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How to Successfully Cheat on Your Food Plan

I know, I know, I know.  How dare I even think about writing such a blasphemous article.  Honestly, this comes up in almost every single one of my nutrition consultations.  Contrary to those struggling might believe, most people are NOT 100% perfect on their food plan.  And yes, that includes me.

While this is a long and complicated issue, I thought rather than going into the “Whys” I would deal with the “Hows.”  Rather than make someone wrong for not adhering to their plan, I think you can create more success when you help support these detours and soften the reaction.  The most important thing is to make sure you get back on the plan.  If there is a harsh reaction each time you get off track, it is that much more difficult to get back on.

Life is hard enough.  No one needs more guilt and shame.  A loving and self-compassionate way to look at these events is a gentler, and I have personally witnessed, more effective way to continue to achieve your goals.

1.  Don’t Plan Cheat Days

There is a diet strategy out now that has you “plan” your cheat days.  This is when a person decides that once (or twice) a week, they can have anything they want.  The issue with that is that most transitioning to a healthier plan get derailed anyhow during the week.  So, that derailment, plus the licenses to cheat sets you up for failure. You will cheat anyhow. Why plan for an extra event?

2.  Have a Damage Control Plan

Knowing you will cheat, what is the best way for you to detox the next day?  Spend some time thinking about it, and make sure you always have this at the ready.  Is it lemon/parsley hot water in the morning?  Is it magnesium supplements the night before?  Is it hot yoga?  Is it a “watermelon” day.  Whatever “it” is, that makes you feel better, try to always have these things in your home, or at your fingertips.

3.  Create Yellow and Red Zones

Yellow Zones are food or drinks that you rarely have but will allow, once in a while, in a derailment.  They could be items such as Doritos, ice cream, pizza.  These are things you DO NOT have on a daily basis, but when you have a bad day, these are your “go to” comfort foods.

Red Zones are foods or drinks that you will never, ever eat.  These are foods that even when you are having a bad day, you avoid.  So, you have your mind set that never, ever will you eat that.  For me, that was red meat.  I drew the line and decided I would never eat that again.

THIS WILL CHANGE AS YOUR JOURNEY MOVES FORWARD.  For example, when I started my journey, my Yellow Zone foods were things like cheese, M&M’s or muffins.  In my red zone were hamburgers, hot dogs, and other red meat products.  Now, my Yellow Zone foods are more like oils, pasta or chocolate while my Red Zone has grown to include all animal products.  So, the line moved, showing a progression.  That is super important.

4.  Keep Refining

As I continue on this journey, I keep learning.  I look at people that are thriving and ask questions.  I read blogs on health.  I always have an interesting book on hand about food.  Documentaries are a staple of mine.  I kept changing and growing.  My college friends (which I met centuries ago) still tease me about how I “ate funny” back then.  I smile knowing that I have come so far from that food plan.  I am light years from those choices.  Most of those things might be able to be placed in my Yellow Zone!

5.  Pay Attention to Your Symptoms

If you have things like a bloated belly, acne, rosacea, stiff joints – these all could be food related.  If these get better or worse, you might be sitting on a gold mine.  On the days you feel better, ask yourself why?  What did I eat yesterday?  What did I drink?  What did I feel?  If you wake up and seem particularly worse, go back and ask these same questions.  What I discovered is that different symptoms led me to a different path.  Each event had interesting answers.  I discovered that my eczema didn’t need a steroid cream, I just needed to get rid of gluten in my diet.  So, no matter what people said about gluten-free being a fad, I discovered, that for me, that was not an optimum food.  This was not about weight loss, it was about seeing where the inflammation was coming from.  Make sense?  You might need even more help or an experienced eye to take a look.  For that, consult a food coach or nutritionist.  You are not alone! I do consultations like this all the time. Let’s talk –

6.  Figure Out Your Frequency

How often can you get derailed per week?  Once, twice?  If you are keeping a food diary, you will be able to figure that out.

7.  Find Safe Treats Just Outside Your Yellow Zone

These are treats that can help with a craving but not derail you.  They are in that sweet spot of neither really great or inflammatory.  So, it might not help you achieve goals but definitely won’t lead you to eat and crave more refined foods.  This can be something as simple as crackers with hummus, homemade granola, cereal with rice milk or other treats.  Try to always have these handy so you know you don’t need to eat the restaurant’s desserts as you have that yummy fruit juice sweetened cookie waiting for you at home.

8.  Recognize Your Pitfalls

We all have those places that we KNOW are pitfalls.  Whether they are family dinners with Aunt Bertha who starts talking politics, or a certain restaurant where your best friend insists on meeting, we all have those places that have hard to resist foods.  Learn what they are, be okay with it, and start learning from them.  You can create strategies from the data that will help support your efforts.  Whether it is taking a break from the meal and going to the bathroom to breathe, or pre-eating, there are different things you can try at different times and see if this affects the outcome.  We definitely know if you continue to do the same thing each time, you will reach the exact same outcome, right?

These are just a few ideas to help you get to a better place in your journey.  Knowing that we are all human, and creating a self-compassion plan around this will really, really help to keep you on track and align your actions with your goals.  As always, we are here to help!

Want some help? Let’s connect!

About Ana Goldseker

I am a whole foods coach specializing in weight loss. No restricting, no artificial anything - all whole real foods. I help people with food addictions and building a food plan that works for them. I do skype and facetime sessions. Please visit my website at for more information.
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Blending in with the natives

In Los Angeles, the Land of the Automobile, stylish natives drive convertibles because the year-round warm sunny weather lends itself to open-air driving. My rental car this week was upgraded for free to a Ford Mustang V6 Premium Convertible, so I got to pretend I was a native, driving around with the top down.

Convertibles are cold. Automobile manufacturers don’t tell you that, but they are. That’s why they usually have heaters that will fry an egg. I needed the heater on today, even though the sun was bright, because the ocean air was chilly.

I drive a friend’s Mustang convertible in the jungle when he’s gone during the summer, to keep it running well. His is older, rattly and ponderous. The new Mustangs are tight, gutsy and maneuverable. They are not cars for the faint-hearted.

If I were younger and single, I might have bought a Mustang. But I wouldn’t have gotten a convertible. I feel too naked and exposed in them. I would rather have a hardtop with tinted windows. I like to remain invisible.

Tomorrow or Thursday I will take my co-worker on a ride down the Pacific Coast Highway with the top down. We will both pretend we are natives.

One Comment
  1. 2012-04-21T13:57:47+00:00 13:57

    For those same reasons I also do not like sunroofs or moon roofs or whatever they call them. I’d prefer a tank, with cameras to allow me to see out and about. Pump the fresh air in through the roof. On second thought, just hurry up and create the transporter.

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Same-sex marriage is a losing issue

I’m not going to argue for or against same-sex marriage. It’s a non-issue for me. It’s a non-issue for the 98 percent of the population which is not gay. But here are some data points.

The United States Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, recognizing marriage as a heterosexual union. The law was signed by President Bill Clinton (a Democrat). It has no effect over states, however, which can define marriage as they please.

Since 2004, six states and the District of Columbia have enacted same-sex marriage. In all of them, the law was passed by the legislature, or enacted by a court, not by the voters.

Forty-two states specifically define marriage as a heterosexual union and/or ban homosexual unions (12 states by law, 30 states by constitutional amendment).

In every state where same-sex marriage has been put to a popular vote, it  has failed. North Carolina became the most recent state where same-sex marriage failed, in a 61-to-39-percent vote where homosexual unions were specifically banned by an amendment to the state constitution.

The media keeps talking about polls where a majority of respondents support same-sex marriage (especially young people, who are programmed by their schools to support it). But polls and voting are two different things. Polls are often skewed by the wording of the question, the sample of respondents, and by the implicit pressure to answer “correctly.” But in the privacy of the voting booth, none of those things apply, and people can vote what they believe. And the majority of voters still believes that marriage is a heterosexual union.

The recent flap over Joe Biden’s “slip” on “Meet The Press” on May 6 is funny. It wasn’t a slip. He has made his views known in several interviews and speeches over the past few months, and they were not a secret. But this time, the media took his statements and ran with them, and “forced” President Obama to admit that his “evolving” views on same-sex marriage had stopped evolving months ago. He had simply been waiting until September, shortly before the election, to announce his support for same-sex marriage. Biden’s interview “forced” Obama to make his admission early.

The discussion about same-sex marriage is merely a device to distract voters from the economy. The official unemployment rate is 8.1 percent. The unemployment rate including workers who have stopped looking for work is 9.5 percent. The unemployment rate including under-employed workers who are working part-time because they can’t find full-time work is 14.5 percent. Those numbers are a losing issue for Obama.

That means he has to have a different issue to distract voters from the real issue of the economy. Hence, same-sex marriage is now in the limelight. But it’s a losing issue too, just like gun control. It’s not smart to trade one losing issue for another, but when 1 in 6 of Obama’s top fundraising “bundlers” are gay, it makes some kind of twisted sense to alienate a large number of voters in order to score points with a few wealthy ones.

It’s time to drop the non-issue of same-sex marriage, and return to the issue at hand: $5 trillion in “stimulus” spending has failed, and continues to fail. Obamanomics simply doesn’t work.

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Thai food is among the most used cuisines in Singapore, and the reason being not just of the growing population of Thais in the united kingdom, but in addition because of the undeniable fact that Thai cooking is distinct in its right. Everybody-from the East to the West, have all been captivated by the flawless taste of Thai cooking, and that is something you certainly wouldn’t wish to miss.

But where exactly may be the best Thai restaurant in Singapore? If you should be on a mission to obtain the perfect diner where you could enjoy your favourite Thai dishes, then here is a good list to see:

  1. Nakhon Kitchen.

Located at Hougang Street, Nakhon Kitchen is noted for its good food and value for money. It’s regarded as being one of the very most affordable Thai diners in the united kingdom, with meals valued between S$10-12.

Another plus factor with Nakhon Kitchen is that the meals is served fast. Whilst it does work that Thai restaurants follow slow-food cooking, in this diner, the dishes are served at a smaller waiting time, regardless of exactly how many you order.

Nakhon Kitchen likewise boasts their particular Tom Yum soup, that is known to be very spicy. It also incorporates an ample quantity of meat (either chicken or seafood), and a balance involving the sour, sweet, and spicy flavours brought by its herbs and spices.

  1. Jai Thai Restaurant

Another top favourite among Singapore’s Thai diners is Jai Thai, located at Purvis Street. It has changed into a frontrunner because comprehensive menu that’s over 100 different dishes to decide on from. If you should be buying restaurant that gives almost everything Thai, then here is the place to test out.

Jai Thai can be among the center ground in regards to budget range, so you’re still able to obtain value for money. Diners love its set menus which are below $10, while already able to take pleasure from the full meal.

The restaurant also provides a vegetarian menu with over 30 dishes to pick from, which makes it perfect for individuals who follow such diet plans.

  1. BaliThai Cafe

BaliThai Cafe is a lot more like a mixture of Indonesian and Thai cuisines, but it addittionally has an extraordinary Thai menu. This diner helps it be to the list due to its simple yet authentic method of cooking dishes such as for example chicken satay, green curry, and Tom Yum.

BaliThai Cafe also offers numerous branches located in the united states, and it’s simply hard to miss. Additionally, it offers delivery and catering services, just in case you are craving for Thai food or if you want to serve the cuisine to big number of guests.

This restaurant can be on the list of few Thai establishments that provide only halal. Pork is a preference in Thai cooking, however in this restaurant, pork and other non-halal items aren’t utilized in its dishes, which makes it safe for Muslim diners and other food enthusiasts who follow halal cooking.

  1. Ah Loy Thai Restaurant

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for easy yet filling Thai dishes, then settle with Ah Loy Thai Restaurant. Regardless of the short menu, the restaurant boasts meticulous handling of the dishes by their resident chefs, making their meals totally to die for.

The restaurant is noted for its butter calamari, which serves as its signature dish, along with Thai Crispy Mango Chicken, Pineapple Rice, and Pandan Chicken.

Going on a Thai food adventure is obviously exciting, and given that you’ve a listing of top choices, you know where to obtain the best Thai restaurant in Singapore.


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I haven’t done a writing craft post in a loooong time and since I just sent Steam Me Up, Rawley to my copyeditor, these types of considerations are fresh in my mind. For the last week or so, I’d been doing searches for particular words that can signal that my prose is telling. Sometimes I leave it, because telling in that part of the story was what needed to happen (typically at transition points).

First, my standard disclaimer: These are not rules to live and die by. Using ‘before’ and ‘until’ is not wrong, and sometimes it’s exactly what’s needed. Like any craft tip, absorb it and then see if it applies, or not, to your prose and that particular point in your story.

Like many other romance writers, I like to write in what’s called Deep POV, which means we try as hard as we can, in either first or third person POV, to eliminate as many filters and barriers between the reader and the POV character so that the reader can be as immersed as possible. There are a lot of tips and tricks, and some of them are well-trodden in writing craft posts on Deep POV, like eliminating filter phrases, not naming emotions, etc. But I thought I’d dedicate a post to two words that don’t get as much attention: ‘before’ and ‘until’

The potential problem with BEFORE

BEFORE is a word that can cause what Margie Lawson calls a mini speedbump and can be a form of telling when it’s used to describe what the main POV character is doing. It might only take a split second for the reader to parse what you mean, but why make them do this? Instead of moving forward, the reader stops to absorb what happened before something else happened, as if the order wasn’t right to begin with. If you use subject and verbs, in the order it happens, the story moves forward without the reader having to take that micro-pause. Not only that, but as a sentence structure device, it can certainly get overused. I’ve read some books where the author used this all the time, like every paragraph, sometimes even in the same sentence, and it developed into a predictable habit. Especially in action scenes, you want the action to be straightforward and full of power, and loading it down with ‘befores’ and ‘untils’ can make your action scene lose steam.

What about UNTIL?

UNTIL is also another word to look out for, as it often shows up in told prose. It’s a good word to search for because then you can look at what is around it and see if it can be made more active-it’s a good ‘flag’ for possible telling. Oftentimes, it’s putting distance between the reader and the POV character because the narration is subtly telling the reader that the narrator already knows what’s about to happen, instead of dropping them more into the moment. Again, sometimes telling is what you absolutely want to be doing–just make sure that when you’re telling it’s because you’ve made the conscious decision to tell, and not because you accidentally did.

Some examples

Here’s some examples of sections I revised last week in Steam Me Up, Rawley. These might change even more once they come back from the copyeditor, but here’s how they stand as of now.

She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she took her first bite.

Okay, several problems here. The word ‘until’ was higher up in my polishing checklist, so I got to this sentence first from that search, but notice that it also has the filter phrase ‘realized’? That is also on my list, so I would’ve gotten to this sentence from that word search too, but I’ve noticed that a lot of times, these words like to hang out together, like they’re all telling buddies or something, like they’re huddling together, sheltering from the fear that they will get nixed on the next Deep POV sweep.

To fix it, I didn’t angst over it too much, as it was not a pivotal scene. It just needed to get the job done, and didn’t need to be told, and could be stronger with a slightly deeper POV. So I switched out the realization that she was hungry to show her taking the first bite and showing that realization instead:

At the first bite, she groaned. So good.

Sparkling, award-winning prose, this isn’t, but the sentence didn’t require fancy. It just needed to be a bit deeper, that’s all.

Here’s another:

He angled up toward Dauphin Street, and she waited until he disappeared around the corner before she set off after him.

She peeked around the corner. His tall form weaved through a light crowd.

This is an action scene, so I definitely didn’t want these in there. Notice I had bother words in there. Again, I didn’t belabor the prose when I changed it:

He angled up toward Dauphin Street, and disappeared around the corner.

She scurried to the corner and peeked around. His tall form weaved through a light crowd.

These are just subtle tweaks, that when applied throughout your novel, can help keep the reader submerged in your POV character. A reader might not know why they weren’t fully invested in the characters and story, but chances are, fixing things like this can go a long way to helping.

In this example, I was telling something that didn’t need to be told at that moment. Since she didn’t know what she was about, since this was something she did without thinking, I shouldn’t have the POV character conscious of this.

Before she realized what she was about, she found his hand near hers and clasped it, entwining their fingers.

I simply changed it to this and left the realization to several paragraphs later, when she actually becomes conscious of what she did, and I showed it, instead of saying ‘she realized’:

His hand lay near hers, and she clasped it, entwining their fingers.

 Wrapping Up

These are just small subtle things that can add up to a lot of impact. Yes, it is tedious to do word searches for these, but the payoff is great. Like anything with Deep POV, I don’t worry about this when I’m drafting, only when revising. And I only do this checklist search as the last polishing step before handing it to my copyeditor.

What about you? Do you have any questions? Do you also search for words like this?

Leave a comment

  1. I think you were the first one to point out the “until” issue to me, so I love these examples! 🙂

  2. Hmmm…never thought about ‘before’ and ‘until’, so I will certainly add them to my list. There are many little quirks that we writers tend to do. So, as you mentioned, I’ve started keeping a list. That way I can run a search and see if they pop up more than once on a page. Other than ‘a’ or ‘the’, I’m not happy when any word shows up more than once in a paragraph. 🙂

    If you don’t mind, since I’m sure–or at least I hope–many aspiring authors will read this post after I share this, I’d like to add my list of telling and overused words that drive me batty as a reader. 🙂

    There was
    There were
    There are
    it was
    you know
    right now
    of course

    • Good list! I’ve got one too with many of these on there, and while it takes me hours to go through and find, evaluate and fix (or not), I think it’s well worth it! For this last project, I reduced my word count by almost 1500 words by just doing this…. Thanks for adding your list!!!

      • I agree about taking the time. We owe it to our readers. And I just searched for ‘before’ and ‘until’ in my current WIP. I’m scared to look at my older stories. LOL! But, thankfully, I didn’t see many, so maybe I’d subconsciously weeded them out. 🙂 Cheers!

      • And like any of these, they’re not necessarily bad or wrong, I just like to make sure that when I do use these words, I’m doing it consciously and with purpose because that’s what the story needs at that point…

      • Exactly! 🙂

  3. Your first example is great. Not because you cut those words, but because it’s straight to the point. “So good.” The second example doesn’t gel for me because it doesn’t connect with her motive for waiting. Try “Counting the seconds, she scurried to the corner and peeked around.” It’s also better sentence structure, more varied with an opening clause. Although I agree with eliminating POV filters, I don’t think eliminating time qualifiers is a good idea for deep POV. People think in terms of before and after, but they don’t think, “I think…” before they think or do something. You know…that’s my opinion…of course, she thought. Then she smiled 🙂

  4. Thanks for the post, and thanks for stopping by my blog. I’m still trying to wrap my head around all these telling words. Even when I know a sentence is telling, I still have a hard time figuring out a way to rewrite it without telling. Obviously you have a much better handle on the whole thing.

  5. Wow. Never would have thought of the problems “before” and “until” could present in writing until I wrote this article. I’m printing out this article for reference when I revise my WIP next year. Thank you, Angela!

    • You’re very welcome! But remember, using them doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong. Just consider them “flags” to see if you’re telling, and if you are, then decide if you want to tell or show there, and adjust accordingly.

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Sunday, September 26, 2010
Interview conducted by Coral Marshall, columnist

AW: Hi Dan, I’m Coral Marshall, with how are you today?

DH: I’m great!

AW: Are you excited for the game today?

DH: I am it’s a little warm out here though.

AW: Its really warm. So since you are a starting pitcher you get to watch a lot of the action, what’s your favorite rally monkey clip?

DH: Oh that’s a good question, you know I don’t like the romantic ones, like the Sleepless in Seattle. I like more […] of the Avatar one, its pretty good, I think the one with what is it, Poltergeist.

AW: That one’s great.

DH: I think that ones my favorite.

AW: My favorite is the Wedding Crashers one where the rally monkey is will Ferrell.

DH: Oh yea!

AW: Have you seen that one?

DH: Yea, I think I have.

AW: It’s a really good one. So, as you know, it’s the end of the season, and a lot of guys are up here for the first time, what was your first Major League game like?

DH: My first major league game was in 2003 against the Giants. I faced Barry Bonds my first inning so that was pretty exciting. […] You know it happens so fast when the young guys come up, you know hopefully they take time to enjoy it, because I can barely remember when I was first coming up.

AW: Right, [that makes sense]. Thank you so much for your time today, Dan, we really appreciate it.

DH: Anytime!

Love to hear what you think!

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11 November 2010 / Liz Johns

Do Animals Have Good Taste and What the Heck is Umami Anyway?

It’s all a matter of taste. You like sweet. I like savoury. She likes umami. Um-what-i? It’s the fifth taste apparently and it is difficult to describe. It’s defined as the flavour of  ‘delicious taste’. No, I don’t understand what it is either, but let’s move on. The taste of food makes us enjoy eating, and for many of us, too much eating. But how so with animals? Do they get the same taste enjoyment out of their food or do they simply use food as fuel to live?

Human Tasters

Well, leaving invertebrates aside, all animals taste their food, and just like us, an individual’s ability to taste depends on their number of taste buds. Humans have on average 10,000 taste buds, but this can vary dramatically from person to person. If you have a greater number of taste buds and a particular genetic make-up, you are deemed a supertaster.  Supertasters dislike green vegetables, grapefruit juice, coffee, soy and overly sweet things. At the other end of the scale are the non-tasters who prefer sweets, alcohol and fats. Which are you?

Animal Tasters

Other animal species have different numbers of taste buds. Cows have around 25,000, pigs and similar omnivores 15,000, parrots 1-200, cats 470 and chickens a mere 50. But this doesn’t mean that because a cow for example has two and half times as many taste buds as a human that it can taste two and a half times better. Different animal species taste differently and cannot be compared.

Cats are not able to taste sweetness. They lack some amino acids that make up the DNA of the Tas1r2 gene (a gene used in combination with Tas1r3 to make the protein essential for sensing sweet flavours.) Hence, their preference for a seemingly dull diet (meat, meat and more meat).

Herbivores, such as cows have a great number of taste buds to enable them to detect levels of bitterness and dangerous toxins.

And the poor old chooks with only 50 taste buds, they musn’t be able to taste very much at all. That’s what chook feed manufacturers believed up to the 1950s. Tests conducted since then have proved inconclusive over what chickens can taste, but from my own backgarden research I can tell you that they have a highly developed sense of taste. My chooks get spoilt with foody treats such as cheese, boiled eggs, grapes and rice crackers most days. They will turn their beaks up at the dull, dry chook feed and tuck straight into the good stuff. My one-legged chook Monkey has an obsession about grapes. When you go out to see her, she’ll stand and coo from a distance, which I interpret as – it’s too difficult for me to hop over, please bring my food over here – but then when you show her some grapes, she hops over quicker than you can say eggs on toast.

Fish also have taste buds on their tongues, but one fish stands out as a supersenser – the Catfish. Not only the tongue, but most of the catfish’s body is covered with taste buds. It has . . . wait for it . . . about one quarter of a million taste buds in total. The taste buds on the body detect food and chemicals nearby, then the taste buds on the tongue check that the food is edible.

Favourite Tastes of my Pets, Past and Present

  • Rats – Chocolate
  • Rabbit – Cake
  • Chooks – Grapes
  • Cats – Baked beans in tomato sauce
  • Lorikeets – Dates
  • Corella – Apple seeds
  • Sheep – Crisps

So there you have it, a quick tour of the animal world and its taste buds. In the words of Kenny Everett, “It’s all done in the best possible taste.”

Leave a Comment
  1. offtheleashsd / Nov 13 2010 10:10 am

    I’ve read that cats can’t taste sweet but I don’t buy it. My cats have sweet tooths; they eat things that are pure sugar. I have caramel dip that is fat free, nothing but sugar, and my cats love it. They only get a little taste on my finger, because I’m sure sugar isn’t good for them. They also like cookies and other pastries, but most of those have some fat and milk in them. I don’t think humans will ever quite completely understand cats, they’re just too mysterious. Great blog, by the way. I love reading about animals.

    • Liz Johns / Nov 13 2010 12:26 pm

      I have to agree. There is lots of proof that cats DO like the odd sweet treat, so more research is needed I think.

      Thanks for the comment.

  2. Glenn Radakovich / Nov 13 2010 12:09 pm

    Great new website!

  3. Liz Johns / Nov 13 2010 12:28 pm

    Thanks 🙂

  4. Cymbria / Nov 17 2010 4:10 am

    I am curious to know how you found out about your cats’ um…’sophisticated’ tastes? As a supertaster who, strangely enough, has a mad affinity for peas and broccoli, I enjoy saltiness above all else. I blame the peas on my Mom calling them “little bundles of joy” all growing up, but the broccoli? At least it’s not as inexplicable as that fantastic giraffe pic. But it looks like the squirrel is taking it all in stride lol Just another day in the wilderness hehee

    • Liz Johns / Nov 20 2010 9:01 am

      The baked bean discovery came about by leaving a dinner plate with left-over baked beans on it and seeing the cats wander over and lick the plate spotlessly clean. I didn’t have to wash it! Only kidding 🙂
      Peas are top – I agree.

  5. Cymbria / Nov 27 2010 3:49 am

    The world can offer up some pretty amazing discoveries when we take the time to sit back and watch what happens 🙂

    ps.I totally need a “Peas are top” T-shirt lol!

  6. homeschooledjunglefreak / Dec 5 2010 9:57 pm

    stalking your blog now with my stupid comments, obviously.
    I had a male tabby named Toby, and one day we bought him little dried fish… he backed away and wouldn’t go near them, and I think he got a bit fluffed up over them.
    We fed them to the neighbour’s cat… lol.

  7. Ells / Dec 18 2010 12:59 am

    I like your description of umami – I’ve always thought of it as ‘kind of savoury or meaty’ – but “the flavour of ’delicious taste’” is a briiliant way to put it!

    Love the blog, really interesting subjects. 🙂

  8. Liz Johns / Dec 18 2010 6:36 am

    Thanks. I had trouble finding out what umami tasted like. We just can’t describe it in English!

  9. caz / Jul 6 2011 10:27 pm

    Are there copyright charges on your photos?, would I be able to use some in my presentations please?

    • Liz Johns / Jul 15 2011 9:40 am

      Apologies for the delay in replying.

      The images I’ve used on that post are sourced from the net with attributions (name/url) attached (either underneath the pics or in a mouse-over). So there are no charges from me to use them. If you want to be really safe, then best to follow up with the original posters.

      Thanks for stopping by my blog.

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Rainbow Days

If the player not showing please click to the episode number button bellow to see it or jump to next episode. Reload page after changing video quality.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Nijiiro Days

Watch Rainbow Days full episodes online English sub
Other title: Nijiiro Days
Synopsis: The series details the lives of four main characters named Natsuki, Tomoya, Keiichi, and Tsuyoshi. They spend their days trying to have fun by finishing their studies and debating about romance. Natsuki, one of the main characters, has a crush on a girl named Anna at school, while others often get involved in their relationship.
Language: English Sub
Status: Completed
Aired:Jan 10, 2016 to ?
Genres: Comedy, Shoujo, Slice of Life
Sources: Myanimelist, Wikipedia


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1 Comment

Adding spice to your life…

Day 108Are you alive and having fun?

To find the balance between certainty and ambiguity in our lives can make the difference between feeling dull or alive. Most of us enjoy the certainty that daily routines bring. Yet, a life without ambiguity and surprises often becomes boring. Perhaps we cannot place a finger on it, but our lives seem to be without spark and zest when one day goes into the next, as we get up the same time in the morning, eat the same breakfast, take the same road to work, perform similar activities and go back home at night to watch the same programs on TV.

I know I am not alone in having a need to experience the sparkle that variety brings. I consciously try to spice up my life by adding something new. It might be as simple as walking or running a new path, meeting new people, traveling to new places, listening to new music, reading books, and learning something new -all these things add zest to my life.

One real expert at living on the edge and with plenty of ambiguity – both trying new things and pushing his and perhaps other people’s limits – is Håkan Roos, who just hosted a surprise party for his friends in honor of his own birthday (not the other way around). All we knew was that we needed to show up at the airport early Saturday morning and that we would not be back before late Sunday evening. All we did for the rest of that weekend was outside our plans, routines, ordinary lives or traditional birthday parties. We landed in Marrakesh and experienced some magic days that we will never forget.

Håkan is creative, bold and wild, which keeps him young in body and heart.

His recipe to add spice to his life is being curious to try new things, bold enough to make decisions, and implement those decisions, not worrying about problems or negative outcomes, and fixing the issues as they come, as well as not regret the mistakes and the dead ends that he inevitably sometimes will face.

We don’t have to be crazy, or wild and go off on dangerous limbs to add spice to our lives, but by deciding to add more variety and have the courage to brake our routines and welcoming ambiguity, I’m sure our lives will bring much more excitement and energy.


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Book: No such thing as Dragons

The last book I’ll be reviewing from Philip Reeve for now. It’s been an epic journey so far, but I think I need a break from him to go explore some other minds and delve into other worlds.

No such thing as dragons is a story about a boy who goes on a journey with a dragon hunter. It may sound ironic, but the plot does a good job of bringing the readers in circles, with the question of whether dragons exist constantly on our mind. It’s similar to ‘Here lies Arthur’ in the sense that the idea of myth creation is once again touched on, although not as extensively. Instead it focuses on human relations and what different people would do for survival.

As with Reeve, our main character is once again scarred in some way. In this case he is mute, unable to talk because of childhood trauma. This journey that he goes on is a life changing one. He broadens his horizons and learns a good deal about people and what they are capable of. It’s a good story with vibrant characters that bring life to the plot. I liked how the characters had very different struggles even though they were in the same situation. I enjoyed the journey that they went on and I loved how they changed and the process in which they developed. Personally I think that characterization as well as character development is Reeve’s strengths. Plot may not be original but it’s always witty and that for a children’s book makes it an interesting read.

So yes, it’s a book that can be read in an afternoon. It’s reminiscent of epic tales but at the same time it’s a very personal story about the three (or four) main characters. I totally recommend it and would love to hear what you thought of it if you’d already read it!

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Handshake Facts

Handshake Facts– There is no one explanation for a handshake. It could mean different things at different times.

But first and foremost shaking hands is a form of greeting. It is used just about the same way as hugs and kisses. However, handshakes are the best for formal and semi-formal scenarios. Among friends and familiar faces, a handshake comes in probably with a fun twist.

A handshake could be a sign of trust, respect, and solidarity,

It is used to show a sealed deal, cordial relationship, truce, peace, reconciliation, congratulatory gesture, expressing gratitude and a sign of good sportsmanship.

1. History

The use of the handshake for greeting has been traced back to ancient Greek in the 5th century BC. Archaeologists found an artwork with the images of a handshake. The images showed the rulers having handshakes with their gods.

Handshake patterns differ from culture to culture.

On a general note, handshake globally refers to the palm to palm pattern which sometimes comes with an up and down movement.

2. First Impression

Handshake Facts

A good handshake is a way to make a good first impression. This also works for women in the business world. A proper and confident handshake can earn you a business favor (at least at face value).

A study from the Journal of Applied Psychology, suggests that a firm handshake indicates self-confidence and extroversion.

See Also: Have You Heard Of The Bidoung Challenge? Taking Respect To Another Level

3. Initiates A Conversation

A handshake is a non-verbal communication that often goes with a few spoken words. You hardly give a handshake without a “hi”, “bye” or “pleased to meet you”. In an occasion where people are meeting, a handshake rolls off the platform for a conversation.

4. Tells Your Personality

Did you know that a handshake tells a bunch about you? Your mood and disposition always have a way of rubbing off on the palm of the other person. However weak or firm a handshake is held gives a hint of a person’s personality.

A British research shows that handshakes can portray traits like honesty and receptiveness and submissiveness.

5. Left-hand Is A No No

Giving a handshake with a left-hand is uncommon and perhaps awkward. Even left-handed persons find it necessary to adjust their natural inclination to shake with the right hand.

In some parts of Asia and the Middle East, touching people with the left hand is not acceptable. This is because the left hand is used for wiping themselves after restroom businesses.

6. A Sign Of Agreement

A handshake is as much of a greeting as it is a sign of agreement. Trump’s refusal to shake Germany’s Angela Merkel during her visit to the White House this year is a perfect example of this. The deal is not sealed without a handshake.

Back in the Roman history, an elbow-elbow handshake was an indication of truce. It means that both men were unarmed.

See Also: Interesting African Cultural Practices You May Be Unaware Of

7. Women & Handshakes

Handshake Facts

Men are most known for giving handshakes. But that does not mean that women do not do so too. It is more common today in the business world.

Did you know there are expected mannerisms when shaking a woman? According to the handshake etiquette, you only shake a lady when she initiates the move. In some other cultures, women do not shake women. In some others the opposite sex has no business shaking hands except in a business environment.

8. Time Frame

There should be a time limit for a handshake. 1-2 seconds handshake is normal. Anything more than that might send a wrong message.

9. Tempted To Sniff

Do people shake you and you unconsciously find yourself sniffing your palm. A random research by Isreali scientists via a hidden camera revealed that men were more likely to sniff their right hands within 60 seconds of shaking each other.

Idan Frumin, a researcher with Israel’s Weizmann Institute said:

“People don’t notice themselves doing it.”

“Even after we showed some of the subjects their videos, their initial reaction was that we had somehow doctored it.”

10. How To Make A Good Handshake

 According to Forbes, this is how you can make a good handshake

  • Keep good posture
  • Make eye contact
  • Hold your right hand out
  • Give a good firm shake
  • Follow the two-second rule
  • Smile!
  • Greet the other person and repeat their name


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Especially the ones who love government run health care: NINE YEARS TO GET AN APPOINTMENT!!

Patients are in some cases are having to wait up to nine years for an outpatient appointment to see a consultant in a public hospital, doctors have claimed.

In a new report to be published on Thursday, the Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association (IHCA) said that in Waterford University Hospital at present there were only two consultant urologists to serve a population of 500,000 people.

“Presently there is a nine-year waiting list for an outpatient appointment. At a minimum the service requires an additional three consultants, three registrars, three senior house officers and two interns in the immediate term,” the IHCA report stated.

It said the details of the waiting lists emerged in a recent survey on difficulties arising from staffing problems.

The president of the IHCA, Dr Tom Ryan, said that waiting lists in Ireland’s public hospitals were “out of control”. He said they would not be brought back to manageable levels unless resources were redirected to increase acute hospital and mental health front-line capacity.

“There are now over 589,000 people on waiting lists in Ireland’s public hospitals and there is no sign that these numbers are going to decrease. Waiting lists are spiralling out of control because there is not enough capacity in the system,” he said.

Front-line staff

“Public hospitals urgently need additional acute beds, intensive care beds, theatre operating time, consultants and other front-line staff. This is essential to reduce the unacceptable waiting lists, the overcrowding of emergency departments and the increasing number of patients being treated on trolleys.

“Currently, our healthcare system appears to be more focused on balancing budgets and rationing care than treating patients.”

Dr Ryan said Ireland’s population had increased by 12 per cent over the last 12 years, with the population aged 65 years and over increasing by more than a third.
“There are more people than ever requiring healthcare and the upcoming budget must reflect this reality. Throughout the past decade the State has severely rationed healthcare, and with an increasing number of patients becoming reliant on private hospitals, in effect acute hospital services are being privatised by stealth.

“Notably the private hospitals understand the increase in existing and future demand for health care services and have expanded their bed capacity, unlike the public hospitals,” said Dr Ryan.

“This situation did not arise overnight. But now the waiting lists are increasing at an alarming rate, as a consequence of decades of healthcare cuts. In addition, lack of acute hospital capacity is impacting adversely on essential surgical appointments, which have declined by over 100,000 (54 per cent) in four years, and on the delivery of timely cancer care to patients. Urgent action is needed to prevent the health system descending into chaos.”

Dr Ryan said health service infrastructure was crumbling in the wake of cumulative cuts of nearly €1.9 billion in the current Health capital plan for 2016 to 2021, compared with 2008. He said acute hospitals were attempting to treat patients with equipment that was increasingly obsolete. The current levels of funding do not even meet the cost of maintaining and replacing existing equipment never mind providing for much needed additional capacity.

“Furthermore, when the new capital investment projects, including the children’s hospital and the plans to relocate maternity hospitals, are funded the existing capital plan of €3 billion will not have sufficient funding to replace obsolete equipment or develop additional capacity to provide care.”

The IHCA has said that Budget 2018 must also provide a significant increase in funding for mental health services which are significantly understaffed and remain funded at 15 per cent below 2008 levels.

In its 2018 prebudget submission, the association pointed to what it described as the failure of the State to address the consultant recruitment and retention crisis. It said this was significantly impacting on patient care.

“The 2008 consultant contract is not being honoured by the State. This, combined with the ongoing discrimination against new entrant consultants, and the failure to reverse the salary cuts (imposed under financial emergency legislation), has created an environment where the health services cannot recruit and retain a sufficient number of high-calibre consultants.

“It is unacceptable that over 400 approved hospital consultant posts are either vacant or filled on a temporary/agency basis. This false economy must be ended as patients are being deprived of care while medical agency costs are exceeding €115 million per year.

“The HSE’s admission that it has appointed 70 non-specialist doctors to specialist consultant posts since 2008 demonstrates the extent of the failure of current health service policies to address the ongoing exodus of highly trained consultants.”

Escalating cost

The submission argued there was a pressing need to address the escalating cost of clinical indemnity. It said this was forcing consultants to cease practice or emigrate.

“The relevant provisions of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 must be commenced without further delay, so that the pre-action protocols are implemented to resolve clinical indemnity claims more efficiently and at reduced cost.

“A clear set of measures must be developed to ensure more effective management and utilisation of resources through strengthening governance arrangements, thereby ensuring that they represent best practice and are fit for purpose. This must include the alignment and merger of hospital groups and CHOs [community healthcare organisations]. It is also essential that the current focus of governance is rebalanced to facilitate increased clinical governance input at organisational board levels so as to prioritise the delivery of safe, high-quality, timely care to patients.”

H/T: Bogside

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Alternative Twelve Treasures of Spain – Cofete Beach, Fuerteventura

Cofete Beach Fuerteventura

The “Twelve Treasures of the Kingdom of Spain” was a contest/poll that was conducted by the Spanish Television Company Antena 3 and the radio broadcaster Cope. The final results were announced on 31st December 2007.  I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the eight out of the twelve that I have visited and having completed that I thought I might come up with a personal alternative twelve.

Included in the winning list was a beach – La Concha in the Basque city of San Sebastián in Northern Spain.  As I said before this surprised me because even though I am not really a beach person, I get quickly bored –  in selecting a favourite beach in Spain this would not be it!

I have narrowed my personal favourites down to a top five – first, Benidorm with its wonderful three blue flag beaches, Mal Pas, Levante and Poniente, second the endless windswept sand dunes of Maspolomas on the Canary Island of Gran Canaria and then another island, Menorca in the Balearic Islands although I’m afraid that I can’t be specific.  Second in my list would be the wide-open Atlantic beach at  Corrubedu in Galicia but for my very favourite I am back to the Canary Islands  and Cofete beach on Fuerteventura.

Bikini Girls

Cofete is a small village in the south-western part of the Jandia peninsula in Fuerteventura and nearby it has a sandy windswept Atlantic facing beach that is about five kilometers long so gloriously empty that every person on it gets about a thousand square metres of  space all to themselves.  The relentless surf pounds the beach and smashes the sand and the place is not really suitable for safe bathing and the advice is that you shouldn’t really swim here unless you are Sharon Davis or Mark Phelps because of the high waves and the strong current and the danger of being swept out to sea with nowhere to go but North America!

Cofete Beach

There is something curiously mysterious about it, deserted, solitary and lonely and brooding away in the background are the eight-hundred metre high wilderness mountains of Jandia that seem to separate it from the inhabited holiday side half of the island with its safer but busier tourist beaches.  The weather is almost constantly breezy, the waves are always mountainous and the beach appears breathtakingly eerie but nevertheless beautiful.  There are never many people on the beach because it is so inaccessible and there are no lifeguards to rely on in an emergency.

To get there it is necessary to drive over twenty kilometres of exhausting pot-holed track that in some places only allows for single file traffic.  Some of the passing places have steep drops to the side, and the journey can only realistically be tackled in a jeep or four-wheel drive vehicle and believe me it is a really uncomfortable journey, but one worth making nevertheless.  The route there goes through the very pretty Punta Pesebre, the Playa de los Ojos (Eyes beach), which is difficult to access, and the fishing port of Puerto de la Cruz before the lovely Playa de las Pilas.

At the end of the unmade road the little village of Cofete is a collection of shacks built from driftwood and materials washed up by the waves and most are only lived in at the weekend.  At the end of the long ash choked track there is a simple but welcome bar where a cold beer cuts through the dust in the back of the throat and prepares you well before going to the sea to wash off the dirt from the journey.

In a separate poll the travel website TripAdvisor has compiled a list of the top ten beaches in Spain for 2013 and both the beach of La Concha in San Sebastián and Cofete beach on Fuerteventura are included although neither of them make the top spot.  La Concha is third and Cofete makes sixth place.  The winner in this poll was Playa de las Catedrales at Ribadeo in the Northern Province of Galicia.

8 responses to “Alternative Twelve Treasures of Spain – Cofete Beach, Fuerteventura

  1. Sounds a bit similar to some of our beaches, though the mountains aren’t quite as close.

  2. Coincidentally, Andrew, today I had an offer of a free stay on Fuerteventura. I had to google it to find out where it was, and it looked a bit resorty/beachy – not quite my style. You make it look much more appealing. I’ll reconsider the offer.

    • I think you should. It is very resorty/beachy but away from the main holiday centres it is wild and rugged. That particular beach is stunning and although it takes a long time to get there by car there are walking tracks through the mountains from the east side of the island. There is lots of wild life too and I remember stopping frequently and being approached by tiny chipmunks!

  3. I think favourite beaches is so subjective. Well as is anything (ie best blogs of the week, just thought I would get that one in). It seems to partly depend on whether you like a nice bay type beach eg San Sebastian, or a wide open one like the one above. I prefer those.

    As for mine, of the ones I have visited, the beaches up from Tarifa would get my vote, I say beaches because there are so many. I see Bolonia made it into the Trip Advisor list, which I think merits it. Not sure about Zahara de los Atunes which is a pretty grotty town so probably skewed my view. Further up the Costa de la Luz, the one south of Conil is pretty good too.

    Which is why I say it is so subjective, I like Atlantic beaches – doesn’t matter whether they are Spain, Portugal, France or Scotland. Oddly though there is a actually a lovely one not far from us between grothole La Linea and Alcaidesa:
    (beach/cliff top pix at the bottom of the post)

    • I don’t know any of those so I will have to take your word for it. There are some good beaches in Croatia if you don’t mind pebbles and stones. I am yet to find anywhere truly spectacular in Greece. Wales has some nice sand and that is what seems to have upset the Australians!

  4. This is my type of beach… thanks for sharing

  5. oh jeez that beach looks absolutely marvelous!
    I like your description:
    “There is something curiously mysterious about it, deserted, solitary and lonely and brooding away in the background are the eight-hundred metre high wilderness mountains…”

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Home » My own thoughts/Random Blogging » Camp NaNoWriMo, A Grand Finish

Camp NaNoWriMo, A Grand Finish

Whoop! I finished yesterday with 81,153 words! I finished my wordgoal right as I finished drinking a large cup of strong iced coffee. I generally try to keep still right after I drink coffee, but I couldn’t yesterday. I went nuts. I was talking and shaking and typing and laughing so fast I could barely understand what I wanted to say. After that, I crashed, and was blissfully tired the rest of the evening. It truly was an epic experience. Perhaps the most epic experience of NaNoWriMo, just because I fought so hard to get 80,000 and 10,000 in the last two days when I should have been writing 5,332 in the last two days. And I cheered on friends to the finish, rejoicing with everyone until I was in a state of literal frenzy.

Today–I printed out my whole novel, if you can call it a novel. I finished my original climax so I just carried on the story until I had all my words. It still has no finish. But I printed it all out and held it with my own hands.

nanowrimo novelI was very happy to hold it, and for future NaNoWriMo’s, I won’t be able to do any differently.

I thought about shredding my novel and sleeping on it, Chris Baty’s way to celebrate, but if I did, I might burst into tears and not sleep for days.

I finally named it too, though the name will most likely change sometime.

Also, I am trying to lengthen the story and turn it into three separate stories, so I need more than one title.

Not only was it terribly exciting to hold my novel and see a whole month’s work, it is enjoyable to read through and write notes on. I’ve already been going through with a favorite pen and writing my opinions of each scene. I’m not discouraged yet! (Though I’m sure it will come. Always does, peeps, just be ready for it.)

Endless thanks to all my writing buddies who kept me going, inspired me, and fought countless wordwars. Without those wordwars there’s no way I could have made it.

So now with another rough draft under my belt, and perhaps my favorite yet–

Chair for now!

P.S. I was going to shower before I took these pictures, but that did not seem to me to be in the NaNoWriMo spirit. Don’t worry, I wore deodorant. 😛

2 thoughts on “Camp NaNoWriMo, A Grand Finish

  1. Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You’re so amazing! I love the title too… You have done exceedingly well on all accounts!
    I completely forgot about Camp Nanowrimo…oh well, maybe I’ll remember next year! 🙂 I’m glad you were able to do it. It looks like a lot of work, good job coming through!

    • Aww. Thanks Payton! ^_^ It was a bunch of fun.
      You don’t have to wait until next year….you can do it in July! 😀 I’m planning on doing it then. 😉 And if you don’t in July, there’s always the regular November.

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Essentials Home Loan

A competitive interest rate without being locked into a fixed rate for a set term. Offers you complete repayment flexibility and a full range of features.

Standard Features

Minimum Amount $50,000
Maximum Amount 95% of the value of the property
Mortgage insurance Required if amount borrowed is more than 80% of the value of the property

Key Features

  • Variable interest rate
  • Weekly, fortnightly or monthly repayments
  • Redraw facility
  • Ability to make extra repayments
  • Automatic repayments
  • Repayment 'holidays' available if required
  • Loan portability available
  • 100% linked offset account available

Is this loan right for you?

The Essentials Home Loan offers you all the features and flexibility you need to pay off your loan as quickly as you like.

Because the interest rate varies, the interest applied to your loan will increase or decrease according to movements in official market rates. If rates fall, you can reduce your repayment amount, or keep it unchanged and get ahead of your repayment requirements. The choice is yours.

You have total repayment flexibility - make as many additional repayments as you wish, and pay your loan off as fast as you like.

View current rates

Warning: Different amounts and terms will result in different Comparison Rates (download schedule). Costs such as redraw fees or early repayment fees, and cost savings such as fee waivers, are not included in the Comparison Rate but may influence the cost of the loan.

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To learn more about our Home Loans or for information on how to apply, please contact one of our Retail Relationship Managers, who are more than happy to visit you when you are free, whether at home or work.

All applications for loans are subject to Arab Bank Australia Limited's normal credit approval criteria. Lenders' Mortgage Insurance is required on loans above 80% of the property's value that is offered as security. Terms and Conditions apply. Fees and charges apply. To the extent that any material on this page could be construed as general advice, it has been prepared without taking account of your objectives, financial situation or needs. Because of this, before acting on any advice, you should consider its appropriateness, having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs.


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Adventures in art yarn.

I’ve been in a spinny mood.

All in the last few weeks, I’ve finished at least four spinning projects—depending on how you look at it.

fullsizeoutput_eb5I would not count those two shiny orange skeins on the left, but they are included as finished products of the Yarn Revival, which began for me in April. READ MORE

Confession: I was worried that, after spring break’s total immersion of fibery fun, I wouldn’t be able to incorporate all that play into my regular work day. Yesterday was my first day back to work, and y’all? No worries.

I came home and hit it hard.

First, I braided up the two color studies I did on Sunday.

When I dyed the one on the left, I was looking for a color I could call “mint.” I know there isn’t a ton of variety across the braid, but I think I found what I was looking for. I was literally mixing and matching colors until I had six subtly different shades, which I then used to dye the top

The second braid was a little less what I expected. I was looking for pink, which I more or less found, but I ended up with more in the way of soft purples. When I was mixing the dye, it looked like I was getting a lot of pale red instead of pink (which I feel is somehow different) , and on a whim, I put some blue in. I know. Red + blue = purple. But I thought I liked what I was seeing, so I went with it. A little too capriciously, I added a dab of blue to all the jars—and got this.

There is pink in there. On the whole, this reminds me of the redbuds that are in bloom now. (Dogwoods have started peeking out, too. Have you noticed?)

I know that I could test these colors on smaller samples of wool—or hell, coffee filters—but I do like making a whole “colorway” out of it. Who knows? I might find a combination worth repeating!

After I braided those up, I grabbed the blending board and tried out the new finishing brush that came in the mail yesterday. As vicious as that brush looks, it’s the blending board that bit me hard and made me bleed a little bit. Ouch.

I put bits of luxury fibers like camel and tussah silk in there, along with wild strips of colorful merino and a base of natural, undyed merino. These fun little blending experiments are going into a bag until I get about four ounces of them, and then I’ll spin ’em up. I may get extra crazy and try some art-yarn spinning techniques.

I know. It’s insanity!

Speaking of spinning, I finally finished spinning the sienna-colored colonial, readying it to ply with the fiery Hunk a Burning Love merino/tencel.

I started plying those together tonight, and it’s taking forever. I’m trying my best to over-ply them a bit, but try as I may, I come closer to under-plying.

Anyway, I’ll let that yarn have its own post.

My point here is that I’m getting off to a groovy start with maintaining my fiber mojo when school is in session. (Even though I had to miss knit night at Maria’s studio tonight. We procrastinators finally filed our taxes.) With only six weeks of school left until summer, I think I will be able to ride this wave out to the end of the year. And then it’ll be summer-summer-summertime.

I know that I won’t be able to knock out three projects every single school night. I’m flying high on fiber fumes right now, but it’s good just knowing that I can remember to enjoy things.

As I spun up the last of that colonial, I picked up with listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, hence the quote I posted last night. It’s another audiobook I’ve been sipping on in small doses (like Brené Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability, which I finished at long last). The crazy thing about Big Magic, which is about allowing yourself to live a creative life, is that when I listened to it thinking about writing as my creative outlet, it made me a little anxious. But now, when I hear EG speak on creativity, I think of the pure joyfulness that comes from playing with colorful, fluffy wool. Or from tinkering with sticks and string, as Dale calls it.

I’m not saying that my writing days are over. (Obviously they are not, because here I am.) But EG talks about loving your craft and your craft loving you back. With writing, it is so often a love-hate relationship with me. There’s something about wool, though. I just love it—the look, the feel, even the sheepy smell. Does it love me back? The softness, the warmth, the explosions of color? Well, they all seem to point in one direction.


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Urban Plunge: Floating Water

In recent decades, river corridors have started to play an important structural role in metropolitan regions for their capacity to organize large urban conglomerates.

Update April 7, 2016: the Floating Water project has been awarded with the first prize of the Urban Plunge competition.

With the aim of exploring the transformation of these areas, we opted to intervening in the Besós river corridor, along a five kilometre stretch between the Nus de la Trinitat cloverleaf and the mouth of the river. This is one of Barcelona’s two connections with inland Catalonia, consolidated over the years as a technical space for channelling service and transport infrastructures, and which in recent years has recovered the environmental quality and recreational potential implicit in the river’s centrality and its contact with urban fabrics.

The proposal recognizes bridges as articulators of the landscape and connecting elements, and propose a standardized respons with the ability to adapt to different urban realities, creating new public spaces that enhance the pedestrian connectivity along the river and its playful activity.

Likewise, the proposal recognizes variable reality of the flow of the River at the time of its materialization. Raises a floating system composed of modular and serial elements of wood, ribs and platforms, and transparent polymers, in the swimming pool (with 40cm air Chamber), which make the proposed floating itself.

Urban Plunge

The fact raised transparent pools reinforces the idea of swimming in the same waters of the river and in parallel help restore confidence in the natural purification of waters. For debugging, the river already has some natural filters in all its perimeter, but the proposal strengthens the system of natural purification with a solution of wedlands sub-surface and rafts of maturation also floating dimensioned to provide purified water to each one of the pools.

Urban Plunge

Floating water aims to be an adaptable solution to other rivers with similar characteristics to Besós. “Stop, swim, float and keep going”.

Location: Can Peixauet bridge-Riu Besós
Professors: Alex Fernández Azofra, Maria Barcina, Marta García-Orte.
Students: Albert Jové, Alexandre Llapart, Júlia Rocaspana, Laura Vall, Marta Esqueu, Marta Guixé, Mònica Rovira, Nieves Blakstad, Oriol Anglada, Sergi Viñals.

Alexandre Llapart, UIC Barcelona School of Architecture.

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text:
Going rogue —

Apple CEO Tim Cook apologizes for iOS 6 Maps, promises improvements

He also offers up alternatives like Bing, Mapquest, and Waze.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has posted a public letter to Apple's website in order to apologize for the backlash caused by iOS 6 Maps. In the letter, Cook writes that Apple "fell short on this commitment" to make the best products for its customers, suggesting that customers can use alternatives from the App Store like Bing, Mapquest, or Waze—or they can use the mobile websites for Google or Nokia.

Maps did not receive a glowing reception when iOS 6 was launched earlier this month. In our own review, we pointed out that the driving directions took us to incorrect places and we were very unhappy with the absence of built-in transit directions—despite alternatives being made by developers. Others have echoed these statements, and a mini-uproar (colloquially being referred to as "Mapgate") has begun among Apple-watchers and the general public alike.

Things have apparently gotten bad enough to spur Cook to write a Jobs-style public letter. Below is the full text of the letter, which once again promises that Apple is making improvements to the app.

To our customers,

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

Tim Cook

Apple’s CEO

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Uncategorized —

Google to offer web traffic analysis services

Google's new Analytics service packs a punch with Flash-rendered graphs, over …

Google has officially launched Analytics, a robust new web analysis system that provides site owners with traffic metrics and massive amounts of useful marketing data. Based on technology originally developed by a Californian company called Urchin that Google acquired in March, Analytics integrates with Google's popular AdWords system, and will vastly improve the quality and quantity of data provided to existing AdWords users. Those of you that don't use AdWords can still use Analytics by adding a simple javascript snippet to your web site.

Analytics features an elegant user interface that leverages modern web technologies like Flash and DHTML. Although it seems a little rough around the edges (the Flash components don't display correctly in Firefox on my Linux system) the service is moderately impressive. It can export data in several formats, including XML and CSV. With Analytics, you can determine where your visitors are coming from, which links on your site are getting the most hits, how long the visitors spend on various pages of your site, and more:

Learn how visitors interact with your website and identify the navigational bottlenecks that keep them from completing your conversion goals. Find out how profitable your keywords are across search engines and campaigns. Pinpoint where your best customers come from and which markets are most profitable to you. Google Analytics gives you this and more through easy-to-understand visually enhanced reports.

It is still relatively difficult to get a good feel for the usefulness of the system at this point, but with over 80 pre-built reports, support for interactive report construction, and tracking for countless attributes, the amount of data it provides is downright prodigious. In addition to providing critical marketing data, it also tracks browser features so that web developers can make informed design decisions. Analytics will tell you the screen resolution and connection speed of your visitors, as well as whether or not their browsers support Flash and Java. Flash-rendered graphs are provided with each data collection so that you can get a quick visual overview.

Although it may not be especially useful compared to some of the critical features, the geographical map overlay is probably one of the coolest features. Analytics will generate a Flash-based map of the world that shows you which regions your traffic comes from. You can click individual regions to get additional statistics, and you can use Flash's built-in zoom feature to get a closer look at specific locations.

The site overlay mechanism is one of the other particularly interesting features. It will superimpose click statistics on top of your actual page so that you can (hypothetically) see what people are clicking just by browsing your site. During my experiments with Analytics, I had some trouble getting the site overlay feature to work correctly. Clicking the individual links in the site overlay caused the Analytics start page to load in the iframe rather than the actual content.

Analytics fits perfectly into Google's advertising platform and business model. Despite the bugs (which may be specific to Linux or Firefox) Google's newest service looks powerful and comprehensive. The value of the features and the benefits of AdWords integration will probably be more than enough to convince site owners to use AdWords rather than a competing service.

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Ravthlete 2012

Having finished my maillot jaune for Le Tour in a record 20 days for me, I turned my attention to the Ravelympic Ravellenic Games. I entered 3 events. And I have medals for 3 events. Hooray!

My lovely Bandana Cowl:

So smooshy!

My finally(!) finished Kells sock from Janel Laidman’s Sock club (aka Skellig, were finally wrestled into submission. 2 years later:

w00t! more socks! *Cashmere* merino socks. So lovely.

My glorious Vivian will rise again, but not in this incarnation. It took a disturbingly short amount of time to frog her. Less than 5 minutes, in fact.

The body, and one full sleeve…
All yarn-caked and thinking about what it wants to be.

So, 4 KAL objectives reached in the last 6 weeks. And a couple of booties have been done in-between patterns. I know I should get the second Old Port sleeve done, but I’m already looking ahead. What’s next?! If I take plain vanilla socks with me (which is entirely likely) – which yarn should I take? Some VP, or maybe Needlefood? (Pukeko is nudging me), or some of my Knitsch… I have some Odelay (or do I save that for Harvest 2012?), or Idris, or the Dark Side, or Pencarrow, or… I’m going to have to have a good long ponder over my sock stash (yes, I know, sock yarn isn’t stash, but for the sake of this, it is), and see what calls to me. Decisions, decisions…

And now I go into travel planning mode. Crossing t’s dotting i’s. Trying to anticipate all those things I could forget in the next 2 weeks.

I know I’m missing something…. but what is it?!

I leave you with this lovely photo I took from Queen’s Wharf, Petone yesterday. It was a stunning, stunning day. A highlight of a lovely weekend even.

The fish are being very helpful, holding rods in place on a lovely Saturday afternoon.

1 Comment

  1. go you on the OLYMPIC knitting and frogging! i think you should take something thats going to be kind of significant to your trip, a colour that will remind you of where you were when you knitted them maybe? not long now!!

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Mathematics > Differential Geometry

Title: Manifolds of semi-negative curvature

Abstract: The notion of nonpositive curvature in Alexandrov's sense is extended to include p-uniformly convex Banach spaces. Infinite dimensional manifolds of semi-negative curvature with a p-uniformly convex tangent norm fall in this class on nonpositively curved spaces, and several well-known results, such as existence and uniqueness of best approximations from convex closed sets, or the Bruhat-Tits fixed point theorem, are shown to hold in this setting, without dimension restrictions. Homogeneous spaces G/K of Banach-Lie groups of semi-negative curvature are also studied, explicit estimates on the geodesic distance and sectional curvature are obtained. A characterization of convex homogeneous submanifolds is given in terms of the Banach-Lie algebras. A splitting theorem via convex expansive submanifolds is proven, inducing the corresponding splitting of the Banach-Lie group G. Finally, these notions are used to study the structure of the classical Banach-Lie groups of bounded linear operators acting on a Hilbert space, and the splittings induced by conditional expectations in such setting.
Comments: 43 pages
Subjects: Differential Geometry (math.DG); Operator Algebras (math.OA)
MSC classes: 22E65, 53C45 (Primary); 47B10, 58B20, 53C40 (Secondary)
DOI: 10.1112/plms/pdp042
Cite as: arXiv:0810.4562 [math.DG]
  (or arXiv:0810.4562v1 [math.DG] for this version)

Submission history

From: Gabriel Larotonda [view email]
[v1] Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:55:02 GMT (35kb)


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We gratefully acknowledge support from
the Simons Foundation
and member institutions
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General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Title: Tests of local Lorentz invariance violation of gravity in the standard model extension with pulsars

Authors: Lijing Shao
Abstract: Standard-model extension (SME) is an effective field theory introducing all possible Lorentz-violating (LV) operators to the standard model (SM) and general relativity (GR). In the pure-gravity sector of minimal SME (mSME), nine coefficients describe dominant observable deviations from GR. We systematically implemented twenty-seven tests from thirteen pulsar systems to tightly constrain eight linear combinations of these coefficients with extensive Monte Carlo simulations. It constitutes the first detailed and systematic test of the pure-gravity sector of mSME with the state-of-the-art pulsar observations. No deviation from GR was detected. The limits of LV coefficients are expressed in the canonical Sun-centered celestial-equatorial frame for convenience of further studies. They are all improved by significant factors of tens to hundreds with existing ones. As a consequence, Einstein's equivalence principle is verified substantially further by pulsar experiments in terms of local Lorentz invariance in gravity.
Comments: minor modification; published in Physical Review Letters
Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
Journal reference: Physical Review Letters 112 (2014) 111103
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.111103
Cite as: arXiv:1402.6452 [gr-qc]
  (or arXiv:1402.6452v2 [gr-qc] for this version)

Submission history

From: Lijing Shao [view email]
[v1] Wed, 26 Feb 2014 08:36:36 GMT (395kb)
[v2] Sun, 23 Mar 2014 01:46:29 GMT (395kb)


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Monthly Archives: August 2016

2508, 2016

2nd Annual Graze: Birmingham

By |August 25th, 2016|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Buy your tickets here!

Facebook event here (invite your friends)!

Graze: Birmingham is a farm-to-fork picnic in which attendees “graze” on a wide variety of dishes, each produced by a different local farmer + local restaurant pair. Add in some picnic blankets, live music, and delicious local beverages… and it’s a picnic you don’t want to miss!

Sunday, […]

1908, 2016

Now Hiring: Job Opportunities in Alabama Food (August 2016)

By |August 19th, 2016|Classifieds, Farm to School|0 Comments

Employment opportunities in Alabama food (as of August 19, 2016):

Bois D’Arc Farm (Marion, Perry County):
Gardener/Horticulturist position for large certified organic farm (5,300+ acres), located near Greensboro about an hour south of Tuscaloosa, in a beautiful area of Alabama long famous for its soils. The farm is expanding its horticultural and gardening activities to experiment with […]


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January 04, 2018

In memory: Dr. Jack Riley

Dr. Jack G. Riley, age 77, of Manhattan, Kansas, died December 26, 2017.

Dr. Riley served as Head of the Department of Animal Sciences and Industry at Kansas State University from 1987-2005.

Dr. Riley was a native of Hamilton, Missouri and earned his B.S. (1962) and M.S. (1963) degrees in Animal Husbandry from the University of Missouri. From 1963 to 1965 he served as Extension Livestock Specialist and from 1965-1966 was an instructor, both in the Animal Husbandry Department at the University of Missouri. He returned to college and earned a Ph.D. in Ruminant Nutrition from the University of Missouri in 1968. He accepted a full-time teaching position in Animal Science at Western Illinois University where he stayed until 1971 at which time he moved to Kansas State University for a 70% teaching - 30% research assignment in the Animal Sciences and Industry Department. Dr. Riley's main interest was teaching and he taught more than 7,000 students in 35 years of active classroom involvement. In addition, he advised at least 30 undergraduate students each year until becoming department head in 1987.

Dr. Riley was active in beef cattle research, especially in the areas of protein requirements, crop residue utilization, growth promoting implants and feed additives. He was faculty coordinator of the beef research unit for 16 years and coordinator of all research activities in the Animal Sciences and Industry Department for three years.

After completing 17 years as department head, Dr. Riley entered a phased retirement program and maintained a 75% appointment with primary responsibilities including Director of the International Meat and Livestock Program (IMLP) and teaching Senior Seminar, Internship and Principles of Feeding.

Dr. Riley was an ASAS Fellow and served as officer and/or director of many professional and university organizations, including the Manhattan Rotary Club. He and his wife, Jan, have two sons that are graduates of KSU.

Complete obituary and memorial service information can be found at themercury.com


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Contact Us

Need a product reviewed or want to get in contact with us?

This is where you can get that done.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for or  if you simply have any questions, you can always reach us by using the contact form below.

You will usually get a response within 24 hours, but if for some odd reason I don’t get back to you within that time, you can come right back and submit another message.

Now if we still don’t respond to you, wait longer.

Just kidding!

But if I really don’t respond to you after the 2nd time, go right ahead and leave me some bad feedback on my about me page and I will do some pushups just for missing your message.

I look forward to hearing from you!


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At a glance

14 Jan

I fell relaxed the children are in bed sleeping and i have some free time on my hands “as free as a mothers hands can be” I sit down put my feet up and go online and check who’s been popping by the blog today.

It’s nice to know what  searches people have performed in order to find my blog. I’m scrolling down the list  seeing terms such as Aspergers, Aspergers blogs, parents to a aspergers child and so on. Then i see it parent refused help then another one  no help with aspergers child at school. It’s not like i don’t no people use these terms when searching the net it just gets me every-time.

I fell my self fill up with red hot bubbling rage’ the same rage i bubble with on a day to day basis. My head starts to go into over kill with the same old question.

Why oh why are we still having to beg and plead for something that should be available to us and our children? Why is there such a lack of support from those we need it from most? Then there’s the subject of our schools. Why is it that most our schools do not recognize Asperger’s to be debilitating enough to warrant accommodations? I believe that due to this a huge sum of children end up having to be home schooled. I fault it was a huge problem here in the UK but from reading blogs and articles on the net i can see this is more of a wide spread problem affecting  missive’s of people across the US.

Am i missing something? Has the world got something to share with me? Because from where I’m standing it all seems pretty clear!

At a glance our children seem like every other child. But if time was taken to look that little bit closer’ this post would never ever of existed!

Here is a few resources for UK residents Offers a huge amount of support on a wide range of subjects Offers support in the way of grant payments that are designed with the whole of the family in mind. few examples on what they may pay loads for are specialist toys, family holiday, driving lessons, washing machines.

One Response to “At a glance”

  1. amywithlemon February 6, 2009 at 11:35 pm #

    yeah, i would agree… it’s very uncommon here- well not uncommon- just very unknown. you MUST be your child’s advocate. there is no other way. look at it this way- god’s granted you a blessing because he knew you were capable. and you are.

    also, i like to think that i’m paving the road for so many mom’s to come behind me. my son is the first AS child at his school. i don’t put up with their bullshit- i KNOW the laws! that’s the best thing i can say to you- KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. take time to LEARN THEM BETTER THAN THEY DO. and i do!! that way they can’t BS you. you can keep them on their toes, and not the other way around. does everyone at my son’s school know my name? hell yes… but that’s cause they’ve left me no choice. only i would fight for him. they’ll accomodate- but they must be informed. case in point- his handwriting is HORRIBLE. even for a 5 year old. i keep pointing out this is due to his AS and his lack of hand eye coordination- but they keep telling me he’s still in the process of being ‘assessed’ and can’t be accomodated. point being- i know the law- the law states that he qualifies for assistance in this area. so when they finally ‘finish’ with assessing him in sometime around beginning of april- i’m damn well going to make sure they accomodate him and GO BACK and fix his bad marks for handwriting.

    yes, it’s hard. no it’s NOT easy. but you are your child’s mum… and you are the best one he’s got- don’t ever feel down hearted or let yourself feel pushed down. you’re a MOM- if it were easy, it wouldn’t be so worthwhile.

    you’re doing grand hun, you just keep it up.

    that boy (and little alice) is amazing, and BLESSED to have you.

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