Sundays

Sunday is the day we go to church, watch ball games, catch up on the laundry or the house cleaning.  Sunday is the day to read, to knit, to visit, to just enjoy.

For me, Sunday is often the only day I have to catch up on my cleaning, laundry, relax, and do anything else I need to do because most weeks, I work Monday through Saturday.  This is true more so in the spring than in the fall.

I've started using a planner to make notes on what I need to do.  I usually make a list and I've just discovered its the start of a bullet planner.  I didn't realize I was kind of ahead of a trend!

My list for today
1. Laundry
2. Write more entries for blog due to long 12 hour days Tuesday to Saturday.
3. Clean kitchen and living room including boxing a couple things.
4. Clean bathroom or at least the toilet and tub.
5. Exercise and dance.
6.  Fix a big dinner so I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
7. Find material for work.

I realize many people are so organized they can clean the house every night, get everything done and have time to repaint a room.  Me?  I'm not the most organized person and I like my down time so I can recharge my batteries for the next day.  I like to sit and read a book from start to finish.  I like feeling like I'm giving me some ME time.

For years, I forgot about me till it hit a point where I felt stressed all the time, where I felt I was never home, never able to just relax. I felt like I fit the image of the on the go woman who had to get to her next meeting.  When people called me at work at all hours rather than my house because they knew I'd be there, I took a step back and decided I was not giving me time for me.

That was the turning point for me.  I made the vow that I would be home on Sunday's so I could give me the ME time I need.  I try not to work more than 3 nights a week and I try to have time every day to just sit and read.

Am I succeeding?  Mostly but its still a struggle.  I tell myself it is one day at a time.

15 Strange Ice Cream Flavors

   I love ice cream, especially any type of ice cream that has chocolate in it.  As I said the other day, my local ice cream shop tried out asparagus ice cream which was green and looked good but it just didn't appeal to me so I didn't even try it.  The other night I did a search for the strangest or weirdest flavors of ice cream and I found some doozies.

I will admit that none of these really appeal to me but they are quite popular where they are made.

1.  Crocodile egg ice cream is made using crocodile eggs instead chicken eggs and is found in the Philipines.  The owner said the crocodile eggs are surplus from the local crocodile park.

2.  Coronation  chicken ice cream from England.  It was created to celebrate the Queen's diamond jubilee. 

3.  Octopus ice cream from Japan.  Apparently its all the rage over there.

4. Haggis ice cream.  It is made with that dish from Scotland.  The shop also makes a yorkshire pudding flavor and sausage and mash.  None the the three appeal to me.

5.  Horse meat ice cream which has pieces of raw meat blended into the ice cream. This is another flavor from Japan.

6.  Creamed cod ice cream that is made to look like the fish in fish and chips and is actually fried.

7.  Spaghetti and cheese ice cream from Venezuela.  It is a cheese flavored ice cream with strands of spaghetti mixed in.  No pasta sauce involved.

8.  Bourbon and cornflakes ice cream from San Francisco.  Its referred to as the secret breakfast.

9. Cicada ice cream made in Missouri.  The cicada are mixed with chocolate and sugar before being added to the ice cream.

10. Bone Marrow ice cream from Portland.  It has smoked cherries mixed in to blend with the marrow flavor.

11.  Ham and Cheese ice cream found in Venezuela.  It has both flavors mixed in to create the sandwich experience.

12. Foie Gras ice cream from France.  It has gained enough popularity to stay on the menu

13. Lobster ice cream comes from a shop in Maine.  The bits of buttered lobster are mixed throughout the ice cream.

14. Lox ice cream with lots of nice pieces of lox that you usually find on bagels.

15. Grass ice cream made with edible grass and found in Queens New York.

There were a couple of flavors that I found so gross, I couldn't stomach adding them to this list.

No Way!

  I often read the odd news on the UPI site.  Some of the news can be informative, other pieces can be "What?" while others are just down right funny.

One headline told us that the  police kicked  in the door of an opera singer after they mistook his singing as screaming.  Yes, you read that right?  Singing that sounded like screaming!

The event took place the other day in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  According to the article, police dispatch received a report of a man screaming in terror.  The caller indicated it might involve domestic violence.

When the police responded, they heard what sounded like screams of agony from the apartment in  question.  they knocked on the door as is standard procedure but no one responded so being concerned, they kicked the door in only to find.........

The singer wearing headphones while attempting to sing along with his music.  He never even heard the police knocking, or his door being bashed in.  Talk about being surprised.  The only thing the singer was guilty of was bad music.......LOL.

The next head line that made me laugh took me to a forest in New Zealand where a hunter shot down an airborne camera drone.

According to the article, the drone operator was attempting to get pictures of the forested area.  At the time, he was sharpening his ability to keep the drone still so the shot would no look like someone was driving along a bumpy road.  It was at this point an unidentified hunter hidden in the forest shot the drone down with a high powered rifle.

The owner managed to film the event using both the gopro camera mounted on his head and the flying drone.  Although the drone was shot, it was repaired and the owner will be able to use it again.  The hunter was never found but it appears the shot was made from the hills above where the drone was flying.

The owner named his drone "Termy" after the Terminator because he was able to repair the drone.

Since this article hit the newspapers, the video has been posted on Youtube so if you are interested in seeing the event, check it out.

The 15 Most Popular Flavors of Ice Cream.

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream.! I admit, I love ice cream as much as the next person but my favorite flavor of ice cream is created by a small artisan ice cream shop just off of the university. 

It's a small shop that has all sorts of flavors.  One time, they offered asparagus ice cream (it didn't appeal to me) and another time a sesame almond which was quite good.  Some flavors use locally produced lagers and ales but I've never tried these.

My most favorite type of ice cream is the wonderfully delicious Ginger Showers.  Its vanilla ice cream with chocolate sprinkles and minced candied ginger mixed so its evenly spread through out the mixture.  Each bite fills your mouth with a spicy sweet taste. It is not made very often but when it is available, I buy a couple pints to take home.

Now for the 15 most popular flavors of ice cream!
1.  Vanilla
2. Chocolate
3. Butter Pecan
4. Strawberry
5. Neapolitan
6.  Chocolate Chip
7.  French Vanilla
8.  Cookies and Cream
9.  Vanilla Fudge Ripple
10. Praline Pecan
11. Cherry
12. Chocolate Almond
13. Coffee
14. Rocky Road
15.  Chocolate Marshmallow.

This comes from the International Ice Cream Association in Washington, DC.

It really doesn't matter if you favorite flavor is on the list.  What matters is that we enjoy the delicious treat is fantastic on a hot summer day.  I love trying to lick all the drips off the cone before it gets soft and the whole mess threatens to fall off.  I will always have great memories associated with summer and ice cream.

Take Up The Sword!

  I stumbled across a website to help a segment of the population. It comes from the Stumble upon 25 websites that will make you look like a genius.  At number 6 is the one that made me laugh called Nerd Fitness.

It may have started because nerds have such a bad reputation for not eating right and not exercising.  This site is designed to help people exercise and improve themselves so they are healthy geeks.

The owner of the blog spends much of the front page giving good advice about not comparing your performances to other people's performances.  He also talks about comparisons leading to the dark side so you know he's a Star Wars Fan.  He asks people to join the rebellion to learn how to stay healthy without a gym and to make changes that stick.

Although he does offer a on-line fitness academy, there is a whole page of free resources to explore and use from exercising to eating to creating new habits.  I checked out the angry bird workout based on the game and it was quite a workout.  I don't think its one I would start with myself because I'm lacking arm strength.  Yes that is on my list to improve.

However the Lord of the Rings workout is much more my style and seems to be better to do if you are not in the best of shape.  There is also a playground workout for people who live near those open spaces.

I love the whole section on eating properly including a nice piece on eating vegetables.  I know someone who only ate ketchup and french fries as his vegetables.  Me, I love vegetables and I eat them prepared in as manly different ways as possible.  I'd rather eat vegetables than any other food.

There is a wonderful section on building habits including an article on how not to suck at building new habits,  It starts out exploring the one trap we all fall into.  Making a list of New Years resolutions twe jump into with such intensity that we end up failing.

There are a couple of other sections but if you are a nerd or you just want to improve your heath, go check it out and enjoy the nerdiness of the site.

The Top 10 Popular Scents in Woman's Products.

  Lets face it.  We tend to have our personal favorites for the way we want  shower gel, soap, shampoo, and other personal products to smell.  I have my favorites and they tend to be scents that are light and airy.  I do not like anything that is over powering and smells as if they are going to take over the world.

You find stores at the malls that sell all sorts of products but for some of us, the combination of scents are so overwhelming, we never even venture in and most of the time we give them wide berth.

I know there are trends for popular scents used in these types of products.  I am not sure how the scents are chosen except through the use of market research or surveys.  It used to be that every large mall had people working there to interview people as a way of getting their opinion on various products. Now we have all those surveys that pop up on our screens.

So, now the list of the top 10 popular scents found in women's products.

1. Lavender is the top scent.  It is found in all sorts of body products and when it is mixed with other scents, it makes small changes so as to add depth to other scents.

2. Vanilla.  The scent that is associated with decadence. It does blend well with mint, floral, and citrus scents.

3.  Coconut.  A fragrance which reminds people of summer and is found in so many things from sunscreen to lotions.  Although the scent if often found on its own, it is sometimes mixed with lime or another tropical fruit.

4.  Grapefruit.  This one is uplifting and energizing while being a very natural scent.  It mixes well with florals and other citrus.

5. Lemongrass.  This has a citrus smell with a bit of spice to give it extra depth.  It mixes well with florals or peppermint or ginger.

6. Tea Tree oil.  This is in the same category as Eucalyptus and is often found in soaps and shampoo.  It is often used as an anti-acne lotion.

7. Bergamot. This is the most popular citrus aroma.  This is actually a sour orange that is grown for for its oil rather than for use as food.   It blends well with the mints and lavender.

8. Eucalyptus.  The same scent found in those mentholated rubs.  In recent years the scent has become popular in   It has beneficial properties which help with it popularity.

9. Lemon.  The pure scent is rather tart so most companies mix in sweeter scents so its more like lemonade.

10. Peppermint.  The scent is uplifting and peppermint is quite cheap to grow so its an economical scent to produce.

This list has scents I enjoy but not always in my body lotions.  We all have our favorite scents and buy the products according to those preferences.  It always seems like the scents I love most disappear forever and I have to find a new favorite.

By the way, if you buy a product that lists vanilla essential oil in it, its wrong.  Vanilla beans cannot survive the heat needed to create vanilla essential oil.

Aftermath

There is still a bit of confusion as to whether there was one big earthquake or one smaller quake followed by the 7.1 one.  Personally, it was scary during the short shaking that felt like 5 minute. 

One of the hotels in Anchorage had the sprinkler system go off due to the quake and that lead to a bunch of people evacuating to the parking lot.  I heard the siren from the hotel but I thought it was a fire truck or the police.

Several bars were open and the patrons spilled out into the parking lots and streets while clutching their drinks.  I got this from someone who had been in the bar at the time.  Many people at my hotel, took off down the stairs to the lobby as a precaution.  I also heard there were a few structural engineers staying at one of the local hotels.  Apparently, the wife of one got up and was trying to dress to go downstairs but the husband woke up long enough to look around and told her it was safe and promptly went back to sleep.

Turns out that although no one was hurt, there was property damage down in the Kenai area.   Kenai is a town, south of Anchorage, located much closer to the epicenter and thus felt the tremors much more.  Four houses burned down due to a gas line rupturing and then erupting into flames.  I read about one man who got stuff out between the first and second fires.  He had bought the house less than 2 weeks earlier.

Today on the way home, there was a rumor of an 8.0 magnitude earthquake happening somewhere near Adak which is in the Aleutian islands.  I did a bit of research and it may have been from a radio show that was comparing the latest earthquake with one from June 2014.  I think someone caught that bit and started texting it to others and it was spreading.

As of today, everything was back to normal in Anchorage.  The city and state had sent engineers and workers out to check the bridges in and around Anchorage, Kenai and places between as a safety matter and the school districts sent folks to check all the buildings, again all as a precaution.

So in case anyone was wondering, the extent of damage was not bad at all and was less than it could have been.