Den’s World

Gardening Notes… 

August 24, 2008

I dropped the ball on gardening this year.  A shame too because being off work you’d think that my yard and garden would be in the best of shape. 

The Spring weather was horrible.  We had cold temps and even snow as late as April 18^th!  Then it was rain, rain, rain all the way until the end of June.  I didn’t feel like weeding or even shopping for plants.  I had bought some seeds in late winter and ordered some gladiolas bulbs from Michigan Bulb Co.  I never planted the bulbs along my fences like I’d wanted to and the seeds finally got planted the middle of July!  The cosmos never came up, the zinnias are up and tiny and my sunflowers are about 2 feet high.  I hope that I at least get a couple of blossoms before frost.  We are hoping for an Indian Summer.

Luckily I did take advantage of the bedding plant sale at Fred Meyer around Memorial Day.  I got a flat of red impatiens for $10 and I put half a flat in each of two large, rectangle deck pots.  I did manage to fill several deck pots with nicotania, pansies, petunias and geraniums.  And I got a much wanted Star Jasmine for the back patio.  It looked like it was going to die for a little while until we got some warm weather and sun.

Of course I got 2 sweet 100 cherry tomato plants and planted them against my new arch in front of our bedroom window.  It’s a great arch made of heavy cast iron with decorative rungs that I was able to push the branches of the plants through and eliminated the need for stakes and twine.  Of course being a late summer, the tomatoes are just now starting to ripen.  The plants themselves grew tall and are bearing lots of fruit.

It is my intention to have lots of geraniums and impatiens throughout the yard and in pots next year.  They are wonderful in that the geraniums are heat tolerant (when summer finally came!) and they will flower till frost.  They winter well in the garage too so that I can have the same plants for several years.  The impatiens are annuals and need replacing each year but they do so great in my shady back yard.

I also will be doing an extensive watering system too.  It’s my plan to bury a hose under the grass out to my shade garden and attach it to a soaker hose.  That way I won’t have to have a hose laying across my yard and I can easily water by turning on the faucet.  I’m going to investigate other things too, like timers and misters and such.

It’s almost time to plant my tulips and when I do, I’ll also plant the gladiolas along my fence in the front.  The ground is sort of hard there and I don’t like pulling up my tulips from there each year so it’s ideal for the glads – so they aren’t disturbed each fall and summer when the bulbs are getting planted or removed.

I’m also going to expand my corner flower bed in the front to make it a bit bigger so that I can plant a pumpkin there next year.  There’s a spot next to the juniper tree (we call it the “pee tree” because the cats like to hide in there and look out at the world and all the neighborhood kitties mark it as their own!) that I’ll cut out for planting as well.

I have to kill clover and dandelions soon so that I can re-seed the grass where there will be a bald spot.

I will need to prune the apple tree way back from the house after the leaves all fall.  I had our friend Aaron prune the tall upper branches this spring.  The tree was probably 30 feet high at top and that’s not normal for an apple tree.  Although he did it at the wrong time of the year, it leafed out beautifully once the sun was able to get into the interior of it.

I have a lot to do before I put the garden to bed for the year ~~ hopefully the weather will cooperate and not turn nasty in the middle of September as it sometimes does here.  I think after such a long-awaited summer, we deserve a long one, even if it's not super warm.

Food for thought people:  

PIECES OF YOU
That crooked nose. That untamed hair. The enormous appetite. The hottest girl in the room isn't who you think. Why pretty isn't (always) sexy

By Walter Kirn

They tend to go out on the town in pairs, I've noticed: the conventionally pretty one, all dolled up and shining, and her average-looking friend, who's barely had time to do her hair. The pretty one, I have a hunch, is generally the instigator. With the plainer one by her side, she thinks she'll look even more dazzling than usual. And the plainer one goes along with the idea because she wants to bask in her friend's glow—or maybe because she just doesn't get out much. I don't know. I do know, however, that when I spot them and manage to push in beside them at the bar, I often feel sorry for the pretty one.

"What are you girls drinking?"

The pretty one answers for both of them in most cases. Hers is the dominant personality, and her heels are higher, too. The plainer one (the supposedly plainer one) isn't wearing heels. They hurt her feet, and she's not afraid to say so because she has no image to preserve. This makes her much easier to talk to. It also makes her more interesting to talk to—and, as the night wears on, to look at. By then, see, the bar is full of pretty women, and pretty women tend to look quite similar. They may not look similar before they dress and put on makeup, but afterward they do.

"Where in Ohio?" I ask the plainer one, who doesn't look half so plain now. I like her nose. I like the fact she has one. The pretty one had a nose at one time, but she hired a surgeon to cut most of it off.

"Akron."

"I love that city," I exaggerate. "It's so…I don't know…so…"

"Depressing?"

"Industrial."

That's when the pretty one, who's tired of standing around with nothing to do but check out her look-alikes and estimate her own rank in the evening's pageant, wanders off to use the bathroom. I don't really notice; I like her friend. Her friend has hands that are too big for her wrists, and when she gestures with them to make a point, I'm mesmerized by their power, their vitality. I'd like to hold them, to feel them on my back. I bet they're warm—much warmer than the pretty one's, which are small and slender but look icy.

"Could I have your phone number?"

I ask.

The woman who's no longer plain at all says, "Sure."

I nod and hand over a pen. My crush starts writing. Her friend walks up and sees what's happening. She stiffens. She narrows her eyes.

It isn't pretty.

In the fairy tale, Cinderella goes unnoticed until her appearance is magically transformed to match little girls' ideal of loveliness, which they grow up believing is little boys' ideal of loveliness. This belief is wrong, though. And I should know, because I'm a grown-up boy who longs for Cinderellas who've never touched a pair of glass slippers—who are plenty alluring barefoot. I prefer them to some princesses I've danced with. I prefer them—these unconventional-looking women who too frequently call themselves ugly or imperfect when they ought to call themselves perfecting—because their transformations are still ongoing.

Maura, the first barefoot Cinderella I fell for, was not a fussy eater, and it showed. It showed in her substantial hips. It also showed in her contented face.

Radiant happiness was Maura's best feature, the kind that comes from filling up on pasta and not leaping up afterward to go running. This distinguished her from the other girls I'd dated during my first two years at college. They were slimmer than Maura, their features more symmetrical, but their facial expressions were harder and more anxious, particularly at mealtimes. Salad without dressing will do that to you.

"Can I scrunch in here with my tray?" I asked her in the dining hall one evening. She smiled and scooted over to make room. I'd been watching her. Her skin had the glossiness of a caramel apple. Her figure reminded me of an apple, too, but this was not a flaw because apples reminded me of pie, pie reminded me of ice cream, and pie and ice cream made me hungry for…Maura.

I didn't go hungry that fall semester, fortunately, but my appetite for Maura confused those who thought she wasn't worth pursuing. A girl I'd once dated, the type who counted her croutons, asked me one day if I had "a thing for heavy women." I told her no, I had a thing for women who enjoyed life. My old girlfriend seemed to find this threatening. She realized, I think, that it's easier to keep off the weight than to keep on the happiness.

The charm of a barefoot Cinderella is that her beauty obeys no formula and therefore can sneak up on a man. When he becomes aware of it, he feels like he's discovered a secret. And secrets are always exciting.

I once worked in an office with a woman whom none of my colleagues seemed to know was there. Nor did I, at first. Her job was distributing memos and other documents, and she drew no attention to herself as she passed silently among the cubicles. A bulletin about changes in the health plan would suddenly show up on my desk, and I'd have no idea who'd brought it. The tooth fairy? The memo elf?

Then one day, when the office was half-deserted due to an outbreak of the stomach flu, she caught my eye while walking toward me down an empty hallway. Straight hair, straight posture, straight in every way. Flat, too. And wearing glasses. Yet she was provocative as hell, like a stripper who was working under deep cover. She had a disciplined, stealthy sensuality that seemed to whisper to me as she slipped by: "What you see isn't half of what you'll get."

I set out to get it, whatever it was, confident I would face little competition. While hanging around the woman's desk one morning, waiting for her to get back from her rounds, I spied another guy my age peeking at me over his computer. I detected jealousy. When the woman returned, I kept an eye on him as I asked her a stupid question about a memo concerning the corporate softball league or something. Then another guy showed up with a story about a malfunctioning copier. The woman excused herself and went off to help him.

"Get in line," said the guy at the computer.

The movie was based on a novel I'd written, Thumbsucker, about my agonizing adolescence. The director invited me to suburban Oregon to spend a few days on the set. There, I met the woman playing my mother: the Oscar-winning British actress Tilda Swinton. She instructed me to call her Tilda and invited me to her trailer for a chat.

She struck me at first as less than stunning. Her skin was pale, as though sun had never touched it; she was wearing a costume of homely nurse's scrubs; and her short red hair was dyed a mousey brown. We sat across a small table drinking coffee and talking about our love lives (I was going through a divorce), and I couldn't believe how comfortable I was. Tilda was a Hollywood leading lady—the first one I'd ever been alone with. I should have been too awestruck to lift my cup.

But the awe didn't take long to set in. Fifteen minutes into the conversation, Tilda's unorthodox glamour overwhelmed me. Her pallor turned luminous. And because she lacked the curves and cleavage of the stereotypical female star, there was nothing to distract me from her assured, refined intelligence, which was the sexiest thing about her. In even her most ordinary gestures—raising her coffee cup, patting her pockets to find a ringing cell phone—there was a magnetic elegance. She moved the way thought moves, with a quiet fluidity. Her beauty was pure, unobstructed, metaphysical. But it had a physical effect. By the time the director called Tilda onto the set, my head was swarming with inappropriate fantasies whose moral saving grace was that they featured my movie mother, not the woman who'd given birth to me.

She—my actual mother—wouldn't have been surprised by this encounter. She told me back in high school that there was often an inverse relationship between a woman's superficial luster and her power to entrance the deeper self. But I was a teenager, stuck on cheerleaders, so I didn't believe her right away. Then I went out with a few cheerleaders. And then, later on, I went out with a model. She wasn't shallow or ignorant, this model, but she wasn't stimulating, either. So smooth and uniform was her exterior that she seemed to be encased in glass. The first time I saw her naked, I was flummoxed. Where to focus? Where to start? I gazed at her on the hotel mattress and searched for a scar—or a flaw of any sort that might afford my lust a toehold. My attention kept losing its grip and sliding away, though, so I ended up ordering chocolate mousse from room service as a stalling tactic.

When the confection finally arrived, Cinderella was fast asleep, of course. And I'd changed from a prince into a pumpkin.

To me, it comes down to Los Angeles versus Paris. In L.A., where I've spent some time in recent years, a lot of the women have nothing wrong with them—and nothing particularly right about them either. The outer layers of skin they're constantly peeling and dermabrading must strip away some of their inner selves as well. And who cares about eyelids so tight and firm that they make the eyes beneath them look cyclops-wide and triple-espresso awake? Whatever happened to sultry, sleepy sensuality? As for implants, no matter where in the body they're inserted, they lend a woman a faint cyborg aura. The polymers in them must send out vibrations.

In Paris, which I first visited in my twenties, the situation is the opposite.

I sat there dumbfounded at the small café, watching the street and pretending to read Ulysses as the waiter delivered my third croissant. The passing women weren't what I'd expected. An American pal at my grad school back in England had warned me that Parisian femininity would tempt me to relinquish my U.S. citizenship, and I'd assumed that what he'd meant was that I'd find myself surrounded by beauty queens with magazine-cover faces and centerfold figures. The reality was quite different, though. As the strolling women neared my table, what loomed was their protruding noses, their conspicuous ears, their overly broad shoulders. As they passed, I took note of their formidable posteriors, their lack of any posteriors whatsoever, and their oddly squat or boyish physiques. What lingered when they vanished, however, was their heartbreaking seductiveness.

They came in all shapes and sizes, these French ticklers, but rarely in the standard ones. The cut and drape of their appearances was haute couture, not off-the-rack. Until I saw them, I hadn't realized how many ways there are for women to be themselves—their best and most enchanting selves. Nor had I known how many parts of me could be aroused by such shows of self-acceptance. I'd been living in one dimension—on the surface of the TV screen, the catalog page—but I'd awakened deep inside the Louvre, with galleries stretching away in every direction (including the one that houses the Mona Lisa, who's no knockout herself but always draws a crowd).

Thank you, Paris. Thank you, Tilda Swinton (humbly disguised as a Midwestern nurse). Thank you, sleeping model. Thank you, Maura. Together, you and your ilk have granted men a power we've longed for since we were teenagers: the ability to see through clothes, not to mention layers of foundation and coquettish posing, to the sexy center of a woman. You taught us to walk into parties, bars, and offices and look around not for pageant-winning figures, blown-glass complexions, and foreshortened noses, but direct our gaze downward, at women's feet. Crooked toes? No glass slippers? Promising.

By Janis Jibrin, M.S., R.D., Best Life lead nutritionist

Low-carb weight-loss plans are no longer the diet du jour, but they've left a troubling legacy: Carb-phobia. I can't tell you how many people still say they try to avoid carbs because "carbs make you fat." My response: Yes, too many carbs in your diet can make you fat, but so can too much protein, fat or alcohol. In the right amount, carb-rich foods can actually help you slim down.

It's important to remember that all carbs are not alike. You've probably heard a lot about good carbs and bad carbs. When people talk about unhealthy carbs, they're referring to refined grains, like white bread and regular pasta. You should try to limit your intake of these carbs because they're caloric, not as nutritious as the whole-grain variety and can cause spikes and crashes in blood sugar that could leave you feeling hungry.

Then there are good carbs, and this group can actually be broken down further into two categories. The first are veggies, and I like to call them green-light carbs because you can enjoy as many as you like. The second type of good carbs are starches or complex carbs, which include whole-grain bread, whole-grain pasta, potatoes, corn, oatmeal, rice and other grains. Unlike veggies, you do have to watch your intake because they're more caloric, especially when combined with fat (like cream and butter-filled mashed potatoes). Complex carbs are still very important because they supply key nutrients and a steady supply of glucose, the body's preferred fuel. Other healthful carb-rich foods include fruit and milk, which contains lactose, or "milk sugar" You can have about two to three servings daily of each...

I just went to the NW Women's show and had an interesting experience.  My mom and I indulged in a few "funsey" things - you know like two girls at a carnival.  Anyway, I told her we had nothing to lose by having a Ionic Detoxing Foot Bath and that I'd pay for hers - at $30 each she felt it a bit high for something she was skeptical about.  She is diabetic and has neuropathy caused by it and also has osteo-arthritis in her spine and has trouble walking due to both of these issues.  She almost didn't go today because she's in pain/uncomfortable most the time.

So we sit down and dunk out feet into the tank for 30 minutes.  Her water started turning dark right away, mine took longer.  It was pretty gross actually.  We both were skeptical and were making jokes about it.  Okay so I have a sinus infection that I just got antibiotics for - and I haven't taken antibiotics in years because I really hate them.  Well my infection is behind my left eye and will not drain on it's own so hence the drugs.  I have terrible pain and pressure there and my vision has been affected by it as well.

After the foot soak we both stood up.  Guess what?  My mom's back did NOT hurt!!!  She was almost pain free she said.  Her tingling and pain in her feet had subsided as well.

My eye felt SOOO much better!  It still had a bit of pressure behind it but the vision was better and the pain was almost gone.  Another thing I have is a stiff right knee from running (and getting older) When I stood up, the joint actually felt 'lubricated"  It felt smoother than it has in years - not creaky and stiff.

I was really a believer in this today.  I got on the computer as soon as I arrived home and of course like all things - there is a lot of promoting this thing and lot of talk of scams and hooey too....

SO, my question is...

Has anyone tried this and what do you think?

I'm really excited that I'm taking my business somewhere really cool.  My Business coach had me do an exercise to determine in what direction I should be going.  I'm where I need to be as far as personality, skills and desires but to really make things pop I need to focus on my passion.

I love to teach cooking.  I have a passion for nutrition.  And when you add the two together you get HEALTHY COOKING lessons, classes, plans, etc.

We’re facing a serious health crisis!

It’s in the news almost every day: poor eating habits lead to serious health issues and we should all know the risks of a diet loaded in dangerous ingredients. 

The statistics are staggering.  Heart disease, cancer and obesity is showing up in all age groups. Type 2 Diabetes is on the rise in our youth making the grade school generation the first in history to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents!

What can you do to guide your family on the road to wellness and healthy eating?

What’s a person to do in this rush here, rush there frenzied society?  Who has time to shop for, plan and cook a healthy meal every day?  What should you buy and how should it be prepared to keep food’s nutritious benefits?

Healthy cooking doesn't have to be laborious or boring. 

With the right tools and the right plan of action, you can have delicious and nutritious results!

I offer customized meal plans to fit your needs, tastes and eating style which includes your grocery shopping plan.

Do you want to learn how to prepare these healthy meals?

I teach one-on-one cooking lessons as well as group classes. These can be private lessons in your home or in my cooking studio.

And I can get you in touch with quality kitchen tools to get you in and out of the kitchen fast.

As a Cooking Coach with a passion for nutrition, I want to tell you this isn’t about going on a diet or following a weight loss plan. 

This is about learning the reasons behind smart food choices and learning how to shop for and prepare healthy meals.

And this isn't about eating lettuce for dinner. You’ll learn tips to make your family’s favorite dishes healthier.

If you shed weight or experience other positive health benefits, consider it a bonus to your new healthy eating habits!

Of course if you're not in my area a cooking lesson or class wouldn't work for you - BUT one on one coaching and a menu plan would! 

Menu Planning with Recipes & Grocery Lists

Nutrition Information & Tips

One-on-One or Group Cooking Instruction

Quality Kitchen Tools

If you or someone you love is struggling with the concept of getting healthy dinners on the table - contact me!

I just finished my 1.5 mile 'route'.

That's my mile and a half Half-jog, Half-walk routine I try to do everyday.  I've gone every day this week so far and I've been eating really healthy too :)

I have just 18 days till we fly out to Palm Springs and I want to be a slim and trim as possible.  Gotta stuff myself into a swim suit ya know!

Man!  It's been forever since I've been here in my 'hood!  Been really busy with work, working out and all that!  I feel my lazy weekends about to slip away as the weather slowly gets better.  I have so much to do in my yard and garden!  Better read that book I want to before there is no time for laying around.  Oh yeah, I guess once the weather is fine and the yard is good, I can read outside, right?  Not really cause then there'll be cookouts and campouts and lake parties to go to!  Good thing I work for the school district and get some time off during the week in the summer!

But for now, Spring is about to start and there is much to look forward to in this season as well.  I shouldn't lool so far into the future when I love this up-coming season very much!

Oh!  And here's a Spring recipe for you!

This simple pasta toss uses the method of draining the tortellini right over fresh spinach leaves to quickly wilt the spinach with the pasta cooking water.

Ingredients: 1   pkg (20 oz or 700 g) refrigerated cheese-filled tortellini 1   pkg (6 oz/175 g) fresh baby spinach leaves (about 8 cups/2 L) 1   8-oz (250-g) piece cooked ham steak 1   large red bell pepper 1/4   cup (50 mL) butter (do not substitute margarine) Coarsely ground black pepper (optional)

week one...

I made it!  It was okay because I wasn't as strenuous and rigid as I should be.  BUT I still lost 5 pounds non the less!

so next week I'll try harder and hopefully lose a couple more pounds and be on my way to losing the 15 total I need to lose before summer.

Then we'll talk about the other 5-10 that need to go after that.

Right now I need something to eat cause the dinner out obviously didn't have enough fiber in it to keep me satiated!

Damn!

BTW it sucks getting older!  We had some friends over after dinner and were showing some photos from 2002 and I look sooooooooooo much younger!  yes I know it was 5 years ago this last November but geez those 5 years REALLY show, ya know!  I hate it when someone says to me "don't knock your looks now honey cause you'll never look as good as you do today" cause its so true.  We get worse looking every day and I have pictures to prove it!  Don't even ask to look at my honeymoon photos - it might end in tears!

I'm waiting till Monday to start my detox program.  I need the weekend to 'gear up' for it.  You know, Pizza & Soda Pop Night, go out to dinner, go to a Bunco & Bites party, go to dinner at my brother's.  Oh and go to the store to get my supplies for the detox.  Mainly fruits and veggies and lots of lemons and cranberry juice.  The pure kind - has absolutely no sugar and no other fruit juices in it.  The kind that's in a glass bottle and looks like blood it's so thick and red.  You dilute it down quite a bit and drink it all day.  Not bad really and it gets the digestive track going.  You drink this cran-water and you eat fruit and salad and veggie soup.  For dinner you get chicken breast (sorry no, Kiev or Cordon Bleu here) brown rice and broccoli.  Or fish, brown rice and asparagus.  You do it for about 3 days and then go to the Flavor Point Diet.  Which I swear by.  I lost 15 of the 30 pounds I needed to shed and have kept it off dispite some weekends like I described above.  So now it's on to the next 15 pounds and this is how I do it.

Plus exercise of course.  Walking 2 miles 3 days a week, gradually increasing to walking/jogging that same 2 miles and then finally jogging 2 miles 5-6 times a week.  That's the aerobic part.  Strength training comes in the form of Pilates, Ab Dolly and dumbells.

Let the fun begin!