Lookin' Good!

Gina just sent me some up to date family pictures. Her kids are still cute, as expected, but what really caught my eye was this terrific picture of Gina. So I post it here for all to see!

The Most Holy Time of All....

...... NAPTIME.

Ahhhh. It's always such a challenge to decide what I want to do with my free time. I could read a book, I could surf the internets, I could knit something, or sew something, I could clean. I could take a nap! Napping sounds great until I realize that means giving up something else I want to do. I usually end up splitting time time between various activities and getting no where fast on all of them.

Maybe I will take a nap.

A Hobby That Isn't Reading

Shocking, isn't it? I like to be a little crafty when I have time, and since having a child I find that there just isn't the time to quilt that I used to have (sorry, Addie, one day I will finish your quilt, I swear) because quilting requires bigger blocks of time. So I've been trying my hand at knitting. I made a couple of scarves a few years ago, and put it aside. I was recently in the checkout line and saw a little magazine called "Knitting For Babies" that had some very cute things. I couldn't resist, and bought it.

Yes, unbelievably, I made the hat in this picture. Wow.

Italy

One of the earliest conversations Mike and I had was about Italy. We both wanted to learn to speak Italian, and go to Rome one day. Then life happened and Tristan happened and well, it was a dream. This summer my aunt Sharon and cousin Alanna went to Italy and fired us both up again. We started a savings account (it's tiny) and I have been collecting books about Italy. I borrowed an Italian phrase book on CD from the library to listen to in the car (it was nice to hear, but really hard to follow along without the text.) I keep listening to Josh Groban singing in Italian.



Currently in my stack of books I have:

• A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena De Blasi
• Pasquale's Nose by Michael Rips
• Desiring Italy edited by Susan Cahill
• Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King
• Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel

Now I just need more time to read...


(picture credit goes to Sharon and Alanna, I have no idea what it is a picture of, but it's from their trip!)

Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink

Mindless Eating is a great book. In very broad terms, it's a diet book. Practically speaking, it's a lifestyle change. It's not about depriving yourself of any one category of food, or about cutting hundreds of calories out of your diet. It's a slow weight loss, perhaps 10 or 12 pounds a year. It's about eating very slightly less every time you eat.

The author did tons of research and experiements about how people eat, and time after time they eat more than they want because of external clues like packaging. For example, he says that most of the reason why people eat as much as they do is that they rely on visual cues, rather than "do they still feel hungry?". We all know this- you don't have to finish everything on your plate- but he takes it further, and did tons of studies to back it up. If you start with a smaller plate, you'll fill it to the same proportion as the big one but obviously the smaller plate has less food. If you artifically create a serving size out of something you'll eat exactly that serving. So- snack size bag of m&ms= 1 serving. Regular size bag of m&ms =1 serving. 1/2lb bag of m&ms= 1 serving. You'll keep eating without thinking. Same for movie theater popcorn. His studies showed that people ate roughly the same percentage of the container at the theater, but were always just as content with what they ate. So why not buy the small size?

It was a very interesting and enlightening look at food and eating, I highly recommend it.