Funny, I was about to type that I post mostly about Nia since I am primarily focused on teaching Nia, but right now I looked at my Categories and I have 111 post under Nia and 111 post under Misc. Funny. This post will fall under Misc. This post is about some of the search terms I see. Sometimes I see people using a question as a search term. I always wish I could contact that person via e-mail to answer their question. I have thought about posting replies, but I haven’t done that. I am often surprised and sometimes shocked at some of the things people search for. I am laughing right now at the most popular search term since I have been blogging. It is funny because WHO thinks of these things? Why would anyone actually be searching for it? I am actually very happy — now that I think about it — that I posted about it because apparently people want to know. Do you? Have you ever wondered about a puppy that is purple? Seriously “purple puppy” is the biggest search on my blog. Hilarious, don’t you think?
It is especially funny since I just happened upon the purple puppy and her pink sister and I thought it was so oddly cute that I decided to post about it Makes me laugh that other people are curious about purple puppies. Makes me wonder why people are curious about purple puppies.
The next biggest search term is relevé. See, that makes sense to me. I under stand people wanting to know what it is or how to do it. Or just wanting more information about it. There are people who dance that might have heard that term but not being a ballerina, might not know what it is. Or someone wanting to be a ballerina might want some hints and tricks. That one makes sense to me.
The next one is Voss Water. I am somewhat surprised that Voss water isn’t higher on the list. Seems as if for a long time I had been seeing that come up again and again and again. But it is number three.
Number four is Carlos AyaRosas. That is nice. Carlos is the co-creator of Nia. His name was Carlos Rosas, but near the end of his career with Nia he changed it to Carlos AyaRosas. I love that people are searching for information on him. I imagine they are people who love Nia and they are wondering where he is and how he is doing. I believe he is in Texas with his new wife. And I have faith they are doing wonderfully.
I am not sure about you, but I was surprised by number five. Are you ready? Purple puppies. Plural. So not only do people search for purple puppY, they search for purple puppIES. I wonder what they want to know? I wonder if my post gives them any information they want to know. As I scroll through the entire list of search terms I see even more searches for the purple puppies just phrased differently.
The next popular search is optical illusion. That one is big. I see that one comes up a lot with the plural version search and all of the elements of the optical illusion; horses, babies, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein. Funny. That post gets a lot of hits. I can understand that, who doesn’t love an optical illusion. They are so cool. Tricks of the eyes and brain.
Well, I was just looking at the search terms and they often make me laugh, although today there were not any funny searches, but I think the next time there are I will write a post. Maybe you can help me figure out what some of them mean. Or maybe we can just have a chuckle. I am still laughing about the purple puppies.
This is not something new to you, I am certain. Sometimes things are not what they seem. I get contacted almost every day by people wanting to help me advertise Nia and my business. I am always interested because Nia is not yet a household name. Nia is not yet as big as Zumba. More often than not, I listen to what the caller has to say. I was recently disappointed after I received a call from a rather large company. The woman identified herself as a person working for this large company. She said that they were contacting people in my industry who might be interested in being on this company’s list of preferred service providers. Since I had never had any dealings with this HUGE company, when she asked if she could send me some information regarding being on this preferred list I said yes. I was curious as to how I could be a preferred service provider when I had never worked with this company or for this company. Well, I got my answer rather quickly as this person did as she said. She sent me an e-mail with the information within minutes of talking to me. It seems that all one has to do to be included on this HUGE company’s preferred service provider list is pay, at the bottom of the scale, $395.00 for an ad. Then — boom! — you are a preferred service provider.
I was disappointed, not that I wouldn’t be on the list, but I was disappointed about the list. This list of preferred service providers is provided to the employees of this company. If I were an employee of this to-remain-nameless-HUGE-technological-company, I would expect them to be preferring people that they have had some experience with. I would think that, if I was employed by this company that they would be recommending people to me for some other reason then the company, the service provider, paid them. The pricing started at $395.00 and went to $995.00, with something else (I am not certain what type of ad) for $100 each.
In addition to payment to be preferred the item that was to be advertised on this “preferred service provider list” was DISCOUNTED services. So it was a preferred service provider list that offers discounts to the employees. I honestly didn’t know that is how it worked. I thought the preferred service provider list was more than just advertising.
Also, I would like to point out that while the caller said she worked for the company, she meant as a hired outside marketing company. So . . . not only does this company have a preferred list of providers that are nothing more than people who pay for adverting in a preferred magazine of discounts for the employees, but the company doesn’t even do its own selling of ads in this “prefered service vendor list”. So not only are the service vendors not actually preferred they aren’t even known to the company whose list they are on.
Bummer. Just another lesson in some things not actually being what they seem. If you are one that works for a company that has a preferred service provider list you might want to find out HOW they get to be “preferred”. I guess I just thought of preferred as one having been chosen over another, not just having paid to be so.
There is a song about saving time in a bottle. If we could bottle time and take it out when we needed it that would be a wonderful thing. But then again, maybe just learning to manage our time would be a wonderful thing. I am one that could use to learn a few things about time management. Although as I look around me I see little things transpiring that I can use as time-helpers. One thing is the new Facebook. I believe that I get caught up in reading and commenting on Facebook a lot, but with this new change I find myself signing on then signing off quickly instead of staying on to look around. So that is a little “time-helper” for me. The new format is helping me by making me want to spend less time on it. Spending a little less time on Facebook is one thing that would allow me more time. For some they pack their schedules so tight they don’t have breathing room. There is no time to just “BE”. No time to just enjoy the moment. No time to decompress and de-stress. It is as if pressure is on all the time.
A Nia student of mine and I were talking about having breathing room. She is one of those people who packs her schedule really tight. She was sharing with me that she had wanted to go to a Nia event very badly but trying to squeeze it into her schedule was causing a lot of stress. Even though the event was something she really wanted to do the idea of trying to fit it in a jammed packed schedule was causing stress. Nia is joyful and is the opposite of stress. The fact that trying to fit this Nia class into her schedule was causing her stress and was negating the joy. Reluctantly she decided not to go, she told me that with releasing that commitment she had a great feeling of relief. She no longer had to figure out driving time, class time, and scheduling all her other work around that. As much as she missed not going to the Nia class it was necessary to take it off of her schedule in order to allow her less stress. And it worked. The moment she decided to not go, there was a release of pressure.
In our society we are programmed to go-go-go and do-do-do. Some people don’t say no to things because “they could squeeze it in between this and that”. People sometimes feel it is wrong or bad to say no. If they have a spare hour they feel it would be wrong to not accept the invitation or the task. For some having nothing to do for an afternoon is unheard of and even more so . . . . a waste of time. And they have no time to just be. Some can’t enjoy the moment. They aren’t taking the time to decompress and de-stress. They live under constant pressure.
At my next Nia class my student shared with me that after our conversation she had went home looked at her calendar and decided a few things needed to be crossed off the schedule so she could just be. She wanted to bring the sensation and the experience of just having time to relax into her everyday life. She had said that she was able to accomplish that on vacation but she wanted to work on having more time in her life. She was so excited to have done this and that our conversation had reminded her of the importance of saying, “No.” That it is ok to say no and actually have nothing to do. It is ok to say no and to keep that time free to be.
Then a few days later she sent me an e-mail she had received with this quote from Martha Beck.
We laughed at how the quote came at such a perfect time. We had been talking about “emptying our time” and then bam . . . there is it another reminder, or confirmation in fact, of exactly what we had been talking about.
Amazing how sometimes things in life just keep telling us the same thing over and over. Sometimes it is when we most need it to. I know that I am not always good at recognizing it. I know I could adjust my time a bit. I feel I have a good amount of time to be, but there could easily be some modifications in my time management to make things less stressful. What about you? Are there things you could say no to? Are there things you could adjust? Do you have “empty time” in which you can just be/de-stress/decompress/reflect? If you feel you have a lot of stress maybe you could start with little increments and see how that feels and then go from there. You might be surprised how great it feels to relieve some of that pressure and give yourself some time.
The Recommended Dietary Allowance or RDA is part of old guidelines that were first brought about by concern for our country. The government wanted to make certain that military personnel were receiving the nutrients they needed to remain healthy. The standards would be used for more than just the military, but the military was the initial thought. Over the years the RDA has been modified and revised. The modifications and revisions can be results of new scientific information or as new foods become available. Eventually the recommend dietary allowance became part of the RDI, Recommended Daily Intake, which has four separate values to consider. This post is just a quick reminder of the RDA.
The RDA is actually for healthy people . . . .if you are the one of the “one in three” Americans that have high blood pressure, or the one of the “one in three” Americans that have high cholesterol, or one in the large percentage of Americans that doesn’t exercise regularly and/or eat a diet of fast food and/or have a high stress job and/or are overweight/obese/morbidly obese then these guidelines are not necessarily for you. The recommended dietary allowance is for healthy people. The estimated Daily Values that are disclosed on nutrition labels are for healthy people and the people eating a 2000 calorie a day diet.
As you can see the D in RDA stands for dietary, not daily, because we don’t need to eat each recommended amount daily. But I didn’t see the information that explained how that is supposed to average out. But even so, the amounts are based on averages and people who are healthy so it is kind of no wonder that Americans as a whole are not getting healthier. If what we have to follow doesn’t even apply to 1 in three of us. The recommendations really should be taken as very loose guidelines. If you have high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol and you are on medication that brings you back into the normal ranges, then it could be that the RDA might work for you. But it could also be that if you weren’t concerned with the RDA (which remember is meant for healthy people) and you actually ate to be healthy then it could be that a proper diet could make the medication no longer needed.
A great example to point out proof of this is diabetes. You probably know someone who has it. You know they don’t follow the RDA. If they are concerned with controlling it they have a very different diet to follow. You might even know someone who HAD diabetes and they were able to control it and get off the medications with a change in their diet. I have heard a lot of testimony of exactly that happening.
Guidelines for healthy people also applies to the 30 minutes of exercise a day. That 30 minutes is to MAINTAIN health. Again . . . if you are unhealthy and want to improve your health exercising just 30 minutes a day might not do it. More than likely you’re going to need more.
So this is just to help you remember that the dietary guidelines are just there to advise or guide on how one does not become deficient in a nutrient. That is why they are really actually explaining how to stay healthy because they were created for healthy people. And the recommended 30 minutes a day is to maintain health. So for the people with health issues that actually want to use diet and exercise to improve their health they shouldn’t stick to the recommendations. They are only guidelines and they do not apply to us all. We all are individuals and we need to find out what works best for us. There are doctors, nutritionist, personal trainers, dietitians, and a whole group of people who can help. Don’t necessarily rely on the government recommendations to GET you healthy. It is really up to you.
Wow! I learned something today and you know me when I learn something I get excited. Some of the things I learn might be common knowledge to others, but when I learn it or sometimes re-learn or remember it, I love to share it. I have found that often what I am learning/re-learning/being reminded of is new to at least one other person. I am really amazed at what I just learned today . . . . right now in fact, via an e-mail. If any of you are members of Meetup you probably got the e-mail too. The bad is the horrific murders that happened on September 11, 2001. The ugly, of course, is that there are people living with us on this beautiful planet that want to cause chaos, destruction, and are filled with such hate. The ugly is also, of course, the loss of life, freedom, and so many other things that were taken away that day and the days that have followed. But the good is Meetup.
Did you know that Meetup was born of 9/11? One of the founders of Meetup sent out an e-mail today that said he was living not too far from the Twin Towers and wasn’t involved in local community. After the planes crashed into the towers he felt as if the people around him changed in that they started saying hello to neighbors and helping each other. Questions arose about whether the internet could be used to bring communities together. A small group of people got together and launched Meetup 9 months later. (As I am typing this, I just realized that it was NINE months later . . . as in the typical human birth gestation.)
This idea born of something awful is almost 10 years old and is 10 million people strong. With 100,000 Meetup Groups a lot is happening. Ten million people reaching out to one another and connecting. Heck ya, that is good.
His e-mail goes onto say, “Meetups aren’t about 9/11, but they may not be happening if it weren’t for 9/11.”
I am really amazed, I didn’t know this. I don’t even remember when I was told about Meetup, but I had heard about it and knew it had been around for a while and I never would have imagined it came about because of 9/11.
I feel 9/11 is a very emotional thing. Everyone was affected differently. I believe it is different for those who look out at the skyline every day and see sky where the towers used to be. I believe it is different for those who knew people who died. I believe it is different for those who whose health was affected by the debris from the towers.
My friends and I have busy schedules and when we looked at our calendars we found that the only day we were all available to meet for the September birthday was a Sunday, 9/11. It wasn’t until a few days later that it dawned on me that it was 9/11 AND the 10th anniversary. I sent an e-mail mentioning that it really wasn’t a day that I felt it was appropriate to be celebrating. I was thinking that people would frown at us and wag their fingers if they were to see us in a restaurant being jovial. So many sorrows came from that day. I somewhat felt we would be disrespectful if we were to be out having a good time. One of my friends replied, “I say we toast those who lost and risked their lives on that horrific day. They should make it a national holiday. That way people would begin to celebrate the lives of those who died, with BBQs and such, instead of forever focusing on the bad terrorists. I feel like they win – if we keep remembering the bad terrorists.” I liked that idea. I think we should focus on the good that came out of that day. By celebrating the good we are NOT dishonoring the lives that were taken. Nor are we belittle the fact that some people were directly affected. All Americans, and almost everyone that has any dealings with America were affected. We lost lives, freedoms, and much more. BUT . . . focusing on the negative of the event just gives it more power.
We could give POSITIVE power by focusing on it, on the POSITIVE stuff. Meetup was born. I wonder how many wonderful things, how many positives were born from Meetup? How many businesses got help from belonging to a business Meetup? How many parents learned about parenting from parenting Meetup groups? How many lives were saved because someone got; happy, healthy, noticed, recognized, informed, or felt as if they belonged to something?
I was really surprised and amazed to learn that Meetup was started because of 9/11. Again to quote the e-mail from Scott Heiferman, “The towers fell, but we rise up. And we’re just getting started with these Meetups.” There is nothing we can do to change what happened that day. All I can do is respectfully hold space for those that died and for everyone else who was affected. I am NOT saying that I am glad it happened because that allowed Meetup to come in to existence. I am saying, I can focus on the positive not the negative. I believe focusing on the positive to be a better use of energy and a better way of honoring the memory of victims of 9/11.
I’ve talked about resistance bands being great for strength training. The other day after having taught a Nia class with a lot of sumo stances in it AND after having done some weighted squats, I really needed to stretch. I needed a really deep stretch and as I was trying to think of how to get it I remembered I could use my resistance bands for stretching. The resistance bands I have are long flat sheets of rubber. I don’t have the ones that are like rubber bands or tubes. Mine don’t have handles. Any type of band made for exercising will do. There are so many ways to stretch using a band. I will just name a few in this post and maybe do another post at another time.
The first one you probably have done when you pick up a band is just to hold it in each hand and let your arms “fall” to the side. Obviously your arms don’t actually fall because you are holding the band, but you can feel the stretch in your arms and shoulders. The great thing about bands is you can make the tension however you need it to be by the way you hold the band. If you need a really deep stretch make the band really short and either pull or let your arms “fall”. If you want a gentle stretch then hold the band closer to the ends.
Holding opposite ends of the band and allowing your arms to fall behind your body really allows for a stretch in the upper arms, shoulders, upper back and neck.
You can do side bends with an end of the band in each hand holding your arms above your head. Again sensing the stretch in your shoulders and upper back, but with this stretch you also get your sides. Using the band for this stretch allows for a much greater stretch than without the band.
For the legs there are a few I want to share. Sit down on the ground, fold the band in half then put your foot in the band at the fold, hold one side of the band in each hand. Then lay down, keeping your foot flexed, bring your straight leg with the foot in the band up as far as you can. Keep your other leg straight out on the floor. Adjusting the tension of the band gives you the stretch you need. You can bring your leg straight up and closer to your face for an even greater stretch. The closer you pull your leg to your face the greater the stretch in the hamstrings and even calf.
Still lying on your back with your leg up and still holding the band let your leg fall ACROSS your body. This is a further stretch for the hamstrings and gets the outer thigh. With this stretch – again – using the band to pull your leg closer to your head gives you a bigger stretch. Hold the end of the band in the hand opposite the direction your leg is going, while the hand on the side of where your foot is gently pulls the leg towards your head. Remember to be mindful of what you are sensing, often a stretch will cause discomfort but the muscles need to be stretched especially after a workout. But pain is different than discomfort, so be aware of what sensation is present.
Another stretch you can do is from the same position of laying on your back, with your foot through the band, leg in the air, foot flexed, but this time let the straight leg fall away from your body. With this stretch the hand opposite the side your stretching leg holds the end of the band and the hand on the side of the stretching leg can gently pull the leg towards your head. This stretch allows you to really sense the stretch in the inner thigh. The closer your leg gets to the floor the more your inner thigh gets stretch. And at the same time you can gently pull your leg towards your head enable the back of the leg to be stretched too.
Bands are such a great way to get some assisted stretching in without having to have another person there to help you. It is like proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) by yourself. As I mentioned before, please be mindful and aware of what your body is saying. Discomfort at a tolerable level is acceptable but pain is not.
I was thinking one day, “there has to be something online that can give calories for a recipe. And hopefully there is a free version.” There is. Cool. Maybe you had thought about this before, I know I have, but I just rememberd this week. I usually just kind of tally the ingredients and divide using a calculator, but I realized there has to be something online so I Googled it and came up with a few.
FitWatch Recipe Analyzer lets you label the recipe and then you input the number of servings, then you enter each ingredient separately. You can enter all the ingredients on its own separate line, then click “Search For All Ingredients” or you can search as you go along after you enter each ingredient. After you click “search” the program will bring up a list of ingredients from which you can scroll down and select the one you want. After each selection the screen flashes and then gives you measurement options. Each time you make a selection the screen flashes. There are only twelve spaces, so you can only enter up to twelve ingredients. After you are done it supplies you with amount of calories, water, carbohydrates, protein, total fat, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated fat, and saturated fat, cholesterol, and dietary fibre. It also gives you a breakdown of vitamins and minerals measurements. Very nice. Also gives you the option to print it in a nice format. But the input is somewhat awkward, because of the constant flashing. I kept thinking my computer or internet browser was going out or down. Took me until about the eighth ingredient to get used to it. Then I skipped an ingredient and I wanted them to be in order because I was not sure what information I would get and I didn’t know the format, so I thought it would be easier to just have it in the same order as the recipe. Going back and inputting the ingredient again really made the screen flash.
Calorie Count has you input the number of servings, then you can copy the entire list of ingredients into one box. That was so quick and easy and AWESOME! Then it gives you the calorie break down of each ingredient and gives it a grade. It allows you to add a new item and edit the recipe. It gives the option to log a serving and save a recipe, but I am not signed up so I didn’t do either one of those things. So I am not sure if after having done one of those things if you get an option to print. The format the nutrition info is presented in does not copy and paste very well. In addition to the calorie count and grade of each ingredient it gives you the Nutrition facts in the common format that is on many product labels. Under the “label” it gives you a nutritional analysis such as “Bad points: •High in saturated fat •High in sugar •Contains alcohol” and “Good Points: •Low in sugar •High in manganese •High in niacin •High in phosphorus •High in selenium •High in vitamin B6”. But it does not give you measurements nor percentages on all of the things mentioned in this analysis.
Spark People’s recipe analyzer makes you enter each ingredient and then search their data base for the closest match. Its breakdown of the nutrition in the recipe includes: amount of calories, total fat, monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, and saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, potassium, total carbohydrates, dietary fiber and sugars, and protein. This recipe analyzer/calculator gives you a breakdown of vitamins and minerals in percentages. Its nutrition information is in a printable format like the first one. This site also allows you to save the recipe if you are a member as with Calorie Count.
Really nifty. I bet there are even more out there. This is a different way of checking the nutrition in our diet, instead of inputting it all in a food diary/log/tracker/counter, you can do entire recipes. I want to remind you even though I say it often, we all have different goals so we certainly have different nutritional needs. These sites are just more tools that we can use to meet our goals and our nutritional needs.
So, I am curious to know if you were surprised at the information after you entered your favorite recipe? Well, were you?
I have stated before that I joined the world of social media to promote my Nia business. Nia has been around for almost 30 years, but not a lot of people know about it. It did not have the marketing push of Zumba. Nia is a fitness/wellness practice that includes a cardio dance workout. I grudgingly joined FaceBook, Twitter, Wellsphere, Merchant Circle, Yelp, Youtube, and many more to share things about health and wellness, and yes primarily Nia. What happened, of course, was I found friends on FB both new and ones I had lost touch with. I made friends through my blog and other people’s blogs. I connected with many people on Twitter. With all of these real friend connections I often get distracted with conversations on these social media sites. But then again, I don’t really think of them as distractions because these are my friends now. They might be people I may never meet face-to-face, but I care about them and — lucky me — they care about me. But I do still have to try to learn things. Today I listened to a Guinness World Record-breaking webinar hosted by HubSpot and presented by Dan Zarrella . It was really interesting. He shared how a lot of things you might hear are myths.
The presentation was labelled “The Science of Social Media”. I guess the “science” came in because Mr. Zarrella compiled a bunch of figures from research. I am gonna share some of the things he stated that I found interesting. Ok – really I am stating interesting facts off the slides because he talked so fast I missed a lot of what he said. AND they had an earthquake in Virgina before the webinar and it was felt where the presentation was taking place. They said the audio was having issues because of the earthquake. But when Mr. Z slowed down, it was fine.
He had a lot of charts graphs and all types of things explaining how he came to these conclusions and these were the times when his rate of speech doubled so I think he was very excited about how he came up with this info but it also made it very hard to understand. But . . . this provides a great opportunity for me to let you know that Hubspot is going to post the webinar so you can listen to it yourself. I am just pointing out some highlights and what I got out of it. It is always better to listen to the source when you have the opportunity.
Here are three myths:
– Engaging in the conversation is the most important thing.
From what I understood, he was saying this is not true IF you were trying to get huge exposure. We are all on social networks for our own reasons. So this MIGHT be a true fact for you, but in Mr. Z’s context he was saying it is NOT the most important thing when you are trying to get exposure.
– Don’t call yourself a guru.
His research showed people calling themselves gurus had HUGE followings. So as long as you follow up your “guru” claim with good/valuable info you can call yourself that.
– Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are bad days to publish.
He said he found this not to be true. He explained people can spend much more time on things (posts, links, e-mail, etc) because there is less traffic on those days. So it sounds as if so many people believe this to be true so they don’t publish on those day which actually makes it false.
Additional points:
– Highly followed accounts tweet a lot of links. Well, for me as a follower, if that is all that I see in a twitter stream I usually don’t bother following. So, as I said, we all use social media for our own purposes so not all of his information applies to everyone. He was sharing what his research showed by the numbers he studied.
– Don’t tweet “over” yourself.
If you tweet out a link or information, let it set a bit. Give people time to see it before you tweet more information. Some of this I think you just learn as you go.
– Don’t talk about yourself too much and – Positive tweets and posts are what people want to read
These two points I thought were funny because I think of them as obvious as the sky. But maybe it was stated for people living under a rock. And there is a fine line, which was not actually addressed. I think the fine line would be more educational. I mean, people DO want to hear about you as a person, but how much is the question. And people also don’t care to read false positives. I mean life does have some negative aspects and sometimes it is ok to share them. Again, the question is: how much?
– Write to the 5th grade level.
Regardless of what your audience’s education level may be this is a widely used level.
– Asking for a retweet works.
He said when you ask nicely for followers to retweet or share they do.
These are highlights of what I found most interesting. There was a lot of information to support the busting of each myth, but that information you can hear when you listen to the webinar yourself. You’ll will want to, if you have time and you are interested in learning more about social media. HubSpot is a great tool for learning about social media. They often have free webinars and downloads. You might want to visit their site to see all they have to offer. Thanks again, HubSpot and Mr. Dan Zarrella, as always I received some great info from you!
Our cat is an indoor cat. She does not go outside. I honestly feel that cats should be able to go outside. There are so many fun things for cats to experience; butterflies, grass, fences, frogs, lizards, flowers, etc. They do belong outside, able to roam, but unfortunately there are also many dangers. In addition to believing that cats really should be allowed to go outside, I feel that people must take responsibility for their pet(s) and that can come with a heavy price tag. Neither my heart nor my wallet could afford having to fix my cat if one of those outside dangers were to injure her. In our neighborhood we have raccoons, opossums, dogs, cats, cars, and sometimes the worst danger of all . . . other people. Not everyone is an animal lover or they might not enjoy a kitty fertilizing their garden — understandable. So we keep our cat inside. She, like a lot of indoor animals, LOVES to sit by any open door or window. She can sit there for hours. She stares and sniffs, and sniffs and stares. She will often go from door to door as if patrolling her yard. My hubby and I feed birds and squirrels in our yard in hopes that they will serve as entertainment for the cat. We have learned that we are overly entertained by our yard animals too. As I have posted before, the animals often distract me when I am doing a Nia routine or working out.
My hubby and I also have animal protocol, if there is an animal in the yard and we are on our way out to the yard, we stop and wait for it to settle or be gone. If we are in the yard and one comes in we freeze and let it do what it is there to do then we proceed. We often will stop what we are doing (pause a DVD, pause our conversation, etc.) to watch the various critters that come to visit. They are very entertaining. They eat, they play, they drink, they take baths. It is all very fun to watch. They can be quite silly.
We used to have blue jays come with their babies every year. They must have nested in our neighbor’s yard, because one year he drastically trimmed the trees and the babies that visit now are not nearly as young as the ones we used to have. So I believe the birds are having their babies elsewhere and sometimes they come here to eat or bath, but they are not here over a period of months as they once were. It is interesting and very amusing watching “babies” learn new things.
I believe the video included in this post is a group of “baby” hummingbirds. They are either babies or they are adults new to our yard and they have not seen the “house” that we allow our cat to go outside in. The hummingbirds swarm around the house to see what exactly is the threat of the animal inside. It is quite entertaining. They did this just a few times and have since learned that she is no threat and they act as if she is not there. The squirrels often check her out though. They climb on the table and peer in at her. She just looks back at them, rarely does she rush at them. She knows she can’t get them, but I don’t think they are always so sure.
On this video you can hear the birds making their little chitter noise. I imagine them saying, “What is it doing? What is it? Can it eat us?”
I have potholders and oven mitts that I don’t really want to use as potholders. Ya know, they could be those ones that you received as a gift and they are pretty, but when you use them and realize that they aren’t really as useful as they are pretty because you can still feel the heat/burn through it. Or you bought them as part of a set of hand towels, so they really are just for show because they are too thin to use. Why yes, you COULD get rid of them. But I would NEVER think to do that. (See my last post where I state I have a house full of stuff.) There are other uses for potholders. If they are really pretty but too thin to use to keep the heat away from your hand you can use them for other things. Or if you accidentally touched the oven element and just one little corner is singed you could use it for something else. Some times the pretty ones work very well as trivets. You might want to use them when company is over. You just set them out and then place the hot dish on them. Perfect. The slightly singed one can be used as a trivit too. It is really the surface that you are setting something hot (or even cold) on that you are trying to protect. It doesn’t have to be pretty.
What they can also be used for is separating your pots and pans. There are protectors specifically made for that. I have some of those too (that is what the blue one is on the bottom), but I have a lot of potholders that have come with towel sets that aren’t that great as potholders. I also have a few that I have connected with the oven element with. In fact right after I took this picture one of the cat ones suffered that fate. So I use them to separate my pots and pans. I have found that along with the dishwasher the pots and pans scratch each other up a bit. So I put the potholders in between. I believe this annoys my hubby and I am sorry for that, because it really does help protect the pots and pans. I think having a glass top stove has made me a little more aware of what is on the bottom of my pans. A glass top is much easier to clean – to me – than a spiral element stove, but it helps if you start of with a pot/pan with a clean bottom. Also it shouldn’t have any rough edges or gouges in it that can scratch the glass. So I just like to use layer of protection between my pots and pans.
With the pots I try to get the pot holder to protect both the bottom of the pot and the handle. We have some pots with handles coated in a thin layer of plastic and the pot edges scratch it off. So I try to put the pots in with the potholder sticking over the edge. Works with big potholders, but not really the small ones.
So if you are like me and you wanna try to keep you pots looking nice and keep them smooth for the stove, you don’t like to throw “perfectly good things away”, and you like to find new/other uses for things this might be one of those things that helps you.
What about you? Any of you really crafty people have another way potholders can be put to use?
It is especially funny since I just happened upon the purple puppy and her pink sister and I thought it was so oddly cute that I decided to post about it Makes me laugh that other people are curious about purple puppies. Makes me wonder why people are curious about purple puppies.
Terre Pruitt's Blog 