Joyriding at Disneyland!

Healthy Snack

I thought it was so clever of Susan to review a food item in her blog, so now I'm following suit. I love these Nabisco Garden Harvest Toasted Chips! I tried the Vegetable Medley flavor. They kind of remind me of Doritos, but a little grainier and with a veggie taste (duh!) . Each serving (16 chips) is 120 calories and has 3 grams of fiber. They are made with whole grain wheat flour and are "naturally flavored." I'm one of those people who needs a lot of crunch to my food--I've read that this means I'm stressed and anxious (who me?). I'm actually eating them right now, just so I can be accurate in my reviewing. Now it's on to my Diet Cherry Pepsi to wash it down . . . Well, I went to get the Pepsi that I put in the freezer to cool off faster, and now it's half frozen! I usually set the timer, but forgot to this time. I'll just have to keep blogging till it thaws out . . . Apparently I'm not sufficiently aware of the physics of frozen soda. It has managed to come out of the top of the can and spill all over the tablecloth. Is this some sort of punishment for drinking a caffeinated beverage, or just part of my really bad day?

Questions

I find myself constantly nagged by questions of all sorts, which is why I love Wikipedia so much. Tonight I went to Walmart, got a cart, and wondered, "When did people start using shopping carts? Were they always so big? What do shopping carts say about our society?" So I looked it up. Here's what I learned:

• The first shopping cart was invented by Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Piggly-Wiggly in Oklahoma City in 1937.
• They advertised the invention as part of a new “No Basket Carrying Plan.”
• The invention did not catch on immediately. Men found them effeminate; women found them suggestive of a baby carriage. "I've pushed my last baby buggy," offended women informed him. After hiring several male and female models to push his new invention around his store and demonstrate their utility, as well as greeters to explain their use, shopping carts became extremely popular and Goldman became a multimillionaire.
• The basket size of the shopping cart increased as stores have realized that their customers purchased more as its size increased.
• Shopping carts have been ranked third on the list for worst public items to touch. This is probably due to the fact that most shopping carts are used by many different people and that the seat where babies sit on with one customer may be used for fruit and raw meat by another. (I think next time I shop I may have to do a Niles Crane or Adrian Monk move and disinfect the entire cart!)

Check out the entire article on shopping carts--in case you have any burning questions of your own.
Also, there's an intriguing website about a classification system for stray shopping carts called The Stray Shopping Cart Project. You'll never look at a stray shopping cart the same way again.

Bookworm Banter

I haven't been much of a bookworm lately, but thanks to Jeremy's 2.5 hour soccer practice, I was able to read Housekeeping Secrets My Mother Never Taught Me. You see, I would much rather read about housework than actually do it. But I get books like this from the library occasionally in hopes of motivating myself to get my house clean. It is actually pretty clean right now, so it must have worked! The book was almost a "Housework for Dummies" kind of a book, but here are a few hints that I liked and thought could be useful:

• To remove burned-on starch from an iron, iron salt on a sheet of wax paper. Put newspaper under the wax paper.
• To prevent runs in your pantyhose, dampen and freeze them when you first buy them. Thaw them in a sink or tub, and then let them dry. (Think it will work?)
• The right way to tuck in a shirt: there should be two pinch pleats in front, one above each hip bone and two in back, below the shoulder blades. Everywhere else should be smooth and unwrinkled. (Who knew?)
• To dust knick-knacks, use a blow dryer set on low. Aim the dryer down.
• The toilet paper should unroll from the top so the pattern shows and you can fold the end into a point that rests on the roll. (I've seen this at Tiffani's, the queen of homemaking)
• Use hairspray to immobilize a fly so that you can swat it. (This was my favorite--I hate flies that never land!)
• Use a mouse pad under a cutting board or bowl to keep it from slipping.

Happy Homemaking!

We did it again!

Another 12 miles to the Doppler and back with Sara and Sherri on Saturday. This time I had better shoes, although it was VERY HOT! Here is a photo of the lovely view of the smog:

Here's a photo of the Doppler as we got nearer to the end, when the exhaustion sets in:

I did have Sherri take a picture of me at the top, but I just can't bring myself to post it--I look pretty bad. So you'll just have to take my word for it that I made it!

myTunes

This is the best thing to happen to me since I discovered In 'n' Out! Now I can add a list of a lot of my favorite songs to my blog. It's like an early Christmas! I also got a new lawn mower today. Things are really going my way. Everybody get listening! It would only take you about 2.5 hours to listen to them all!
Adding the play list did weird things to my blog. I'll have to try to fix it . . . tomorrow.