Wally's Birthday
12/10/08 07:28
Happy Birthday, Uncle Wally! We hope you get everything your little heart desires for your birthday. There is one little caveat this time around. If one or more of those little desires has anything to do with money, especially where world financial markets are concerned, you need to reconsider. We'll get through this. With Obama at the helm, we'll have real fireside chats where complete sentences are in abundance. You won't have to wash your hands after ever press conference. You won't have to wait until there is a worldwide financial crisis to hear from your president that all is not well with the economy and we're in for a bumpy ride ahead. You can expect to pay for that kind of honesty although with what I'm not sure. We'll surely see some left leaning partisans in place of the right wingers we're otherwise accustomed to but the political pendulum will continue to swing as it has for thousands of years in the past and will for thousands of years to come. Get used to it. And, for Christ sakes, forget about Hillary Clinton. Pull the lever for your man and mine, Barack Hussein Obama. Vote for Change!
I'm not big on yard sales and I typically don't bother with them. Why would you even consider bringing home something that other people have used and abused only to discard at the curbs edge at the end of the day? Nancy showed me an article recently which talked about using popcorn poppers to roast coffee beans. The writer referenced a particular popcorn popper and Nancy, for whatever reason, wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it in her wallet. In fact, the article mentioned that the referenced popper was no longer manufactured but that you could usually find them at yard sales or even on E-bay. Well, sure enough, we found one of these puppies at the yard sale we dropped in on yesterday. I walked right past it but Nancy scooped it up without hesitation after making sure that it was what she thought it was. Nobody was the wiser and, for us, it was a dollar well spent. Not a bad deal. Throw in a hummingbird feeder for next season @ $3, a funny faces bird feeder for this coming winter for another $3, an old clock radio to add to my collection for $1, and it all came to less than $10. That is what I call supporting your local community. If you consider for a moment, as we did, that we were attending a yard sale in the wake of a foreclosure, it added a dimension of sadness to an otherwise satisfying experience. As my uncle Frank always liked to say, that's life. I think he sang a song by the same name. He was a crooner if there ever was one. That's a story for another day.
I've been trying to distance myself from eating processed food as of late. Raw is better but not always as tasty. Besides, who doesn't love sugar, fat, and salt? It was good enough for our parents, it should be good enough for us. Right? Wrong! They didn't know any better and we do. So the time is now to right all those wrongs. Not so fast, Johnny boy. You've been plying your body with this garbage for decades and now you want to go cold turkey. Is cold turkey a processed food? I think I've been making considerable progress in the past few months. I scour labels to make sure I buy nothing with sugar; I eat fruits and vegetables as often as I possibly can; all dairy products are non-fat or, in the case of cottage cheese, I prefer 2% to either the 1% or zero fat content. It just tastes better. Where my snacks used to consist of chocolates or other foods devoid of nutritional value, I now snack on whole grain crackers, fresh vegetables, hard boiled eggs, etc. It's all about combinations. I never have carbs without protein (protein slows digestion of carbs), fats that are anything but mono saturated (extra virgin olive oil), and I never go too long without eating something. It's all about avoiding sugary spikes and putting the right octane in the tank. I have so much more energy both mentally and physically that I probably seem somewhat manic to those who know me best.
You know what they say about coming full circle. I remember the days in my youth when the elders were decrying the generalized use of BHT and BHT as food preservatives and were alternatively pushing cod liver oil, bone meal, and vitamin D. I wasn't worldly enough to admit it then but there was an element of truth to what they were selling. I had to put on more pounds than were necessary and more years than I care to admit to come around to their way of thinking. Undoing all of those learned behaviors requires a forbearance that I am not sure I possess. Even now, as I am months into this new discipline, I await the pitfalls that everyone talks about but am otherwise on the straight and narrow. I made a great chili over the weekend (beans are a good source of fiber and low on the glycemic index scale), plan to make a nice greek salad today (nice combination of olive oil, lemon, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and reduced fat feta cheese), and I'm looking for a good recipe for white radishes that I bought at yesterday's Farmer's Market. Did I mention that Brazil nuts are good for you?
I'm not big on yard sales and I typically don't bother with them. Why would you even consider bringing home something that other people have used and abused only to discard at the curbs edge at the end of the day? Nancy showed me an article recently which talked about using popcorn poppers to roast coffee beans. The writer referenced a particular popcorn popper and Nancy, for whatever reason, wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it in her wallet. In fact, the article mentioned that the referenced popper was no longer manufactured but that you could usually find them at yard sales or even on E-bay. Well, sure enough, we found one of these puppies at the yard sale we dropped in on yesterday. I walked right past it but Nancy scooped it up without hesitation after making sure that it was what she thought it was. Nobody was the wiser and, for us, it was a dollar well spent. Not a bad deal. Throw in a hummingbird feeder for next season @ $3, a funny faces bird feeder for this coming winter for another $3, an old clock radio to add to my collection for $1, and it all came to less than $10. That is what I call supporting your local community. If you consider for a moment, as we did, that we were attending a yard sale in the wake of a foreclosure, it added a dimension of sadness to an otherwise satisfying experience. As my uncle Frank always liked to say, that's life. I think he sang a song by the same name. He was a crooner if there ever was one. That's a story for another day.
I've been trying to distance myself from eating processed food as of late. Raw is better but not always as tasty. Besides, who doesn't love sugar, fat, and salt? It was good enough for our parents, it should be good enough for us. Right? Wrong! They didn't know any better and we do. So the time is now to right all those wrongs. Not so fast, Johnny boy. You've been plying your body with this garbage for decades and now you want to go cold turkey. Is cold turkey a processed food? I think I've been making considerable progress in the past few months. I scour labels to make sure I buy nothing with sugar; I eat fruits and vegetables as often as I possibly can; all dairy products are non-fat or, in the case of cottage cheese, I prefer 2% to either the 1% or zero fat content. It just tastes better. Where my snacks used to consist of chocolates or other foods devoid of nutritional value, I now snack on whole grain crackers, fresh vegetables, hard boiled eggs, etc. It's all about combinations. I never have carbs without protein (protein slows digestion of carbs), fats that are anything but mono saturated (extra virgin olive oil), and I never go too long without eating something. It's all about avoiding sugary spikes and putting the right octane in the tank. I have so much more energy both mentally and physically that I probably seem somewhat manic to those who know me best.
You know what they say about coming full circle. I remember the days in my youth when the elders were decrying the generalized use of BHT and BHT as food preservatives and were alternatively pushing cod liver oil, bone meal, and vitamin D. I wasn't worldly enough to admit it then but there was an element of truth to what they were selling. I had to put on more pounds than were necessary and more years than I care to admit to come around to their way of thinking. Undoing all of those learned behaviors requires a forbearance that I am not sure I possess. Even now, as I am months into this new discipline, I await the pitfalls that everyone talks about but am otherwise on the straight and narrow. I made a great chili over the weekend (beans are a good source of fiber and low on the glycemic index scale), plan to make a nice greek salad today (nice combination of olive oil, lemon, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and reduced fat feta cheese), and I'm looking for a good recipe for white radishes that I bought at yesterday's Farmer's Market. Did I mention that Brazil nuts are good for you?