Feb. 28, 2007

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BONE DENSITY! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:24 pm

i’m excited right now because i’m about to get a BONE DENSITY SCREENING. but then the thought struck me that maybe it’s a little pathetic, being so excited about getting a BD screening. but i can’t help it - mom has osteoporosis, and what’s even more shocking is that my brother david has it too, even though he’s only 46 years old! he’s not overweight, and he does exercise, but all he does is swim, which of course doesn’t do anything about making your bones stronger. me, i run, etc, plus i’ve being exercising for many years, plus i love almost all milk products including all cheeses and ice cream and everything calcium-filled that’s made of milk. but still, you never know, so i’m very glad that i’m getting checked.

i went to an actual doctor for a check up a couple months ago, and that, too, was thrilling, except that i found out - and maybe i already mentioned this - that i’m only 5' 3 3/4" tall, instead of 5'5", which i erroneously thought for many many years. i’m not sure how that happened, but that of course means that i should weigh less because of being an inch and a quarter shorter than i thought.

anyway, off i’m going to get my bone density measured. kevin took many many many photos of mom’s birthday party on monday night, and i’m going to post a few of them later. but maybe not till tomorrow, because i’m going to be busy for the rest of the day now. there are some funny photos. tomorrow morning, at the latest.

ok then,

wednesday grace.



Feb. 27, 2007

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such a birthday... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 3:17 pm

yesterday was mom’s birthday. my mother is an intelligent person, but she started the day by WEIGHING HERSELF. i can’t think of a much worse way to start a birthday. she also cleaned her bathroom, and she interviewed for a job. hmm, are there any other unfortunate things she could have done yesterday?

at least last night we had a lovely dinner for her at our house, complete with lemon cheesecake. but as for the rest of her day...

starting a birthday out right would be to have a chocolate covered chocolate old fashioned doughnut from mel-o-cream. i just realized i’ve NEVER started a birthday out like this. this year, things will be different...

how about the rest of the day, a perfect birthday day? it’s hard to think of good birthday things to do in february when it’s cold and grey outside. take a trip somewhere warm, then, if you have a february birthday.

my birthday is routinely at the end of may, the weather is pretty much always good. but i’m going to spend more time between now and then thinking about how i’d really like to spend my birthday day. because you only get a small number of them, even if you live to be really really old.

so that’s a good thing for all of us to think about, ways to make our own birthday days good, and strategies for making those things happen. if your birthday is tomorrow, i’m sorry that you won’t have lots of time for planning. but you could at least focus on doing something you enjoy, if you can’t actually take that trip or do whatever great birthday things you could do.

time to plan. i must get to work.

ok then,

tuesday, but it feels like wednesday already at least, grace.



Feb. 25, 2007

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the queen [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 1:20 pm

we went to see the movie “the queen” last week, and it was quite good. it was only here in spfld for a brief time, but then they brought it back because it was nominated for an oscar, and it’s been here for weeks now.

but here’s my question - did queen elizabeth see it? i’m sure she knows about it, especially since helen mirren was nominated for it. and if she did see it, did she hate it? prince philip would certainly hate it, a lot. but what about the queen herself? i mean, on one hand, it really shows a decent character arc for her, and i came out of it with a better understanding of how bizarre it would be to be queen. not an easy thing to do.

but would she hate it? tony blair saw it, i’m sure, and i know he must have liked it a lot.

we saw “reno 911: miami” last evening and it was great, every bit as funny as the tv show. and they set it up to have one in england next time; i can’t wait. i’m going to sit around and wait for that to come to a theater near me.

at least there’s something to look forward to at the end of march - will ferrell has a new movie coming out, about being a figure skater. the guy from napoleon dynamite is in it too and it looks highly entertaining.

as opposed to the movie “300” which i think is the one about sparta, all killing all the time. oh, and a new die hard movie, the trailer of which didn’t have anything except car explosions, building explosions, a few seconds of car chasing before more car explosions - oh brother.

i have to go be a queen myself right now. walking and sitting.

ok then,

oscar day grace.



Feb. 20, 2007

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the think system [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:28 am
one of the columnists in the op-ed section of today’s paper wrote about some woman in australian who has a best-selling self-help book called the secret. it sounds like it’s all about the power of positive thinking - oprah said that “we create our own circumstances by the choices we make, and the choices we make are fueled by our thoughts.”

so therefore, we have to Love Ourselves and Think Positive Thoughts. The columnist went on to talk about how she needs to stop the negative thinking about pres. bush, and bush needs to stop the negative thinking...

so hers was a political view, but i think the Power of Positive Thinking makes perfect sense. i was just explaining it to somebody the other day, as a matter of fact, about Professor Harold Hill. You know, from “The Music Man.” the guy i was talking to had never SEEN the Music Man, which surprised me because i assumed everybody has seen it. well, in the story, the music man himself, harold hill, who is really just a petty swindler, gets all the parents in the town where he stops (RIVER CITY IOWA, duh..."there’s nothing halfway about the Iowa way to treat you if we treat you which we may not do at all..." a snippet of one of the many many memorable songs from the play/movie) to buy band instruments for their kids. and then he has the kids use THE THINK SYSTEM to learn how to play. the instruments haven’t arrived because of course he was just pretending to order them, but he has the kids THINK about practicing, and in the end they do manage to play a shaky version of the Minuet in G.

The think system. the whole thing about how your thoughts are the key to just about EVERYTHING is something i think about quite a bit. of course, i’m not going around thinking about the war so much because those thoughts always end in the same place, the downward spiral of despair. so instead i think about more immediate concerns, like weight loss.

and so here’s one thing to think about re: losing weight and all of that. don’t blame your thighs.

don’t blame your thighs. or your bulging gut or your flabby arms or you big butt or your pudgy legs or whatever part of your body that you really can’t stand and wish wouldn’t look like that.

it’s not your body’s fault. it’s your MIND you should be concerned about. sometimes i try to blame my mouth, for stuffing in too many cookies, but the mouth is just a servant to my mind.

your MIND. the wacky lady from australia is right, you can look at things in a whole new way. for example, instead of all the negative thinking about your poor body parts which are the result of too many twinkies, you should think good things about your body. you should be happy that you HAVE thighs, that you weren’t born without them. it would be hard to support your legs with no thighs.

and then you could think that since you like your two thighs so much, that you want them to look their best...which means that your MIND has to say no thank you to the six thousand french fries. and the chocolate shake.

it’s your MIND that convinces you that you don’t feel like exercising - your legs would be happy to participate, they’re not doing anything else anyway.

so don’t hate your body. don’t HATE your mind, but try to use it to positively change yourself. “I don’t hate my body; on the contrary, i’m glad to have a body, and i want it to be in good shape so it will continue to support my head which contains my MIND.”

gee, maybe i should go into the self-help business.

i have to go start in on that right now.

ok then,

motivated (morning) tuesday grace.





Feb. 19, 2007

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winner! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 6:50 pm
i mentioned that kevin WON the fencing tournament last sunday, but here is a picture of him with his trophy. but this isn’t even the REAL trophy. the guy in charge of the tournament was giving out trophys and i noticed that the inscription on them was NOVICE 1st, 2nd, third place winners, and then i saw the bigger better trophies that said MENS FIRST PLACE, etc, and i pointed it out to the guy and so now kevin has a bigger trophy but i bet he doesn’t realize he doesn’t have a photo of it.



here’s a photo i just took of the real trophy. in back are the roses kevin gave me for valentine’s day, and the blue thing is honey the cat’s new cat bed. which she loves more than anything, and she sleeps there on top of the kitchen table.

not that she’s spoiled or anything.



ok then,

still monday grace.

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sweet fridays [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 6:39 pm

driving home from work, i heard just the very end of a story on NPR, one of their “I believe” series. all i heard was talking about cake, so naturally that made me look it up online. it’s a very sweet story, a nice tradition that this woman has started. she picked it up when living in Georgia, the former part of the soviet union, not georgia USA. which goes to show that there are many benefits from traveling.

Sweet Fridays on NPR

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FLAVANOL AND BRITNEY’S HAIR [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 3:46 pm

first of all, today it’s WARM. right now weather.com claims it’s 44, but out on our porch, the thermometer reads 50. it’s supposed to be SIXTY on saturday. then kind of colder next week, but hopefully the snow will be GONE. TIME FOR SPRING.

there’s this news story today about flavanol, which is found in cocoa, improves brain function and memory and stuff but they don’t say WHERE YOU CAN GET THE COCOA WITH LOTS OF FLAVANOL IN IT.

i guess if i just wait a couple of weeks, that store shelves will be stocked with NOW WITH LOTS OF FLAVANOL! cocoas and candy bars. but will they really have lots of flavanol?

in the meantime i think i’ll have a cup of cocoa anyway. to get in the habit.

in another very important story today, it was reported that after britney spears freaked out and shave her head friday night, now the hair is on sale on ebay for one million dollars. i just looked for it, and i did find a piece of hair that’s selling for $48,000, but nothing for a million. one story said that the salon where she shaved her head has kept all the hair and is going to give it back to her. i also found a (fairly unattractive) portrait of britney on e-bay taht they’re asking $250,000 for. it doesn’t even list the painter of the portrait.

sometimes reading some of the news makes me think the world is just too crazy. not to mention they’re fighting about where to bury poor anna nicole smith’s now-decaying body.

ok, i found the hair that they’re asking one mil for. for one thing, the seller claims to be from “turzana, ca.” the spelling is actually TARZANA. and then they write “get your genuine SOUVENIRE.”

and then the seller added the line, “the person I got it from will not guarantee it was from HER head, possibly from the hairpiece that she inserts in her hair.”

and also, even though the person is selling the hair from “turzana,” the seller actually lives in australia.

clearly the person is a world traveler. the other things he’s (why do i think it’s a man? i just do) sold are cell phones.

i’m going to go outside and watch the snow melt some more now.

ok then,

monday grace.



Feb. 17, 2007

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snow...snow...snow...and more....snow.... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:30 am

enough already with the snow.

last night we braved the cold and went to see “cabaret” at the hoogland, it was dinner theater, a lot of fun. dinner theater is a great idea and i think we should have more of it here. people like to eat and they like to be entertained. my only regret is i wish i’d had the steak instead of the chicken.

the show was in theater three, which is a great big space and i had wondered if they’d make it look nice. they did. dark lighting, risers to people at tables in back could see, nice.

but then it snowed some more. i have many plans for today, including working out at the fit club and then driving to petersburg to audition for a play and then, later, we’re going to go see kevin’s band perform at a place called the landing in taylorville. lots of driving around on non-interstate roads, and i’m not looking forward to it. i’m reconsidering going to the fit club because the parking lot will be horrible. they have no room to expand the lot, and the spaces are all very small and most of the cars who park there are very large. plus with all the snow it will probably be chaos.

if i sit here and continue to type, i’m sure i can type my way out of going.

hot chocolate. the answer to everything, winter-wise.

ok then,

grace on saturday.



Feb. 15, 2007

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hawaii... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 6:46 pm
it’s 80 in honolulu today. also tomorrow.

the sad thing is that it’s supposed to reach the 40’s here next week, and this seems so great to me...

anwyway, the last time i wrote about hawaii, we were hiking on the trail at the very end of the road on waimea canyon. i posted a couple of photos of the view. we walked up the road to the very last trail because they were re-paving the road. here’s a photo of me on the road.




i mentioned before that we hadn’t planned on a long hike; we’d worn hiking boots/tennis shoes earlier, but now i was in my tevas and kevin was wearing his birkenstock sandals, plus we only had a little water in a perrier bottle.

this is the sign at the beginning of the trail; looking at my hawaii guidebook, i can’t figure out the name of it.



we came across another couple, hiking up the trail, and they took our picture.



i’m smiling because i don’t realize how far we’re going to go. it wasn’t the distance, though, it was the steepness. as we hiked along the views continued to be spectacular, but then we kept climbing up and up, and it was getting more difficult and i was starting to be concerned about my ability to get back down. finally we reached a point where we’d have to scrabble up the side of the mountain, and i decided i couldn’t make it to the top. kevin, though, thought it was a great time, and so he went up without me (the man was wearing birkenstocks, remember). i waited around for him and became convinced that he’d definitely fallen to his death.

after a while, though, he came back down and said that he was sure i could make it. so i started up.

it was bad. not pretty. up and up and up, hanging onto vines and trees and anything i could get my hands on. it’s not so much the going up that’s bad for me, it’s the thought of trying to get back down.

he kept saying “it’s just a little bit farther,” and i didn’t believe him, but finally we did make it to the top. and it was pretty darn spectacular. here’s one picture of the view.



there was also this little thing buried in the dirt, some kind of thing identifying it as the place where it was. yes, i realize that’s slightly vague, and i know that at the time it made sense, but right now, looking at the photo, it says “us coast and geodetic survey.” and i think it also says “triangulation station.”



i think we were at the Puu O Kila Lookout. here’s a photo at the point where i stopped hiking and refused to go on until kevin climbed up without me. see all bare dirt there in the middle, with indentations in it? that was the beginning of the climb.



after a while we had no choice but to hike down, and it wasn’t as bad as i’d built it up in my mind. here’s me, marching back to civilization.



one other thing about this hike, besides wearing not that great footwear and hiking much higher than i’d ever have done on my own - i was also just wearing my prescription sunglasses. i have a pair of regular glasses, and then the prescription sunglasses on a string, and usually i wear the glasses on the top of my head, but when hiking they fall off a lot. so i was just wearing the sunglasses but it was rapidly getting kind of dark, and there i was hiking, in my shades.

it all seems so idyllic right now, with the snow piled up three feet high outside my front door.

time for some hot chocolate.

ok then,

grace SURELY nearing the end of winter.

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snow continued [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 5:55 pm

i don’t know how much time i have to sit here typing, because mollie is sitting on the floor next to me, looking up at me expectantly. IT’S TIME FOR FOOD RIGHT NOW is what she’d be yelling if she could talk.

instead she just sits there looking cute, wagging her tail.

we shoveled randy’s driveway yesterday and it wasn’t nearly as bad as i’d thought it would be, because we worked out way down the drive and it didn’t take so long even though there was lots of snow. before that i got stuck in the snow in his subdivision because they hadn’t plowed there at all. kevin took over the driving, because he grew up in big snow land and it didn’t seem to be such a big deal to him.

i was driving to begin with because we were delivering valentine’s cupcakes to a few different people, and mollie was in the car with us, so kevin had to be in charge of balancing the cupcakes and not letting mollie eat them all.

today i dug a path our our back door so the animals could get outside. the drifts were so high that they were afraid to venture out. honey the cat was delighted at being outside, and she rolled around on the outside table and had a great time. they were all happy to be outside, for a while anyway. i took many photos of them, and here are some. this first is honey rolling on the table.



and here she is, posing.



she leaped off the table and dashed across the yard in the snow, and was very please to walk all over our little trellis thing but that’s not the right word for it and i’m not entirely sure what it’s called.



winnie ventured out, but he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic. but then again, honey is the cat who is happy to sleep outside as much as she can. in the summer, anyway.



here’s all three of them. they’re getting along ok, with only some hissing/spitting from honey who continues to hate poor mollie for no reason at all.



honey kept meowing at me when she walked over to the tree. i think she wanted to climb it, and maybe she wanted me to go away so she could climb it in secret, without me knowing she can do it just fine with no front claws.



and this is the front of our house, with half of the driveway shoveled. shoveling really wasn’t so bad because the snow is powdery, and it’s a great workout.



mollie is now whining and whining at me so i must feed her.

more later.

ok then,

thursday grace.


Feb. 14, 2007

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happy valentine’s day! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:10 pm

i hope yours is good. my mom has always loved valentine’s day but i’ve always kind of hated it, because mostly i wasn’t with somebody i loved, and even when i was, things were usually not so good for one reason or another. mostly because those other someones weren’t THIS someone, the man i love so much.

snow...yeah, it’s a little bit ridiculous right now. we shoveled out the driveway this morning and there’s about two feet of snow in some places because of the huge amount of blowing/drifting. we got over 11 inches, i believe.

we’re going out in the car pretty soon, which should be interesting. it was nice yesterday, just watching the town on the news, not having to go anywhere. i felt bad for all the news reporters because they were outside all over the city. it’s too bad that they made them stand around on overpasses and in the middle of the street because it was much too cold and windy for that kind of thing. every time one of them came on, kevin would say, “they’re saying i HATE you to the news anchors sitting in the nice warm station.”

we have to go now, perhaps to help dig randy out of his driveway. which would be a very nice thing to do for a person, but he has a very long, very very steep driveway and it wouldn’t be a lot of fun.

today i’m wearing my hawaii t-shirt to remember the warm weather. 81 today in honolulu, as it was yesterday, and will be tomorrow.

stay warm, drink lots of hot chocolate,

ok then,

valentine grace.



Feb. 13, 2007

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SNOW [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:26 am

at least we don’t have 12 feet of snow like they have in upstate new york. i wonder if we’ve ever had that much? i doubt it.

it is pretty bad, though. there’s about six inches on the ground, and it’s incredibly windy out there and the snow continues to fall.

yesterday at work ann kept saying “we’re going to get a lot of snow,” but i didn’t believe her until she showed me the NOAA sight, and it said there was a 100% chance of snow. so that was a pretty high percentage. 100%. and they sure were right.

last night after work i stopped at the grocery store and it was raining, and in the store almost all the bread was gone. people were stocking up for the MIGHTY STORM A'BREWIN.

on my way home the rain was more like freezing rain.

and then, when kevin got home from band practice, it was snow.

snow.

for some reason it hasn’t plunged me into the depths of despair, i don’t know why, but it’s a good thing. i’m debating about going over to the fit club to work out, but maybe i’ll wait till the wind dies down a little, and till they’ve had a chance to plow the streets. getting out of the driveway might be a challenge.

maybe i’ll just stay in.

i think i’ll bake some french bread. i want to make some soup, but i don’t think i have enough ingredients. i guess it would be a little bit horrible to try to walk to the grocery store.

what with all the snow and the fierce wind and all.

winnie the cat is stretched out against the heat vent, his favorite place in the winter.

he has the right idea.

i’m going to go be productive now, without leaving the house.

ok then,

tuesday morning grace.



Feb. 12, 2007

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GRAND CHAMPION! plus barack obama, george clooney and matt damon [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:20 pm

first, and most importantly, kevin WON the fencing tournament he was in on sunday afternoon. this was a lovely ending to a very very long day.

the tournament was supposed to start at 1:30 on sunday afternoon. kevin didn’t want to leave too early and then have to stand around, so he kept doing things like mending his helmet and sewing his fencing bag. it kept getting later and later and i started saying, I THINK WE SHOULD GO NOW, but then he started washing the dishes that were piled in the sink.

when i told this to jonelle, who was there to watch her son freddie fence, she said YOU SHOULD BE THANKFUL THAT HE WASHES THE DISHES, and of course it’s a very good thing, but like i said, it was getting later and later. finally we left at 11:10.

and we drove out of our neighborhood and he realized he’d left his fencing association card at home, so we went to get it.

then we started down the highway and got as far as farmersville, 20 minutes away, and he realized he’d forgotten his metal mesh fencing vest, i can’t remember the correct name of it right now, but it’s a critical thing to have because they fence using electric foils and when the foil touches the vest it makes the light on the electric fencing scorer go off.

key.

so we drove back to get it. i drove all the time so he could rest. i was very nervous about being late, so i drove between 85 and 95 the entire time, and we still didn’t make it to the tournament till 1:45. kevin was very calm during the trip and kept telling me that it didn’t matter if we didn’t make it, we could go shopping at trader joe’s after watching the bouts for a while.

we got there in time. in plenty of time, it turns out, because they were disorganized and didn’t start on time and then kevin’s group of fencers didn’t start until FOUR O'CLOCK. i could have driven 55 MPH if i’d wanted to and we would have arrived in plenty of time.

but it wasn’t boring at all while waiting, because several of the fencers from the spfld fencing club were competing and there was always somebody to watch, sometimes two of them at once, sometimes they fenced against each other.

i was awfully glad, though, when kevin finally started fencing. but it’s a nerve-wracking thing for me, because i get really anxious and really want him to WIN WIN WIN. i think i’m more nervous about him winning than he is. he just wants to have a good time and do his best, and he says he’s not so keyed up about the winning. and i have to believe him, because he was always so calm.

it went on and on and they kept stopping for one reason or another and like i said the whole thing was pretty disorganized, but finally it came down to kevin and this other guy, and i wanted kevin to win by way more points, but it got pretty close, but i knew he could beat the guy and then finally, he did.

whew.

and then there was the long drive back and once again i drove and when i got home i was very very tired.

as was he. but he had to go to work last night.

and i didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.

and i probably won’t get out of the bed the rest of the week, because there was a 100% chance of snow for tonight and tomorrow, and sure enough, it’s snowing.

no reason to get out of bed.

and now, last friday night...friday afternoon randy called me and said that he heard on the radio that george clooney and matt damon were having drinks at the alamo (a bar downtown). they were in town to attend barack obama’s presidential bid announcement.

we were going to a dinner at the sangamo club, and when we got there were were discussing george and matt, and somebody told us that they’d heard they were at another bar. and it went on like this all night long, people hearing where george and matt were. after the dinner we went to the bar at the top of the hilton and the place was packed, we couldn’t find seats, and friends of randy’s were there because they were sure that george and matt would stop by. and apparently that’s what everybody else thought, too, because i guess the bar isn’t usually very busy on a friday night.

all over town, the rumors were flying.

in the paper saturday morning was an article that said that G & M weren’t in town at all, it was just a rumor.

but what a rumor. i’ve never heard a rumor in town like that before, one that spread like wildfire to everybody, reports of celebrities being in many different bars all over town.

maybe the bar owners started the rumors to increase their business.

if they did, it was a beautiful plan. it worked. people were out in the very very cold night air, just to get a glimpse of the movie stars.

i wonder where they were really.

on sunday night my friend john said that he went to see “cabaret” on friday night and people were reporting they’d seen the guys in other bars, but that nick rogers, the features editor, told john that he’d spent the day trying to confirm the reports.

and he wasn’t able to.

because they weren’t there.

but i think everybody had a good time anyway.

plus barack obama made his important speech right here in downtown springfield.

our next president. you heard it here first.

but if you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it’s because i’m still in bed. and until my laptop gets fixed, or till i get a new one, you won’t hear from me from bed.

i hope your monday was good, i hope you had the day off, and maybe they’ll declare tomorrrow a day off, too, because of all the snow.

but if you still need to buy a valentine, you’d better get out of bed in the morning. because they’re going fast. plus valentine’s day is WEDNESDAY.

goodnight then.

february grace.



Feb. 08, 2007

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more about fat [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 2:46 pm
the big problem with thinking about cholesterol and heart disease and fatness is that it makes me want to eat more.

here’s a link to the website that was used yesterday in the heart luncheon. it shows the huge increase in obesity in america. OBESITY IN AMERICA. the map of the US with the statistics is at the bottom of the page.

i got a free pedometer a couple of weeks ago and starting using it last night and i took 3440 steps just last night. but today it’s only registering three steps, so i guess this shows me that a free pedometer really isn’t such a valuable thing. i can’t believe it only took me a few hours to break it.

i have to go stomp around the house now, to try to make it work.

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winner! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:04 am

well, he didn’t win first place in the fencing tournament on sunday, but kevin came in 3rd out of 28 or so people, which is very very good. it was a fun day and at the end of it i was exhausted even though i didn’t actually do anything all day except watch and cheer him on and bounce up and down nervously as he fenced. also to keep warm because it was mighty chilly at the fencing place in peoria.

the other people from our fencing club did pretty well, too. the others finished about in the middle of the pack, which was good, especially because many of the other fencers fence a lot more every week. there was a large group of people there from a college, except they all looked like they were in high school.

cold cold cold, that’s how the week has been. i haven’t written all week because i keep meaning to but instead i end up sitting on the couch with a cup of hot tea, trying to stay warm. perhaps it will get over 32 degrees NEXT saturday. hopefully i won’t be totally frozen by then.

i worked out yesterday morning and decided to get in the sauna for a treat. i was lying there quietly, enjoying all that heat, for about five minutes, and then a woman came in and it was aileen, who had been in the water aerobics class, and she was followed by more women from the water aerobics class and pretty soon it was like a party atmosphere but it’s not a very big sauna, so i had to leave. but at least i was truly warm all over for a few minutes.

i went to a heart luncheon yesterday afternoon, which was informative and enjoyable. a woman who is a cardiologist at st. john’s hospital gave a talk about heart disease and she was also inf & enj. it made me call the doctor to see what my cholesterol results were; they’d called me last week after i went for a checkup and left a message that it was all good, but that was a little vague.

my overall cholesterol is fine, under 200 where it’s supposed to be, but the LDL (bad) cholesterol is supposed to be less than 100, and it’s 107. the hdl (good) cholesterol is good, 69, but that bad cholesterol need to be lower. so now i feel much more motivated to EAT LESS CHEESE. and ice cream. and fatty food in general. more vegetables! we keep trying to have five servings of fruits and vegetables in a day, and i can’t believe how bad at it i am. in the booklet they gave out at the heart luncheon, it said that maybe five servings aren’t even enough. LOTS AND LOTS OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES, that’s what everybody needs to be eating, all the time, like rabbits.

that’s kind of a sobering thought for a thursday morning.

but important.

the cardiologist talked all about the risk factors for heart disease and of course she emphasized the need for being the correct weight and eating right and exercising, but she needed to lose at least 50 pounds. which is the key problem with all that health talk; many people know what to do, but we don’t do it.

and plus it’s so cold outside that who wants to eat f&v, gimme some thick soups and lots of bread and butter and cheese and a warm chocolate dessert.

but NO, f&v, lots and lots of them.

let’s think about something happier for a minute. hawaii. here’s a photo of me hiking a trail at Waimea Canyon on the island of Kauai.



we hiked and hiked and it was all quite pretty but then we got to this place where it was kind of steep going down. kevin documented it.



maybe it doesn’t look so steep in this photo, but trust me, it was.

but maybe it really wasn’t THAT steep, but i have been known to get freaked out about trying to get down something steep and it doesn’t necessarily have to be that steep. especially if there’s no vegetation or anything to cling to as i try to scrabble my way down.

so instead we turned around which turned out very well because pretty soon it started to rain. it rained and it rained and rained and of course we hadn’t brought any rain stuff, it was all in the car, and the rain wasn’t so bad except it would have if we’d hiked down that steep part and then had to scrape our way up because it’d have been very muddy.

the sun came out eventually and we got fairly dry and we went back to the car and continue up the waimea road. we stopped at this great place for lunch, it’s the only restaurant there in the canyon, and it’s next to cabins that you could rent. i think i actually already wrote about this place, where they had delicious homemade pie and i had a piece of chocolate macadamia nut pie because i wasn’t going to have any but figured that i probably wouldn’t be getting back there soon and it was my one chance for such delicious pie.

you see the reason my bad cholesterol is bad. the cardiologist described it as little balls of butter floating around in your blood, which is a good visual and i’m trying to think about that when i want to eat some butter.

anyway, after lunch we drove to the farthest tip of the canyon, but the absolute farthest point was closed because they were re-paving the road. so we got out at the next to last place and the view was spectacular, but then we started walking up the unpaved road and eventually came across the road paving guys and we thought we had to turn around because they were actually spreading the pavement down, but the guy said we could keep walking, so pretty soon we were walking on freshly poured blacktop and it was kind of warm on the soles of our feet. we walked and walked and it wouldn’t have been much of a drive, but it was quite a walk and we hadn’t brought a lot of water with us because we hadn’t planned on walking very much.

kevin had a small bottle of perrier with him, and we got to the end of the road where there was a new trail, and somebody had left some water there and we filled the perrier bottle and started hiking. the view along this trail were truly incredible, and here’s one of them.



at this point we were actually all the way at the north side of the island, and this is the na pali coast, the place where we’d taken the boat cruise.

this hike ended up being pretty long and got a little harrowing for some of us, but that’s all the time i have right now. more next time.

think spring.

ok then,

grace.


Feb. 04, 2007

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*yawn*... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:51 am

we’re spending the weekend here at amy and jim’s lovely home, with their three dogs and four cats, plus mollie, making a total of eight animals. none of the dogs slept in our bed with us last night, but at six a.m., noodle wanted OUT. one by one, they each catapulted themselves onto the bed. soon i heard noodle whining plaintively downstairs, so i took them all outside.

i have to admit that the sky is very pretty at six a.m., not that i’ve seen it that many times at that hour. luckily the wind that blew fiercely all day yesterday is gone. it didn’t feel so bad outside, even though right now the temperature is ZERO, which i assume is warmer than it was at six.

after they all went out, all the dogs then piled into bed with us and miraculously fell asleep again. mollie was the one to finally wake everybody up, because she felt the need to bark.

the weekend - well, there was the sushi-making class on friday night, and then last night we went to KICKS because it was jason goodreau’s birthday and he thought it would be fun if a bunch of people went there.

it would be interesting to compare and contrast the two experiences.

the first thing that comes to mind is that everybody at the sushi-making class had all their teeth. and none of them had tattoos on the backs of their necks, at least not any that were visible. a woman physician sat across from us at sushi-making and she might have had a tattoo, but i’m sure it was something tasteul, like maybe that sign of a doctor, the staff with the intertwined snakes. or at least that’s what kevin says the sign of the doctor is, i can’t remember exactly if that’s right and i’m too not awake right now to look it up.

there were 12 of us at sushi-making at the pasfield house, and it was entertaining and tasty as well. i didn’t learn a huge amount of new techniques, but the instructor, named denise, said she got most of the ingredients at the little world market and i’m excited about going there. she made us miso soup which was quite delicious and even more so because it was a little chilly down there in the basement of the pasfield house. it’s a great space, but somewhat drafty.

the best things she showed us was unagi, which is eel, but it’s NOT GROSS AT ALL, believe me, if you’ve never had it i’m sure you’d think it was, but it’s actually one of the more tame sushis because it’s actually cooked. you can get it at the little world market, frozen, with the sauce already on it, and you just have to broil it for a few minutes. unagi always has a lovely barbeque-kind of sauce on the top, and although i’d had better stuff, i didn’t even think you could get it here in splfd, much less eel that was so easy to prepare.

she cut up stuff for california rolls and we each got to make our own, and i’ve done that a few times so i didn’t learn that much, except it was fun to do it in a group, plus she mixed vinegar with water and rubbed it on her hands before spreading the sticky rice on the nori sheet, so it didn’t stick. this was a very great hint (one i’ve never seen in heloise) because whenever i’ve made rolls i get lots and lots of rice stuck to my hands.

after the sushi making, accompanied by some very fine saki, the owner of the pasfield house, tony leone, took some of us on a tour. tony used to be a lobbyist here in spfld, and boy, that man can talk. he’s interesting and funny, and when he first walked into the sushi class, he looked at me and said “wow, there’s a celebrity here!” and of course nobody else knew who i was so i tried to give the all looks like “he’s a crazy man, pay no attention,” but he did say he saw my show at first night, which was nice.

the pasfield house is now becoming a b&b, and he’s done a great job of restoring it. you can look at the website, it’s the pasfield house.

the rooms are big and lovely with huge whirlpool baths in each room. the biggest suite has a huge living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath. i mean, very large and impressive. i told him he should have an open house sometime, but he says that plenty of people have been there, because he’s held “presidential dinners” there, where they’ve served food that different presidents ate, and they’ve had wedding receptions and stuff like that there.

anyway, it was an interesting and different night, and it really is good to get out in the cold because otherwise i’d stay inside all the time under the covers.

now, as for “kicks” - i guess it’s called that from the song “get your kicks on route 66,” but i don’t know.

they have an all you can eat bufft, plus go kart racing, plus a room with lots of video games and other kinds of games like skee ball, which is something i don’t totally suck at.

there were many people there, and many didn’t have all their teeth. there was also a sheriff there by the cash register, i guess in case any fights broke out. luckily there were none last night. i certainly wasn’t involved in any, anyway.

the buffet was...large. i found it interesting that at the end of every station was a big vat of pudding. one station had all kinds of stuff for making nachos and tacos and burritos, and then there was a big thing of vanilla pudding. to put on top, maybe? another one had pasta-making stuff, and also a big thing of chocolate pudding. another one, all things fried, like chicken and fish and other questionable fried things, and at the end, more pudding. PLUS, as an added bonus, pickles, and red onions.

the food wasn’t terrible, and i haven’t been to an all you can eat place in quite a while, so i don’t know if it’s any worse than anything else out there. i had a couple pieces of pizza that were ok, as was some bowtie pasta that i put some red sauce on.

we didn’t ride go karts, but it was a very popular attraction. we went into the game room which seemed a lot like chucky cheese to me, except i haven’t been there in at least 10 years. it was much too crowded. we played a trivia game that had a large screen you sat in front of, and then answered questions, and you had to be the first one to get the correct answer, and that was kind of entertaining.

we didn’t see jason after a while, and i assume he was off racing around the go-kart track. i hope his birthday was everything he’d hoped for. i got him a winnie the pooh balloon even though we weren’t supposed to bring presents, but i figured that if you’re going to be in a place with games and go-karts, you need a balloon.

we’re going to a fencing tournament in peoria very soon, so i’d better go get ready.

stay warm.

ok then,

sunday grace.



Feb. 01, 2007

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two more photos [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:38 pm
here’s a closeup of that bird with the marshmallow. he’s obviously blue, with a green head. the fire is made of red gummi worms.



and i like this one because it highlights these birds here in front.



i wish i had closeups of all the funny birds. but then again, it’d probably take me another few years to get around to actually posting them.

just like the hawaii photos, and time is suddenly roaring along and i’ll have to race to get all that i want to post up here by our first anniversary.

ok ok ok,

grace just trying to stay warm.

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WELCOME TO FEBRUARY [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:30 pm

and here in spfld it’s cold and just gonna get colder. brrrr.

so i was cleaning things and picked up my very old 35 mm camera and noticed that it still had film in it, so i took it out and took it to walgreens and they said i could get a cd of the images. wow, i had no idea. that’s a new technology that totally passed me by. i was very excited, because i had no idea what was on the roll, no idea how long ago i’d taken those photos, all i knew is it was quite a while ago.

so here’s one of the phots.



it’s the gingerbread bird house we made a couple of years ago! how many years ago? i simply can’t remember. not last year. maybe the year before that. but no, i think it might have even been the year before that. cool, huh? it was funny to see that picture, and inspiring and of course i want to make another gingerbread house now. i can’t remember many of the details about the house-building, except vague impressions that people had varying skill levels at creating birds. somebody made a giant blue bird that was so big there was no way it could stand on its own, so i embedded it in the side of the house.



you can kind of see it in that photo, there on the left side. there are other funny things, too, like a bird roasting a marshmallow over a campfire. i’m pretty sure you won’t be able to see that; it’s on the lower left side. it’s a green bird.

i just read that the final installment of “harry potter” is coming out on july 21st. so i have that to look forward to.

think about how HOT it will be by then. winter will be a mere fuzzy memory.

ok already,

february grace.

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