Mmmmm

It's been so dry here we fully expected to find dry shriveled bushes, instead we were greeted with the largest raspberries these bushes have ever produced, and a lot of them! They also tasted fantastic! Our blackberry bushes are also full but not quite ripe yet. I'm sensing a cobbler in my future.

Do Not Text In The Theatre

I just came across this story about the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas. They have a dinner/theatre combo from what I gather and a firm policy about no texting during movies. Apparently one young lady was texting and was asked a couple of times to stop. When she didn't she was escorted out of the theatre. Well, she apparently went off to have a couple of brews to drown her sorrows and left a profanity laced voice mail for the theatre. They decided to turn it into a public service announcement at the beginning of their movies.
Full Story

Those Who FailedTo Learn From History

Allow me to preface this post with, everybody makes mistakes. You can imagine the pressure on a public figure, and the fact that being on camera so much, they're bound to say something wrong or contradict themselves at some point in time. That said, some things people say are not so much "mistakes" as they are evidence of that person's ignorance. When you add a refusal to admit you're wrong to ignorance, you have a very dangerous combination. The right thing to have done in this situation was to say, "oh, I mispoke, I know Revere was warning the Americans, I just got tangled up in my words." End of story, but no, not for Sarah. Let's re-write history rather than admit to a simple mistake.

Weight Loss

I was a skinny kid, blew up to pudgy briefly at the start of puberty and then slimmed down again. I stayed skinny until age 30, when I put on about 40 pounds in one year. I was stunned because I was running 5-6 days per week, doing the "Buns of Steel" workout every morning after my run, doing at least 2 - 5K races per month and chasing after a house full of kids. I went to the doctor and he told me it was just the middle age spread starting. I argued it was too much weight too fast and told him how much I was exercising. He said I was probably just building muscle. I told him I'd been on the same exercise regime for 3 years, I wouldn't suddenly be building muscle. He was no help, no other doctor was either, and I continued to gain weight. The heavier I got, the less I exercised because it began to get harder and harder to move. It also became painful in my knees and hips. Fast forward 18 years and 80 pounds later, I still struggle not to gain weight.

I'd been on diets over the years, with people and alone. Every time I did a group diet, everyone else would eat more than me and lose twice as much weight as me. It didn't seem fair. I went to more doctors, again, "there's nothing wrong with you." So at the beginning of this year, M and I decided to get serious about eating healthier and moving more. For three months I cut out extras, started exercising on average 4 days a week. I thought those changes would do something, anything. I didn't lose an ounce, much less a pound.

So next we end up taking a week long cruise. I decide I've been working so hard for 3 months with not a change, I'm just going to relax on the cruise and worry about the diet and exercise when I come back. For the entire week on the cruise, I don't exercise and I eat round the clock, more than I've ever eaten before. I also sleep really well for the first time in years. By the end of the cruise, I lose 5 pounds. Within the first 2 weeks back from the cruise I lose an additional 3 pounds. That's the incentive I needed, I begin exercising more than before, more strenuously, being even stricter with my diet, and for the next couple of months . . . I don't lose any weight. I am so frustrated by now! I'm also getting 1-3 hours of sleep a night.
























So I'm complaining about all of this to a friend and she offers me some melatonin to help me sleep. The first night I take it I sleep one hour and wake up, then fall back asleep for 6 1/2 hours. Awesome! I can't tell you how great and clear-headed I felt after that much sleep in one night. I took some the second night, and didn't sleep as much, but still better than before. I get on the scale the next morning and I've lost 2 pounds in the 2 days I've taken melatonin and slept! Coincidence?

So I'm all excited to tell my friend this and before I can e-mail her, she has e-mailed me a medical study about light and sleep affecting how a body stores weight. In a nutshell the study says if there's any amount of light in your room at night, it disrupts your sleep and your body's own melatonin production, which will cause your body to produce 50% more body mass than someone sleeping in a completely dark room. So now that I have some additional confirmation for this, I'm covering the digital clocks, the glow-in-the-dark light switch on the wall and putting extra covers over my front window to prevent the glare of the street light from shining in my eyes at night. Who knew sleeping could be a weight-loss technique?

Student Loan Debt

I came across this graphic on the Man vs. Debt blog and it looked interesting. Hopefully you can read it.

Infographic by College Scholarships.org

Pay Attention To The Language Used

This is so freaky. I was just having this conversation with my students today but on a different topic. I told them to pay attention to what is being said, the words people choose to use, to understand what's really going on beneath the surface. We were discussing the Civil War and the following Reconstruction period.

So after class I come back to my office and am reading CNN while eating lunch and I come across this interview with, and article by, LZ Granderson on the issue of politicians, abortions and rape.

First, I love his opening statement in the interview that he is both pro-life and pro-choice. I've taken that position before and it confuses people, but you can be against abortion without telling other people what they can do with their bodies.

That said, Granderson wrote this article about the discourse in State and Federal Congresses about the issue of abortion. He rightly tells women, regardless of where you stand on the abortion issue, you need to pay attention to what these politicians are saying about "you," women as a whole. The paternalistic and misogynistic attitudes of our elected officials toward women are very scary. We've got to stop electing people who consider us less than men, incapable of making decisions for ourselves and our bodies, and legislating against us according to their religious beliefs.

Can you imagine the outcry if women tried to legislate men's bodies? Castration for all rapists, vasectomies for all the baby daddies, one or the other for all men who break the marital vow of monogamy, a ban on Viagra or at least prevent insurance companies from funding it. What would men do if women told them what they could do with their bodies?

Here's the story:

Abortion Debate Trivializes Rape

Awww

I just saw this interview on CNN:



Here's the proposal:


I also found another proposal similar to the first. Some guys are really creative.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

Remember.

New Job

Min has a new job working with animals. She's an Equine Vet Tech and goes on runs with the Vet to tend horses, mules, etc. up and down the peninsula. She sent me this picture of one of her first patients. It doesn't look much like a horse to me, and what is someone doing with a camel on the eastern shore of Maryland?

Cakes by Min

I had Min make a cake for a friend of mine whose birthday is today. Min was trying to make dragonflies that would be suspended on wires above the cake, but the fondant just wouldn't cooperate and the dragonflies kept dropping downward like a Salvador Dali picture. So it has one giant one resting on the cake. I wanted something bright and beachy in color. I think she captured that.

Happy May Day!

The May Day Fairies were at it again, up before dawn and hitting five houses, covering ten small children. Hope you had a Happy May Day!