Friday Randomness

Really? Is this all I have left in me, blogging wise? Random updates on my life, music videos, and the occasional recipe or book review? Yes? OK, whatever. Sorry if you came here looking for a wonder eulegy of Ted Kennedy, or more debate on the Heath Care issue. Let’s get to the randomness, k?

1. Awhile ago, I read a book called “Why Do I Love These People“, by author Po Bronson. He has a new book out soon titled “Nurture Shock“, in which he talks about how parents’ constant praise of their children hampers them, hampers their school performance, and makes them decode your words and pretty much see through it. Also, it can be debilitating because it tends to make kids think they’re expected to do well all of the time at all things, and naturally, without putting effort and hard work into anything. Growing up without understanding the value of hard work, of setting goals that are beyond you and working towards them, etc., they will become unwilling to take risks and challenge themselves. He also talks about why your teenager lying to you is normal, and why kids negotiating with their parents is actually appropriate at times as well. I haven’t read the book, obviously, since it isn’t out yet, but I did hear an interview with Bronson on All Things Considered. You can listen to it, here.
2. We tried an interesting recipe yesterday. Pizza pot pies. Ted found the recipe on FoodNetwork.com. They were pretty good, but I thought they were just a bit too bland. I think what happened was that I omitted the pancetta from the recipe, and I used canned tomatoes with no salt added, so I should have added more salt to the recipe to compensate. It was good, just not great. Anyway, I used this Pillsbury refrigerated pizza dough, which worked out really well. It seemed like it might be too thin for an actual pizza (they only had the thin crust version), but as a pizza crust topping for the pies, it was delicious.
3. I ordered this book from Amazon, 8 Steps to a Pain Free Back.  I read this article about the author in our local paper, and her method is to work with people on their posture and positioning while standing, sitting, driving, and sleeping, to properly align the spine and solve a lot of back pain problems.  I’m haven’t read the book yet, but it has a lot of gorgeous pictures of people from all over the world, many of whom stand a lot more than we do, or are more sedentary than we are, and do not have nearly the back problems that we have.  She gives specific exercises that you can do to help improve, strengthen, and re-train your posture.  The quote I remember from the article is that we want to strive for a ‘ducky butt, not a tucky butt’.  Thinking of Donald Duck, and how his butt sticks out behind him, and how we have learned as a culture to tuck our butts in and slouch from our shoulders, we need to be more like Donald, less like slouchy supermodels.
4. We’re doing our part to stimulate the economy around here.  First off, there’s back to school.  Pay now for pictures, dances, yearbooks, donations for science and English, weekly planners, magazine subscriptions for current events, all of it.  Then of course, school clothes.  We generally wait until the weather gets colder to buy jeans and jackets and so on, but she wanted some cute outfits to start the year with, so we did a bit of shopping there.   We also finally got around to buying a new dresser for Maya’s room.  Her old one was a piece of crap that we got at IKEA, and didn’t even come with all of the needed bolts and so on, but we waited so long to put it together, we didn’t think we would be able to return it.  Overall it’s always sucked, and I enjoyed tearing it apart and putting it in the dumpster this morning.  Stupid thing.  Now I’m waiting for Penny’s to deliver the new one.  One benefit of working from home, I guess, is that I can get work done as well as wait for deliveries.
5. In the “no great loss without some small gain” department, California is in the middle of a fairly brutal drought, with three dry winters in a row.  That means water rationing for us (we got dinged last month for going over our allotment, which is based on us using no more than 80 percent of what we used this time last year, I think.).  Well, it turns out that our local water district currently has a program where you can get a voucher for $175 off of a low flow toilet, plus the plumbing supply companies they are contracting with reduce the price still more.  Our toilets have always sucked, plugging up if you pee crookedly (or so it seems), and I think they have lately developed a slow leak.  We had a lot of plumbing work outside last year, and one of the guys said that when he turned off our water completely, our meter continued to run, which is usually a leaky toilet.  So we got some tablets that you put in the tank (you can use food coloring, too…it’s just that the water district gave us the tablets), and if the dye from the tablet shows up in your bowl, there’s a leak.  Well, one toilet was more pronounced, but they both had leaks.  All of this to say that I went out yesterday and bought two new toilets.  Yay!  We’re hoping the plumber can make it by later this afternoon and install them.  So, California’s drought and wildfires aside, thanks for the new toilets, which we got at a substantial savings.
6. Tomorrow is my good friend Cherry’s birthday!  Yay!  Happy birthday, Cherry!  We’re all getting together for a snacky type party tomorrow evening to celebrate.  I’m looking forward to that.  Tonight is a birthday dinner for Ted’s youngest cousin, who turns 19 today.  Happy birthday to S, too!  Which reminds me that I miss Cherry’s blog, but she’s been suffering from wrist pains which force her to restrict her typing.  And she works in the high tech world, so whatever typing time she has needs to be saved for work.  Sigh.  So many of my bloggy friends (mostly the ones I know in real life) seem to have given it up.
7. I gave blood on Wednesday, which I say not to pat myself on the back (or, not much), but also as a reminder to those of you who can give blood to go out and do so.  You save lives every time you donate.  Every. Time.  Pretty awesome feeling, even if that needle going in truly sucks.  Which it does more sometimes than others, but this time sucked.  As a matter of fact, the hole from the needle still hurts a bit, though it didn’t bruise.  I found out this time that I’m a baby blood donor, which means that because I’m CMV negative (never heard of this before, but I guess it’s a very common virus.  So common, only 20% of Americans are CMV negative.), they want my blood for premature babies and young children going through chemo.  In addition, my blood type is almost universal donor.  I’m O+, which means anyone can receive my blood, except those people with negative typed blood.  Learning this, and how difficult it is to have enough of this blood on hand, I’m recommitting myself to donating blood more often.  I tend to do it once in awhile, if they happen to call and remind me.  Because really, it sucks.

That’s it for me.  No movies on the plan this weekend, I don’t think.  I kinda want to see The Time Traveler’s Wife, because I loved the book.  But part of me worries, because sometimes when you love a book, the movie just can’t hold up.  Oh, and in case you didn’t realize what a dork I am, guess what’s coming tomorrow, via Netflix?  Season one of Thirtysomething.  I know.  Dork.   And, who’s with me…YAY to Mad Men being back!  I love that show.  My mom really liked it, but I didn’t watch it then.  Wish I had, we could have talked about it on our marathon Sunday evening chat sessions.  Which I desperately miss.

OK, this time I mean it.  That’s it.  What’s new with you?