My Ipod Hates Me

My Ipod hates me. I've been taking my Ipod shuffle to work where I use it to listen to books. Yesterday I listened to seven hours of Sense and Sensibility. I was really getting into the story. I'm desperate to know how everything is going to play out. But this morning the little bugger refused to load up part 2. Malicious little machine.

Cranberry Juice

Ever since I got kidney stones (which are PURE AGONY) Aaron and I have kept a pretty well supplied stash of cranberry juice around the house. I like cranberries but I'm not a huge juice fan. It's always a little too sticky sweet for my taste.

Lo and behold, Aaron and I discovered pure, unsweetened cranberry juice at the store. I was really excited. I expected it to be tart but it's strong enough to make your hair curl. It tastes a little bit like cranberries and a whole lot like turpentine. I keep trying to water down with other beverages but that's had some disastrous results.

Turns out that if you add a drop or two to a cup of milk, the milk curdles. But it doesn't taste that bad, kind of like old yogurt. (My curiosity got the best of my so I had to try it.)

So if anyone wants a good third grade science experiment, I suggest cranberry juice. It's a great demonstration of what happens when you add an acid to a base. I'm sure it can also be employed as a pretty funny church object lesson, any ideas?

Screen Printing Kit

This week I'll be ordering a screen printing kit. I'm looking forward to making a few t-shirts. My first plan is a onsie for Eliza with a portrait of her namesake, maybe with the words But A Very Little Meat. I've got a few other ideas. I'm excited for it to come. So now you all know what to expect from me for Christmas this year.

Presidential Fitness

Illustration by John Cuneo


During a commercial break from the Duke Belmont game I flipped to C-Span. President Bush was encouraging me to get off my comfy couch and go work out for at least 30 minutes. You have to respect his fitness level. See this great article. He continued by speaking about the presidential fitness program. That brought back a lot of happy memories of elementary school glory and I started wondering if I would still be able to meet the standards I achieved handily much younger. So I decided to look it up. Here's what I found:

While I plan to verify my assumptions in the next day, I think I'm still in the game. The curl ups, sit and reach, and running I got, no problem. The pull up or push up option, I'm not so sure about. I'm still doing about 40 push ups every day but wimpy style so I'm not sure if I can do 25 right angle push ups. I'll have to try to work on that. (My wrist problems bring me down on that one.)
I noticed that according to the chart, we peak physically at 15 then the numbers start to descend again. What's up with that? If logic follows at this point I'm back to a ten year old level.

Anyway, I also found out when I was at the Presidential Fitness page that they've started a program for adult. If you do well enough you can get a medal from the president. You get points each day for the amount of time you work out and once you get 20,000 points you win! According to the website 20,000 points is about six weeks of running five miles every day. You can get the details here. Anyone want to go for bronze with me?

John Adams

Aaron and I are really loving HBO's John Adams. We staid up til 1:30AM watching it last night. I'm buying it when it comes out on DVD. It's fascinating. It makes me so excited for American Independence I'm considering getting something like this done.

Go Time

So Aaron and I are going to try to do the $150 for our food budget for the month of April. We're practicing by spending only 45 a week for the next two weeks. On Saturday, I spent $17 at C-ville market for produce (10 lbs of potatos, 10 lbs of apples, bananas, cabbage, cilantro and kale) and $27 at Kroger for everything else (milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, frozen vegetables, cereal etc).
So far, I've been amazed at how do able this is. It takes more planning but Aaron and I are eating the same meals and we've eliminated a lot of "waste." Since I know a lot of people are generally curious about what we eat day to day, due to our mixed household, I thought I'd share our recent menu.

Saturday: Poblano Cilantro Rice with canned vegetarian chili
Somebody bought poblano chilis about a week ago for chili relleno but I HATE chili relleno and I didn't want to let them go to waste so I tried this recipe for the first time. It was pretty good.

Sunday: White Bean Casserole
Great recipe for a day old baguette, you know the kind that's on the "Manager's special" This casserole is probably my favorite casserole we make. I love it and it has Kale. I love kale. I don't put the cheese on the toast, it makes it too cheesy for me. It's yummy and cheaper without it.

Monday: Quorn Mushroom nuggets, mashed potatoes, green beans and a big glass of milk with some green food coloring
The Quorn mushroom nuggets were my splurge at the grocery store (they were on sale for $3.39) and my celebration of St Patty's day. Ask Aaron, they're really really yummy to carnivores too.

And here's the recipes we have planned for the rest of the week:
Tuesday: Perogies, apple cider cabbage, and Fage yogurt
Wed: Spaghetti
Thursday: quesidillas with fresh salsa and home made bean dip
Friday: Polenta Pizza -Get a cake pan, put a layer of cooked polenta down, then tomato sauce, cheese and veggies and cook it in the oven til everything melts together.

Sufjan Casmir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens

I really love this song. Thought some of you might enjoy it too. I couldn't find an audio file, just the video so wa-la.