Nebulous Mooch

When I was in fourth grade I got my first pair of glasses. I still remember the first day I wore them to school. I was so shocked by how clear everything looked. All that time I’d thought that everyone else saw the world in blurry shapes just like I did. I remember saying to my mother, “Wow! Trees aren’t just blobs of green. They have individual leaves.”

I wasn’t the kid who desperately wanted to get rid of my glasses so I could be one of the cool girls. I though glasses were cool. I thought I looked great in them. That is until my husband got lasik eye surgery.

I would never get an eye operation. Just mentioning eye operations now is making my eyes tear up, but I don’t want to wear my glasses any more. I’ve decided to deal with this problem by trying Bates Exercises.

The Bates Method is a series of exercises that are supposed to improve your eyesight. The theory is that the muscles around your eyes can change the shape of your eyes to improve your ability to focus. Bates developed a series of eye exercise you could do to train the muscles around your eyes improving your vision.

I decided to start doing these exercises. Well, that’s not exactly the truth. I’ve decided to make up my own exercises because I’m too lazy to look up what the Bates Exercises actually  are. I also really like making things up, like stories, dances and dessert recipes. My made-up cookies are pretty darn good, I think I could accomplish equally good results with made up eye exercises.

When I’m in the car with my husband at night I take off my glasses and concentrate really hard on seeing. I’m not driving when I do this my husband is. It’s a good thing too because as soon as I take off my glasses all I can see is a bunch of streaky lights that look like snow flakes. I’ve put myself on a strict eye exercise routine. My husband says that the exercises just look like I’m making a really serious face, but that’s because he can’t see the tiny movements that are actually going on in my eye muscles. I do this for about 1 minute twice a week.

Is it working? Of course it is. Now when I walk around without glasses, I can see slightly more detailed blobs of color in the distance. Okay, that’s not true either, but I figure that if I pretend it’s working it will work…eventually.

Sorry guys, but there is no video today. My husband is very enthusiastic about packing and most of our home is in boxes. He has arranged most of them in the bedroom because he’s trying to figure out how to pack them into the storage unit. So really I guess I’m the only one with the organizational skills of a tadpole in this house. Don’t worry I won’t show you the toad video ago.

I have something even better than a toad video this time. Here are some great tips about how to slow grind the next time you’re in a dance club. Nothing nasty here. These time are for respectful slow grinding.

Did you know that there is a miracle product residing in your kitchen cupboard? I kind of knew, but was only truly convinced of the baking soda miracle this week when I used it to clean my oven.

When I was in college I took a Spanish class taught by a very interesting teacher. Though I managed not to learn a word Spanish in the class, I did learn about the many uses for baking soda. The teacher spent an entire lesson droning on and on about the uses of baking soda once. The baking soda class and the class he spent explaining how to shrink a human head were the two most memorable classes. At the end of the head shrinking class, he warned us against trying to shrink heads ourselves by saying, “But in some countries there are laws.” Fortunately, there are no laws about the use of baking soda. Here’s a list of things you can do with baking soda.

Note: Baking soda is different from baking powder but the same as bicarbonate soda.

Clean Your Oven: Make a paste with baking soda and water. Put the paste on the dirty bits in your over and let it set over night. In the morning use a wet sponge to wipe it away. If your oven is crazy dirty you’ll have to put some elbow grease into it.

Deodorant: On one of my trips to Florida I forgot to pack deodorant. I put some baking soda under my arms in the morning to keep me smelling fresh when I went to the store to get deodorant. The baking soda worked so well that I never bought deodorant again. Now I feel like deodorant is a scam.

Freshen Your Carpet: Sprinkle some baking soda on you stinky carpet, let it sit for 20 minutes, and then vacuum it up.

Brighten Up Your Wash: Add a cup of baking soda to your laundry to brighten up you wash.

Cool Science Projects: Make a spectacular eruption for your model volcano by mixing baking soda and water.

Are you convinced yet?

Photo by [F]oxymoron

When kicking beautiful autumn leaves as you walk down the sidewalk, beware of dog turds.

I love kimchi. Most people who know me know that. I always have a big jar of it in the back of the fridge. I used to buy kimchi already made, but now I only make my own. It tastes better when I make it myself. I love eating kimchi fried rice, kimchi soup and kimchi pancakes. Sometimes I make my kimchi with Chinese cabbage and sometimes I make it with bok choy.

Last week when it came time for me to make a new batch of kimchi, I pulled the bok choy I’d bought earlier in the week out of the fridge and to my surprise found that I only had two heads of it. Usually I use three. I started making the batch and thought it was going to be too small. I was looking in the fridge to see if I had any Chinese cabbage to add to it when I found a bag of spinach. Spinach is green and leafy just like bok choy, I though. I convinced myself that padding my kimchi out with it could be just fine. Even as I added the spinach to the kimchi I had my doubts, but I soldiered on.

About a week later a terrible smell started coming from the fridge. It was the kimchi. I know you’re probably thinking that kimchi always stinks, but this was not the normal kimchi smell. When I opened the kimchi jar the smell jumped out and kicked me in the face. It was horrible. I tasted it and it tasted even more horrible then it smelled. I reluctantly gave it to my husband to eat and he did! He did say that it smelled and tasted funny though.

I took the kimchi out to try to make kimchi pancakes with it for lunch today and I just couldn’t. It smelled so terrible that I had to throw the whole batch away along with the jar it was in.

So my tip for the day is never use spinach to make kimchi.

Don’t stick your finger in a pot of boiling water…

Most people should know this, but seeing as I just did it myself I thought I might pass this useful tip along. I’ve learned from experience. You don’t have to do the same. Just take my word for it.

If you have files on your computer that you might need in the future, but you’re not quite sure where to store them don’t keep them in your computer’s recycle bin. My husband emptied my recycle bin for me not to long ago. He thought he was doing me a favor, but I actually needed some of those files. Oh, well. You live and learn, apparently.

Last night we had ratatouille for dinner. It was good, but there was a small amount left over. I was trying to figure out what to do with the leftovers to feed both of us for lunch today when I came across a wonderful suggestion online. Ratatouille omelets!!! It may not seem very good to you, but you have to trust me on this one.

Just make an omelet like you normally would. Then put goat cheese in it. Follow that up with some ratatouille. Now fold that bad boy in half and slide it out of the pan.

This is the best leftover recipe I’ve ever had. Even if you weren’t planning on eating ratatouille any time soon I suggest you make it just so you can have this omelet the next day. Heck, you could even skip eating the plain ratatouille and just jump right to the omelet part. Click here for the ratatouille recipe I use.