August 2008 Archives

Well, we've officially finished the first week of school here in West York.

Here was daughter Sarah, third from left, getting ready to board the bus on the first day last Monday:

The first week went well. We're still adjusting to the homework in the new "Everyday Math" program, but I really like it. (Some people don't.)

And, Sarah went the whole week without getting in trouble. (That's huge. She's not a bad kid, but boy can she talk out of turn.) Our deal is that if she goes the first two weeks with no trouble, she gets a new game for her GameBoy. (She has one of the old-fashioned models, so games are only about $6.) Yes, I'm into bribery. Call it rewards for good behavior if that sounds better. It amounts to the same thing: She gets something she wants for acting the way I want.

And I'm OK with that. Here's to a good REST of the school year (I'm not forking over $6 every two weeks, though!)

I live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. That's it up there. You know the kind... brick front, siding on the other sides, and while I don't have candles in the window, I do have a nice butterfly bush that really looks nice around this time of year.

Now, the problem with living in a nice house in a nice neighborhood, is that if you let the weeds get even slightly out of control, in comparison with your neighbors, your house looks like this:

Now, why, you ask, would I LET my weeds take over like that?

I could not be happier that, today, I can finally tell you what I've been spending just about every waking moment on this summer at work!

We've just launched a new high school sports Web site that, honestly, I think is the best work our team has ever done. It looks nice, it's easy to navigate, and it has a LOT of stuff.

Check it out at GameTimePA.com. We'll be running a live scoreboard of tonight's first-of-the-season football games, so bookmark it and check back often!

If you can't tell, it's "Joan's cleaning out her inbox" week on the ol' blog, and I want to keep sharing some of the best comments I've received.

I had gotten some good responses to my post on window candles.

From my sister Louise (Hi, Weez!), who just knows a ton about almost any subject you can imagine:

I would guess that the candle in the window is only popular where there is a heavy concentration of colonial and Victorian style homes. It would not suit modern styles as much due to lack of period authenticity. They make those candles with batteries too...I want you to stay safe...just sayin'

If you couldn't guess, I have a family reputation as a klutz...

From my good high school friend Phil, who just bought his first house, with his wife, Carrie:

I've heard that we are the only area that keeps them in year round... other areas only during the holidays.

I threatened to get him a set of window-candles as a housewarming gift!

Then there was some more helpful advice from Jo:

The look pretty at most homes, but they can be a real pain depending on window treatment. Also, not all window ledges are wide enough to support the base of the candles. I have roll-up cellular blinds at my windows which I roll up and down everyday. No way could I fiddle with the candles everyday. I think they are especially nice at windows with curtains left tied to the side and without blinds.

So there you have it. I'm just glad other people know more than me! My decorating skills... not so much.

I heard more about the Community-Supported Agriculture program from commenter and coworker Ellen last week.

She's also a member of Goldfinch Farm CSA near Wrightsville.

If you're interested, here are some more local CSAs. Looks like Goldfinch Farm has sold out of its shares for the year, but maybe you can try a different one!

A long time ago, commenter Bonnie told me:

In these parts we eat "pon haus" aka scrapple. Where's the hog maw? Where's the souse...it's food and should not be confused with getting "soused." That's all together different, though both are pickled.

Well, Bonnie hit on the one traditional food that I will not eat. (Yes, there are things I don't eat, believe it or not.)

It's like "Green Eggs and Ham." I could not, would not in a box... with a fox... in a house... with a mouse. Nowhere. Nohow.

Hubby, for his part, loves it and likes to tease me about it. But, sorry, even for someone who's as big of a hot dog fan as I am doesn't like meat-scrap-leftover-food.

(Don't know what a meme is? Learn more.)

I normally don't get into these, but I love music, so I had to try this one out.

- - - - - - Your Life: The Soundtrack - - - - -
Open your music player (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, etc). Put it on shuffle. Press play. For every question type the song that's on. When you go to a new question press the next button.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Opening Credits: Runaway Train - Soul Asylum

Waking Up: Who Said - Hannah Montana

Theme song: New Age Girl - Deadeye Dick

Falling in Love: The Great Intoxication - David Byrne

When is a check in the mail, addressed to me, not good news?

Check out my guest post on the biz blog to find out.

One of the biggest things that just about ANY weight-loss program will tell you is to make sure you're drinking plenty of water each day.

I have several one-liter bottles of water that I fill up from the water dispenser on my fridge, and my goal is to drink at least one, hopefully two of them a day, as part of my weight-loss plan. There's tons of different opinions on how much water you should drink a day, but I thought this quiz from About.com was a good indicator - it put me at just about two liters daily, which sounds about right.

Here's the down-and-dirty on what it says. (Don't laugh at my weight.)

A person who is 142 pounds and is exercising for 5 minutes, is not pregnant, is not breastfeeding, does not live at a high altitude, does not live in a dry climate, drinks 0 alcoholic drink(s), when the weather is not very hot or very cold, and is not sick with fever or diarrhea should have: 71.5 ounces of water today, or 2.1 liters. If you eat a healthy diet, about 20 percent of your water may come from the foods you eat. If you eat a healthy diet you can drink 57.2 ounces of water today, or 1.7 liters.

What do you think? How much water do you drink (or do you think you SHOULD drink) in a day?

So when my brother came out from Tucson, he noticed how green it is in Pennsylvania. That I knew would be very different than where he came from.

But he also noticed something else that I've recently come to find out is a "northeastern U.S." thing, and which is very big in York County.

It's the idea of putting those little electric candles in the front windows of your house.

I guess I thought everyone did that, but my out-of-region family members assure me that it's much more popular around here.

Who knew? For my part, I'd love to have them, but I'm too lazy to go around and turn them on every night. Someone suggested timers, but I'm pretty sure I'm too lazy to even set them all up on timers. Isn't that sad?

Yes, exercise is good for you, and I explained yesterday how I'm going to do that to help lose some weight.

But, you know what I've learned working for and being a member of Weight Watchers the last two or three years?

IT MATTERS WHAT YOU EAT! (Gasp!)

So yesterday's job was to go to the grocery store and stock up on healthy (and natural) foods. I'm tentatively trying a version of the F Factor Diet. It's basically an immensely high-fiber, "detox" based diet, and while I'm not following it to a T, I'm going to try seriously increasing the amount of fiber I have and seriously decreasing the amount of processed foods with high sodium/sugar/carb levels I have. In theory, it should help.

And, maybe I'll actually feel FULL some of the time. I swear, I never feel full.

So I stocked up on radishes, high-fiber cereal, some light cheese wedges, and a bunch of salad stuff. Plus, I've got some chicken breasts done in light barbecue sauce sitting in the fridge at home to have as leftovers.

I think I can do it! The first goal is not to eat fast food for the rest of this week. Let's see how that goes...

I've been saying for a while that I need to get healthier. I had lost about 40 pounds back in 2005, and while I certainly haven't gained it all back, I'm probably close to 20 pounds heavier now than I'd like to be.

I've also gotten a sudden motivation to get skinnier over the next year - my very best friend from high school proposed to his fiancee, and I've got to be a "groomsman" in his wedding. Now, if I could wear a tux like the other groomsmen, I'd be set, but I'm worried that his (very awesome) fiancee is going to put me in a dress that shows off my belly fat in nasty ways.

So, it's time to get fit. What's the plan, you ask?

So you have probably noticed I've not been around much lately. Well, first I was sick, as I mentioned earlier... then, I came back to work for a whopping two days and took off again because my brother was flying out from Tucson, Arizona, to visit (yay!)

Yesterday was my first day back to work, and today I finally feel like my head is above water.

It was great having my brother here - it's the first I've seen him since my high school graduation, and his first time meeting my daughter and my husband, who've come along since then. I've got tons of photos to post - taken with my "real" camera, not my cameraphone - but it'll take me another couple days to download them first. So keep checking back - I've got some updates on my summer hiking adventures and some news on my new weight-loss adventures (yikes!)

So come visit me tomorrow... and the next day... and the one after that...

Not a hail photo (sorry, my camera battery died!)

But I picked this up with the cameraphone a few weeks ago and thought you'd enjoy it.

Um...

Did you guys get some HUGE hail in the storm that just passed through?

We did... I took a couple pictures that I'll post later, from work. I just wondered if anyone else got hit. I have never seen hail like that - and rain! It rained, like, two directions at once!

We have - had - a glass gazing ball in our front garden. Now, we have a bunch of blue glass pieces and a pile of hail.

Craziness!

Sorry for the lack of posting this week. I had taken a few days off (a long weekend) to take my daughter back-to-school shopping over at the Lancaster County outlets, Rockvale and Tanger. Unfortunately, when I got back, I seem to have caught the stomach bug that's been going around, so I spent the rest of this week home, eating Saltines and cursing my husband, the Plague Carrier.

You know the type... he never gets sick, but he brings the germs home to me?

Anyway, I'm back at work for the evening and still not feeling so hot, so I'm not sure how long I'll last, but I wanted to say hi!

The good news is, I might talk about food a lot, but I also talk how I like to hike a lot. One would hope that balances out?

Recent hikes looking for letterboxes took us around southern York County. We found the lost stamp at Apollo County Park, collected three more around Lake Williams and Lake Redman at Kain and Nixon parks, and hit the rail trail to find a fifth.

That's Hubby and Kiddo (aka Chris and Sarah) pictured along the rail trail, just past the Railroad parking area.

Like a couple of our other park adventures, this marked the first time I'd really gone any distance on the rail trail. It was fun! We still have another letterbox to find, this one near Brillhart Station, so we'll be out along the trail again soon.

Any rail trail hikers/bikers out there? One of our Exchangers is keeping a Rail Trail Journal of his biking experiences - you should check it out!

A recent e-mail from the Pennsylvania Vegetable Marketing Research Program (and isn't that a mouthful?) tells me that August is Pennsylvania Produce Month.

The group says:

Whether it's visiting your local grocer or stopping by the roadside stand on your way home from work, local produce can be easily purchased for reasonable prices. The real bargains can be found now, during the peak season. So consider freezing or canning your locally bought produce to store for the winter months.

You'll remember I recently bought some local produce at Brown's. For some more suggestions on where to get local goodies veggies, visit paveggies.org.

Now, I have to ask. What's your favorite local fruit veggie, the one you wait all year for? I die for local strawberries and tomatoes. Jo would almost have me drummed out of the county for admitting I don't like corn. So I'm taking votes!

My newest staffer, Matt, moved up here from Baltimore this year ... so he finds Yorkisms all the time.

So many of them go right past me - they're just the way I've always said things, so I don't even notice.

But the one he pointed out to me recently was to "pitch" something instead of throwing it away. "I keep thinking, is there a batter somewhere?" he said.

Commenter Joe also wrote in recently about two other Yorkisms - referring to a place by what used to be there, and finishing sentences with "then."

Wonder what I have to say on those topics? Check out these previous posts:
What it used to be

Some relatives of doing something "then":
Read this quick!
Awhile
Read this once

I got an e-mail recently from John Stine, chairman of York's Police Heritage Museum, letting me know about their web site, policeheritagemuseum.com.

John writes:

The Police Heritage Museum in downtown York, showcases over 200 years of law enforcement history. Although we are a small non-profit organization, we have for 13 years collected and preserved artifacts that relate to law enforcement in York County as well as agencies outside of York and Pennsylvania. Presently we have approximately 3400 square feet of displays, with many more artifacts to be displayed. We feel it is as important to preserve law enforcement history as it is any other facet of our heritage.

Check out their site if you get a chance. Being a police officer at any time is not an easy job, but when you think about how much harder it was in the days before cars, radio, the Internet... wow, my respect for those old-time officers is immense.

(Make sure you check out the Lockups virtual exhibit on the site. It taught me a lot about the former jail buildings I've seen around the county, like the one by the Dover Park, pictured above!)

Deena shared with me a local blog of interest called The Weekly Share.

It's a blog that relates one family's experiences with a CSA - a community-supported agriculture program - in particular, Goldfinch Farm near Wrightsville.

I had heard of CSAs before - in fact, a good friend of mine belongs to one outside Spring Grove - but I didn't know a whole lot about them.

So it was really interesting to read The Weekly Share and see how it works. (Oh, and check out the zucchini recipes - you'll remember I bought some zucchini the other day at Brown's!)