Many types of certifications require continued education. Some jobs require it. In many cases even if it is the employer that requires it, the employee has to pay for it. In the fitness industry there are other expenses that the fitness professional must bear in addition to anything it cost to keep their certifications current. One is insurance and there maybe others, but another one that comes to mind is the cost of a business license. I am just bringing this up because I spent a few hours today taking classes for a required re-certification for one of my employers. Since I was busy doing that I didn’t have any time to let my “creative juices” flow in order to come up with a blog post, so I was going to share some of the things I reviewed today. One thing about fitness classes for re-certification it is often a repeat of information, but I usually pick up at least one new thing. Here I am going to just share the training entity’s general idea from one of the classes I took today.
The training was basically saying that it has now been proven and continues to be proven as science delves more into many aspects of the body – that the body needs rest. The body cannot operate efficiently without rest. The idea was “Working In” versus “Working Out”. So working out is what you may typically think of as working out; running, lifting weights, HIIT, a typical cardio dance class. To put it simply, something that gets your heart rate up, stresses the body, and is a big output of energy. The idea of working in is a more relaxed type of exercise, say, Tai Chi, walking, easy yoga, stuff that is more mellow, doesn’t actually stress the body out, and is more about energy moving in.
The thought process is that we have so much stress in our everyday life, there are times when a hard workout is NOT what the body needs. And not just the physical aspect of the body but our mind. Since the body does not know the difference between scary bad stress and exercising stress, it is good to give it a rest. And a rest could be doing nothing or doing their idea of a “work in”.
I think most people know that in order to build a muscle it needs to be stressed, but it also needs to rest. It actually grows during the rest NOT during the period of time when it is under stress. When the muscle does not get rest it will not grow and it cannot strengthen and that is when the risk of injury occurs. So . . . . it seems logical that sometimes the body needs to rest in order for it to be able to work at its best.
The body is so amazing. It can heal itself and adapt. But in order to do both it needs some time to rest.
It is so nice that studies/science are now starting to “prove” this idea because it is so very important. And so many people, cultures even, have known this for so long . . . it is nice that science is finally agreeing so maybe more people will start listening and take advantage of “working in”.
What about you? Do you take “rest days”? Do you do “mellow” workouts – things that might be deemed as “working in”?
I have just graduated from an iPhone 5 to an iPhone 10 XS. My phone was six years old. They no longer sell the 5. Perhaps that can be my guide as to when to buy new phones. My 5 still worked, it just didn’t work as fast as the newer phones. My camera was not as good. And that is what I am showing you in this post. I wanted to give you an idea about the difference between the photos.
The difference between the cameras is here. The only info on the 5 that I could find was from Wiki. The information on the 10 XS is taken from the Apple website.
Old Phone Rear camera Sony Exmor R IMX145[9][10] —8 MP iSight back-side illuminated sensor —HD video (1080p) at 30 frame/s —IR filter —Aperture f/2.4 —5 element lens —Facial recognition (stills only) —Image stabilization
Front camera —1.2 MP, HD video (720p)
Info from Apple.com
New Phone —Dual 12MP wide-angle and telephoto cameras —Wide-angle: ƒ/1.8 aperture —Telephoto: ƒ/2.4 aperture —2x optical zoom; digital zoom up to 10x —Portrait mode with advanced bokeh and Depth Control —Portrait Lighting with five effects (Natural, Studio, Contour, Stage, Stage Mono) —Dual optical image stabilization —Six-element lens —Quad-LED True Tone flash with Slow Sync —Panorama (up to 63MP) —Sapphire crystal lens cover —Backside illumination sensor —Hybrid IR filter —Autofocus with Focus Pixels —Tap to focus with Focus Pixels —Smart HDR for photos —Wide color capture for photos and Live Photos —Local tone mapping —Advanced red-eye correction —Exposure control —Auto image stabilization —Burst mode —Timer mode —Photo geotagging —Image formats captured: HEIF and JPE
The first picture of each cat is with the new phone. The second is with the old phone.
In the first picture of Teagan I might have zoomed in a bit, but I didn’t touch either phone to make them focus better. So, I might have been able to get a bright picture with the iPhone 5, but I was taking it as a comparison of not having touched either phone.
With the new phone I might actually be able to get some better pictures of Teagan. Although, as I have mentioned she is not as camera shy as she once was.
I fought long and hard (for at least two years – that is when the seven was released and suggestions were made to get it) about getting a new phone. But I figure if I keep this one for six years it will be ok.
Even though don’t know most of what the description of the phone is saying, I can clearly SEE that the photos are much better!
These were just quick pictures I was taking to show my hubby the difference. I should have thought about posting from the get go and done a better job!
Dramatic difference, huh? Means bad news for my blog because I am going to be posting a lot more cat pictures now.
Today my cell phone rang and when I looked at it, it showed “Telemarketer”. Well, that is cool. I didn’t label it that, the new (to me) application that my husband put on my phone did. He downloaded AT&T Call Protect. So, if you have AT&T you can use it too on Android and iOS. I decided to see what it is about since it is on my phone now. Normally I research before I put stuff on my phone, but my husband was pretty eager to put this on my phone. I don’t like that it logs ALL your calls, but I guess that is how it keeps track of the spam phone calls. And that seems to be how it is lately – all companies are keep track of everything we do.
Of course there is a free version and a paid version. According to the website call protect has:
–Automatic Fraud Blocking – detects and blocks calls from likely fraudsters.
–Suspected Spam Warning – identifies telemarketers and other suspected spam calls.
–Manual Call Blocking – lets you block unwanted calls by number.
–Reverse Number Lookup† – provides details when you enter a U.S. number.
–Custom Call Controls† – lets you choose call categories to accept, block, or send to voicemail.
†Available with AT&T Mobile Security & Call Protect Plus.
I know you can block numbers on the phone itself, but if you do it from this application then the number itself could end up being added to the AUTOMATIC FRAUD BLOCKED calls. The more “blocks” the number receives the higher the “Threat” level.
It is so frustrating and annoying that we even need this type of thing. I understand people making calls to make sales, but getting a call everyday at the same time isn’t a person, it is a robot and there needs to be an end. If I didn’t answer the phone or want your product or service the first 50 times you called, chances are astronomically high that I don’t want it the 69th or 100th time you call.
We will see how well this works. I’ve only had it for about 24 hours. It was really nice to see the “Telemarketer” on my phone. But I really don’t ever answer my phone if I don’t recognize the number. That is a sad thing to have to do when you own a business, but because I own a business I get so many marketing calls. If an actually potential client calls they have to leave a message. Here you can see even more information.
Do you get a lot of annoying sales calls? Do you uses AT&T Call Protect? Does your service provider have this type of service? What do you think?
This past weekend I went away with my girlfriends I have known since Junior High. We rented a little house a block or two from the ocean in a tiny little town on the coast of California called Cayucos. We had a nice time. I put together a little slide show.
We visited the beach a couple of times and got a nice dose of negative ions. They make you feel good. It’s nice to get a dose of them when you can.
The little house was amazing. It had everything you would need to live in it permanently so staying there for a couple of days was nice.
The town is sweet – full of realty offices and antique stores. We pretty much visited all of the antique stores in a few hours. We had a nice time.
Now that I have iMovies you will probably be seeing a lot of slide shows and hopefully some videos.
I recently received a gift of honey. Not honey honey, but honey spread. The box sported many bee facts and I didn’t want them to go to waste so I thought I would share. According to the Bumbleberry Farms Honey Cream Spread box:
Questions and answers:
—How fast does a bee fly?
——————————-About 15 miles per hour
—How many flowers does a honeybee visit during one collection trip?
——————————-A worker bee visits about 50-100 flowers during each trip
—How far does a hive of bees fly to bring you one pound of honey?
——————————-More than 55,000 miles
—How much honey does the average worker honeybee make in her lifetime?
——————————-About 1/12 of a teaspoon
—How many wings does a honeybee have?
——————————-Each honeybee has 4 wings
—How much honey would it take to fuel a bee’s flight around the world?
——————————-About one ounce, or 2 tablespoons
—How many sides does each honeycomb cell have?
——————————-Each cell is a six-sided hexagon
—What is mead?
——————————-Mead is wine made from honey
—Which state is known as the Beehive State?
——————————-Utah
—How many honey-producing colonies of bees are there in the United States?
——————————-The USDA estimates that there are about 2.68 million honey-producing colonies in the United States.
—What does “super” mean to a beekeeper?
——————————-Supers are the hive boxes in which honey is stored, usually places above the deeper box called the “hive body”, where brood (developing bees) is reared.
—How do honeybees communicate with one another?
——————————-They communicate by dancing. Honeybees do a dance which alerts the other bees where nectar and pollen are located. The dance explains direction and distance. Bees also communicate with pheromones, a unique odor common to the particular beehive.
Just laying out the facts:
—The keeping of bees is known as Apiculture —An apiary is where several bee colonies, or hives, are kept in one place —There are over 200,000 beekeepers in the United States —Honey is the only food that won’t spoil —1 in 3 bites of food is pollinated by an insect. —Honeybee mating takes place in flight, account for the drone’s need for better vision —A male bee or drone has eyes twice the size of a worker or queen bee —A healthy queen can lay up to 30,000 eggs a day —A queen lays her own weight in eggs every couple of hours —Contrary to what the name implies, a queen does not actually control a hive, and her sole job is to be an egg-laying machine
Wow! Did you know that? So interesting. Bees are pretty amazing. Do you know any bee facts you would like to share?
I order a lot of stuff from Amazon. Most of the time it goes pretty well, but sometimes it does not. But I try to pay attention and only order certain things (like clothes) that have free returns. Well, sometimes when they ship the wrong thing is really doesn’t matter if the return was stated as free because when they send you the wrong thing it is up to them/the seller to fix it. A couple of months ago I ordered a stone and they shipped the wrong one. At first when I opened the package I was very disappointed because it was not the color that I was hoping for. When you order things like natural stones they warn you that the color will not be what you see in the picture, but what I received was way off. It took me a moment to realize that this was not the stone I ordered. I didn’t order another one right away. But I finally did and now I have some fluorite.
According to Wiki:
“Fluorite comes in a wide range of colors and has consequently been dubbed “the most colorful mineral in the world”. Every color of the rainbow in various shades are represented by fluorite samples, along with white, black, and clear crystals. The most common colors are purple, blue, green, yellow, or colorless. Less common are pink, red, white, brown, and black. Color zoning or banding is commonly present. The color of the fluorite is determined by factors including impurities, exposure to radiation, and the absence or voids of the color centers.”
I am used to the multi-colored polished stones. With light hues of pink-purple, green-blue, pinks, purples, greens, and blues in it. I have seen some dark ones, but I have not gotten one. The ones I got were light.
Wiki also states that fluorite is a source of a common chemical used to make a number of things, that is has ornamental uses, and even optical uses.
If you believe in the healing properties of crystals and stones then fluorite can help clear your mind. It can help get rid of negativity. It helps clear the way to joy. It helps bring order to chaos. It helps you focus. It can be used when you need to concentrate or get rid of a mental block. For some, this clearing of the mind can help with relaxation. Help with relaxation might translate into help in sleeping. Fluorite is often used to promote the positive energy while removing the negative energies. It is thought to help relieve the electromagnetic stress we are under every day with the use of everything electronic.
Do you have a stone/crystal collection? Do you have fluorite in you stone/crystal collection?
I recently received a lot of wine and/or champagne, as it was my birthday. I have a birthday every year (funny how that is, huh?) but I don’t normally let everyone know about it, however this year it was a significant birthday so I insisted on a bit of hoopla. Usually I will get a bottle of wine or two so I have no problem remembering who gave me what. But this year I received quite a few bottles. I think wine is a great gift to receive. I have a problem giving it as I am not a fancy wine buyer/drinker so I never know what to give. But that makes me a great wine receiver as anything that tastes good works for me regardless. Well, while writing all my thank you notes I realized I would not be able to remember who gave me what and down the line while my hubby and I are enjoying the wine I would like to know who gave me what. There are a lot of ways to label a bottle and at first I just wrote on the label, but some labels are black so a blue pen would not show up, plus writing on the label mars the label. So I decided to use that roll on white out tape.
I just rolled a line of the correction tape on the bottle and wrote the name on it. Now I know who gave me what, but I can also easily remove the information if the need arises. I don’t necessarily want have the gift givers names on the bottles if I have company over and I want to share a bottle with them. With this method I don’t have bottles with notes taped to them and I don’t have names written on the labels, but the bottles ARE labeled. The white out tape can be easily scraped off. If you decided to use any tape . . . like masking or scotch tape, that would even be easier because it would just pull off – no scraping necessary! Scotch tape might be hard to read.
Might sound odd, but I thought it the correction tape was somewhat cleaver. I like to give a “cheers” to the gift giver while enjoying a glass, plus if I really enjoy it I would like to let them know. There are so many ways people gift wine. A lot of people share their favorite and they like to know if the receiver enjoyed it, too. So now I will know who gave me what when we are drinking it months later.
Over the Labor Day Weekend we went to the Greek Festival in Belmont. The festival is held at The Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross. I wrote post about some soap that we get at the festival. We get the soap every year. We’ve only been going the past three or four years. This was the first year we went into the church. I think it was the first year that they were doing tours in the church, but I am not sure. I was so amazed at the inside of the church. If I am reading the website correctly, the “church” basically started in 1955 with twelve people. The church buildings were not built until 1964. My cousin who attends the church was reminiscing about how the church didn’t always have all of the mosaics pictured. The website says that the dome and the pendentive arches had the mosaics installed in 2004. I noticed a year on one of the walls. It was 2014. So it seems that the mosaics were installed over time.
Sirio Tonelli is the artist behind the art. According to his/their/that website they do mosaics for a lot of different churches. The size of the tiles in each of these mosaics was about a half of inch square. Yes, these murals are made from thousands of 1/2 inch square pieces of glass. It is amazing! This site has some better pictures of the inside of the church.
My pictures do not capture well, the beauty of the mosaics. They were very bright and very shiny. There were so many people trying to take pictures I was just doing so in a rush. Plus I was rather enjoying just looking at them and trying to take it all in and didn’t think to take a well planned out series of photos, I just started snapping as we were starting to walk out.
It is a very gorgeous church. I was amazed. I loved it so much primarily because it was so blue.
I have been sitting at my desk for hours now trying to figure out what to post about. I had a few ideas but then when I checked my blog to see if I had posted about them already, I had. Some subjects I have revisited and that, to me, is fine, when I consciously revisit a subject to add to it or change my opinion on it or to talk MORE about it. But I don’t like it when I post about the same subject again as if I didn’t post about it once already. I know I have done that at least once, I am sure I have done it more. I really try not to do that. I search my blog but sometimes posts don’t come up for the search I am using at the moment. Sometimes I KNOW I posted about something and I still can’t find the post. Anyway, my husband has been coming in to show me some clothes he is considering purchasing. Then he said, “You should post about that.” He was talking about (Amazon) Prime Wardrobe.
I had never heard of Prime Wardrobe, but a couple of days ago my husband said something like, “I am buying some clothes. Well, maybe?” I was confused so I asked, “What do you mean ‘maybe’?” And he explained that Amazon has a pick, ship, try on, choose, and send back service. So he picked out some clothes, they were delivered, he tried them on, decided what he wanted to keep, then is sending the rest back. I know there are a lot of services like that – like Stitch Fix, but I didn’t know Amazon had one. It is for Prime Members.
I sometimes buy clothes or shoes from Amazon and I make sure they have FREE RETURNS, but this is a whole new ball game! The clothes come in a resealable box. That is cool. Usually when I buy something I open the packaging very carefully so I can put the item back in it and carefully tape it closed, but this box has a strip that you use to seal it back up.
This is all very interesting to me.
Well, as usual, when I find something I find interesting I like to share it. Especially since that is how we all learn things. We share.
Did you know Amazon had this service? Have you ever tried a service like this (I know they have a lot of different ones)? WOULD you ever try a service like this?
Soap. You might be thinking, “AGAIN?!?!?!” Yeah, again. When I find soap I love I like to post about it. Although, I am remiss in regards to this soap. We got some of this soap last Labor Day at the Belmont Greek Festival and we loved it. I bought a particular scent and I was going to buy some more on the website, but I couldn’t find that particular scent on the website. But I was still going to buy some, but I didn’t (I don’t remember why, probably got distracted and never went back to it) and then here we are Labor Day again — so we bought a lot. I don’t even remember what scent I had wanted, so I just bought a bunch of different ones. This soap is so nice. It lathers up really well and they have a large variety of scents. The vendors are very nice. I cannot remember how many places he said were carrying it now, but I remember being amazed. You can either buy if from their website or at the stores that carry it.
There are a couple of different types of soap. I like the Goat’s Milk and Olive Oil mix. My husband bought the Half Goats Milk and Half Olive Oil kind. The mix is made with Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Safflower Oil, Goats Milk, and Olive Oil*. As I said, it lathers well. As per the website: no “harsh chemicals, NO parabens, NO sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and NO other sulfates found in most soaps.” And it smells great. We got a variety of different scents.
Coco Mango
Lemongrass (half and half)
Egyptian Musk
Blueberry Thyme
Lemongrass
Plumeria
Sandalwood
Milk & Honey
Aegean Sea (it looks like sand and sea!)
Tuberose
Plumeria (a different look)
Lavender
Believe it or not we only bought a few compared to how many scents they have. There are a lot more scents available, such as Almond, Coconut, Cranberry-Pomegranate, Cucumber-Melon, French Vanilla, the list goes on and on!
If you like to treat yourself to soap that is nice on the skin or you like to gift special soaps as gifts I would suggest you try this. I am sure you would be able to find a scent you would love!
