyday because they obviously have hit on a universal issue, like “Dana’s Bra Strap Shortening Station.” Based on how many random people are searching for this and reading it leads me to believe that there is a real business opportunity there.
“The Burst into Tears Gift” I wrote on Christmas day is one of the most read and reread blogs having been viewed over a thousand times. Clearly, “heartfelt” sells in blog land.
But anytime I wrote about clothes falling off like in “Will It Zip Roulette”, “Epic Zipper Failure Follow-up”, “No Boobs for Yoga” or “Advice for Dieting Travelers” I got more readers. People must find it extremely funny to read about other people’s mistaken nakedness.
Thanks to all the generous readers, over $53,000 has been donated to the Less Dana campaign at the Food Bank of CENC and awareness has been raised. I have readers from 183 countries due to the miracle of search engines and no one from the State Department had sent me a letter accusing me of causing an international incident.
I lost 70 pounds over this past year, but I know of at least a dozen blog followers who lost well over 500 pounds in total. I love when people tell me they have been able to do better with their eating after reading the blog. Even after one year of doing this I have not reached my goal. I want to lose 18 more pounds so I am going to keep the blog going. I am less concerned with doing it quickly and more interested in living a balanced life. As long as I am on the going-down-side of the scale and I am making a few of you laugh I am happy.
Less Dana, More Good 
