Stephanie says

In a few blinks the first four months of 2011 have disappeared into the past. Contrarily however, since the onset of my diet*, 14 weeks within those four months sputtered and dragged. Go figure. * Live-it actually

I enjoy listening to “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross on NPR on my daily commute home. The wide ranging subjects and the typically articulate speakers are a delightful and stimulating interlude. One program earlier this week interviewed the two authors of “Bang Bang”, a story about the hazards and hardships of investigative reporting in war zones. Listening away I was caught up in the telling by one author until I kept hearing “you know” in just about every sentence. I found myself counting “you know” and lost the thread of the story. (This counting is an annoying habit formed during my Lamaze training.) I found myself waiting for the next “you know” until I couldn’t take another “you know” and changed the radio station. My daughter developed the lazy speech pattern of “you know” which drove me to distraction. We two were together practically every moment during a four-week trip when the “you know” phrase broke me. I began consistently replying “Yes I do know” and by the end of ...

A hellacious windstorm blew through my town recently and a huge Douglas Fir tree toppled in its wake. It fell straight down my property line and took out 100 ft of my fence. The porch roof was damaged but I counted myself fortunate that it didn’t land on my house. The butt is six-foot in diameter, I stopped measuring it at 76 ft with a six-inch diameter. Big, big tree. Just so you know, according to the insurance company the property owner where a tree lands has the liability. So its up to me to get rid of this behemoth. And replace the fence. And repair the porch roof. With a cash influx from the insurance company minus my deductible. My neighbor helped me put up some temporary fencing on either side of the porch so the dogs wouldn’t be able to climb out over the tree. This didn’t work at all as both dogs jumped off the porch rail onto the lawn. Much to my dismay Rosie discovered an escape route. On two separate occasions she took off when I was out in the yard. I called her name, s...

First the quince, now the lone azalea in bloom. Hooray for spring!

I’ve been following the “Primal Blueprint” for seven weeks now and have lost nine pounds and my lipid panel has improved. It works! And it works for me because I like to cook as much as I like to eat. Very simply stated: Primal Blueprint is a lifestyle of eating organic meats, vegetables, and fats. As I had followed the Atkins diet since August 2010 I was used to eating very little of grains & rice, legumes, or processed foods. These foods are discouraged in Primal. Hmmm, taco chips are processed – and they were my last holdout junk food. And I do love black beans and rice… I eat meat. I eat dairy. I eat fruits and vegetables. I eat fat, my favorite food group. I recommend reading the book for all sorts of informative and thought provoking information on nutrition and exercise. Primal’s dietary structure is in direct contradiction to the Food Pyramid, the dietary guidelines promoted by the USDA which touts eating a diet heavy in carbs and light in protein and fats. Interested in th...

Yesterday at work I received a call from my neighbor saying my dogs had opened the gate and escaped. Russ lured them back into the yard with dog treats but they’d figured out how to open the latch and they escaped again, (they’re smart and persistent). He corralled them back inside the yard but this time twined the gate shut. I was intensely thankful, envisioning them hurt, lost, or stolen and sold to the dog factory. Gulp. The ground had shifted since the fence was installed, pulling the gate post out of plumb and leaving a gap on the latch just the right size to be dog-nosed open. I’d fleetingly considered how to fix the gap, and discarded the “best” method of actually resetting the post as too labor intensive. I figured there must be an extender that would pull the latch up snug against the fence post – so I was off to the hardware on a quest. In these situations I gravitate toward the seasoned (okay, older) clerks as their experience results in a higher level of knowledge and creat...