An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

Most of 2020 sucked. But, there were some good moments that made memories to cling to. I'm going to review some of those moments from each month. (Disclaimer - my memory isn't what it used to be so this is my story and I'm sticking to it regardless of reality.) It was definitely the dog days of summer in June.  I had the 2020 Rite of Passage in that I took a COVID-19 test. The good news is that it was negative. The other good news is that they didn't actually penetrate my brain with the swab but it sure felt like it. #donotrecommend Tammy and Michael made a grocery store run for me so I didn't run out of Diet Pepsi while I waited for my test results which would have been a crisis for sure. At that time, they were taking at least a week to get results back. Does not represent my actual cats. I finished up my second paint by number masterpiece. This one had so many little dots where I couldn't read the prescribed number so it was a lot of "let's go with t...

Trust me, I have all the emotions about our current situation. I may write them out some day but I think if I do it now, I'll just send myself further down the mental spiral of doom and gloom. Ain't got time for that. I just finished my first full week of mandatory working from home. Fortunately, my entire team is able to do so. We're super busy and we need all hands on deck. I recognize our good fortune. But, what to do once the work day (or night) is over? I already watch too much TV. I read a lot of books. I cook and keep a fairly neat house without needing extra hours. What did I used to do (an ENTIRE week ago?) to fill in the rest of my time? I was with my peeps! Happy Hour, dining out for lunch and dinner and even the occasional breakfast, game lunches and game nights, watching live music, golfing, sporting events, book club and just hanging out. That's what I used to do. I can't help but feel it will be longer than we expect before that all becomes ...

Universal questions. Where did I come from? Who were my people? Am I lost royalty because I certainly feel like I should be? I decided to do a DNA test to answer those questions. I went with MyHeritage because I'm lazy. My Dad's brother had already built a big family tree there so it was easy to glom on to his work. I sent off my sample and eagerly awaited my results with the highest of hopes that something exotic would pop up. There might still be some Romanovs around (I choose to believe) and maybe I am one. That's exotic, all right! I skimmed my results and saw Nigerian. What?!?! So awesome! I imagined some distant ancestor making his or her way to Great Britain and joining our family tree. Of course, it might not have been a pleasant journey for him or her, all things considered. Before I booked a flight to Africa to research in country, I looked at the rest of my results. Greek? 11.4%? That didn't seem likely at all. However, it did make me wonder. ...

I came back from my Mexican Vacation to find these all over our workplace. And, I mean all over. There are free standing ones and wall mounted ones and I have several within 100 paces of my desk. I can only assume we're concerned about the Norwalk Virus because of my conditioning from my Norwegian Bliss cruise.  When you hear this song repeated multiple times a day, it sticks with you. Forever.

My Weight Watchers posse and I have been sharing recipes that we've tried and love. One of them told us about a two ingredient pizza dough. With crust, sauce and cheese, a single size pizza totals 6 Points. That's incredible! One slice of regular veggie pizza starts at 8 points so I was all about this one. The two ingredients are self-rising flour and non-fat Greek yogurt (my new favoritest thing).  You can find the recipe here . It's super easy and makes enough for two pies. You can store the second ball of dough for at least several days in an airtight container. Attempt 1 My first was Picasso inspired in shape, for sure. I used jar spaghetti sauce, low-fat mozzarella and sliced onions and peppers. The edges got a little crispy (but were still edible) and the veggies were a bit too al dente. Attempt 2 I sauteed the veggies with some garlic first on my next try and managed a shape that was more square than paramecium. I also managed a smaller surface of c...

I've been overweight since birth. No lie, I was a 9 pound plus baby. I've dealt with the discomfort, the mocking, the health hazards, the lack of cool clothing and the cringing at pictures my entire life. About 20 years ago, I lost a significant amount of weight on what I call the "depression" diet. I got treated very poorly (not that I was perfect) and my heart broken and I just couldn't find it in myself to eat. I'd heat up a Healthy Choice dinner and barely put down half of it. I didn't even want to drink alcohol. Those were the days! However, I found the will and desire for food and drink on the road to recovery. As the years went by I fell into a pattern of gaining ten pounds each year for several years then diet down part of it (never all) then go back to gaining again. Eventually, I hit my peak high weight and settled in. For several years, I lost and gained about the same 8-10 pounds but the key to that story is that I always gained them back. ...

Last Saturday, I had some long-time friends over for late lunch and shenanigans. To prepare for the event, I decided to make a passel of food from scratch. Three soups, a couple of dips and a dessert. My backup plan if it all sucked was to order Spinato's Pizza so we weren't going to starve. It was nearly three hours total of chopping, dicing (which is different than chopping for you non-chefs), mixing, heating, spicing and tasting. It was also two loads of dishes, three pans, one crockpot, a micro-plain, a Spiralizer and too many mixing bowls to count. I really could have used a kitchen assistant. All for four people. Definitely one of my crazier ideas and a lot of kitchen time. But, I wore an apron the whole time so that's the thing that tips me into professional Chef status now, right? Everything I made was a low or 0 Weight Watcher's Freestyle point food and I don't think it was readily apparent. As in, it didn't come across as "diet" food....

We have a small gym at our office. I often walk through on my way from the parking lot to meetings in that building. It looks nice. We also have a big room dedicated to things like Zumba and Yoga and, well, I don't know what else because there's literally no reason for me to go there. Although, I do actually know one other thing they do in the big room and that's hold Spin Classes. I know because my friend Michelle leads some of them and has been trying to get me to take one with her. When her direct efforts weren't paying off, she got my friend Steve to start suggesting it.  Have to give it to them, they tried with lots of enticements. "It's fun!" "It's dark so no one can see if you need to take a rest." "It won't be bad, I swear!" "You can do it with us and your other friends; it will just be a little party." "It's in the afternoon so you can go home right afterwards so no one will see you....

I've seen  Tools of Titans  on several Must Read book lists this year and was intrigued enough to put it on my hold list for the library. Before I could get it, one of my colleagues read it and recommended it highly so I was even more eager to peruse it. Broken into three sections (Healthy, Wealthy and Wise), this book is jam packed with anecdotes, strategies and suggestions made by various "titans" of industry, healthcare, sports, entertainment, science and other fields.  I chose to take my time reading this instead of my usual speed reading rate and took a break about half way through to absorb what I'd learned. I also implemented some takeaways from Ferris' personal daily rituals with my own interpretation. In the morning: List three things you're grateful for. Big or small, write them down and ponder for a few moments on why you're grateful. This was just like the "3 Gratitudes" exercise I did on the blog a few years ago. I...

Our company started a department challenge this year. The challenges are wellness based and they bought a really ugly trophy to be passed around to the winners. The idea is to add something to represent your department to the trophy if you win it. Yes, it's supposed to be ugly. The first month, the challenge was to send a daily #healthyselfie. I went with the easy ones of me drinking water, unpacking my organic fruits and veggies, weighing in for our "Maintain, Don't Gain" competition and one controversial entry - drinking a glass of red wine. Red wine is healthy, people! While the wine picture got accepted, the acceptance came with a long missive on the dangers of consuming too much alcohol. Whatevs, way to be killjoys. Despite trying to motivate our team, we didn't get enough pictures to win in January and February was not much better. That month's challenge was "Stretch". You were supposed to stretch every day then record it on ou...

I was in Vegas over the weekend and Thursday night found me sitting at the bar in Margaritaville with some friends. We were having some drinks, talking to strangers and watching both the baseball and football games. All was well with the world. Out of nowhere, a young (20s?) guy came up behind me and snapped a selfie with me in it. He moved away before I could even get out "What was that about?" Less than 30 seconds later, another young guy came up and did the same. He also bounded away before I could stop him. My very first thought was that they were doing a photo scavenger hunt and one of the items was a picture with the fattest woman they found. Hell, could even have been the fattest person they saw if I let my mind take it further. Now, assuming a scavenger hunt, there are other reasons they could have wanted a picture of me. Maybe they needed a ginger, maybe it was someone with their hair in braids, maybe it was someone in the brightest colored shirt they could fin...

Continuing on my quest to feel happiness, I'm going to post three things I'm grateful for for 21 days. When people think of me and share. I don't want to know how high I'd score on an official narcissism scale but I suspect it's close to the top. Perhaps it's because I live my life so publicly that people can't help but think about me when they see cats, princesses, Jimmie Johnson, Doctor Who, Jimmy Buffett, cows, etc. (The full list is pretty long.) It's great to just be thought of but my friends take it another step further. For example, two different friends posted the above video on my Facebook timeline on Friday. George doesn't pack her own stuff like Simon's Cat but she does try to pack herself! I won't even go into the random presents I get but I hope everyone knows how grateful I am for them. And, for every picture, video and status update that I get tagged in. Weight Watchers at work. I've lost 20 pounds in the last year. ...

Continuing on my quest to feel happiness, I'm going to post three things I'm grateful for for 21 days. goodreads . As most people who know me are aware a read a lot. Several years I ago I was introduced to goodreads. I tell people it's like Facebook for readers. You get friends, you can follow people and then you see their postings. Their postings are what they've read, their reviews and what they want to read and I've found many books from there that I've enjoyed. The really neat thing about it is that you can use a tool to compare your books to another person and see how many you have in common and how close your ratings are. So, if someone reads way different genres then I do, I don't become friends with them and won't have to weed through their irrelevant postings. If Facebook would allow you to compare, say, religious and political beliefs before you accept a friend request, well, let's just say I'd have a lot less friends. Yesterday, good...

A couple of my work buds and I frequently talk about health, fitness and weight control. We rely on one guy to tell us about all the cool stuff and he certainly justified that trust with the Spiral Slicer. It's super easy to use. Just put the veggie in and twist. Voila! Long strips of "good for you" stuff. One of the guys and I both tried it with zucchini. There are two sizes depending on the end you use and they make perfect "noodles". A very quick blanch and you have a fantastic low fat, low carb, low calorie replacement for pasta. Bigger strips on the left side. This was two small zucchinis.  We're thinking it would make cool strips for salads, stir fry and other pasta replacements like squash. I'm sure they're available in stores but we bought ours online.

Our theme at the Wednesday Weight Watcher's meeting was, I don't know, something about exercise and fitness. I tuned most of it out because exercise is soooooo boring. However, I did pay attention to the discussion of tracking our activity. In theory, people are supposed to take at least 10,000 steps a day. For a desk jockey, that's a lot. You could track with a simple pedometer and they were promoting a Weight Watchers product that would not just count steps but also tell you how many points you've earned. One of my compadres said she used a doohickie called Fitbit. She said it was tiny and accurate and you could sync your results online for free. Free! That was unlike the Weight Watchers product which required a monthly fee if you wanted to store your results online. So, I checked it out and what sold me on the Fitbit was that it also records your sleep patterns. How? I don't know, maybe magic. This Is Not A Chew Toy The nice thing about having an Ama...

With apologies to Jimmy and the Parrots for paraphrasing their song title. I know there are a lot of people celebrating some pretty famous guy's birthday today but perhaps not the guy whom I would wish a most happy birthday to and give many thanks. In fact, just what people are doing to that other guy, now that I think about it. Yeah, it's that Jimmy Buffett dude. Today is his 66th birthday. Unlike the most devout of Parrot Heads, I have no idea how many Buffett shows I've been to. I'm not even sure which was my first one but I think it was after a Triple-A baseball game here in Phoenix. Jimmy played out on the field and we hung out in the stands and had a great time. Gosh, I can't even tell you the first Buffett song I heard or when that was either. It seems like there was just always Buffett in my life. And, now my life is based a lot around Jimmy. I officially joined the Arizona Parrot Head Club in 1998. The first meeting we went to was at a bar on...

I had four job candidates lined up for interviews Friday afternoon. I have them come in on a staggered schedule then they suffer through, er, enjoy?, six half hour interviews with various people with the last half hour being with me for final questions. One of my interviewers went home sick on Thursday so I emailed a backup who kindly agreed to cover if needed even though he hates doing interviews. However, the sick one was back in the afternoon so I was covered. I thought, anyway. One of the candidates showed up 15 minutes early, and another showed up 45 minutes early. Oh, and one showed up 15 minutes late (he said he got into a fender bender on the way). I eventually got them all squared away when the receptionist stopped me to say one of my interviewers had a family emergency and had to go home right away. I pulled him out of his interview and frantically tried to replace him. My backup guy, feeling safe, was offsite so I roped in one of our Help Desk guys. The other HD guy w...

Our company and health insurance provider are starting another “healthy” program at work this month. I don’t blame them for encouraging us to be healthier but I think some people may have plateaued on their interest in following programs or participating in contests. The new plan is called Resolution Revolution (because all programs have to have a catchy title). I think it’s supposed to help you create some new, good, habits. The gist of the idea is to accumulate 100 points in a month with a possible 4 points a day. You get a daily point for each of the following: Eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables Exercising at least 15 minutes Getting at least seven hours of sleep Taking at least 10 minutes for relaxation I think most of our team is actually going to participate but the consensus was that there was one point that was going to be really difficult to get. Surprisingly, not the exercise even though more than a few of use are pretty sedentary. No, it was the sl...