Posts from — July 2010

photo by siebuhr

It’s mid-July, which means it’s Question and Answer Time.

Usually you guys do the asking:

Hey, Tracey. Why did they invent yellow stoplights when green and red would do? I mean, does anyone actually slow down for yellow?

Usually I do the answering:

Hey, you. They invented them to confuse the colorblind. Nobody slows down for the yellow light. Most people speed up. Um, not that I do that or anything. Psht.

However, we’re going to switch things up a bit this month. I’m going to ask you questions. The way I see it, this little blog of mine is a full nine months old and it’s about time I heard your thoughts.

Your role, of course, is to answer every last question I ask in the comments. Or, you know, whatever you feel like. (You know me, I only pretend to be mean.)

Here we go:

1. What kinds of posts do you enjoy most?

2. What kind of posts do you wish I’d stop writing?

3. Do you enjoy the monthly Q&A or does it bore you more than reading Walden?

4. More cowbell?*

5. What would you like to see changed?

Aaaand … go! (Be honest.) I’ll be back on Monday with the best chewy-crunch cookie I’ve ever made.

* If you don’t know where that’s from, just disregard.

photo by daskar

Hello, hello.

First off, let me just say that in yesterday’s post I wasn’t trying to say all men are impulsive junk-buyers at the grocery store. As Scott pointed out, some do quite well thank you very much. Just not mine. Mkay?

Another thing you should know is that yesterday I lunched with two bloggers who are just as sweet in real life as they are on their blogs. Maybe nicer, really. Ameena flew to DC all the way from LA just to see me and Estela. Isn’t that wonderful? Don’t try to tell me she was in town for her husband’s work conference. I don’t want to hear it. She came to see us and that’s that.

Moving on.

I know I’ve mentioned on this blog before (like, here) that I’m like a 28-year-old girl stuck in an 85-year-old body. Scratch that. I know some 80-something-year-old women whose knees are more functional than mine. So, yeah, I’m like even older than that.

But this is taking it too far:

Yes, I deleted some info. You never know who might want to activate my card and start getting freaking awesometastic discounts all over.

Listen, AARP, I may be old in the knees but I’m not that old. Can’t you guys take a joke? So serious over there.

I will be shredding this. Please send another when I start calling 40-year-olds little punks. Or when I start clipping stories out of the newspaper for friends, family, and friends of family because I think they’ll find them relevant. (Like that article about a moose that made friends with some townspeople and was elected their mayor. Or was that an ad? Doesn’t matter! I’m old!)

Then, and only then, send me my card.

Um, anyone else get their AARP card a little too soon? No? Then what do you think will make you old enough to deserve one?

photo by steve snodgrass

Most of my longtime readers know that I don’t go grocery shopping. (And if you’re new: Welcome. I love new people. And now you know my secret.)

I have nothing against grocery shopping. In fact, it’s a life goal of mine to do a whole grocery-shopping trip on my own one day when my knees don’t hate me. (Because, unlike me, my knees hate grocery shopping almost as much as running, or climbing stairs, or doing deep lunges.)

So, of course, The Man does all of our shopping. Which I appreciate. It’s great. It’s helpful. But.

Sometimes things get out of hand. Like when I tell him to pick up a bag of pita chips from Trader Joe’s.

He got them all right.

And popped potato chips.

And baked potato chips.

And tortilla chips.

Six bags.

For anyone too lazy to count, that’s 11 bags of chips.

No, we are not hosting a party.

Oh, men.

photo by fran ca

This was my thought process Saturday night at 7 p.m. after cleaning and organizing and cleaning since 10 a.m.

I have a lot of skin care, hair care, and makeup products I’ve never, ever used thanks to my beauty editor days.

Maybe I will use them.

No, no I won’t.

So what?

This is clutter. It’s what’s taking up precious, precious space.

But what if I want it again someday?

You won’t. It needs to go.

What will I do with it then? Just throw it all out? What a waste.

No, I’ll give it all away.

But who can I give this to, really?

My loyal, faithful, amazing readers. Yes.

Yes.

I’m saying this is a tease because it’s not happening this week. But just know that in the upcoming weeks there will be a huge, epic, ginormous giveaway week of beauty products that will make you cry sweet tears of joy. It may coincide with my 200th post, which would be, of course, cooler than cool.

That’s all you’re getting for now. I know, I’m a tease.

In the mean time, name your can’t-live-without beauty product. You know, that makeup, skin-care item, or hair-care product that you’d try to smuggle into jail.

Hey guys.

Remember when I told you my weekend plans? We went a little crazy.

See, The Man bought me a king-sized mattress for our four-year anniversary and I was infinitely happy. (Even more so because he gave it to me the day I got home from my week-long work trip to Orlando, after which I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep for 20 hours.)

So after that we decided to keep our old mattress since it was in great condition. Besides, we figured our family and friends who come to visit us would appreciate the upgrade from the couch. (You’re all welcome.)

Anyhow, this weekend we decided to turn our office into an office slash bedroom. But once we started moving things we thought: Hey, while we’re at it, why not clean our entire storage closet and get rid of some of our clutter? Isn’t that what all married couples do on perfectly nice July Saturdays?

Right now, there are two things you should know about me:

1. I’m a neat freak.
2. Clutter makes me anxious.

[Read more →]

You know what this Saturday needs? Some smiles. Maybe even laughs.

Why? Well, for one thing, I’m slaving away trying to turn my office into a bedroom slash office and the least you could do is relax for a minute for me. Let’s start with some animals* that are SO CUTE** I CAN’T GO ON LIVING WITHOUT SEEING THEM 10 MORE TIMES TODAY. Ahem.

(P.S. I got all of these from Cute Overload and you should just head over there next since it’s all cute all the time. Warning: It’s a major time suck. But it’s worth it.)

Like these gorillas, which look like fat old men who hate the world.

Or this pup who, honestly, doesn’t have to do much of anything to be adorable.

Oh look! It’s The Man during his awkward teen years.

And really, Cute Overload, a sloth hugging a stuffed animal? Are you trying to make me melt? Yes, I think you are.

*No there are no cats. Don’t make me like them.

**I spared you the picture of the white tiger cub because your heart would stop beating right now and I don’t want to be the blog you’re reading when it does.

Happy Saturday!

photo by sydney marie photography
… this watermelon, that’s the size of my head, is nothin’ but rind.

Here it is ladies and gents. (Are there any gents out there? Wanna de-lurk today? Just so, you know, I can know you’re there.)

The day I’ve been making you wait for whether you like it or not: The most interesting thing I learned during Brian Wansink’s talk…

But first (mwah ha ha)

How you guys doing? Awesome? Super awesome? The BEST ever?

Yeah, me too. It’s Friday after all and I’m turning my office into an office bedroom. This should be fun.

It should also test my marriage. Because rearranging furniture—or, more accurately, me telling The Man where to drag a piece of furniture—is like a marital fistfight. If you don’t hear from me, someone come find me underneath a desk and mattress, OK?

As if that weren’t enough, The Man and I plan to completely reorganize our file cabinets. Because that’s just what every healthy, post-furniture rearranging couple should do. Test the strength of the union. Or not so much. [Read more →]

photo by food thinkers

I know yesterday I promised you another installment of Wansink’s Wisdom or whatever other alliterative name you want to use, and don’t worry it’s coming. But first:

Recently I’ve been obsessed with risking my fingertips to turn my carrots into slaw, and it’s well worth it. Because yesterday for lunch they made my sandwich—along with grated radishes which are equally as dangerous to create but not as sweet as their orange buddies.

Anyhow, the sandwich included my obsession (horseradish hummus, for the uninitiated) on whole wheat bread with feta, grated carrots and radishes, and tomatoes. That’s all. And man was it good. (It’d have been better with sprouts, but mine turned into a crumble of what looked like grass while I was in Orlando and then away for the weekend.)

OK, back to regularly scheduled programming. You wanted to know about drinks and buffet lines, right? (Oh, you didn’t? Hmm, shoulda said something yesterday.) [Read more →]

photo by emily carlin

So, I promised I’d feed you all of the interesting tidbits I learned during the nutrition talks at the conference I went to. And I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t go back on her word. Unless I have a really good reason.

Well, one of the best talks I went to was by Brian Wansink, PhD, who wrote the book Mindless Eating and is basically a guru on why we eat the way we do. (I might preface this by saying that part of the reason I enjoyed Wansink’s talk so much was that he was surprisingly funny and actually kept me awake. Which is hard to do after a plane ride from D.C., and four hours of presentations. On a Friday.)

Wansink presented some of his research, which didn’t include words like P13Kinase, PKCs, or IKKs. As you can imagine, that made me like him even more.

He had such good stuff to say, I wanted to break it up a bit, let you digest the tidbits slowly instead of in one Epic Post of Awesome Information. So, for starters, here’s one fact you should know:

The bigger the bowl, the more you’ll eat. That’s a fact: Cross my heart and hope to die; stick a needle in my eye. (But not really. You see, I’m blind enough as it is.)

According to Wansink, serving things like pretzels or M&Ms or (insert your snack of choice here), people eat 50 percent more when it’s served in a giant bowl versus a smaller one.

But, wait, that’s not all!

That goes for sucky food. Folks given stale movie theater popcorn (even I—lover of all things popcorn—can grasp the yuck factor there) ate 34 percent more when served a jumbo tub than a smaller bag. And it goes for when you’re not hungry, too. Those stale popcorn–eaters? They all said they weren’t hungry before they were given the free snack.

(Before you yell at these stale popcorn–eaters for being Pigs! and Gluttons! you should know that I, too, have eaten stale movie theater popcorn without a burning desire just because, well, I bought it and, well, there was no way I was throwing away $45 or however much they charge for a mini popcorn these days. End confession.)

OK, finally related to this topic:

Wansink found in one of his studies that kids pour more cereal into a bigger bowl than a smaller one. Which is to say, we measure food based on the container instead of the portion size. (Guilty.)

The end. Until tomorrow, when I’ll reveal the secrets of drinking and why order matters at the buffet table. Then, on Friday, I’ll give you my favorite take-away.

Do your plates or bowls play mind games with you? Mine do. I definitely eat more when I’m using a bigger bowl or plate. Regardless of size, I fill up the container. Tsk, tsk, Trace.

photo by warzauwynn
Does that photo not just stop your breath? Amazing, right?

Hope you all had a super long weekend. (As in, I hope no one burnt their skin on illicit fireworks.) Mine was great for a few reasons, not the least of which was having yesterday off. It was the first day in two weeks that I could sleep in past 6:30. My body was grateful. Seriously. The conversation went something like this:

BODY: Yo, what’s up?
ME: What do you mean?
BODY: Dude, you’ve been working for 12 straight days. I’m beat.
ME: Sorry, you can sleep in on Monday.
BODY: Excellent! Dude, it’s about time. Right on.
ME: You talk like Keanu Reeves.
BODY: Shut up.

Anyhow, yesterday was nice.

My trip to my sister-in-law’s was great, too, especially since I got to hang with my favorite 4-year-old. Sometimes kids say the most insightful things. Like when you’re driving down the road right before sunset—when the sun is still above the tree line and blindingly bright—and this happens:

LITTLE GUY: The sun’s too bright.
YOU: It makes it hard to see, huh?
LITTLE GUY: It’s like a camera.
YOU: Yup, and when you close eyes you see bright white spots.
LITTLE GUY: It’s like a picture. Like the sky’s taking a picture of us.

I’m not sure an adult could have ever put it so beautifully.

There are probably three other things you should know right now. Don’t expect them to be related in any way. You’ll only be disappointed.

1. I’m kind of obsessed with tea year-round, but this time of year it’s iced tea. And I created an amazing concoction (insert evil laugh here). Before I reveal the secret (another evil laugh, please) let me warn you: I own an iced tea maker and I know how to use it. What, everyone doesn’t own one? Here you go: two parts English Breakfast loose tea and one part lychee loose tea. Amazingness ensues. (Yeah, let’s do one more evil laugh. Mwah ha ha.)

2. I saw the latest Twilight movie, and dragged The Man to it. He was not a happy camper, especially when Jacob and Edward got all touchy-feely. I’ll be honest, I’m not a sparkly vampire kinda girl. And I’m also not a shirtless werewolf kinda girl either. So, I wasn’t a big fan.

And also: If Jacob sheds his clothes when he turns werewolf, why is he always shirtless but wearing jean shorts? If he’s OK with ruining his shorts to get all big and hairy, why is he so against ruining his shirt, too? The things that go through my mind as Bella and Edward stare longingly into each other’s eyes.

3. Finally, as promised last week, I’ll clue you into all of the interesting nutrition tidbits I learned during my conference. I braved many a subzero conference room for this stuff, so it’s got to be good, right? Either way, stay tuned.

How was your holiday weekend? Anyone else see Twilight—and want to commiserate with me? Or, if you’re a fangirl (and, really, I won’t judge) which side are you on? For me, I’m on Team Jacob Gets a Clue and Gives Up as well as Team Edward Becomes a Man and Fights (Literally) For His True Love.