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As many of my facebook loyalists know, I’ve been eating veggies lately, which is really weird for me. For several years now, I’ve been on a “at least 1 serving of fruit or veggies per day” diet (hey, you gotta start somewhere) and I have been very good at keeping or beating it…but mostly with fruit(s). I’ve come to really enjoy my apple, pear, banana, pineapple, cherries, strawberries, or orange juice every day, but I still rarely eat vegetables, mostly because I don’t like many of them. Like, rarely; think of the last time you ate vegetables. Now add at least one week. I started adding onion to my hamburgers, though (I don’t count corn or iceberg lettuce as any nutritional value). Rarely veggies…I think you get it.

So, the big news is that in the last two days I’ve had a bowl of salad. With our garden I have plenty of spinach and lettuce but nothing (yet) to put on them, so I went to the store and bought cauliflower, snap peas, a carrot, a cucumber, and dried cranberries (the ones without added sugar) to make my leaves more interesting. And that they were. I can’t say salad holds a candle to pot roast or pizza in the taste department, but calorie-wise and nutritionally they are off the charts. For me anyway.

Oh, and I must add: thanks to all my supporters (Jen, Jas, Tara, Linds, Paco Taco)!!! They have all been pushing me (gently) toward better health through a more nutritious diet and a wider variety of foods, and without them I still wouldn’t know what garbanzo beans are! Love and hugs to all of you, and a big round of applause!

Now for the more random bits: Earlier this week I also ate tomatoes in Tara’s pasta sauce instead of delicately pushing them aside. I ate my first home-grown strawberry – it was delish! I also cut my first few scallion out of the garden…it is soooo fragrant! Mmmmm!

to a garage! (almost.)

Handsome and I spent hours in the garage today – cleaning, rearranging, tossing, and taking pictures for craigslist posts. Note: This is AFTER we took 3 Prius-loads of stuff to Goodwill. We started in the back, and when we stopped for lunch you could hardly tell (from the entrance to the house) that we’d made a dent! Mind you we have ex- and current roommates’ stuff to contend with, as well as a bunch of old furniture, tools, holiday crap, painting supplies, camping gear, skis, board games, etc. etc. etc. Did I mention a ping-pong table? Yeah, tons of shit.

We slowly worked our way toward the house, though, and now there’s a walkway from one corner to the other without having to squeeze by that box, step over that chair, and avoid kicking the old monitor on your way. The organization part is left; everything is sorted into like groups, but they need to be organized on the shelves we just freed up. Oh, and the selling part; we have about 20 sq. ft. of stuff we hope to rid ourselves of in the near future. For cash, of course!

Today This weekend has been fabulous. Yesterday Handsome and I went to Vancouver to fix ChickenSox’s Xbox 360 and followed it up with a visit to our new glass-blowing friend’s house in Portland. We saw his cute 15 week-old pit bull terrier puppy, Willow, and chatted for awhile before coming home to see Terminator, which was awesome. (Lots of explosions and action.) Today I did a bunch of cleaning and yardwork in the sunshine – it was loverly, and George joined me and happily barked and everything and nothing in the neighborhood – followed by a trip to Goodwill to deliver some unwanteds and then food at the Mongolian grill and then, of course, UFC PPV! A bunch of friends wound up over here, and it was lots of fun to chat and root and cheer with them on a variety of topics. So far, what a wonderful 4-day Memorial Day Weekend!

You’ve got to be promising something pretty enticing to voluntarily get me out of bed at 7am on a Saturday, especially after a Friday night party.

As it turns out, french toast, eggs, and bacon with a glass of apple juice will do it.

I don’t get impressed easily by technology; rather, I’m in the habit of expecting “more” flawlessly, seamlessly, and instantaneously. Wolfram|Alpha impresses me and I can’t wait to use it.

Have you ever had that dream where you get really frustrated with someone because they won’t give you the answer you’re looking for, but then you realize the reason they can’t give you the answer is because your brain doesn’t know it?

Okay, blog reader(s), question for you:

Which would you prefer to support, corn-based plastic bottles (PLA) made from a blend of non-GMO and GMO corn resin or petroleum-based plastic bottles (PET)?

For those of you not familiar with plastics, most commercial plastics are petroleum-based. (I didn’t know this until just recently either.)  These plastics are made through the chemical alteration of petroleum – a non-renewable resource as you know – and produces considerable waste not only in processing but in disposal. Much has been done and is being done in the petroleum-based plastics recycling, but ultimately much of this plastic winds up in landfills (for a variety of reasons*) where it does not break down readily.

Research and development in recent years have led to technological advances in plastics made from renewable resources such as plant starch – in this case polylactide (PLA). The refining of this polymer removes all traces of genetic material from the polymer, but the corn used in this process is currently a mix of non-GMO and GMO corn. The company does not specifically endorse or require GMO corn to produce this plastic.  Because these bottles are made from plant starch, they are compostable in an industrial composting facility. Other disposal options include recycling, chemical recycling, and incineration in waste-to-energy systems.

The company I work for, Highland Laboratories, is the first dietary supplement manufacturer in the US to package our supplements in PLA bottles. We are a very environmentally-minded business and are planning to unfurl a vitamin brand soon that touts the eco-friendly efforts put into making it. Some are concerned that because our bottles come partially from GMO corn, stores will not want to sell them in response to the growing concern about GMO crops. Others believe that PLA is a step in the right direction toward sustainability and that anything that reduces our dependence (as a species) on petroleum is a better alternative although not necessarily the final solution.

What do you think?

*sigh* I have a serious amount of broken shit at my house, and three glorious “fun-filled” days of trying to make it work. In no particular order:

• Our microwave doesn’t turn anymore. It heats, but unevenly, and makes a funny rattling noise of the motor trying to turn but not being successful. It’s not an old microwave so it should work. No one knows why it stopped turning. UPDATE 3: Handsome spent 3 hours cleaning and inspecting it today. No luck…it’s really broken. After an extensive search online, it sounds like the exact motor is impossible to find but a substitute for about $30 has worked in most cases.
• Our A/C is having the same friggin’ problem as last year, so I suspect it’s leaked all its puron somewhere, and I believe it might be all over the side of the house. This year, however, I’m calling someone new that won’t charge me almost $500 NOT to fix it. And I need to clean the air filter for the heating/cooling system.
• Our hot tub control panel isn’t working. I sent it in for repair, they sent it back, and it still didn’t work. They sent me a brand new control. IT still doesn’t work. The funny thing is, when I unplug the controls from the control box, the hot tub turns on to heat to its default hot-ness. When I plug it in, it stops but the control panel is “all on” (all the lights are on and the LED panel reads all 8s). No amount of resetting or button-pushing makes a difference. UPDATE: The main circuit panel is broken, not the topside controls. All I need to do is send that in, and return the replacement panel, and they will fix/replace it and send it back. UPDATE 3: I tried to take the circuit board out of the hot tub (with the power switch to “OFF”) and shocked the shit out of myself. I think perhaps flipping the breaker would be a good idea next try.
  
• Our garbage disposal stopped working on Eric’s birthday night and no one knows why or when. The motor turns on but the blades don’t spin, so I suspect someone put something disposal unfriendly down it and then conveniently failed to tell anyone. UPDATE 2: Fixed! I had to take it off the sink and jam a screwdriver into it, but on the bright side I now know (extensively) how the garbage disposal works!
• The right headlight on my Prius is out. It’s a high-density bulb that takes about an hour for someone to get to, but it’s under factory warranty still so Toyota will fix it for free. I just have to get it there. UPDATE: Fixed, and they adjusted the left one that has been too low since the August accident.
• One of the recessed lights in our vaulted ceiling is out. It’s hard to get to, even with a tall ladder. UPDATE 2: So I made this one sound harder and more difficult than it was. Four working lights!

About 100 things are happening simultaneously in my life right now…

The “premium bedding mix” and stepping stones have been delivered (in the rain) and are eagerly awaiting placement in the garden. Currently they are occupying the driveway into our back cement slab (in the rain).

This last weekend we went camping (in the rain). It was great as usual…we went to our “normal” place because we had a larger group of people and we all arrived at different times (in the rain). We had lots of good food and celebrated my roommate’s 29th birthday around the campfire (in the rain).

I’m supposed to be buying off of craigslist NCIS: Season One for a coworker, but I keep not being able to make it to the guy’s house in south Salem. I was supposed to get it last week, but then my headlight went out and I went to Toyota instead. I was supposed to drop by Sunday, but with the returning from camping and the volunteering at the Humane Society, I totally forgot. I asked to come by Wednesday, and I’m dearly hoping my brain remembers on my way home from work. This would be great to write on my hand.

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo and the pot luck at work. I agreed to make Mexican Wedding Cakes, which aren’t cakes at all but rather delicious cookie balls made of powdered sugar, flour, butter, vanilla, and finely chopped walnut goodness. I made a double-batch for Eric and the roommates lest they complain that I never make them anything.

I think there are other things too, but my brain is tired (and sick of rain). It’s time for bed. Goodnight!