#41 Going Green Part 1

I calculated my carbon footprint with all 3 calculators, and I was very surprised to see that I'm above average. I recycle and try to be conservative with my A/C and driving, but I obviously have lots more room for improvement.

I have been to several Farmer's markets, and I love the produce they have. I really miss having a vegetable garden. Since I've moved here to the city, I haven't had one the last 2 years. There is nothing better than home grown tomatoes, green beans, and new potatoes.

#40 Fitness

I have had several fitness tests done in the past and have always been pleased with the results. I eat fairly healthy, and I exercise regularly. My BMI is 19.5, which is in my healthy range of 18.5 to 24.9, but as I said in my last post, I'm blessed with a good metabolism, so that is mostly genetics. I can eat 2,768 calories, which is more than I thought, but that means I can splurge on ice cream more than I do now. :)

I took the questionaire to determine my health age. I was pleasantly surprised that it came out 10 years younger than my actual age. My estimated life span is 98.1 years! Wow!

Now I want to continue with my fitness routine, maybe add another class (time permitting) and I definitely want to improve my eating. I need to add more vegetables. Maybe I can even live to 100!

#39 NUTRITION

I looked at the Nutrition Data website. While it is interesting, it's not something I would use. I calculated my BMI, which was good and how many calories I need to consume each day. It was higher than I thought it could be, not that I ever count calories. (I'm one of those people blessed with a wonderful metabolism.) I don't care much for fast food, but for fun, I compared the kind of pizza I would get from Pizza Hut with the kind my friend always gets. My choice has fewer calories and less fat. I also looked up the nutrional value of my favorite treat, sweet cream ice cream. The 2 scoops I always get is as many calories as 3 slices of supreme pizza. I'd rather have the ice cream!

I liked the Recipe.SparkPeople.com site. I may actually use this site. I entered my chicken and broccoli alfredo recipe. It isn't very high calories and has lots of vitamins, more nutritional than I thought!

Chicken Broccoli Alfredo

2 chicken breasts cut in pieces
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup frozen broccoli
1 can mushroom soup
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
10 oz linguine

Cook chicken breasts in a small amount of olive oil, add mushrooms, cook until done. Cook linguine, add broccoli to water in last 10 minutes of cooking. Drain, add chicken and musrooms, mushroom soup, and 1/2 cup parmesan cheese. Stir well. Serve topped with parmesan cheese.

#35 GAMES & GAMING

I played FreeRice and Wordsplay. I did pretty well at FreeRice. I liked that it gives you the correct answer if you miss a word, and then shows it again, so you can get it right the second time. This helps you remember the definition for words you may not have known. Wordsplay was fun! I didn't do as well with it, but I think the more you played, the better you'd get. Both games were easy to learn. I can see the benefits of these games. They're educational, and they'd be especially helpful for seniors (of which I'm soon to be one) keep their brains alert.

Spring Cleaning #30

I put a file on the S Drive, then deleted it. This is very easy. I looked at the P Drive for our branch. I had a few files on there from when I first started working here, and didn't have my own profile yet. I moved those to my Z Drive. I also deleted some old children's files that I know will no longer be needed, ones that were left by my predecessor. I hope the rest of the staff will go through and organize their files on the P Drive. I had already looked at my Z Drive to clean it up and organize it. I have only worked for Harris County for a year, so I didn't have anything very old to delete.

Spring Cleaning #29

As I mentioned in my last post, I already organize my e-mail. I've had people laugh at me, because I don't like clutter in my e-mail the same as I don't like clutter on my desk. I have folders for e-mails I want to keep. However, I don't have a pending folder. I usually keep pending items in my inbox, until I get them done, or feel it's safe to delete them. I do this with my personal e-mail account as well. I like having them where I can see them to remind me that action needs to be taken on them. I do delete them when the action is done. I also keep my bookmarks organized and have created folders for them. Even though I already do most of these things, I thought the Clean Out Your Computer article had some good tips for organizing files on computers.

SPRING CLEANING #28

I thought the article on GTD was very interesting. I am a very organized person, almost to a fault, and I absolutely hate any kind of clutter. I already do many of the things that GTD talked about. Since I hate clutter, my e-mail is always organized. I have folders set up, and I delete anything immediately that I don't need, and I empty my trash about once a week. Yes, sometimes I delete things that I wish I'd kept, but that bothers me less than the clutter.

I always do items that don't take much time right then. I also follow the practice of filing, throwing out, or incubating (setting aside to deal with at a later point). It was interesting to me that I already do this without realizing it was a formal way to deal with mail or paperwork.

I use a weekly calendar on which I write down appointments and important things that need to be done. I keep it on my desk at work. I always use an inspirational calendar with pretty pictures and interesting sayings. It brightens up my work space, and lets me look forward to a new week with a new picture and saying.

I already use G-Mail, so I signed up for Google's online calendar. This will give me a monthly calendar (since I already have a weekly calendar) to see at a glance what is going on for the month. I will try to use it more, so I can get more comfortable using an online calendar.

Next Generation #26

The music networking sites look like they would be fun for music enthusiasts. I am, personally, not a music fanatic. I listen to music some, but it's not something I'm really into. I assume Mog stands for music blog. It's interesting seeing what songs other people like and their comments. The Phling website has cute graphics. I do like the features of being able to listen to songs before you commit to buying the CD or paying to download the song I listened to some songs on Imeem just to see what the young people are listening to. I have heard of some of the artists, but haven't heard their songs, so this was a good chance to listen to some of their music.

I chose to go to JamStudio to attempt to create a song. I did take piano lessons many years ago, so I know a little about music. It was very easy, though. I played around with the different keys and different drum sounds. Of course, if I was willing to pay for more options, my song would have been really good.

The Next Generation #25

Hey, I did it! It was very easy to burn the song onto a CD. I just clicked on copy, and the song was in my to burn list, then I clicked on start burn. Yes, I do still use CDs. I listen to them in my car. Even though, I have an mp3 player, I don't use it. It was given to me as a gift. Probably because I don't seem to have the time to copy songs onto it. Or more likely, I just haven't taken the time to do it.

The copyright issue is a tough one. If I were a musician/artist, I would definitely want credit for my work. I would also want to get paid for it. :) On the other hand with new technology, I think we are going to have to redefine copyright and the ways we think about information, music, movies, etc. I don't have an answer.

IHCPL: The Next Generation #24

I have heard a lot about i tunes, but I've never looked at the sites to download music. Napster, Yahoo, and Rhapsody all charge by the month, which would be convenient if you download entire CDs, or if you went in with a friend, and you both could download as much as you like. I didn't like Napster, because it put me into one of those continuous loops, that you can't get out of. It looked like i tunes charges by the song. I didn't see a monthly fee, but I may have overlooked it.

I have listened to the radio from my computer before, and it is a nice feature. I wasn't able to get Sunny 99.1 to work for me, but other stations worked just fine.

I downloaded a song from music.download.com. It was easy once I realized I couldn't download just any song I wanted. It had to be one of their free downloads. I have an MP3 player, so copying the song to it was easy for me.