Answers to the Quiz

1. Boxing [suggested this, but DH said no]

2. Niagara Falls (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)

3. Asparagus and rhubarb

4. Strawberry [got this one]

5. It grew inside the bottle (The bottles are placed over the pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.) [got this one]

6. Dwarf, dwell, dwindle. [got 2 out of 3 -- missed dwindle]

7. Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipses. [got all these]

8. Lettuce [got this one]

9. Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts [got this one]


So, how'd you do?

Test Your Smarts

I got this from a co-worker. Didn't do too badly; course I had DH's help. I'll post the answers in a day or two.

Quiz

These are not trick questions. They are straight questions with straight answers.

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn’t been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters “dw” and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter “s.”

Back at it

Exercising, I mean. So far I've exercised (cardio plus strength plus stretch) the last 3 days this week. And I'm working on my diet, too. I think I just needed a few weeks to work through the subconscious panic the regular exercising was causing (oh no, she's exercising, 5 days a week, that means she's going to start starving me too, gotta eat, eat everything, Mickey D's here I come).
I've got whole grain cereals, skim milk, dried fruit, walnuts, whole grain bread and such at work. For my sweet tooth and chocolate cravings I've got some dark chocolate wafer cookies, in single serving packs, in my drawer. The only fast food this week was a salad from McDonald's, everything else has been prepared at office or home (a lot of it is premade, but it's a step in the right direction).
I've also resumed taking a multi vitamin with minerals, something that was recommended by my doctor during my annual physical.

Completely new topic --
My last post was about my hellish week. Obviously I survived (it felt pretty doubtful over the weekend). What I didn't mention was how great DH was during the whole thing, starting with the special private time Tuesday night (I'll post about it on my other blog Robin's Red Bottom, if you're interested in the explicit details). Wednesday and Thursday he had to make sure the kids got up for school, then did chores and homework after, plus make sure they had dinner (don't know if they ate fast food or if something was fixed in house). He also had to take the youngest trick-or-treating, and man the candy bowl when they were home. On Friday, I was able to do the morning stuff, but he was again responsible for afternoon/evening. And he cleaned the house! It was so nice to walk into a clean and polished house after 3 long days of work. [This is something I regularly do for him when he's been travelling -- it makes coming home more pleasant for him.]
Then came the weekend and the head cold from hell. He took the kids out for lunch on Saturday and kept them busy the rest of the day (especially YC, she's such a momma's girl she doesn't like to leave me alone). And Sunday he took the kids and did all the grocery shopping, feeding them while they were out.
Monday, when I made the decision to stay home, he got the kids up and took YC to childcare so I wouldn't have to get up and take her into school. And when the kids came home, they pretty much took care of themselves.
So through the whole miserable week, DH was my knight in shining armor, making sure everything was taken care of so I could get the rest I needed. Am I lucky or what?

Where'd October Go?

So it's been more than a week since I last posted, but when you hear how crazy things have been, you'll excuse me.
Last post I mentioned my two crazy work days with the extra long commutes. Last week was worse.
Monday was normal, Tuesday was a little longer than normal (last business day of the month always is). I know Tuesday the 30th is not the last day of October, but since we started physical inventory on Wednesday, EOM was moved up a day. My responsibility for physical the past couple of years has been tag control. I won't go into the boring details, but basically it means that as long as product is being counted I have to be at work to check the tags in and out. Consequently, on Wednesday I worked from 430 am to 615 pm (with only about a 20 minute break for lunch). Thursday I started again at 430 am and was the last building employee to leave at about 8 pm -- and Thursday was much crazier than Wednesday, plus I was getting a cold. Friday I didn't have to start til 830 am (counting was done), but still ended up being one of the last out at about 7 pm.
Definite living dead for Saturday just from the long unusual work hours. But to make it even more zombie zone, I got a nasty nasty head cold. I spent most of the weekend in bed, didn't even have energy for date night. It's one of those colds where everything is stuffed up and the bones in my face and my teeth even ache due to the sinus pressure. I tried rinsing out my sinuses, but couldn't even get any drainage. OTC medications weren't even really helping, just taking the edge off. Absolutely miserable. I even stayed home from work today -- especially good as this afternoon I developed a migraine.
So, no exercise since Monday last week, poor diet due to extreme situation, stress, head cold, migraine, period -- I'm a mess. Here's hoping the cold does not become a sinus infection (I have chronic sinus problems) and continues to improve. I will get back to exercising regularly this week. I WILL. Things can only get better, right?
Now to bed.

Too Tired

It's been a busy week. So of course the exercise has fallen by the wayside the last couple of days.
I'm exhausted -- I had a 50 mile drive one way (about 2 hours) Tuesday and Wednesday to attend some special project meetings for work (which it turns out I really didn't need to attend as it was all review for me). Long, boring meetings in uncomfortable chairs which people from other facilities who have to be difficult. Aaaaaggggghhhh. Then OC had a band rehearsal Wednesday evening, with the actual concert tonight. So fitting exercise in just was too hard.
I do plan on getting back on track tomorrow after work.
Saturday I have a chiro appt and then it's clean the house top to bottom before DH comes home -- he's going to be exhausted and one of hte best ways to welcome him home is with a clean house. I even plan on reducing my piles (if you could see my bedroom, you'd know what i mean).

You Must Watch This

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HqdnjgkExY

I tried to put the video itself here, but couldn't seem to manage it tonight.

Randy Pausch and his last lecture have been all over the news. I saw him today on Oprah. Very inspiring, but somewhat painful for me. Randy has pancreatic cancer, the same cancer that killed my dad 3 1/2 years ago. It's one of the worst cancers to get, with no survival rate. At least my siblings and I got to have our dad til we were all grown up.

If you can, I would also suggest watching today's episode of Oprah -- Randy gives a version of this lecture plus sits down and talks with Oprah and Dr. Oz. Very inspiring episode.

Randy's webpage at Carnegie Mellon:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/

Friendly Reminder...

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (at least in the U.S.) -- have you had your annual mammogram yet?

I did, just this past week. Believe me, it is not a pleasant experience to have your breasts pushed and pulled and placed just right, and then squashed. There's nothing quite like having a part of your body that you consider beautiful and sexy and sensual handled like so much meat (visits to the gyno are ickily similar). But it's only 5 - 10 minutes once a year. And considering that it just might save my life, it's an unpleasantness I'll put up with.

This was my third annual mammogram. And if you're doing the math (40 years old now minus 3 years = 37 at first mammogram), you're aware that I had my first one earlier than generally recommended. This is because my mom had breast cancer. She went through treatments (never even lost her hair) and has now been cancer free, and considered cured, for more than 10 years. I don't know whether the cancer was discovered during an annual mammogram or thru self-exam, but now that there is a family history (no other blood family members on either side that I know of have had breast cancer), plus I have a few other health issues that raise my risk, I'm not taking any chances. If it's going to happen, I would rather catch it earlier than later.

luv ur breasts So, ladies, if you haven't had your mammogram yet this year, get it done; and make sure to do your monthly self-exams.

Gentlemen, encourage the ladies in your life to get their mammogram. And those monthly exams, you might consider helping out with those, make them more fun than chore.