asana of the month

chaturanga dandasana is pose of the month at tranquil space. i feel like it has not been that long since this pose was asana of the month, but that might just be because my abs have a good memory.

yoga journal's picture shows the elbow at a right angle which i have heard can be hard on wrists. so it's fine for the wrists to be a little bit more forward.

haircut

documentation of the ongoing struggle (perhaps that's too strong a word, quest maybe? like the quest to find the perfect pair of jeans...) to find the best hair cut. i debated with going short again, but that is a big commitment, so i settled for the - take at least 2 inches off and layer it how ever you want - approach.

i really want to know when straight hair is going to go out of style enough for stylists to feel okay letting me leave without straightening my hair. mostly because i was happier thinking it was impossible for my hair to look this well behaved. i sure as hell am not going to add a half hour of blow drying to my morning, but it was nice thinking it was because of genetics not just laziness.

baking marathon

while at my mom's i ended up with an empty day... so i did a lot of baking. in this photo you can see a variety of cookies (peanut butter, cherry chocolate, gingerbread, apricot) and banana muffins.

oddly my mom has spent years adapting recipes to take whole wheat flour and honey, but now can't eat those things. so i had to reconvert some recipes back to sugar and white flour. 1 cup of sugar is about the same sweetness as 1/2 cup of honey, but then you have added another dry ingredient rather than liquid. so some liquid generally had to be added (apple sauce , yogurt). for the most part they came out well despite this need for adapting, although i think the gingerbread cookies (which went from molasses to brown sugar) were pretty bland.

Reserved Idealist

Reserved Idealist

benevolent inventor

Benevolent Inventor

beads

craft projects are typically something read about over here. but i am here to report that work has been started on a bead wreath that may end up as a christmas gift. the most notable thing about this project is it started after having seen something i really liked in a boutique. i looked at it and thought, "i could make that." this is not something that typically occurs to me unless one is referring to a very simple html page or strong coffee.

How my job works....

Since I get asked, on a semi-regular basis, to explain what my job is and how it works, I thought I would save everyone some time and effort with the aid of this handy flow-chart. I wish I could claim credit for its creation, as it truly captures the essence of my field.

New links to good causes....

Those of you who have been obsessively reading our two-post blog (and really, who hasn't been?) will have noticed a slight change. We now have two new entries in the "links" section, to Malaria No More and Nothing But Nets. Nothing But Nets is an amazing effort put together by Sports Illustrated, and you can read more about it here and here.

Malaria, for those with less morbid reading habits than mine, is a mosquito-transmitted disease that kills over one million people, every year. Most of these are children under the age of five. If you click on one of the two links, you will be taken to a site where you will learn as much as you care to know about this disease and the efforts being made to combat it. You will also be given the chance to make a fairly straightforward transaction.

Donate $10, save the life of a child.

Malaria is almost exclusively a disease of the poor, because the methods to prevent it are almost pathetically simple, effective, and cheap. Unless, of course, you are living in an impoverished village in Africa, in which case even the most basic of measures is far beyond your reach. Ten dollars covers the cost of purchasing and distributing an insecticide-treated bed net. Bed nets protect the children during the night while they are sleeping and the mosquitoes are most active, and have been proven to drastically reduce malaria cases and deaths.

Ten dollars to save a child's life. You won't find many better deals than that.

I am not a myth....

jak pointed out that if I never post anything, people won't believe I really exist, so.... ::waves::

tofu power

watch out that tofu dog could be making your kids gay! according to world daily news "Soybean products are feminizing." While we are reassured that soy sauce is okay, pretty much all other soy products should be avoided. soy infant formula is likely causing rampant homosexuality, obesity, leukemia, infertility and (naturally) cancer. thanks to the dailykos for this find.