It's just your life.

Hello and welcome to your life.  You get to pick your path (within reason) and fly with it.  I was just speaking with someone this morning who has arthritis, and I suggested the unmentionable: that they reduce or eliminate sugar (as well as taking turmeric/curcumin with black pepper and maybe a little tart cherry juice.  Yeah, for real, try it.).  But that’s the thing, if sugar (crack) makes you happy, and you don’t mind that you can’t walk or exercise, then go with that.  I don’t even mean that in a snarky way, I mean it literally.  You’re the only one who is going to pay the price in your own body for your decisions (although your death will affect your family and friends, so go ahead and be a selfish pig if that’s how you roll.).  You get to live with the chronic pain and debilitation, your spouse can’t feel it, your doctor can’t feel it, and your friends will either feel sorry for you (poor baby) or think you are a bozo for wimping out on their antics (hey Nancy!).  

 

HEY! Is this you?

But do pardon me, because I am inclined to convince you otherwise.  Here I go.

I can see how it seems to be the easier way to eat whatever you want, smoke whatever/whenever/how much ever you want, sleep whenever you want, work out only if you feel like it, but, oh, the price of that life!  

 There was a study that wasdone in Potsdam, Germany, on 23,000 adults over the course of several years.  They asked them four (somewhat) simple questions:

       1.  Do you smoke?

2.  Do you eat well (this sounds really nebulous, but there were specific guidelines that included things such as eating a certain amount of fresh fruits and veggies, eating clean meats, not eating processed foods, etc.)? 
3.  Do you maintain a healthy weight? 
4.  Do you exercise regularly?

People who answered with four healthy responses (no smoking, yes, I eat well, yes, I maintain a healthy weight, and yes, I exercise regularly) cut their all-mortality rate (this includes all the biggies - cancer, cardiovascular disease, the whole 9, etc.) by 80% against those who answered with four unhealthy answers.  Okay.  I know you didn’t hear me because you are not freaking out.  Let me repeat myself.  You can cut your risk of death by EIGHTY percent.  I don’t know if you know this, but 80% is some pretty darn good odds.  If you had an 80% chance of winning a kajillion (a jillion jillions) dollars, I’d say you might take it.  If you wouldn’t, well fine, I will. 

Kinda like this, but multiply the intensity by a kajillion.

If you think about those questions for about two and a half seconds, you realize that 3 out of 4 of them are your own choices, and the fourth follows two others (in general).  This makes me want to reach out of your screen right now, grab onto your shoulders, look you deep into your eyeballs, and tell you (probably in a highly spaztastic voice), “You are a main player here!  You can make decisions to elongate your life, enhance your lifestyle, and improve your quality of life!  You can do this!  Why wouldn’t you?”  And then you’d be all, yeah, I know, it’s cool, I should exercise, but that’s just to shut me up and pacify me because I’m jumping up in down in front of you still holding onto your shoulders.  Well, guess what, homie?  I ain’t letting go because you cannot be hearing me if you want to continue to pursue your death.

Excuse me, is this your dinner?

So what’s your excuse?  You like to eat crap?  Crap tastes so dang good that you wanna go with that in your swan dive off of the cliff to your death?  ERMERGERSH, just stop it.  I promise you that if you start eating well, your tastes will change.  You will crave what’s real.  If you can break up with sugar, you can look at a pile of ice cream and think of it as disgusting.  (It takes a while, but it’s f’rizzo.) 

And while I’m on that soapbox, sugar is worse than crack.  Do you want some inflammation?  Do you want to grow cancer?  Do you want to blow up your strep throat?  Do you want to stay sick longer?  Do you want to have horrible cholesterol numbers?  (Hint, big sugar has money and they love it that you think it’s because of fat.  They’re laughing at you right now.)  Do you want to be addicted?  Get your IV sugar on, baby.  Light up your brain like a crack addict.  

In fact, a study was done on rats that caused them to be addicted to IV crack and sugar and let them make their decisions on what they wanted to get high on, and they picked sugar eight times more (read it again, I said IV crack vs. sugar.  IV CRACK!!  Holy crap!  Eight times more!  That is freakin’ nuts!).  They even picked sugar when they were being electrically shocked.  They were receiving physical punishment and they went for it anyway.  Does that sound like you?  Oh.  Sorry.  Don’t mean to step on your inflamed, sick toes.  Wait, yes I do.  I want you to think about it.

Pick better.  

If you need a hit, may I suggest exercise?  It has its own crackalacka ways (well, I suppose minus those bothersome times of spending days and nights strung out under trailers in abandoned garages in the middle of Detroit).  Once you get into a good groove, you can become addicted to the endorphins that are released as you work out.  Instead of all of the negatives that come along with the horrors of sugar, you can trade that in for a healthier heart, a happy body, better sleep at night, an ability to maintain a healthy weight, and an increased libido amongst feeling generally awesome (I haven’t even mentioned how you will actually be awesome, too).  

May I recommend swimming, running, and biking?  Perhaps a little weight lifting?  Perhaps a few (hundred) pushups (doing them on glass shards to increase your toughness is completely optional)?  If you can’t feel the motivation, sign yourself up for a race.  Perhaps the sheer horror you would feel at being last would inspire you to dig deep and get your exercise on.  Please tell me that you have some inkling toward competition.  Please.  If you don’t, well, take your sad sack self and do your pushups anyway.

It is not rocket science.  If I told you I had a magic pill to make you live longer, better, and with a clearer brain and vigor, I guarantee you little druggies would be eating it up like crack candy.  Well hello, it is available to you!  You have to change (shriek!), but it’s really worth it.  Well, if you’re into living longer and better, I guess.  (Maybe that’s not your thing.)

Oh, just do it already!  (I’m still hanging on to your shoulders.  Can you hear me yet?)

Peace, love, and live, dang it, LIIIIVE!
Ms. Daisy

Moderation (is dumb)

A common response that I hear while speaking on the plethoras of poisons of this life is, "Everything in moderation."  You will be surprised to hear (not) that I have heard it pretty much every week of my life (or more) for the last six or so years.  In fact, if you know me personally, it is highly likely that you have said it to me at some point.  

Weird side note: some people think that this is a quote in the Bible or something.  I didn't realize that until I read people questioning it's source online.  If you were unsure, that phrase has origins from various sources like Socrates, and is even sometimes attributed to Hesiod and being an inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi, but it is not a verse in the Bible.  (You didn't think that, did you?)

After I have heard this statement, I usually think of Inigo Montoya and his phrase, "You keep using that phrase.  I do not think it means what you think it means."  

What does it even mean?  

I would submit that the phrase, "Everything in moderation", really means, "Shut up, please, and leave me alone.  You are crazy wacked and off the deep end.  I am normal."  If this is what you mean to say, then I can accept that.  Sometimes I think it can mean, "I don't want to do that."

If, however, you really do mean, "Everything in moderation", then I have a few questions.  

Okay.  So.  Por ejemplo.  Let's say that I've been talking about high fructose corn syrup and I'm spouting off about how mercury is found in high fructose corn syrup and that mercury is a neurotoxin and your dendrites in your brain shrink back and lose their conical structures and collapse when exposed to mercury and yada, yada, yada.  You say, "Yes, Ms.  Daisy, but remember: everything in moderation!"  

A few things come to mind.  In this example in particular, how much corn syrup constitutes moderation?  Once a month?  Once a week?  Once a meal?  Once a minute?  Because unless you are looking out for genetically modified high fructose corn syrup (or regular level fructose corn syrup), you are going to be eating it in every single foodlike substance you have in your entire cupboard because it is all over every grocery store (well, maaaaybe not Whole Foods, but they have cane sugar in everything up the wazoo) and in nearly every quasi-foodlike substance.  Are you saying to me that you really do check the ingredients and avoid it out of your desire for moderation most of the time?  I kind of feel like this might not be the case, but I could be totally wrong.

And do you mean everything in moderation?  Like arsenic?  Do you eat arsenic in moderation?  Or should we punch people in the face in moderation while swearing at them?  It would be, after all, in moderation.  (Are you thinking about punching me right now?!)  What about wiping spaghetti on the walls - if we do it in moderation, it's all good!  

Maybe there are some things we need to avoid always.  Like human trafficking and murder and stuff.  Or inhaling sarin gas, playing with broken thermometers, burninating the peasants and their thatched roof cottages, and things of that nature.  I would add a few more things to that list (like consuming fluoride and Froot Loops, or shopping at Wal-Mart, but I guess that might be getting a little too particular).  

The real guts of this phrase really comes down to the speaker.  The moderation is in the eye of the beholder.  Who is the ultimate determiner of what excess is?  How can you find the mean and average (and thus, the "moderation" point) if the line of excess is drawn at different locations for every single person on the earth?  My idea of corn syrup in moderation is once a year (and that, accidentally).  It would be the same line of moderation for corn syrup as it would be for arsenic in my mind, but I suppose that is not the same for everyone reading this (maybe).  Your definition for moderation in swimming in chlorine might be less than my thrice to five times weekly level (it's only an hour, so it's moderation). 

When it comes down to it, the word "moderation" means nothing because it means every point on the line.    (But I suppose I ought to warn you to just take it for what it's worth.  Coming from my perspective - a.k.a. the right perspective, I have discovered I have only two speeds: balls to the wall and zero.  Libra schmibra.  That's Latin for "whatevs".  Moderation is dumb.  Let me tell you what I really think.)

Why not strive for better?  Why not strive for best?  Instead of aiming for moderation, I suggest we strive for excellence.  Just something to think about.  

So the next time you're tempted to say it, if you really mean, "Shut up, crazyface", maybe it would be better to just go with that instead.  

Peace, love, and he was still Trogdor!
Ms. Daisy

25 randoms: because I want to be like my seester

I think it was a thing about 6 years ago to post 25 random things about yourself.  I am about 6 years late, but hey, better late than never?  So, without further ado,  here are 25 things you wish you never knew about me.  Pardon my font change.

1.  I am proud of my shortness, and my sister and I are exactly the same height.
2.  One of my favorite honors I have ever received is the "Best Actress" award from high school acting class.
3.  I used to be fascinated with and study cancer (reading the encyclopedia) in elementary school in the hallway when I was done with assignments before the other students, and the teacher would also let me file papers (which was an absolute delight).
4.   I have been cured (nearly entirely - I do often partake of an ounce 72% dark chocolate) of a sweet tooth, of which I used to be a raving maniac.

5.  I knew before I was four years old that I would grow up one day and be a teacher.
6.  I think the best smells in the world are ripe peaches, patchouli, baby neck, homemade bread while it's baking, and sauna wood.
7.  I am very pleased with my awesome, superior Finnish heritage. 
8.  I love winning.  I love beating males more than females, but I near instantly lose respect for any male I beat at anything, unless he is significantly better at me in another area.  (Don't worry, I won't ever directly tell you that I think you're a wuss, unless you are my brother.)  Anybody want to have a push up contest?
9.  Chickens are by far my favorite pet.  I will never get another dog again, but I cannot picture my life without chickens.
10.  A pet mouse met its end by my neglectful hand due to its foul odor as a youth.
11.  Yellow is my favorite (wall) paint color, Elizabeth I is my favorite monarch, if I could paint my stairs entirely in mosaic mirrored shimmering glitter, I would do it for every step in every house I ever owned.
12.  I pack (at minimum) my own water supply, tea, eggs, and butter with me when I go on vacation due to food snobbery issues.
13.  I cry about once a year.  (No, not at the same time per year, that's just my turnaround time.)

14.  I avoid facing the back of my head to a window (especially in living rooms) for the logical, sensible, and reasonable fear of getting shot in the back of the head.
15.  If I wake up to an alarm clock, I am standing up and walking within five seconds of it going off (usually less).
16.  When I am extremely tired and fall asleep somewhere else besides my bed and have to get up to go to bed, I nearly always crawl on the floor to get there (and this makes me very sad - so much so that I usually whimper pathetically while doing so, not to be dramatic, but because this for some reason in my altered state is truly sad to me.  Sometimes I even make fake crying sounds.).
17.  If I have an idea in my head to do something, it is almost completely impossible for anyone to convince me out of it.
18.  In 5th grade I got a perm.  It was too curly and I hated it.  I hid in the back of the Aerostar minivan and cried brokenheartedly, intensely, and bitterly the whole way home.  I wore a tight ponytail for about five months after that.
19.  In 7th grade, I "went out" with a boy in order to break up with him because everyone said he had a reputation of "never being dumped before".  Our long and meaningful relationship lasted about an hour.
20.  I worked as a lifeguard (and later as the assistant manager) of a pool and one day while we were rained out, we decided to entertain ourselves by having all of the lifeguards (males and females) go into the women's showers, sit in blow up boats, flood the floor and have a party.  You can imagine our surprise when the supervisor of the complex walked in on us.  Um, oops.
21.  (Which reminds me...)   As a high school swimmer, you get kind of used to being naked in front of your friends.  At the end of the season when we were going to finally shave, in an attempt to be entertaining and dramatic, I took my multiple suits off, and was swinging them around in a circle while singing loudly in the showers to my friends when my mom and then 5 year old sister walked in to the locker room.  (OH!  HI!  I was just, uh, just... uh... singing and dancing around... uhhhhhhhh... because.... uhhhhhh...  Hey!  Is that a spider?  And why are you here?)

22.  It is my dream to one day learn how to play the piano.
23.  I secretly wish I could throw garbage out of the window of my car, but hate seeing litter and want to key the cars of people who actually do it.
24.  My favorite teacher was a marine.  He threw tennis balls and chalkboard erasers at people in class when they weren't paying attention.
25.  I love being underwater.

You should get some chickens. F'rizzo.

As you likely know by now, I am the proud owner of a dozen chickens (4 big girls, 8 spring chicks) on my mini urban farm (it's not really a farm, but I pretend it is.  Sounds way better than "backyard".).  I am here today to tell you why I think you, yes, you, should get some chickens, too.  I am no chicken pro - I'm only about 2 months into my chicken "farming" (should I call it egg farming?  I'm not eating these chickens - they're egg girls.), but I have gathered some interesting reasons nonetheless.  

Let us begin at the beginning.  

Reason 1: Chickens are WAAAY easier to take care of than dogs/cats.  

Chickens live outside.  You fill up a giant food dispenser and let them have at it.  You fill their giant water thingy (technical word for it) and they're good to go for a few days.  If you want to let them roam wild for a bit, they're good to go with that.  (I do.  Gotta love that free-ranging.)  If you won't be home for a while, they are good with hanging in their coop and their run.  It's kind of brainless.  No sweeping up fur, no potty training, no sniffing crotches.

Moment of silence - one of the girls in this picture is no longer with us.

Reason 2:  You never have to waste an iota of food again.  

If you have some baby spinach that got all soggy wilty, chickens will gobble it up like a pit bull on a steak.  Strawberries with just a hint of ick?  The hens are on it.  Leftover spaghetti that you can't bear to eat 3 days in a row?  They're like mad Italians!  Carrot peels, your toddler's leftovers, the whole 9 - they'll pretty much eat it all.  I know some of you don't have a compost bin/pile, and you're just being total wasters - THIS is your easy way out.  It's easy being green with chickens.  (*I don't feed my chickens citrus or weird stuff that I wouldn't eat - i.e., Jet Puffed Marshmallows, Zebra Cakes, Miracle Whip, Doritos, etc. - and I don't feed them chicken.  Let's not promote cannibalism.  Other than that, I think it's fairly open season on whatever.)  And speaking of compost...chicken poop is one of the best fertilizers out there, just saying.  Comes free with each chicken.

Reason 3:  Chickens are entertaining.  

They just are.  Have you ever seen a chicken run?  Seriously.  You won't see how this could be until you get them, but they are better than TV.  They're also weirdly relaxing to watch.  You go out there thinking you're going to check for eggs, and you're caught up watching "Days of Our Lives: Chicken Edition" for like 30 minutes straight.  It's like you got sucked into a youtube black hole of videos and you can't stop clicking the next weird recommendation (I'm not the only one who has done that, right?  Wait, what?  A bear fighting a lion?  What does this even have to do with the guy who can multiply 7 digit numbers in his head?  I am not sure, but I just have to watch one more...Hold on, is that an adorable Chinese boy playing Beethoven on the piano? That one first.)  Not all of my chickens have names (4 are named "Betty"), but some do, and it is not necessary for them to be named in order for them to entertain the masses.  

Reason 4:  You get AWESOME EGGS!  

I do have food snobbery issues (black tea, butter, flour, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, chocolate, bread...I could keep going but I'll stop), and this could be a pro or a con.  Owning chickens has increased my food snobbery exponentially in the realm of eggs.  Let me put it to you like this - if I can't see the chickens running around and the yolk is not nearly orange and vibrant, I am not going to eat that egg.  It's like it's not even an egg.  The difference is so outrageous that it is like eating McDonald's all your life and then someone serving you a delicious, grass-fed, Big Green-Egged burger cooked over lump charcoal with a box of hickory.  It's like two entirely different categories of food.  It's iceberg salad with orange cheddar cheese on it, drowned in Hidden Valley Ranch (please tell me you do not eat that) compared to that amazing house salad at Zingerman's with fresh sprouts, arugula, homemade croutons, and homemade dressing (I'm drooling thinking about their salad.  Is that weird?  If you have had it, you know it's not.)  

Reason 5:  It gives you a reason to connect with being outside and the cycle of life.  

Yeah, you do have to go out there and shovel up the coop floor from time to time, but the shrinking back of doing such things speaks to the increasing wimpiness of our pansy society.  I think it would be good for everyone if they had to take a break from their wired world to put on their poop boots, tromp on out to the coop, get the shovel, and go to town on making a lovely compost pile.  If you raise those babies from the time they are little fuzzballs who fit inside your one hand, you watch a miracle of (relatively) fast growth in front of your very eyes.  You watch the curiosity of little creatures, and it is endearing.  I can call my girls and they answer me with funny clucks and coos.  Yes, I will still eat them when the time comes, don't get me wrong, but they are wonderful and connect you to appreciating where your food comes from.  They're not a plastic-wrapped foreign object from the grocery store refrigerated section.  They mean something and you are thankful for what they give.  (So stop being a pansy, city boy.)  

Reason 6: You can get a fake chicken tattoo to celebrate them.  

Yeah, pretty much self-explanatory.  

So what are you waiting for?  Don't even tell me your town/city won't let you have them.  In that case, I say, start a revolt.  It's really the most reasonable thing to do considering...  

Peace, love, and chicken power!  
Ms. Daisy

Beet Kvass: Your Healthy Liquid Dirt Drink

Do you like beets?  I don't.  I hate them.  They taste exactly like dirt.  I cannot even begin to comprehend how anyone could like them, unless, of course, you are that kid that used to eat dirt on the playground, then I totally get it.  When people call it "earthy", I have to laugh, because it is the equivalent of calling someone "big boned".  We all know what that means. 

But I digress. 

Even though beets are disgusting and taste like you are diving mouth-first into your backyard garden, we all must admit that they are healthy.  What could make beets even more healthy?  Why, fermenting them in salt (I love you, probiotics!) and making them drinkable.  

Yum.  (Try to contain your excitement.)

This is exactly what beet kvass is - a fermented beet drink.  I first found out about beet kvass from my awesome book, Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon.  This book taught me about kombucha (I love that), kefir (also yums), and about the importance of incorporating fermented foods into your daily diet (sauerkraut, sourdough bread, yogurt, etc.).  Bringing in such acquired tastes to your daily diet is healthy for your guts, your immune system, and much more. 

Did you know beet kvass is a good blood tonic?  Beets can reduce blood pressure, are used even to increase endurance in sports (take that, steroids!), and have even been said to help with ED (not like you have a problem with that).  Beets are high in folate - that B vitamin they load you up with when you get knocked up.  (Was that too vulgar?  Sorry.  When you are "with child".)  They've got the power to detox your liver and contain betalain, an anti-inflammatory compound.  The sugars in beets won't raise your blood sugar, and researchers are not exactly sure why (I think it's because your mouth just told your body you're eating dirt, personally.), but they think it has something to do with the betalain and the natural nitrites (don't get confused and start eating sodium nitrates and nitrites in your lunchmeat now, what's up, pancreatic cancer).  

Even knowing all the wonders of beets, I still cannot stand the taste of them.  

However.  

I walked into my favorite health food store in the entire world on Saturday and what was going on?  There was a lovely girl there proclaiming the accolades of fermentation - and she had samples.  She had local, organic, fermented products.  I couldn't NOT try it.  Every ounce of my healthy brain was screaming out for me to try it, even if it was worse than swimming a set of broken 300s.  I started out with the sauerkraut (which I hate) - and this one had crazy stuff in it - turmeric (wow, okay, yeah, you just convinced me, gonna have to try it), carrots, cabbage.  I tasted it.  I didn't throw up, so that was good.  It was pretty salty and tangy, but only a tiny bit revolting. 

Since I am a glutton for punishment and think that you should always seek ways to subdue your body (no, not like a flagellant, just to increase self-discipline in general), I tried the other sauerkraut, too.  Mmm.  Salt.  Psyche, that was sarcastic, it tasted like eating an entire teaspoon of salt (and not the good Celtic Sea salt, the horrid iodized and anti-caking kind).  She also offered tempeh, so I tried it.  It was actually good.  Well, I am not sure if it was good.  I thought of it as good, but then again, I had just put two different kinds of sauerkraut in my mouth, so take it for what it is.

And then...at the end of the table, lined up in tiny plastic sample cups was a deep purpley-red beverage.  The product stood behind it.  It said, "Heart Beet" beet kvass.  A very small, half-invisible Sally Fallon instantly appeared and stood on my shoulder.  She whispered into my ear, "Yummy, yummy, beet kvass!  It's so good for you!  Fermentation!!"  I told the fermentation girl with the perfect complexion that I hated beets, but I have always wondered what beet kvass tasted like ever since Sally Fallon told me I should drink it in her book (I didn't tell her about the shoulder).  I knew it was time to pull up the big girl panties and take a shot of this disgusting concoction.  So I did.  I didn't even die.  It was bad, but not as bad as I thought it would be.  

As we waxed and waned over Sandor Katz, Michael Pollan, and other pro-fermenters, lacto-fermentation, kombucha and kefir, I imagined myself drinking beet kvass on a daily basis.  I thought that would give me good street cred.  Or something.  At least to myself in my own head.  So I bought the beet kvass and the crazy sauerkraut and plan on spreading the health to the fam.  (They're so excited.)  

I came across an interesting sounding recipe if you are intrigued - it's over here.  They combine it with ginger (anti-inflammatory! anti-cancer!) and some orange (probably so you don't gag as much).  

Whaddya think?  Would you try it?  

Peace, love, and just beet it, 
Ms. Daisy

How to be totally annoying: Pool version 1.0

Perhaps you've been wondering about what exactly is behind that curtain that is called competitive swimming.  Maybe you've imagined yourself joining the crazy masses of those who find it exciting and fun to stare at the same tiles over and over and over again, who look for any sign of new scenery (a piece of chewed up gum perchance, a ponytail holder, or if it's a really exciting day, a lost pair of goggles) at the bottom of the pool.  I am here today to introduce you to pool etiquette and common swimmer thought (we can't talk while exercising, what else do you think we would be doing?), so that if you ever do go completely nuts and want to hop in, you won't be the scourge of waterworld.  

Let's have a look-see and pull back the curtain.  Let's begin with how to show everyone else that you are just pretending to be a real swimmer in a few simple steps...

Step 1: Wear a bikini (if female)/loose flowing swim trunks (if male).  This, right here, is the biggest way to advertise that you are a pretend swimmer.  If you show up with goggles and cap (thus, pretending that you are going to really swim a workout) and wear one of these taboo items, expect everyone to smile at you like you are riding a tricycle in the middle of the Tour de France.  This is like wearing soccer shoes on the golf course.  This is like wearing a dress to play basketball (especially if you are male).  But worse.  Don't be too surprised if people expect you to dog paddle the entire time you're in the water.  

good

 

bad

Step 2: Swim sidestroke/elementary backstroke/freestyle when an IM set is called.  Okay, there are some exceptions.  If you are tapering, have a knee/shoulder injury, or if your workout does not include IM (let's say you're doing a different level workout), you are wholeheartedly excused and should swim freestyle.  If, however, you are pretending to do an IM workout and switch out breastroke for free (and race the breastrokers while doing it), you are a big fat idiot.  This leads to step 3...

Step 3: Do a different workout than the people around you, then when you get to the wall ahead of them (because they swam all stroke and you didn't), look around like you are freakin' Michael Phelps and you just won your 8th Olympic gold medal.  Do not be surprised if at some time people wonder if you are secretly a leg amputee who got really real-looking legs based on your behavior.  

Step 4: Do not wait 5 seconds to go behind the person in front of you.  Instead, wait 3.5 seconds, swim up their butt, and then yell an unhesitating "YES!" when they ask if you'd like to go first.  Add to the horror by swimming free if it is an IM set.  Then triple it when you get to the wall first and glance sideways at everyone in the utmost disdain and disgust.  This is also the best way to make friends in the pool.  

Step 5:  Make a really wide stroke so that you hit everyone's hands while swimming.  The only thing better than slicing your hand into a bloody stump with a lane marker is to get suckerpunched by a wild wide stroker.  

Step 6:  Do only part of the workout because you have no endurance, then when you decide to pick it up again, race all the people who are totally out of breath from doing exactly what is called.  Resume your Michael Phelps rejoicing upon touching them out at the wall.  (People who are actually doing races and tapering are expected to do only part of the workout - this is just for the people who want to do it for their own personal glory and status.)  

Step 7:  Get out of the pool at the hardest part of the workout to "go to the bathroom" (or take a nap, or walk around in the family locker rooms to see if everyone is following the rules, or to go sit in the sauna for a few minutes).  Get back in the pool as everyone is finishing the last lap of that set with your chipper-fresh-as-a-daisy self, eager to hit up that next set and "win" it.

Step 8:  Turn around before the wall.  Yeah, I mean, it was a 100, but who wants to do a 100 when you can do an 87?  Pull while doing it.  

Step 9:  Do an open turn for the express purpose to see how far you are ahead of the people in the lanes next to you.  (Yes, we all look to see where we are in the pecking order and race like nobody's business, but for crying out loud, do it while you're in the middle of the pool like everyone else, not at the wall.)  By this, I mean, fully stop at the wall, lift yourself up a bit to see all the swimmers, then launch off wildly after them.  It's really cute.  

Step 10: Whilst warming up or as a long set is going on, jump in and push off of the wall in front of the person who is already swimming, especially if you are slower than they are, so that when they flip turn, they have to cut their pace and do dolphin dives and sculling to give you an appropriate distance so they can actually resume swimming.  If they push off the wall and splash you wildly when you stop, it was probably just an accident.

Well, that's mostly it.  With these few helpful tips, you too can be the biggest dufis in the chlorine.  

Who's ready for a pool party?  (And yes, duh, of course I bring a cap and goggles to a pool party.  Are we going to go swimming or wet standing?  You said come over and "go swimming", so yeah, that's on you.)  

Peace, love, and don't forget to pull on the lane markers,  
Ms. Daisy

The blunderous wonders of a 3 day weekend

Happy Memorial Day, everyone.  Thank you is not quite enough for those who have served, for those who have died, and for the families of both.  The words are paltry, but if we had others to use, I would use them to show the gratefulness of the sacrifices that you all have given.  

In celebration of this holiday, we usually take a trip up north.  It is still too cold to waterski (although I think in past years I may have eeked out a trip), and if I had to guess, I'd say the water was about 40 degrees.  Maybe 50.  Either way, it's the kind of cold that makes you suck in involuntarily and hurts - and if your head dares to dip below, you get the top of head frozen headache.  If you haven't ever been in that kind of water, you really should do it, not because it's fun or anything, rather mostly just to prove you are not a pansy.  

This weekend was no exception.  We did have to find a way to pack baby chicks in a couple bins to take them with us on our excursions (really not super recommended, but what can you do) as well as pack the dog (all in the same truck bed).  A stop on the way over to the feed store for some pine shaving bedding and we could almost convince my parents that chickens don't smell like horrible, filthy livestock.  (They still do.  Please, I love you, chicks, but please can you get out of my house yet?)  

I thought that I would go for a trail run the evening that we arrived - I love the path that takes me up (and I do mean vertically) through the woods, over to some sand hills, and then juts back in past a cedar swamp.  It is nice to have a different path and scenery (even if "running" up a sand hill has the same pace as walking up a sand hill).  I took the diseased dog with me, partly because she loves running and partly because every time I mention I am going to go on this trail, my mother tells me that it is entirely probable that I am going to be eaten by a bear and I figure bears would maybe rather eat a dog than me, so let's give them some menu options.  

I thought that I would go a bit longer on this run (after sitting in the car for 3-4 hours, I had plenty of stored energy), so I ran past the house after the trail run and down to the end of the road (1.1 more miles away).  I was totally down with this and tearing up the pace, but the dog was not really on board with me.  Soon, it seemed that I was dragging her behind me.  Yes.  I was dragging a dog.  This is much more unpleasant than I want it to be, what remedy is there?  I could just loop her leash over a post or tree or something and let her rest while I go to the end of the road (she would still be in sight).  Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.  There's hardly any people up here anyway.  

That looks like a good place!  I hooked her to a post on one of the last and vacant driveways and told her to sit and stay.  I ran off, gloriously faster (no 50 pound dead weight yanking my arm backwards), and turned around at the end.  I could see the small shape of the black dog sitting and waiting for me.  I got about 100 yards further and the dog started to bark the bark of alarm.  What?  What is the problem?  Why would she be barking like that...and she is turned sideways aiming at the house?  Oh great.  I couldn't run fast enough.  (As a side note, sprinting and yelling at a dog simultaneously is a great way to burn a lot of calories, but a quick way to get out of breath.)  Come on, teleporter, make me get up there.  Why hasn't someone invented a teleporter yet? (Seriously, someone needs to get on that.)  

A woman was approaching the dog, walking down her driveway, somewhat meekly as my dog was in full going-to-kill-you bark mode.  She turned short and began her evening walk.  I sprinted my guts off and debated - do I run past her and say, "Oh hi, this is my dog, I thought nobody lived here, and my dog was really tired, so I just wanted her to rest while I was running to the end..."  Explaining always sounds worse, so I just unhooked the dog and sprinted past her waving and smiling instead.  She can imagine whatever she wants, I guess.  On the way home, I learned a new way to breathe while running - it was to put my tongue on the bottom of my top teeth so I could avoid swallowing gallons of bugs (I learned this too late as I probably ate an entire protein bar's worth of bugs on that run).  

Finally, we made it home.  Now I can just take a shower and chillax, maybe read my new book about Elizabeth I.  Perfect - minus the bug sandwiches and the dog fiasco.  Except, wait.  Where are my clean underwear?  No seriously.  I unpacked my entire bag.  I have plenty of socks, 4 pairs of shoes, a plug for my ipod, I even brought Sovereign Silver and P73 Orega-Resp just in case of weird emergency.  And no underwear.  You have got to be joking me.  Awesome.  I guess my undies get a shower, too.  

Sunday was filled with a coma-like nap, the kind that you know you should be getting up because you probably slept so long it's dinner now, but when you try to open your eyes, you feel drugged and dizzy, but you are so determined to get up that you throw your legs over the side of the bed/couch and start walking...over to another place that you can lay down and go back to sleep for a while.  This is unfortunately periodically interrupted by your spouse who keeps sarcastically and dramatically asking you if you are okay, and if something is wrong with you, and purposely loud enough so that your mother hears, who will really actually think you are sick and start bombing you with questions about your health when all you want to do is alternate between punching your husband with his sarcastically amused expression (at the success of getting your mother involved) and actually going back to your sleep coma.  Monday has to be better.  

Except at 4:30 a.m. you wake up to the worst pain in your elbow ever experienced by humans on earth and conclude that you are dying of a black widow or brown recluse spider bite.  The elbow looks like a swollen freakshow and bending or not bending it makes you wish you knew how to do self-amputation.  But wait!  There is danger!  Perhaps that spider is still in the bedding.  I must wake my husband and save his life.  "Honey, I think I just got bit by a venomous spider.  It might still be here!"  

Hubby grumbles, "What?  What do you want me to do?"  

"We need to get up and check!"  

Hubby, "What?!  Didn't you do this like a few months ago and there was no spider?"  

Me, "Seriously!  Are you even talking about that!?  No, I don't recall that.  Just get up, I'm turning on the light."  On goes the light.  He appears half awake.  I am full-blown awake and on a mission to eradicate death spiders, ripping covers and pillows off, onto the floor, but then worrying that the spider already escaped to the floor and is now under the bedding and will likely bite me again.  I sit up in bed.  My hair falls onto my arm, and I do a freak out dance.  "Please can you look up spider bites on your phone?"  

"Right now?  Let me see your elbow.  It doesn't look like a spider bite."  

"Well what the heck else do you think I would wake up suddenly from in the middle of the night in excrutiating pain from?!  It has to be!"  I plod downstairs to get an ice pack for my pathetic pain.  

Hubby, "Google says you could have MRSA.  That is so gross, and I'm laying in bed with you."  

WHAT?!  "First of all, no, I do not have MRSA.  And secondly, what did you just say?  I am probably dying of a brown recluse bite and you're accusing me of having MRSA!"  Finally, after an hour or so, I fall back to sleep (hubby had no problem with that and was at snore level 3 within minutes), cuddling with an ice pack and dreaming of spiders and snake bites.  As morning dawns, I look at it, hoping it is better, but it is worse.  I want to go home and get activated charcoal.  Why don't my parents have weird things in their medicine cabinet?  My mom and dad bring me epsom salt, and my mom suggests that a wasp stung me.  Mom, a wasp?  It was 4:00 in the morning.  Well, it could be, she says.  Dad looks at it, he thinks he sees something.  I soak my arm in epsom salt in the sink and decide I am probably going to die so I should either pack up and rush home (3-4 hour drive) or go the opposite way, into town, to the urgent care/emergency room.  But which one?  I call the emergency room.  They tell me that they can't give me medical advice over the phone.  Thank you.  Awesome.  

I resign myself to my death and tell hubby we probably should go into town to the ER (especially after hearing that my friend's daughter went into shock and delerium from her brown reculse bite).  Upon hearing this, the littles cry out, "Are you going to die, Mom!?"  Well, I hope not, I say, trying to be brave.  I will probably survive, I lie to child #1.  This is very concerning to them because I would only subject myself to traditional allopathic medicine under dire life and limb circumstances and here I am suggesting we go.  As we drive to town, I suggest to my husband that this is our anniversary date.  He laughs.  I wonder if I can get flowers out of this.   

After answering the question, "Do you work?" to the urgent care receptionist with "Well, not really.  Unless you want to buy some Norwex.  I have some here in my purse.  Would you like to see a demo?" I am satisfied that I could entertain myself sufficiently here.  She tells me that there will be an hour wait and I ask her if she would like to take a bribe of some Norwex and bump me up a few people.  For some reason, she just laughs.  Oh well, I tried.  

We finally get in to the room where we are going to see the PA or whatever he is and he walks in with stylish dark rimmed glasses and says he is from California and that I probably do not have a spider bite.  I am scowling inside with disdain.  Not have a spider bite!  Like I believe you!  And then he tells me that people come in everyday saying they have spider bites.  What EVER.  He suggests antibiotics and NSAIDs.  I filter that through my head as "Sovereign Silver and turmeric".  He comes down with the diagnosis (not a spider bite, I'm so sure) - bursitis of the elbow.  What am I, like 65?  Bursitis?  He says I should wear a sling and I make a face with wild eyebrows.  "You're totally not going to wear a sling, are you?"  Well, no.  I will tie myself up with an ace bandage when I get back, though.  

Sigh.  Memorable vacations.  

Peace, love, and I can't wait until 4th of July, 
Ms. Daisy

A new house! And chickens!

Hello, dearies.  It has been a while and I sincerely do apologize, but I have a good enough reason (whether you want to call it an excuse or not is up to you) - and that is that I have moved from being a city chicken to a country in the city chick.  Yay and hooray!  

This move is great in that we get a bit of a bigger house (and you'll remember that we were just lolling about free ranging in our 950 square feet previously) and have acquired something like an extra 200 or 300 square feet more.  This, unfortunately, did not come in the way of having my own bathroom, but the dining room is a freaking paradise that I can do cartwheels in.  I'll take it.  And mad props to all of you who over the last twelve years sat with us smashed to the walls in our previous dining room.  It was cozy and we loved it, but now you just won't have to sit in my lap while eating your mashed potatoes.  (You still can if you want to, I'm just saying you don't have to.)  

This move has also granted us something I've been wishing and hoping and dreaming for - more property and some chickens.  Yes, that's right, I'm officially an urban (? perhaps suburban?) farmer.  We have 5 adult hens that came with the house who lay delicious eggs at a rate of about 3 daily (unfortunately for us, we eat 6 eggs a day around here...) - and might I add, if you thought I had food snobbery issues previously, it is at an all time high for eggs now with the advent of walking to my backyard to a coop and pulling out a freshly laid egg under the sassy, happy chickens. 

These layers are old (in terms of chicken life) - they're 4 or 5 years old.  We knew that they will not be able to lay eggs forever, so we went down to the country feed store and ordered 8 baby chicks (if you'd like to know deets: I have 4 Isa Browns, 3 Rhode Island Reds, and 1 Aracauna - the Aracauna and one of the Reds are my favorites.). 

Right now these little girls are living in a box in my kitchen under a heat lamp.  They provide hours of entertainment for us and the German Shepherd dog.  It sounds like I have tweety birds in my house nearly 24 hours a day.  The also provide lots of poop.  That's not so fun, but I guess it comes with the territory.  (Their poop pales in comparison with what the hens out in the coop can do, though.  And those girls ain't got nothing on my EPI diseased dog.  If you need manure...)  

One thing I did not really know (or experience, I guess I should say) was how terrified chickens really are.  You know how back in the day kids would cluck at other kids and call them a chicken when they wouldn't take a dare or do something...well, they got that from real chickens, yes, it's true.  Chickens are the most fraidy-cat things I've ever seen.  When I reach over the edge of their box to give them a fresh batch of water or feed, they run and peep like I was weilding the Almighty Hand of Certain Death at them.  Have I ever, ever, ever done anything to you?  Have I not always held you gently with two hands and treated you like you were made of porcelain?  Do I not relentlessly care for you and your poopy ways?  Yeah, that piece of grass in the middle of the box that I put in for you is probably an atomic bomb, you're right.

The house is on an acre which means hubby can go out there and shoot his bow and arrow much farther than he was able to do which makes him crazy happy.  It also has a riding tractor lawn mower, which makes kid #1 think he died and went to heaven.  I have a view out of my bedroom to a pond with a fountain and as we're up on a hill, I can see 2 miles away to a water tower ball (I know that for all of you who live on property and can see far away that you are wondering what on earth I would care about this for, but my farthest view before this was to a row of houses across the street.  It's crazy how cool it is.).  There's a giganto fire pit that I can make blazing infernos in and I can see the stars when I go out at night.  It all sounds like I am bragging, but my aim is to tell you that I'm thankful and I am keenly aware of how blessed I am to be here in this place.  

I will be putting in the garden soon and getting the veggies going for the season, and then I'll really feel like a farmer (I'll wear my cowboy hat and boots to make it work even better...probably should get some overalls, though, too.).  It's a great feeling.  If you want to tour Daisy Farm and you're local, just let me know.  We sell refreshing kombucha and water kefir and make our own mayo (with eggs from the backyard hens).  It's your one stop entertainment center, as you can see.  As for now, I need to go tear up some ground.  

Peace, love, and chicken poo,
Ms. Daisy