Shortwoman.com

Spring Cleaning Time!

One of the things I like about being involved with projects like Life Well Lived is that it forces me to stretch a little bit out of my comfort zone and write about rather irregular topics: things I otherwise would never dream of writing about. So today’s post won’t be about economics or politics or strange stuff from the news or even funny pictures. Today I’ll be answering a serious question:

What are your favorite spring cleaning tips? Do you have any to add to Alicia’s 10-minutes-or-less list?

Ok, Who’s Alicia? Fair question. Alicia wrote this post on 10 Minute Spring Cleaning Tips. She’s got some interesting points that might work well for a family, but probably aren’t as helpful to people who live alone (or just plain end up doing all the housework themselves for whatever reason).

Ironically, guests at my office meeting this week included a cleaning company, whose advice for Spring Cleaning was simple: Hire us!

Now it’s worth confessing that I don’t do Spring Cleaning beyond opening windows whenever the weather is nice. Nope. The one thing I do that comes close is “Oh nuts we have guests who will be staying with us” cleaning. This involves making sure the guest room is clean with fresh sheets on the bed, putting out towels where guests cannot help but find them, and making sure that bathrooms are squeaky-clean.

I just simply don’t think that saving up the cleaning for Spring is a good idea. Most of the stuff that falls onto the list are things we should be attending to regularly in small doses rather than one marathon session. Sure, sometimes clutter builds up and needs to be swept away. “I can’t find a damn thing in this drawer” is a better excuse to clean a junk drawer than “It’s SPRINGTIME!!” Sane people clean out the fridge when they get home from the grocery store with more stuff, because otherwise the new stuff won’t fit! Sure, sometimes something falls through the cracks and gets forgotten. There’s no need to wait until Spring to take care of it.

In short, if you spent 10 minutes a day doing cleaning and maintenance around your home, you won’t have to make a big deal out of Spring Cleaning: it will already be done.

Stephen King’s Bag of Shorties

Red Meat: Well sure, if you’re willing to call a double cheeseburger “unprocessed red meat,” maybe red meat is bad for you. I also liked the fact that the same questionnaires that “prove” the connection also say that 1/5 of women make do on 1200 calories daily — that would be a bare minimum for somebody trying to lose weight, not something sustainable. Think just maybe some people weren’t quite reporting the whole truth?

It turns out that 100% of rapes are committed by rapists: Don’t rape.

Bruce Wayne: Has a hard time at the psychologist’s office.

Senator Lugar: Well, is he a resident eligible to run for Senate, or is he a non-resident who can’t vote?

His name is disgusting: Mr. Santorum thinks Puerto Rico should learn some darn English already so they can become a state! Ok, he actually said they have to make English and only English the official language, and they need to have a “common language” with us ~~whiteys~~ normal Americans. What makes him think they want to be a state? Pretty blatant example of a conservative expressing the idea that “those brown people would be so much better off if they did things my way!” Now he can’t decide if he wants to stand by the comments or not. mmWaffles.

So you want to be a blogger?: Here.

Deregulation: Doesn’t work (HT).

There’s no point arguing with crazy: Ornery Bastard colorfully and succinctly says what many think about the GOP.

Viva Las Vegas: House sales up. That’s right, I said up. And people are noticing.

Glad I’m not in Arizona: Proposed bill would allow employers to ask women if they use The Pill and fire them if they don’t like the answer. Never mind medical privacy. No word on whether they’ll ask men if they take erectile dysfunction meds. Guess they aren’t expecting a lot of women voters. Maybe the next proposed bill is to disavow the 18th Amendment.

If only just Arizona were the problem: Thankfully we have some uterus-having Legislators helping bring balance and/or silliness to some of the anti-woman bills.

Double-you tee eff: An officer but not a gentleman.

Hail Britannica: Someday kids will look at you funny when you talk about an encyclopedia being a big set of reference books that many middle class families owned.

What??: Hotel pools must close or install wheelchair lifts.

You know there must be candy and rainbows for bankers in the foreclosure fraud settlement: JP Morgan Chase announces a hike in the dividend. The investors go wild.

Crash the system: Refuse a plea bargain. Insist on your Constitutional right to a jury trial.

Nixon in Love: Turns out he was a bit of a romantic. Who knew.

I see it around here: More people using public transportation. And as a result, more people walking, at least locally. I think it’s a good thing.

Eastern Germany: Check out the before and after pictures by clicking the pic at top.

Book Review: Diary of a Mad Fat Girl

This post is in connection with the BlogHer Book Club. I am being compensated for this review and received a free copy of the book itself. Join the conversation!

My first clue that Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee might have a little disconnect was when I laid eyes on the cover: a pair of slim legs draped over a wood privacy fence, not a hint of cellulite, not an ounce of flab, topped with a flouncy pink miniskirt that no overweight woman I’ve ever known would be caught dead wearing. Now, I wasn’t expecting extreme corpulence, but our protagonist describes herself as size 16 high school art teacher. Frankly, I was expecting, well, somebody who looks more like the author.

One of the more remarkable things about this book is that it was originally self-published as an e-book! It was so successful online that the author was able to get a literary agent and a publisher. This is in fact the author’s first novel, and as such I am going to cut her some slack for some heavy-handed foreshadowing and a delightful deus-ex-machina. Whoops! I dare not say more! Nobody likes spoilers.

If you’re a fan of small town intrigue or school district politics, you’re going to love this one. Most of the major characters have known one another since they were children. The prose is amusing, the dialog perfectly suited to the characters, some of the situations delightfully silly. Serious topics like spousal abuse and homosexuality are treated with dignity. If you’ve read my reviews before, you know I’m very picky about endings. Without giving anything away, there was one aspect of the obligatory happy ending that didn’t really fit right. Assuming you can take the sexual themes, an amusing book worth checking out

In Closing: Try to use them all!; contraceptives; urban unrest; Hail Seizure; Call Center Bill; guaranteed prisoners (somebody explain to me how a for profit company can provide the same quality for less money than a government body that doesn’t need to make a profit? Don’t yell pensions because some government agencies have proven they can already screw workers out of those); costs more and pays less; stop buying them; this must stop; on moral decline; judge speaks common sense, that someone in a public place has a limited expectation of privacy, even if he/she is a cop; nothing to hide; and what really causes heart disease.

When Will They Figure It Out?

This is what happens when schools tolerate bullying.

Almost 30 years of the Same Old Story, and somehow the People In Charge don’t get it. We don’t need “weapon free zones” and “zero tolerance policies”; we need an atmosphere of acceptance and adults who are willing to say “we treat others with respect around here.”

Any questions?

In Closing: as C3PO said “The damage doesn’t look as bad from out here”; bad bosses make everything worse; Teller tells; that’s odd; interesting workout; Heist; Reich is right (as usual); Haw haw, the little anti-Semite jab is what really makes it funny; and one of the last Republican voices of reason is going home. It must be hard to be a woman and a moderate and a Republican all at once.

I Don’t Know Where to Start

Alright, so we had an interesting local news story. Most of the news stories were based heavily on what was in the local paper:

A North Las Vegas man was arrested last week after being accused of posing as a doctor, sedating victims and then [sexually] assaulting them when they were unconscious.

Now, that’s bad enough. He claimed to be licensed in Mexico and that’s “good enough,” right? Sure, blame good old fashioned medical board bureaucracy for keeping this “licensed professional” down.

Worse than this: known victims do include grown women and a 5 year old boy. What. The. Eff. This is wrong on so many levels I can’t even speculate. I haven’t the faintest idea what was allegedly done to this poor child nor why nor even how it was discovered. And just think, these are the known victims. The police are pretty sure there are unknown ~~unknowns~~ victims too.

But to me here’s the kicker. These crimes happened in the “doctor’s” home. These patients were so desperate for inexpensive medical care that they were not only willing to overlook his unusual licensing (assuming they did know enough to ask), but they were willing to go to a “clinic” run out of some guy’s living room.

The days of the old country doc seeing patients in a spare room were over decades ago, except in our underground economy. In the other economy, anybody can buy a white coat, start a “clinic,” and potentially assault, disfigure, or otherwise injure their patients. Sometimes, they even kill them.

And that’s why we need universal health insurance instead of mandatory health insurance.

In Closing: two new blood types; Jeb sounding almost reasonable; and just say no to police searches.

Getting Organized

Like many people, I’ve got stuff that must be done: bills to pay, people to see, floors to clean, you know the drill. And like many people, I find it’s easy to let things slip away if I don’t stay organized. I’m a big believer in “to do lists,” because it’s easy to see what you’ve done and what needs to be done. However, it’s easy to let the chaos of your everyday life spill over into your list.

I’ve got two main methods for keeping a to do list. The first is the “4 boxes” method. I take a piece of notebook paper and divide it into quarters. The first box is labeled Personal, and here’s where I write stuff I have to do for myself:

Take vitamins
Make hair appointment
Finish reading “Diary of a Mad Fat Girl”
Call Jane to set up lunch for next week

Box two is for things I do for my family:

Defrost meat for dinner
Pay bills
Clean floors
Confirm weekend plans

Box 3 and 4 are flexible, and you can do with them what you like. Perhaps yours are Work and School or Charity. If your job is pretty much the same thing every day, you probably won’t need a box for it. I’m my own business, so I need two! My third box is Client Service, things I do for my existing clients:

Schedule home inspection on Crescent Canyon
Get purchase offer to Johnstons
Where are signed docs on La Palma Pkwy?
Update automated search for Williams

That leaves box 4 for Lead Generation/Follow-Up:

Get mailer out
Call Goldbergs
First meeting w Hendersons at 11
Floor duty 12-2

Go ahead and write it all down, but pay particular attention to stuff you don’t do everyday — unless you’re trying to build a new good habit or it’s something you tend to forget. Happily put small things down for the express purpose of crossing it off and feeling good about it.

On the other hand, if you get overwhelmed by a large list like this, I’ve got a new trick that seems to be working well. A motivational speaker came to my office and suggested writing down only the top 5 things that absolutely have to be done today. Well, it occurred to me that not much more than 5 items will fit on a sticky-note. You can stick it to your phone, inside your date book, to the sun visor of your car, to your desk, or pretty much any other place you’ll see it a dozen times a day. Ok, sometimes I cram 6 or even 7 items onto that note. They get done, and that’s the important part.

Ok, ready for In Closing?: resume; clear your search history; and we pay the bill; fat is not the enemy; inflation; the agenda; if they’re following the rules, they have nothing to worry about; and Occupy is still out there.

Uh, Make Reservations?

Once again, we have a post inspired by the BlogHer Life Well Lived campaign. The current topic? Getting Organized. And the question I have been asked to answer:

What is your best tip for hosting a gathering, get-together or party that is enjoyable and stress-free for both the host and guests?

Wow. They almost could not have asked a question I am less qualified to answer.

The last party I hosted was roughly a decade ago: a tea party for stay-at-home-moms and their mostly preschool children. The cat hid. Sure, I’ve been to plenty of parties in the meantime, but never in charge of planning and never waiting nervously for guests to arrive.

So regrettably, my tips are pathetically simplistic. If you can’t just make reservations, you’ll have to make do:

If catering (or pot luck) is out of the question, keep the food simple. This isn’t the time to try and impress everybody with that great new recipe from Food Network that looked so much easier than it was. Just be sure to serve enough variety that there’s something everyone can eat. There’s a lot to be said for stuff that is almost ready to go straight from the store. I’ll never forget the sorority party where we suggested to our alumni hostess that a big Stouffer’s Lasagne was just fine, and she decided that she simply had to make the real deal from scratch. She was frazzled long before any of us arrived!
Less is more when it comes to activities. This is true whether the guests are 4 or 40 years old. Sure, have some stuff planned — including a way for people to get to know one another if the guests aren’t already all friends — but let people have their own conversations. When your guests are kids, understand that some unstructured playtime is a great way for them to blow off extra energy (say, from cake, ice cream, and sugary fruit punch?).
Do as much as possible before hand, so you can relax and enjoy your own party. If possible, enlist someone to help you out. Delegate authority! Put somebody else in charge of a few things. Nobody says you have to be a super-hero.

Be sure to cruise on over to the main post on this over at BlogHer and add your comments over there. For that matter, don’t forget to enter the sweepstakes for a brand new Kindle Fire.

In Closing: I guess you’ll have to eat two; pretty much yeah; Dragon and Tiger Remix; right on, brother; what the heck is it about that place that begets violence??; the truth about abortion; Romney doesn’t just want to make the government small enough to drown in a bathtub, his plan to do it will drown the economy too!; 3 key questions; about time; curing diabetes; and free textbooks.

When a Shorties Calls

P90X: Even when you do it half-assed, not using the schedule, not using the diet plan, it works. Or at least that’s what Professor Cedric X Bryant says.

Sir Patrick Stewart: On domestic violence.

Oh, the Economy: Dollar Stores.

Let’s see, your share comes to at least $319.50: Taypayers will be on the hook for a minimum of 4 times the foreclosure fraud ~~whitewash~~ settlement.

Well, she is a fighter: The Navy announces the USS Gabrielle Giffords.

A Sad Follow Up: The author of The Magic Room (recently reviewed here) has died today in a car wreck. My most comforting thoughts go out to his family.

Jill Often Has Good Observations: On the middle-class white guy’s quest for a scapegoat.

The Next Economic Bomb: Student Loans.

He can be eloquent every now and again: a quote.

Yin and Yang of Healthy Living, Part 2

You will never get in shape through diet, and you will never control your weight through exercise.

Yesterday, we talked about diet. Today we talk about exercise. Together they work like two halves of a fitness and health puzzle that fit together perfectly.

To clarify my initial statement, exercise makes a great part of a weight loss strategy. However, if all you do is add a few workouts to a crappy diet, you won’t get good results. It would be more accurate and less pithy to say that you will never control your weight through exercise alone.

Visualize with me, if you will, a table with 3 legs. It will look a lot like this one from Amazon:

Now, imagine that we label these legs strength, cardio, and flexibility. Each of these is an important part of fitness. Strength, briefly, is your ability to lift and move things. That includes moving your own body. Cardio is shorthand for cardiovascular or cardio-resperatory fitness, your ability to provide oxygenated blood to your muscles while you move. Flexibility is the ability to move your joints through a complete range of motion — for example, moving your arm around in a big circle or lifting your leg up in front of you and putting it back down again.

At this point, some people violently disagree with me. “What about endurance? Agility? Speed? Coordination? Balance? Accuracy? Sports performance? You idiot!” Here’s my answer: all those are abilities you put on top of the table, like you’d put books or a vase on a real-life table. They’ll slide off if you don’t already have 3 legs to support it!

Let’s say you have to go to the grocery store to buy a 20 pound bag of something: cat food, rice, water softener salt, bag of ice, whatever, it doesn’t matter. You will still need to be able to walk through the store, because these things are invariably near the back. You’ll have to kneel down to pick it up, because it’s on the bottom shelf (wouldn’t want it falling on someone). You’ll have to lift it and carry it to the cashier, then out to your car. To do those things, you need cardiovascular fitness, strength, and flexibility. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter how fast you can do it, how long you can carry the bag, how precisely you can lay it down on the cashier’s conveyor belt, or anything else.

So, not surprisingly, an exercise regimen for a beginner must focus on becoming more strong, getting a healthier heart through cardio training, and becoming more flexible through activities like stretching or yoga. An exercise regimen for someone more advanced can certainly include training for such qualities as endurance, speed, and agility.

In Closing: on a related note; the important part; she’s right; stalagmites and climate change; don’t forget; and Death Valley Volcano.

Yin and Yang of Healthy Living, Part 1

You will never get in shape through diet, and you will never control your weight through exercise.

A little explanation here. My office is beginning a “Biggest Loser” style challenge this week, and this post is in support. Yes, I know everybody sensible did their posts on this topic at the beginning of the year. Perhaps this will help those at risk of falling off the New Years Resolution bandwagon. It’s never too late to start new, good habits. Those of you who have sworn off diets permanently should feel free to scroll down to the closing bits.

Part One: Diet

I know I’ve said this a number of times, but every weight loss diet that works demands that you sharply limit — if not completely eliminate — added sugars from your diet.

In the 70s and 80s, people could lose weight on a low-fat diet. It worked because people on these diets knew they couldn’t eat cookies, candies and cakes. They knew they couldn’t eat most sauces. They knew they had to eat plenty of vegetables. Dean Ornish never, ever said you could lose weight by switching from Snickers to Twizzlers. Then the Food Industry started making food-like chemistry sets with words like “low fat” and “fat free” in the name. Suddenly these people could eat cookies, candies, and cakes and pretend they were still following a diet. These people did not lose weight, and many of them decided that fat free diets don’t work.

In the 90s, people could lose weight on a low-carbohydrate diet. It worked because people on these diets knew they couldn’t eat cookies, candies and cakes. They knew they had to avoid added sugar in everything from turkey lunch-meat to yogurt to spaghetti sauce (which they could put on a nice chicken filet but not spaghetti). They knew that pasta was nothing more than pressed flour (yum?). People who actually read up on the subject before charging off to the meat counter knew they had to eat plenty of veggies. Then the Food Industry started making food-like chemical sets with words like “low carb” and “sugar free” in the name. Suddenly these people could eat cookies, candies, and cakes and pretend they were still following a diet. These people did not lose weight, and many of them decided that low carb diets don’t work.*

I’ve known people who lost weight on a vegan diet. It worked because people on these diets knew they couldn’t eat cookies, candies and cakes. They knew they had to eat lots of vegetables and actually think about where their protein is coming from. I’ve known other vegans who depend too much on food-like chemistry sets to simulate eating food that they shouldn’t be eating such as cheeseburgers. They don’t lose weight.

Recently, people have been having a lot of success losing weight on a gluten free diet. It worked because people on these diets knew they couldn’t eat cookies, candies and cakes. They know that they have to look carefully in ingredient lists for things that might contain gluten, and for some of them this is a matter of life and death. Now I see “gluten free bakeries” and all kinds of chemistry lab crap labeled “gluten free and I see the end of gluten free dieting on the horizon.

See a pattern here?

Nobody will ever lose weight eating cookies, candies, cake, ice cream, or sweetened fizzy drinks. On the other hand, most people will have a hard time losing weight on the food-like chemistry sets that the Food Industry tries to sell people who are on a diet. The purpose of “diet food” is to get you to buy more of it, and you won’t do that anymore if you lose weight and get on a sensible weight maintenance program. Which brings me to another interesting point: if after losing weight, you go back to eating the crap that made you fat in the first place, you will gain back every pound you lost.

Success lies in a sensible path: no added sugars; plenty of water; plenty of veggies; sensible use of quality fats; fewer food-like chemistry sets and more real food; pay attention to what you are eating and don’t eat more calories than you use; only eat stuff worth eating, and then only if you are hungry. I don’t think there’s a nutrition expert in the world that will disagree with these points, unless they are paid to do so.

* The new twist on this is Paleo or Primal eating, which goes back to the idea that processed food (including corn syrup) is bad, grains and legumes are suspicious, and if a caveman wouldn’t have known it was food you should probably not eat it. Some mistakenly see this as “all the protein I can stuff in my pie-hole, and then put some bacon on it.” They probably aren’t really eating as many veggies as would be desirable.

In Closing: If hard work cured poverty, the third world wouldn’t exist; you mean your local university doesn’t have a SWAT team?; cyberwar; diamonds; shocking; and magic button.