Poem

I wrote this limerick with a few classmates about our potential new career path.  Can you guess what it is?

Enless directions for our research to go
Countless students to encourage to grow
An eye for collaboration
A hobby to kill frustration
And the freedom to create our own flow

Yay for using the right side of my brain!

Laundry

I'm trying out a new laundry system.  First of all, I separate my clothes by color:

1.  Red, Orange, Purple
2.  Blue, Green
3.  Black, Gray
4.  White, off-white

I haven't figured out where yellow should go, but we don't wear much yellow, so it hasn't been a problem yet.  I do it this way so that I can wash everything in cold water, which saves on electricity.  I also try to run as many loads back-to-back as possible so that the drier stays warm between loads.  This also saves on electricity.  I do need to get one of those long lint brushes to stick through the lint vent.  I think there may be a back-up because it't taking more than one cycle to dry a load of clothes right now.  My long-term goal is to dry my clothes outside most of the year, but that will have to wait until we buy a house.  It's against our current lease to dry clothes outside.  Even though I see other people do it, I don't want to take my chances.

In an endeavor to use more environmentally-friendly cleaning products, I just made my first batch of homemade laundry detergent!  The first load using this recipe is in the washer now, so I'll have to give you my review later.  I was going to take pictures, but my husband is taking a nap and I can't take a picture of myself...

Homemade Laundry Detergent:
1/2 cup powdered Borax
1/2 cup powedered washing soda
1 cup grated Fels-Naptha soap

I was able to find all three of these ingredients at a combination of my local grocery stores.  Fels-Naptha was the hardest to find.  I recently found out that the local General Store also carries it, and it can also be ordered online.  I used the smallest grain on my box grater to grate the Fels-Naptha by hand.  One cup is approximately 1/2 a bar.  I use 1 tbsp. of this powdered detergent per load.  You can increase this to 2 tbsp. if you have an especially dirty load.

I've almost finished using up all of the liquid fabric softener I bought quite a while back.  I switched to liquid softener because I thought it was such a waste to use the drier sheets and throw them away.  I could never figure out another use for them.  After the liquid softener is gone, I plan to switch to plain old white vinegar in its place.

Have you tried any homemade laundry detergents?

Random Thoughts

I find myself thinking all the time about things I want to blog about, usually when I'm driving in the car. But when I get back to my computer, I've completely forgotten it all! So right now, I'm going to try and do a brain dump. Hopefully I'll be able to elaborate in future posts.

• I'm making progress in physical therapy. I even got to run in place on a trampoline yesterday!
• Christmas decorations: we bought our first Christmas tree, I made an advent wreath, and I'm trying to knit our Christmas stockings.
• I'm confused about what direction I should be going with my life.
• I restarted my part-time job.
• I think I need to do some reading on time management, but not until I study and take my geology final tomorrow night!
• I "quit" one of my challenges.

I have quite a bunch of pictures ready and waiting on my camera. Hopefully I can add them and update recipes as well.

I'm not going to promise to elaborate on these thoughts later, but I'll do my best!

The start of a new week

I can feel it. This is the week that I get back on track, the week I start adding parts of my "old" life to my "new" life. How do I know?

A. I'm still awake and it's almost midnight. As an undergrad, this was not unusual. As a matter of fact, midnight was early! Now, 10:30pm is late for me...

and

B. I went to the gym at 10pm. I've noticed a pattern over the last few weeks. If I don't make it to the gym on Monday, I'm unlikely to make it any other day of the week.

I found a site, Beginner Triathlete, that has a three month beginner cycling program. Today was my first day on the program, so I was supposed to warm up for 10 minutes, do 10x30 seconds at 100rpm with 1 minute recoveries, and cool down for 5 minutes. I'm not sure how the bike at the gym measures speed, but it's certainly not in rpm, because my warm up was around a 10.0. So I did my 10x30 seconds at approximately a 15.0 on whatever scale the bike uses. It felt good to be on a bike, but I still need to figure out the right level to provide enough of a challenge for me. This first day of the program didn't get me anywhere near sweaty, though I was a bit tired at the end. After the bike, I did a little weight lifting, but didn't really feel that into it, so came home. Hey, at least I made it there and did something, right?

Food Journal:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: leftover chicken noodle soup and multigrain crackers
Snack: 30g pistachios in the shell
Dinner: homemade pizza with mushrooms and olives, diet pepsi
Other: less than 1/4 cup of ice cream, 2 hershey's kisses

I'm not sure I made it on the whole drinking 80 oz. of water front. I'm finding that to be much more of a challenge now that it's starting to get colder.

I've lost track

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope that if you are/were traveling you arrived or will arrive safely to your destination. My husband and I spent all day yesterday driving to his parent's house. In a few minutes we will be off to see my family for the morning. I am so excited!

Before I get to my journal entry, here's a little background on my ankle: While I was working this summer, I noticed that my left ankle would swell up pretty badly. It eventually got to the point where I went to an urgent care facility, but they could do nothing for me. Since it wasn't hurting me, I decided not to pursue it any further until I returned to school. Fast forward to the end of October, when my ankle really started to hurt. The health clinic on campus took x-rays, found no broken bones, and referred me to a physician with a health medicine background. This new doctor prescribed an anti-inflammatory for a few weeks, which didn't help at all, so I was sent for an MRI, which I have to say was a cool experience for someone with my background. The MRI revealed a bone bruise above my ankle (sorry, I don't remember all the technical terms) and fluid build-up (edema?) around my ankle bone. So now I've started 6 weeks of physical therapy, which I really hope gets me back into running!

Anyways, here's my journal entry from Nov. 24:

Breakfast: oatmeal

Lunch: chicken noodle soup

Dinner: Mexican restaurant: chips and salsa, diet coke, cheese quesadilla, chicken enchilada, chicken burrito (or something like that)

Other: oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, nerds, pumpkin seeds, yoplait delights, graham cracker

Over the past week, I've really fallen off the weight-loss train. I was flat out lazy and stopped keeping track of my eating, which has not been all that wonderful. I've particularly had problems with snacking now that my husband has started his new job.

I've also been slacking on the gym time. After talking to my husband, I'm going to have to start going to the gym without him in order to get enough exercise time in. I also need a training goal to work towards. I'm not allowed to run or do any other weight-bearing activity because of my ankle, but the physical therapist has approved bicycling and the elliptical. I tried the elliptical yesterday and was really paying for it today, so I don't think I'll be trying that again until after my next PT appointment. So that leaves the bicycle. I've been unsuccessful so far in finding a training regimen for it. Can anyone point me to some book websites for bicycling that would have training plans on it?

Food Journal Week 2, Day 3

Breakfast: 1 cup Kashi Go Lean Crunch and a splash of milk
Lunch: the last of the BBQ (~1/4 cup) and 2 slices sourdough bread
Dinner: BBQ sandwich with cole slaw and potato chips, sweet tea

Sorry these haven't been very interesting posts lately. Too many things to do and not enough time!

Food Journal Week 2, Day 2

Breakfast: Cheerios and raisins with a splash of milk
Lunch: none
Dinner: 2 slices of mediterranean pizza and a diet coke

I think I fell off the bandwagon today, but tomorrow's a new day! My husband promised me we'd go to the gym tomorrow morning.