Thursday, July 13, 2006

Potpourri

Tuesday, Franklin said:
Zen teaches us to appreciate the beauty of what is there, where we are.
Oh, if I could only believe that about my body, no matter what size it is. I know some people
are there. I'm just soooo not one of them. The last time I felt good about my body lasted about five minutes, three years ago. Okay, maybe a month or so, but it didn't take long before I started neglecting it, by reducing the exercise, and abusing it, by feeding it more than it needed.

Sigh.

Here's an interesting little flash-y doodad: Obesity Map. And West Virginia is one of the winners! That is, if you define 'winner' as one of the states that made it to the 25 percent obesity mark the fastest.

Here's what I gave myself for staying the healthy-eating-and-fitness course for six full months:
It's very cool, and makes me think maybe I
have been eating more than 1200 calories all along. My calorie tracking program says an orange is 60 calories. But the peeled orange I put on the scale this morning was actually 91.2 calories. Big orange. So I counted it as 1.5 oranges in the program. I can already see where this will be very helpful. And very honest.

Another cool thing about it is I also can weigh yarn on it! Doesn't have nutritional information for merino, though. [Oh, yeah, I also bought some yarn for a six-month present.] I've been taking yarn to the post office or pharmacy when I need to know how much a certain amount weighs. Why would you need to know that? Glad you asked.

As you regular readers know, I'm making a Diamond Patch sweater, which consists of about a zillion diamond-shaped pieces of knitting, all connected together. If I weigh one diamond, I can get an idea of how much yarn, by weight, I will need to complete the item. It's infinitely preferable to me to weigh the knitted diamond than to rip it out and measure the amount of yarn I used. I'm going to come thisclose to finishing it with the yarn I have on hand. But I know where I can get another ball if I have to. Since I'm on a deadline for this top, I'm knitting fast.

Do you use less yarn if you knit more quickly?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That nutritional scale is a bit pricey... Of course i want one! I can just see my friend's reactions to one tho'
"Jeez...first the Hot Air corn popper, and now this...Hello! Obsessed with FOOD much?"

er, well, yeah...I am obsessed with a lot of things... food is one.

Debbi said...

I justified the price because I knew I could use it for two things. Yeah, right. And I used Froogle.com to find the best price.

As for being obsessed with food, the last time I got divorced, there were more than 100 cookbooks to be fought over, as well as a Kitchenaid mixer and a Cuisinart.

I got the Cuisinart. Used it this morning, as a matter of fact. heh.

Anonymous said...

Debbi,
do you have a teeny mini cusinart? I bought it BECAUSE IT WAS CUTE. We already had a large one.

but for two people it turned out tp be a smart buy--my husband grumbled about it (shocked at the diminutive size!) but now he loves it as he uses it often!

I try to avoid kitchenware stores... but ... do you have a mushroom brush? that was my latest purchase, and I love the cute little thing (it looks exactly like a button mushroom with a lot of whiskers.) Jonathan got me into mushrooms (filling, nutritious, low cal, full of fiber, so many varieties! )

Debbi said...

Nope, no teeny Cuisinart for me. I used to work at a gourmet cookware store [I bet that's no surprise to any of you] and my kitchen is stocked with far too many gadgets. I'd probably use a mini-chopper a lot. The professional model is heavy and I keep it in a cupboard. But I actually don't mind chopping smaller amounts by hand.

Much.