It is really hard to keep up with what is good for you and what is not. It changes every day or two. Green tea is high in antioxidents! Bravo! Do antioxidants keep you from rusting? Or just what do they do? Lycopene, how about that, I've eaten barrels of lycopene in my life time,eaten or drank tomato juice.
I do not know why but I think I should be glad when I find that things are gluten free. And what are free radicals? I know one of the math symbols that is called a radical and it is telling you the square root or asking for the square root of a number but I'm sure that does not apply. Did you know that bananas and orange juice and peanut butter have lots of potassium? That is if the peanut butter is not from Georgia! And wine! Let's discuss that! A glass of red wine a day helps your heart, everyone said so but now today they added a kicker. A glass of red wine or any alcohol a day can cause breast cancer, liver cancer, rectal cancer etc. but just for women! Boo. Hiss. I don't even want to get into FAT. Trans fat, saturated fat, unsaturated fat, fat fat. I give up!
I think I'll go have a glass of fat free, antioxident, lycopene! Do Bloody Marys have lycopene in them?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Dance
I am not the most graceful person in the world. I've been known to fall down when all I was doing was just standing still. I've fallen off of buses, up steps, down steps, into the house in D.C. where Lincoln died, off the front porch, out of the car, off a merry-go round, you name it I've fallen off of it or out of it. About the only place I've never fallen down is on the golf course
Doc and I were taking Fergus around the block a couple of years ago in the fall of the year and Fergus gave a sudden pull and I slipped on some wet leaves and fell flat on my belly on the sidewalk still hanging on to Fergus' leash. Doc had been a little behind me but he soon passed me up as I lay there and kept on walking. He had long since lost patience with me spending so much of my time on the floor or ground. When some one asked him why he didn't stop he said, "Hell, she is always falling down!"
When my mother realized how clumsy I was she allowed me to join the dance class at school thinking maybe I would become more graceful. I was in the first grade at the time and it was an acrobatic tap dance class. I loved to dance. I used to have my own personal recitals in the pantry and I was the only spectator. For the rest of my years I took every opportunity to join dance classes. I had Modern Dance with Miss Blocavah, ball room dancing with Miss Sheer and in high school we had dance in PE which we called gym class.
Back in the 70's one of my friends asked me to join an exercise class with her that took place at Norma Hellmuller's School of Dance. I promptly signed up.If it was a Dance School it had to be something I wanted to do. We did our warm-up drills at the ballet barr doing plei's and other ballet moves and then began our exercise routines. We did our routines to music. My friend was so crippled up the next day she promptly dropped out but I stayed. There were about ten of us that first night but after that the number varied. New people would come and go. A newly married girl, Toni, stayed and so also did I.
Through the years the instructors changed a few times we had Margo to begin with and Cece in the summer. We went two nights a week and were in great shape in no time! Margo was a tough task master. The routines were arduous. We made a rule that we did not try to memorize names until the new people stayed at least three weeks. They fell like flies. After about eight or ten years Margo left and then we had either Cece, Norma or Natalie. We had also finally acquired a steady group of people that were as dedicated as Toni and I, people that showed up every week (we cut it down to once a week) and we grew to be a very close knit group.
We never lacked for subjects to talk about, music, food, work, food, shocking behavior, recipes, our travels, food, on rare occasions there was a little man bashing, we talked about our pets, mostly Margaret, Norma and Natalie's cats, more food, but remarkably we never discussed politics or religion. That could well be the reason for our compatibility.
We all came from different walks of life, there is probably 35 years age difference between the youngest and oldest. Lesa is a third grade teacher, Toni is an engineer, Toni Lynn is a docent at the zoo, Sherril is a professor , Margaret is a retired banker, I am a retired teacher, Natalie is a dance instructor.
Toni and I were class members for 27 years and the rest have been there long enough to have earned senior status. We would all be in classes still if Norma hadn't decided to retire and not renew her lease on the studio. She and Natalie taught a few thousand children and young teens to dance.
While we worked so hard all those years while speaking frequently of food we make up for it now by meeting frequently and having dinner together and talking about exercises. We meet and start talking immediately, still not at a loss for words. We are still interested in each other's well being and still care for each other. We do a lot of laughing! As the teens would say , we are BFF's. I hate to tell this but I am still clumsy. Just yesterday I fell down in the kitchen. However, I know how to get up gracefully!
Doc and I were taking Fergus around the block a couple of years ago in the fall of the year and Fergus gave a sudden pull and I slipped on some wet leaves and fell flat on my belly on the sidewalk still hanging on to Fergus' leash. Doc had been a little behind me but he soon passed me up as I lay there and kept on walking. He had long since lost patience with me spending so much of my time on the floor or ground. When some one asked him why he didn't stop he said, "Hell, she is always falling down!"
When my mother realized how clumsy I was she allowed me to join the dance class at school thinking maybe I would become more graceful. I was in the first grade at the time and it was an acrobatic tap dance class. I loved to dance. I used to have my own personal recitals in the pantry and I was the only spectator. For the rest of my years I took every opportunity to join dance classes. I had Modern Dance with Miss Blocavah, ball room dancing with Miss Sheer and in high school we had dance in PE which we called gym class.
Back in the 70's one of my friends asked me to join an exercise class with her that took place at Norma Hellmuller's School of Dance. I promptly signed up.If it was a Dance School it had to be something I wanted to do. We did our warm-up drills at the ballet barr doing plei's and other ballet moves and then began our exercise routines. We did our routines to music. My friend was so crippled up the next day she promptly dropped out but I stayed. There were about ten of us that first night but after that the number varied. New people would come and go. A newly married girl, Toni, stayed and so also did I.
Through the years the instructors changed a few times we had Margo to begin with and Cece in the summer. We went two nights a week and were in great shape in no time! Margo was a tough task master. The routines were arduous. We made a rule that we did not try to memorize names until the new people stayed at least three weeks. They fell like flies. After about eight or ten years Margo left and then we had either Cece, Norma or Natalie. We had also finally acquired a steady group of people that were as dedicated as Toni and I, people that showed up every week (we cut it down to once a week) and we grew to be a very close knit group.
We never lacked for subjects to talk about, music, food, work, food, shocking behavior, recipes, our travels, food, on rare occasions there was a little man bashing, we talked about our pets, mostly Margaret, Norma and Natalie's cats, more food, but remarkably we never discussed politics or religion. That could well be the reason for our compatibility.
We all came from different walks of life, there is probably 35 years age difference between the youngest and oldest. Lesa is a third grade teacher, Toni is an engineer, Toni Lynn is a docent at the zoo, Sherril is a professor , Margaret is a retired banker, I am a retired teacher, Natalie is a dance instructor.
Toni and I were class members for 27 years and the rest have been there long enough to have earned senior status. We would all be in classes still if Norma hadn't decided to retire and not renew her lease on the studio. She and Natalie taught a few thousand children and young teens to dance.
While we worked so hard all those years while speaking frequently of food we make up for it now by meeting frequently and having dinner together and talking about exercises. We meet and start talking immediately, still not at a loss for words. We are still interested in each other's well being and still care for each other. We do a lot of laughing! As the teens would say , we are BFF's. I hate to tell this but I am still clumsy. Just yesterday I fell down in the kitchen. However, I know how to get up gracefully!
Sunday, February 8, 2009
All is Bleak
Nature turned on us on a late January day and pelted us with snow and then icy rain and then more snow coupled with temperatures in the teens and low twenties. We were in a sparkling wonderland for about eleven days. The crystal coated trees, shrubs, lawns, cars, roofs, and the most unsightly items took on a facade of ice and therefor became beautiful. Big problem! The trees and tree limbs could not bear up under the weight of the ice so they snapped, crackled and popped off onto our roofs, cars and streets, and unfortunately onto our power lines. Thousands of houses and places of business went black. People resorted to candles, generators, flash lights and making temporary moves in with relatives and friends. Some of those mergers were almost fun and brought friends and families closer but in some cases, I understand, the familiarty bred contempt. Jangled nerves and aggravations were intolerable. I think there will be some new members in "Anger Management" classes in the coming months.
Finally, nature took pity on us and cranked up the temperature to a balmy 40 or 50 degrees and melted all of the ice. We will be a long time cleaning up the mess left behind. The insurance companies will be quite busy assessing the damage followed by repairmen repairing the damage.
Driving around town and seeing all of the piles of limbs and debris and seeing the shocking condition of the trees left with scars that will never heal is devestating. Back in 1963 we had the tornado that ripped through the park and destroyed so many trees and it took about twenty years for those replacement trees to grow and become thriving again.
Yesterday, I drove through the park and there was not as much damage as I expected. The terrain looked mighty grim. There were still snow patches and snow piles that were dirty and grimey with winter dirt. The sand traps on the golf course were covered with dirty snow and one lonely man was walking across one of the greens pondering its condition. There were only about three runners, no bikers, no dogs or babies on wheels. As I said above "All is Bleak!"
Hard times always bring out the best in people. Neighbor helping neighbor, family helping family and total strangers helping others. It truely is an ill wind... Men in trucks drove around and gathered up the sawed limbs placed on the curbs for debris pick-up. Some of them were getting fuel for their own fire places and some were getting it to sell to people or perhaps give to someone to help them keep warm in the brutal cold. So many people without power and lucky enough to have a fire place were more than glad to get the wood.
On a positive note-my holly tree was filled with robins yesterday! Could they be the harbingers?
Finally, nature took pity on us and cranked up the temperature to a balmy 40 or 50 degrees and melted all of the ice. We will be a long time cleaning up the mess left behind. The insurance companies will be quite busy assessing the damage followed by repairmen repairing the damage.
Driving around town and seeing all of the piles of limbs and debris and seeing the shocking condition of the trees left with scars that will never heal is devestating. Back in 1963 we had the tornado that ripped through the park and destroyed so many trees and it took about twenty years for those replacement trees to grow and become thriving again.
Yesterday, I drove through the park and there was not as much damage as I expected. The terrain looked mighty grim. There were still snow patches and snow piles that were dirty and grimey with winter dirt. The sand traps on the golf course were covered with dirty snow and one lonely man was walking across one of the greens pondering its condition. There were only about three runners, no bikers, no dogs or babies on wheels. As I said above "All is Bleak!"
Hard times always bring out the best in people. Neighbor helping neighbor, family helping family and total strangers helping others. It truely is an ill wind... Men in trucks drove around and gathered up the sawed limbs placed on the curbs for debris pick-up. Some of them were getting fuel for their own fire places and some were getting it to sell to people or perhaps give to someone to help them keep warm in the brutal cold. So many people without power and lucky enough to have a fire place were more than glad to get the wood.
On a positive note-my holly tree was filled with robins yesterday! Could they be the harbingers?
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Location: Ice Station
I have been remiss about writing my blogs lately, not that they will be missed but I do like to reflect every now and then about the happenings in day to day living. There have been many happenings, I've been to Florida twice in the last five weeks. The first trip down, I welcomed in the New Year! It was not as warm as I expected it to be but about 40 degrees warmer than Louisville. You automatically feel warmer when everything is green and flowers are climbing over walls and the sky is so brilliantly blue and the sun is warm. Nevertheless ,it was cool enough that my jeans jacket felt good and the fire in the fireplace in the evening felt good. I came back home to plenty of cold weather, crisp days and freezing nights. Very invigorating! After ten days of cringing every time the furnace turned on, I turned the thermostat down to 50 degrees again ( I did that the first time I left, also) I went off to Sarasota again. Keith and Angela went to the Inauguration and I held down the home front.
It was very interesting to be back in the role of fixing lunches, making sure there were clean sox, finished homework assignments, papers signed and binders signed, and clock watching, crabs fed and watered, beds made, rooms picked up, bathes taken, and answers ready for the questions: Where is my back pack? Have you seen my shoes?Is it my time on the computer yet? What are we having for dinner? Can we watch Sponge Bob? Can we watch "Gilligan"? I enjoyed all of it. It took me back a few years.
Once again the weather was below average. However, I watched the Inauguration on TV and saw the two million people on the Mall shivering and huddled together trying to keep warm. It was a thing of beauty to see so many uncomfortable people smiling and jovial and happily attending a gathering so filled with hope. When Angela called later, she referred to herself, Keith and the rest of the crowd as "popsicles." The crowds were described as resembling ants. The faces of America that were in attendance and were introduced as they walked onto the Capital portico were impressive. Former Presidents, vice presidents, celebrities, judges, families, all smiling and proud to be Americans. People of both parties, people of color, people of all ages, it was an awe inspiring event to see the peaceful transition of leadership from one party to another. I was lucky enough to have wittnessed this transition back in 1993 and it is so dramatic that you are filled with pride and gratitude that you are an American!
I came home to the frigid conditions in Louisville and anxiously awaited my gas and electric bill to see how much my bill was after having two full weeks of no heat or any other activity in the house. Well, my bill came and what a shock to find out that it had encreased from $277.00 for December to $289.00 for January! Seems that L G and E were permitted to have a 50% rate encrease. In the great game of Life Monopoly I'm am definitely a loser! I've exhausted my bank roll. Where to now? Spring, where art thou?
Much more to come in tomorrow's blog. Ciao
It was very interesting to be back in the role of fixing lunches, making sure there were clean sox, finished homework assignments, papers signed and binders signed, and clock watching, crabs fed and watered, beds made, rooms picked up, bathes taken, and answers ready for the questions: Where is my back pack? Have you seen my shoes?Is it my time on the computer yet? What are we having for dinner? Can we watch Sponge Bob? Can we watch "Gilligan"? I enjoyed all of it. It took me back a few years.
Once again the weather was below average. However, I watched the Inauguration on TV and saw the two million people on the Mall shivering and huddled together trying to keep warm. It was a thing of beauty to see so many uncomfortable people smiling and jovial and happily attending a gathering so filled with hope. When Angela called later, she referred to herself, Keith and the rest of the crowd as "popsicles." The crowds were described as resembling ants. The faces of America that were in attendance and were introduced as they walked onto the Capital portico were impressive. Former Presidents, vice presidents, celebrities, judges, families, all smiling and proud to be Americans. People of both parties, people of color, people of all ages, it was an awe inspiring event to see the peaceful transition of leadership from one party to another. I was lucky enough to have wittnessed this transition back in 1993 and it is so dramatic that you are filled with pride and gratitude that you are an American!
I came home to the frigid conditions in Louisville and anxiously awaited my gas and electric bill to see how much my bill was after having two full weeks of no heat or any other activity in the house. Well, my bill came and what a shock to find out that it had encreased from $277.00 for December to $289.00 for January! Seems that L G and E were permitted to have a 50% rate encrease. In the great game of Life Monopoly I'm am definitely a loser! I've exhausted my bank roll. Where to now? Spring, where art thou?
Much more to come in tomorrow's blog. Ciao
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