This past Monday my husband said, “Look at our neighbor’s Jeep. He’s been tearing up the roads. That’s irresponsible.” Yes, throwing up that much mud does leave deep ruts in dirt roads, making it hard for other drivers when the mud eventually dries. As we can see from the above pictures, it’s not just children who like to play in mud and make terrible messes.

It’s also clear that in spite of the occasional snow we’ve been having, winter is gradually leaving here. What’s the weather like where you are?

 
Our bodies were made to move. Most of us have heard that regular moderate-to-strenuous exercise is good for our hearts, but it turns out gentle movements throughout the day are also important. If we’re too sedentary it’s bad for our circulation and our joints don’t get lubricated. Most people won’t be motivated by those facts, but they might be interested that one of the big differences between lean and obese people is the lean ones fidget more.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic carefully tracked the movements and calorie-intake of 10 obese and 10 thin study participants. They found that overweight people burned 350 fewer calories a day because they sat for 150 minutes more a day than did thin people, who tended to be more fidgety during their daily activities.

Those findings suggest that making small changes to daily activities — by tapping your toes, wiggling or otherwise expending more restless energy — could be critical to weight loss.
—Wiggle While You Work

I personally don’t like to sit. I’ve arranged my computer so I mostly stand when I use it…with a tall stool handy when my legs need a break. And I do wiggle my body from time to time to keep loosened up. I’ve noticed that I don’t have the urge to raid the refrigerator the way I used to, but it never dawned on me that my little movements were burning significant calories. I no longer have a weight problem, so I gave up counting calories years ago.

What about you? Do you fidget much? Do you think it has any connection with your weight?

I’ve fortunately never been in a situation where I was in physical danger and I had to run to save my life. And when I’m in situations I don’t like I may fantasize about walking/running out the door and never coming back, but in practice I’m usually patient and proactive. I figure out what I want instead and work on finding a way to get closer to it before I walk away. It keeps me from feeling stuck and helps me focus on learning as much as I can from the existing situation. So when I do leave I’m moving towards something rather than just walking away. It works for me.

What about you? Have you ever run away from a situation? Did it work for you?

Guess who’s having a new will made? We were supposed to sign last Monday, but the lawyer made a few mistakes in our last changes so we decided to take the time to make sure she put them in correctly. We’ll do the final signing next Monday.

There’s a lot more legal jargon in this one than in the one we had made 18 years ago, which meant we spent a lot more time going through it and making sure we understood it. The lawyer did add some useful details in our advance health directives, so on the whole we’re pleased with the final product.

It is hard to believe, though, that some of complexity isn’t aimed at giving job security to lawyers.

What about you? Have you ever struggled with legal documents, containing language such as

I direct that the representation by a guardian ad litem of the interests of persons unborn, unascertained, or legally incompetent to act in proceedings for the allowance of accounts hereunder be dispensed with to the extent permitted by law.

The interest of any beneficiary in any share or part of this Will, both as to principal and income, shall not be alienable, assignable, attachable, transferable nor paid by way of anticipation, nor in compliance with any order, assignment or covenant and shall not be applied to, or held liable for, any of their debts or obligations either in law or equity and shall not in any event pass to his, her or their assignee under any instrument or under any insolvency or bankruptcy law, and shall not be subject to the interference or control of creditors, spouses or others.

If so, did you need help in translating?

Toyota has done an abysmal job of crisis management lately. But I bet if we took a poll Toyota would still get a higher approval rating than Congress. What do you think?

That said, Andy Borowitz says Toyota has come up with a new slogan.

Drive a Toyota. You’ll Never Stop.

This was chosen over two other candidates:

Toyota Puts the Pedal to the Metal. And Keeps it There.

and

Toyota. The Last Car You’ll Ever Drive.

The dealer where we bought our Toyotas sent out a message which included

Toyota has been commended for the swift action they have taken in addressing the problem. As the General Manager of a Toyota franchise I too have to commend Toyota for the prompt action and hearing all of our concerns. I have to say that the prompt action has impressed me and won my personal approval for the overall brand.

I wrote back saying he was insulting my intelligence but I hoped Toyota would get its act together because we do love our cars.

If you’re reading this sitting down, you might consider standing up.

That’s the first line of a Wall Street Journal article about a study on the health hazards of sitting and watching TV. We all know that being a complete couch potato isn’t good for our health, but the interesting thing about this study is the participants got between 30 and 45 minutes of exercise every day. That wasn’t enough to mitigate the effect of long periods of sitting.

Just another reminder to get up and move every so often, even if it’s just shaking and wiggling our bodies. I use this as a motivational video:

What do you use?

Which is more exhausting for you, talking or listening? My gut reaction is “listening” because if someone wants to talk I usually “overoblige”. I’m apt to let them dominate the conversation and indulge in a monologue. This cartoon points out I need to be less passive and take more responsibility for creating a meaningful dialogue.

On the other hand, I too have been guilty of monologues. They’re a lot more fun for me but I need to work on that for the sake of my poor listeners. Communication isn’t always easy.

What do you think?

 
If you could take a test that would tell you how long you had to live would you take it? I wouldn’t. My choice would be to keep living fully until I quietly slip away in my sleep. I also don’t believe that a quiz about lifestyle can predict longevity.

According to a recent study people who

• avoid smoking,
• exercise three and a half hours a week,
• maintain a body mass index of less than 30 (i.e, who aren’t obese) and
• eat a diet emphasizing fruits, vegetables and whole grains

cut their risk of diabetes, heart attack, stroke or cancer by 78 percent.

I do all of those things but my chances of living to 98 are still pretty slim I think. Two of my grandparents died in their 60s, my parents died in their 70s, one grandfather made it to 81 and only one grandmother made it to 98. And that grandmother was obese, got her exercise moving her fork to her mouth and ate anything that tasted good. Go figure.

What about you? How long did your relatives live?

comics.com

Geek: a slang term describing a person as peculiar or odd because he/she is deeply interested in one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc.

I’m sure some people think I’m a geek because I have some technical expertise. My husband, on the other hand, is happy to let me handle the TVs and VCRs in the family. He just wants to watch the local weather every day and wants the process to be simple. “Just tell me which button to push, Jean.” If we’re going to be gone when his program is on he lets me do the taping.

So when the TV stations switched to completely digital this past summer and I had trouble recording some of them he said it was probably because the stations didn’t have enough power or bandwidth (I can’t remember the exact explanation) and forgot about it. His station came in fine. His background is in experimental physics and he knows a lot about electronics, so I accepted his explanation.

Until the new fall programs started I didn’t care enough to check our assumptions. When I did I found out we had been completely wrong. The stations were doing just fine, it was my new recorder that couldn’t pick them up.

In the meantime our faithful, repair-free old CRT TV was finally acting flaky after 25 years of service. Sometimes the picture would keep rolling upwards, sometimes the picture was half “snow”.

So I started to look online for DVD recorders and TVs. They had to have a good tuners, and the sellers had to have satisfaction-guaranteed policies. Then we had to go to Santa Fe last Monday to check on a car that had been in the shop for six weeks (that’s another story that I’ll write about later), so we started looking at DVD recorders and digital TVs there. I had assumed we were still gathering information, but when we went into Best Buy and asked the salesman about tuners, he phoned one of the fellows on the Geek Squad. The fellow came and took over. He was quiet and knowledgeable, our kind of salesman, so we ended up buying both a new recorder and a new TV, with two-year Geek Squad support for each.

That’s our kind of store, one that respects technical expertise. It understands that it’s good business to use the term geek with pride.

Okay, there are 20 letters there. So there would be 12 left after we remove 8. But what common garden crop has 12 letters? I couldn’t for the life of me think of one. I had to wait for the next issue to learn the answer.

To see the eight letters that need to be removed and the garden crop, click here.

Duh! I had to laugh…I “should” have thought of that. It was a great reminder that we can’t always believe everything we think…it’s a good idea to check our assumptions from time to time. And I’m doing just that right now, thinking about what other assumptions I habitually make that may not be true.

Do you ever do mental housekeeping like that?