The Mural

The Band Boosters spent a lo-o-ong day last week cleaning out 50 years' of clutter from the band room. Our band teacher is great. He is an excellent teacher, an award-winning band director. He has a great sense of humor and the children respect him. They also learn from him. He is great. And he is a pack rat.

We carted off a trailer full of debris. We washed windows. We took down faded posters. We organized trophies, hundreds of 'em.

By the end of the day, the room gleamed. DH had mounted 55 plaques on the wall and hung 9 banners proclaiming the merits of our band. Looking around, our president decided that a particular wall needed a mural. We all looked at each other. Lacking a real artist in the group, I gamely volunteered to do one.

Little One and I spent every morning this week working on it, as well as the entire day yesterday. With the 6th grade orientation coming up last night, we wanted it completed.

She was a trouper. She concentrated on the lettering while I worked on the pictures. She ably used the level to position blue removable tape so that all the letters, the blue frame, and the serifs were aligned perfectly. She was patient and worked hard.

We finished it in time. Here is the final product.

Conversation While Walking the Dog

DH and I walked the dog together tonight; LO was at a pool party and we had some freedom. Well, we generally have a little more freedom these days. LO is fine to stay home so we can walk the dog.

Any hoo, 2 blocks up the street, Little Dog assumed the position. DH held out the handle of the dog lead so I could untie the plastic bag, so I could Scoop and Dispose.

Little Dog seemed to complete her task, so I crept to the general vicinity and began the Search for the Poop.

"Was she here? Or here?" Her poop is about half as big as your thumb -- she really is a LITTLE dog -- and it is oftentimes hard to find, particularly in darkness, or semi-darkness.

DH assured me she had not, in fact, pooped at all, only attempted, it was a balk. So he started to walk away. I wanted to tie the plastic bag back onto the leash handle.
"Just hand it to me," he asserted.
"I want to tie it on," I replied.
"Just hand it to me," he repeated.
"I want to tie it on," I repeated.
"I'll carry it!" he said.

"What happened to the woman getting her way?" I plaintively asked, handing him the bag.
"With plastic bags??" he asked, puzzled. He had not heard this rule.
"No, with everything," I replied.

"It's 2008, chick, catch up," he said. "Those days are over, long over."

But -- we did tie the bag back onto the handle.

Bottle of Zocor for Sale, Slightly Used

One 120-tab bottle of Zocor for sale, 20 tablets used. Patient no longer needs this prescription.

Just kidding. I think it's illegal to resell your Rx's. The good news, though, is that I no longer need this medication.

Over summer vacation I read the great book, Skinny Bitch. I had read the rave reviews of it in the NYT and looked forward to reading it. I say it's a great book with one caveat: there is a huge amount of unnecessary profanity in it. I'm not sure if the two NY gals who wrote it just talk this way naturally, or if they felt the need to insert it to keep the book from being too clinical. Either way, it was a tad annoying but not so much so that I couldn't read it. We were in the Smokey Mountains and I was glued to this book. In the car, on the cabin's front porch, in the laundry (yes, I wash clothes on vacation. Rarely can we take a real vacation. )

I had little idea at the time what a life-changing book this would be. The detailed account of visiting chicken slaughter plants. The tale of the two FDA inspectors (now fired) who were paid off to approve Aspertame, better known as Nutra-Sweet. (Thank goodness I gave up Diet Coke a couple of years ago. I can only hope the 5,000 I drank before that won't kill me.... )

The single most compelling statement for me was that a calf grows from 90 pounds to 225 on cow's milk alone.

I have been a vegetarian, mostly, for 14 years. During the anti-carb craze I ate meat for 2 months, until I was so disgusted with myself I finally returned to my veggie ways.

But during those 14 years I ate eggs and dairy: cheddar omelets (with 3 eggs); sour cream; cream cheese; and Ben & Jerry's, a pint at a go.

In the process of reading this book, something clicked for me.

I went vegan.

My own doctor asked me this morning, "What exactly is vegan?"

It's a way of eating that includes no animal products. None. Zip, zero. None.

In the eight-and-a-half weeks since reading the book, I have dropped 25 pounds. My cholesterol has dropped from 176 to 147. Triglycerides from 189 to 109. LDL is down to 66. 65 is considered the base amount that your own body creates; optimal range is from 65 to 100.

Along the way I have also ditched refined sugar products and almost all alcohol. I have a cup of herb tea before bed instead of the glass of wine. I'm walking 2 to 5 miles a day.

My blood pressure today was 100 over 70. The doctor allowed me to discontinue my diuretic, but I must continue my BP meds until I can document this level of blood pressure for 2 weeks. At that point, I can call the nurse. We will drop the BP meds with frequent checkups to ensure my health.

When you have high blood pressure you have to have checkups every 4 to 6 months to be sure (a) the high blood pressure isn't killing you and (b) the strong chemicals in the bp medication aren't killing you. If I can ditch this unnatural medication, I will not have to have checkups several times a year. I will not have to spend over $1,000 a year on medication (that's just the part BCBS doesn't pay.)

I have lost a total of 25 pounds and crossed a major landmark in my weight today. The sad part is when you weigh 200 pounds or more, you can drop this much weight and nobody notices. That's just a sign that you weighed entirely too much to begin with. I believe in 10 or 15 more pounds, people will really notice. So between the weight and the blood pressure, I am highly motivated to get even more exercise and continue this plan.

The best news of all? I feel GREAT.

So, Zocor for sale. Slightly used.

The Faultless Starch?

I recently happened upon a new product at the grocery and bought it with enthusiasm: Faultless Spray Starch with Stain Resistance featuring Scotchguard.

The reviews are in, folks, and they are mixed.

The good news. It's effective.

DH and I were headed to a downtown Friday night festival and he asked if I would iron his new linen button-up shirt. The kind that you don't tuck in. It does not have embroidery up each side, but a teeny bit of hemstitching. It's tan and very pretty.

So I ironed it, being sure to use this product. DH has been known to spill his dinner onto his shirt.

Being in a rush, I prepared frozen calzones for DH, LO, her gf, and the sweet neighbor boy who has begun hanging around. I warmed a bit of spaghetti sauce from a jar and called it marinara sauce.

They ate and I zoomed around, ironing my own clothes and getting ready.

Finally all 5 of us were ready to go. I approached DH from down the hall and saw it: a huge glob of marinara on the round of his belly. "Oh, no," I said. "What? What?" he said. "Change shirts," I replied. Sheepishly he did so and I grabbed the Shout wipes from the Drawer of Everything in the kitchen. My goal was not to remove the stain so he could wear the shirt; my goal was to remove it and save the shirt. I was afraid the stain might be permanent if I did not.

Assiduously I scrubbed the stain with the tiny white square and left the shirt out to dry as we raced off downtown.

We returned 3 hours later to a clean shirt. I give some of the credit to the spray starch with Scotchguard. (Most of the credit to Shout wipes.)

The bad news. White flakes from hell.

If you have ever used spray starch and had white flakes, you know what I mean. This particular starch doesn't flake, it just leaves white "tracks" where the iron was applied. A pocket inside your bermuda shorts? A white imprint shows its exact location. A crease in the lining? Shows through clearly via the white impression on your clothing.

I just ironed a pair of black shorts, probably the worst candidate of all, and then spent 20 minutes scraping them on the ironing board with my little brown scraper from Pampered Chef. My DILs will know the scraper I'm referring to: I have given them zillions of the things. I love em.

So in conclusion, I will use up the can of starch I purchased but will likely not purchase it again. AND I won't iron black clothing with it again.

I've just got to share the cheesy photo from their website; it's too good not to share.

Look how happy she is to be ironing. Hmm...

Walking the Preserve

Our local college has a 189-acre Nature Preserve adjacent to it. It is a delightful place to go for a walk if you have the time to wander about and get totally lost and then find your way out again, which is all you can do, in my experience, is get lost and then find your way out again.

Yesterday was a lovely day with temps well below 90 degrees. Tiring of my same old trek around the neighborhood, I invited LO to accompany me on a hike at the Preserve.

"I don't like to hike."

"OK, let's walk then. We won't hike."

"I don't want to walk, either."

So at this point DH intervened and said, "Isn't Sonic on the way back? Maybe you can get one of those banana splits you have seen on TV."

So. We bribed her to go hiking, er, walking with me, with a doggone banana split.

She reluctantly agreed.

We hiked for an hour. There is a lovely diversity of environs there, woods, fields, marshes, and we even happened on a pond.

At one point, I struck out my arm to stop LO. We froze in our tracks. Across the way was a family of deer sipping water from a slough.

Unfortunately I can't see the image finder on my camera in bright sunlight so I have to point and click, blindly. I was afraid the beep-beep sound of the cam would send them running, but it did not. Our next step on the trail did, however, and we did not see them again on our hike.

At another point, LO put her arm out to stop me. There, microns ahead of me, was a beautiful and elaborate spider web, spanning the 5 foot wide trail. I froze. LO studied the web and advised me to go under it on hands-and-knees to the right side. She watched the web carefully as I obeyed. It did not move-- so she followed in the same manner. We came upon 2 or 3 more webs in similar fashion and each time she saw it first and advised me how to proceed.

The first half-hour of the hike was pure misery as she was reluctant and resentful. When we reached the first fork in the path, I offered her to pick which way first, and we could take turns. "I don't want to," she pouted. Finally, I asked if she had a coin in her pocket. She did. So for the first several forks, we flipped: Heads, left; tails, right.

After the spider web incident, she told me some interesting facts about spiders and I remarked she was getting a much better education than I had. This seemed to please her and after this point she loosened up. The second half hour went much better. She chatted about this or that and even, remarkably, began to appreciate the beauty that surrounded us. As we approached forks in the path, she easily chose one way or the other.

Toward the end of the hour, she got cranky again and I recognized she was tired. We were good and lost at this point. She was afraid we might get bitten by a snake and medics would not be able to find us. I reminded her that last week the GPS on my cell phone had told us we were not on a road (we weren't at the time) and it seemed to be able to pinpoint us with great accuracy. I explained that 911 would be able to locate us precisely with my cell phone.

She was still tired and cranky. Thankfully we began to see landmarks we had seen on the way in and found our way out.

It was a grand experience and I hope she will go again, without a banana split, to share it with me.

Stranger, Blogger Friend

A friend of mine who regularly checks this page emailed me not too long ago to point me to her friend's blog. The friend and I have much in not-common.
I live in a southern state.
She lives up north where the cold winds blow.
She is a young adult.
I am, well, we all know what I am. Nana to nine.
She is a hip, pretty chick.
I still like tie-dye, even if I am clueful enough not to wear it anymore.

But we have a lot in common.
We wear the same glasses.
We have the same wry sense of humor. (or so it seems by reading her blog)
We are both into self-improvement.
We have both recently given up Diet Coke, spawn of the devil.
We are both nuts for our kitties.
We both blog.

The oddest thing, and the reason my friend LNE pointed me to her blog, is that we have similar writing styles. Very similar.

The first time I visited her blog, I got the weirdest sensation. It was familiar. It was like -- like reading my own writing.

LNE was so perceptive to pick up on it.

And even weirder, this girl, this stranger who blogs, recently broke the spinny thing on her blender and sent away for a replacement part.

Check out the pkg I received in my mail yesterday:

LO helped me make smoothies a few weeks ago and decided to shake the decanter to help the frozen parts go down to the blades. Shaking the decanter stripped the black piece you see above. I checked kitchenaid.com and they did not list the part for replacement, so I did not think it was available. But upon checking my not-yet-met friend's blog, I saw she had replaced the very same part, so I googled "kitchenaid blender replacement parts" and found a source for it. The part cost only $3.65 while the shipping was a tad over $4. This is a teeny bit irritating, to pay more for shipping than for the actual part, but to have my expensive blender back in full service for only $7 and change makes me happier.

For now the blogger-stranger-friend does not know I exist, but I am hoping a trip to the sunny south is in her future, to visit her friend LNE, and maybe we can meet.

Teeny-Weeny Rant

Notice anything about this bottle of nail polish?

Anyone? Anyone?

The brush extends to 3/8" above the bottom of the bottle.

Who cares?

I do.

When you are down to the last half-inch of polish, which btw, is not so little, considering it's at the bottle's widest part, you have to tilt and dig to get adequate polish on your brush.

How many women will do this?

Not many, I suspect. We are consumers here in America. It's much easier to throw the thing away and get a new bottle.

New bottle: more revenue. Hm. Which side is thinking here?

Don't let the bastards win. SAVE your money! Come on, sisters, tilt and dig!

ps. Polish manufacturers: WHY not make the brush long enough to reach the bottom? If someone did this, the goodwill might show some profit!

3 Little-Known Facts...

.. about moi.

1. Once, in a fit of boredom (sunbathing in Gulf Shores, AL) (who sunbathes anymore?)I figured out the lyrics to "Joy to the World," backward. This is the 3 Dog Night song, not the Christmas carol. The words are in the correct order, but each word is backward. It begins like this: "haimereJ saw a gorfllub, saw a doog dneirf fo enim..." Oh, don't get me started. I'll be singing it, backward, all night long now.
2. I can wiggle my pinkie toes independently. None of the other toes move. Have displayed this rare talent on one or two occasions, usually when alcohol was involved...
3. I count everything. How many steps down to the basement. How many steps upstairs to the second floor. How many weeds I pull. How many swoops with the vacuum. How many forks I take out of the dw basket. It's maddening. At least it is a subtext in my brain. I am simultaneously thinking my bizarre random thoughts. If it were forefront, I think I would lose it. It is quite annoying even now.

A Fiddle and a Bicycle Pump, Too

DH found this charming video online today and I just have to share it. Enjoy!

Rites of Passage

The 13th birthday is quite an auspicious one. The new teen assumes a new air of confidence, a new level of responsibility, an assumption of maturity, and ... a loss of humor.

We were thrilled today to see Capri Sun on sale, 2 for 1. Our local grocery usually does this sometime in August, just in time for school. At this time I typically buy enough for the whole school year. We pack lunches and I keep a case of Capri Sun in the freezer. I pack a frozen one in LO's lunch in the morning, and by lunchtime it's a perfect slushy to accompany her lunch. The milk at school is "Gross" so this is what we do. (She drinks enough milk at home and, info from the ahem, Milk Council to the contrary, we don't actually need that much, anyway.)

We stocked up on it two years ago and were promptly busted at the register where we were told there was a limit of 4 boxes. No problem. We each bought 4 boxes that day and came back a few more times until we had our quota, not theirs. Today we carefully searched for any limit signs. Yea! There were none.

As we were loading the boxes into the trunk I noticed an ad on them for The Naked Brothers Band. I had at least heard the name before so I commented, "Cool. Nekkid Brothers Band."

"Nana," she tsked at me. "It's the NAYked Brothers Band."

"Oh, come one," I jollied her. "It's much more fun to say, 'nekkid.' "

(Rolling eyes,) "But they say, 'NAYked Brothers.' "

"Listen," I say, still teasing, "NAYked is like trees in the winter. Nekkid is pulling off your clothes and running around."

Double Whammy. I get the Sigh AND the Rolling Eyes.

Oops, it's a Triple Whammy. Her teeth are gritted just the teeniest bit. "It's NAYked Brothers, OKAY?"

I wait just a minute, smile and say, "okay."