On Tuesday, I went to the dentist. As usual, my teeth were fine. They just needed their semi-annual cleaning. However, also as usual, came the awful question: "Have you been flossing?" This was followed by my embarrassment-filled: "No."
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against flossing. I know that it is good for my teeth and gums. I just can’t seem to work it into my routine, though. I’ll floss for a few days after my checkup. Then I forget about it completely until a few days before my next checkup.
My Aloha Friday question for today is: How good are you with flossing? Do you floss every day?
P.S. If you haven’t already, go visit FollowerHQ and let me know what you think of my Twitter application.
P.P.S. For a bit of fun, try my other Twitter Application, Rout. It’s a +F in Fun!
Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.
Being that we’re Jewish, I thought that we’d be mostly immune from having to deal with "Daddy is X real" kind of questions. Since we don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are moot points. We’re honest about the existence of these (though we encourage our kids not to burst the bubbles of other kids who believe). They even know that characters from most of the shows they watch (e.g. Spider-Man, Optimus Prime) are fictional. Sure, there’s the issue of the Tooth Fairy, but I figured that was it.
Imagine my shock, then, when NHL, JSL and I were watching a Muppet Show DVD and NHL asked me: "Dad, are the Muppets real?" I was completely caught off-guard. The realist in me wanted to say "No, they are pieces of fabric that people shove their hands into." Meanwhile, the Disney lover in me wanted to say "Yes, they are. Kermit and Miss Piggy live in a house just outside of Hollywood, California" so that he would hold onto the magic just a little bit more.
Composing myself, I decided to turn the question around. I asked him if *HE* thought they were real. He thought for a second and answered that they were real. I decided to leave him with this as his answer.
This came up again when we went to see The Laurie Berkner Band perform at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady. They asked me if Laurie Berkner was real. When I said she was, they didn’t believe me. They were convinced that Laurie was some made-up character from Jack’s Big Music Show. When an actual person showed up on stage, they couldn’t believe it. (It surprised me as they’ve seen TV kids singers on stage before. Namely, the Wiggles.)
It should be interesting as they discover what is real and what isn’t. I just hope that they realize that there can still be magic in characters even if they don’t really exist as you see them on the screen.
What do you tell your kids about the reality of fictional characters?
On Sunday night, the boys were in bed and B and I were searching through the channels for something to watch. We landed on Food Network where they were showing a special titled The Big Waste. (If you missed it, it will air again on Saturday, January 14th at 4:00 pm Eastern/Pacific and Sunday, January 15th at 5:00 pm Eastern/Pacific.)
This show was a competition. Two teams of chefs (Bobby Flay and Michael Symon versus Anne Burrell and Alex Guarnaschell) were competing to see who could make the best dishes for an audience. So far, this sounds like many of the other competitions that Food Network has aired. This show had a very interesting twist, though. The competitors could only use food that would otherwise have been discarded. Yes, they were essentially cooking with garbage.
Initially, you might wrinkle your nose in disgust. You may picture Bobby Flay emerging from a dumpster with a half eaten pizza slice, discussing how – after he brushed off the flies – he would turn it into a wonderful appetizer. It was nothing like this, however.
You see, Americans are very spoiled when it comes to food. When we shop for tomatoes, we want the very best. An otherwise edible tomato with a crack in its skin is tossed aside. Peaches with blemishes on them are left on the ground to rot. Lettuce is ignored because it isn’t picture-perfect.
It isn’t just the vegetables and fruits, either. Meats that aren’t the ever-desired center cuts are cast out. Chickens with a broken wing are thrown away because people might think it means they are diseased (when the truth is that they are perfectly fine to eat). Bagels left at the end of the day and pre-packaged foods with creeping expiration dates get the garbage bag treatment.
As the contestants gathered food, the amazement at their finds increased. So did the disgust. Perfectly good food was being thrown away every day. While 1 in 4 children go to bed hungry, while people scrounge around wondering where their next meal will come from, mountains of food are being tossed in the trash. The food recovered by the contestants was a mere drop in the bucket.
This show got me thinking about food waste by me. I am not innocent of passing over produce because of minor blemishes. I also wondered what my local grocery stores, bakeries, and other food shops did with their waste. If the food is still good, albeit blemished or slightly older than customers tend to like, does the store toss it away? Or do they donate it to a local food pantry/shelter/etc?
Thanks to this program, I plan on calling some local companies to see how they handle their food waste. If they don’t donate it, I’m going to see if I can arrange for at least some of it to be donated. I encourage everyone to do the same with companies in their area.
Have you seen the Food Network special? How do you think you can help raise awareness about food waste?
Disclaimer: I wasn’t compensated in any way by Food Network for this post. I simply wanted to share what I felt was a good program and an important issue. The image above was created using two images from OpenClipArt.org.
Saturday mornings are usually lazy affairs. Last Saturday, though, was different. We needed to get up and moving quickly. Why? We had a concert to go to: The Laurie Berkner Band’s Animal Party at Proctors Theatre.
We got there early, picked up our tickets and, before taking our seats, got each of the boys a souvenir.
That’s a shaky egg – a small wooden egg that makes noise when you shake it like a maracca.
As we took our seats, I marveled at how close we were to the stage.
We also marveled at what a great looking venue Proctors is. We really should go to more shows there!
NHL, being a drum player, liked the drum set on the stage.
JSL, meanwhile was prepared for one of the later songs with his monkey.
Before long, out came Bob (who plays the drums), Suzie (keyboard), Adam (bass guitar), and, of course, Laurie. The boys went crazy as she sang song after song. Meanwhile, I alternated between taking a ton of photos, taking videos, and rocking out with my kids.
Here are some selected photos from the concert.
Remember JSL’s monkey from before? Well, at one point, he had to put it on his head. After all, Laurie had a pig on her head…
In addition to having a pig on her head, her toolbox was invaded by a mouse intent on building a home for itself.
For fans of Jack’s Big Music Show, where her band is often featured, Laurie broke out into a medley of songs.
Finally, what concert would be complete without a groupie crashing the stage. Of course, Laurie Berkner groupies are a bit shorter than some other band’s have.
We just love how the band worked her into the show. They showed that not only do they play great music for children, but they know how to play WITH children too. (At the time, I wondered if I’d be able to tell the mother of the little girl about this video. It turned out that she posted on Facebook and B got in touch with her.)
All too soon, the concert was over. It was time to take bows and head home.
Thanks to the Laurie Berkner Band for such a magical concert!
Disclaimer: We received complementary tickets to the “Animal Party” concert thanks to The Laurie Berkner Band. The opinions expressed above, however, are my own and this post was done because we had a great time, not in return for the tickets.
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to cook more. Part of my reasoning for this was that I wanted to eat healthier. In the past, I’ve begun the year with a "Lost 20 pounds in 20 weeks challenge." I could use one of those again this year as I’m almost 30 pounds above where I’d like to be.
That being said, however, I’m going to try a couple of weeks of an informal diet. I’m going to cut down on the snacking, eat less and focus on eating healthier food. I’ll dine on more salads and snack on less junk food.
In addition, I’m going to try to work out more. I think I’ll break out the EA Sports Active and break a sweat. There are going to be two challenges for this. The first is the cold weather. With such a chill in the air, I’d much rather bundle under my Slanket and let my laptop warm up my lap.
The second reason is that I recently hurt my neck/back. I seem to be prone to muscle spasms and, after playing some Nintendo Wii with the boys last week, I got a bad one. The odd thing was that it wasn’t even a high-motion game. (Kirby’s Epic Yarn – you use the WiiMote like a normal video game controller.)
It’s been over a week now and I’m still sore and achy. My neck still hurts when I move it and I get shooting pains down my right arm. I’m not going to let that stop me, but I will take it easy at first.
My other change, rather than not going with a formal diet, is that I’m not going to update every week. Honestly, for some of my "20 pounds in 20 days" posts, I began to reach for content. I couldn’t think of anything to say other than "Hey, I lost another pound this week." While it was nice to know just what I was posting about, I’d rather have more substantial posts. So I’m just going to post an update every first Monday of the month instead of every Monday. I may also put something on the sidebar to help keep track of my weight loss.
So that’s my plan. Wish me luck.
Disclaimer: The body scale clipart above comes from OpenClipArt.org.
