Thursday, August 21, 2008
Squirrels
Posted by Sonya at 8/21/2008 03:17:00 PM 1 comments
Saturday, August 16, 2008
I Don't Like Spam!
As I sat eating a tin sardines, (skinless, boneless, water packed) the other day, I got to thinking about some of the foods I will not touch as an adult. Foods, that as a kid were staples of my diet. Now I know there are some folks who turn their noses up at sardines. I live with two of those kind of people. My husband and daughter have been grossed out by my sardine and saltine cracker eating. I usually eat them when no one else is at home. Sardines are a great source of protein and are low in calories as long as they are packed in water, not oil.
So what are some of those "foods" that I ate while growing up? Vienna Sausages. In the south vienna is pronounced vi-een-er, not vee-anna. The list of ingredients is kind of straight forward:
Chicken, Water, Beef, Pork, Salt, Corn Syrup, 2 Percent Or Less: Spices, Natural Flavorings, Dried Garlic, Sodium Nitrite.
I guess the scariest ingredient is the sodium nitrite. It is a preservative that keeps meats pink even after they have been cooked. Of course as a kid I didn't know about such things. I just knew that my daddy was eating vienna sausages and saltines so of course I wanted one.
Another "food" was Potted Meat. The ingredient list is far scarier for this one:
Beef tripe, beef hearts, chicken, partially defatted cooked pork fatty tissue, water, salt, mustard, vinegar, dried garlic, sodium erythorbate, natural flavoring, sodium nitrite
I don't want to analyze these ingredients at all. Potted meat was usually eaten on a sandwich. Colonial white bread, potted meat spread on one slice of bread, mayonnaise spread on the other and placed together. If you wanted to be healthy you could put a piece of zero nutrients iceberg lettuce on the sandwich. You could eat the potted meat with saltines if you wanted. Hmm, there is a pattern developing here. Saltine crackers go with everything it seems.
Some of the other things I don't eat now that I'm a grown up are, fried pork rinds, bologna, Spam, dried beef and regular hot dogs. I actually love hot dogs. Nothing better in the summer, but they have to be Hebrew National, all beef, 97 percent fat free.
I'm really not a picky eater, let's just say I'm choosy.
Posted by Sonya at 8/16/2008 06:34:00 PM 0 comments
Monday, August 11, 2008
Don't Call Me...
Technically I am already a grandmother. Heather married a man with a couple of sons. Michael lives with them so Heather has been helping to raise him for a few years now. Michael calls me Sonya and that's okay. I also have a grand-dog named Butters. When Heather first got him she was still living at home. For some reason I became Nono to Butters. Whenever Heather comes to visit now she'll ask Butters if he wants to go to Nono's house. He gets all excited. He's very smart and he behaves very well when he visits. Just like a grandchild. When he is at his own home he can be a naughty little guy. Barking at everything, knocking his water bowl around.
All of my grandparents are deceased. My dad's parents passed away in the mid 1970's. I'm not sure of how old they were when they died. I did not spend a whole lot of time with them. I have some memories of them though. Granny Crowe was an awesome cook and believe me no one left her table hungry. If you did it was your own fault. She made the very best coconut cake. I remember watching television with Papa Crowe. We watched wrestling and roller derby. As a kid I wanted to join the roller derby. I was hell on wheels with my skates.
My mother's mother passed away in 1990. I spent a lot more time with Granny Coggins. Whenever we visited from whatever Army base we were living at at the time, we stayed with Granny Coggins. She was also the chosen babysitter when my parent's and my aunt's and uncle's decided they needed a weekend in the Smoky Mountains. One of those weekend trips resulted in the arrival of my baby brother nine months later. Mother swears it was the pancakes and mountain air. I have a sneaky suspicion it was something else, but we won't go into that here.
So my grandparenting adventure will begin soon. I cannot wait to meet Ian. I hope I get to be the cool grandmother, just don't call me Big Mama.
Posted by Sonya at 8/11/2008 04:45:00 PM 0 comments
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Acworth Women's Sprint Triathlon
The weather was perfect today for the Acworth Women's Triathlon. The distances for the race today were 400 yard swim, 13 mile bike ride and 3.7 mile run. The run is usually a 5k but due to road construction they had to change the run course. Did they tell us about the distance change before the race? Of course not! My overall time was 1:42:05.
Posted by Sonya at 8/10/2008 08:12:00 PM 0 comments
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Papa Don't Preach
Growing up an Army brat we didn't go to church all of the time. My parents would get on what I'll refer to as a "church kick" once in a while and we'd be off to church. Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings.
While my dad was in Vietnam we lived in a farmhouse in a small town outside of Duluth, Georgia. The actual name of the "town" was Shake Rag. Don't ask me, I don't know why it was called that. So as a kid my mother would get the three of us ready (number four was not here yet) and we would go to church where most of our relatives went. It was a little country Methodist church with a cemetery on the same property. We would go to Sunday School, learn a Bible verse and sing a song or two. This was okay with me. I was having fun. I got to play with my cousins. There was punch and cookies. All was grand.
Over the years I would go to church once in a while. In Hawaii I went to a Pentecostal church with my boyfriend and his family. I also went to Catholic Mass every now and again with one of my girlfriend's on Saturday evenings. Her parents wouldn't let her go to the beach on Sunday unless she attended a Mass. When my girls were little I took them to church for a while. Then I just stopped going. About two years ago I decided I needed to get back to church. Living in the Bible Belt you are expected to attend church.
But you know what happened about 6 months ago? I finally figured out at the ripe age of 45, I don't HAVE to go to church! I don't like going. I don't understand most of what goes on and at this point I really don't know what I believe. One thing I do know, I'm way too liberal in my thinking to go to most churches.
So I'll enjoy my Sunday's going out on a bike ride or getting in a nice run. Enjoying the earth and sky. Glad to be alive and glad I'm not cooped up in church!
Posted by Sonya at 8/03/2008 10:28:00 AM 0 comments
Friday, August 1, 2008
Premenopause
or as I like to think of it...the crazy times.
I have a book called The Complete Book of Running for Women. There is a list in the book titled "Signs of Menopause". There are 34 symptoms listed. Over the past few years I've had 19 of the symptoms at one time or another. Some are continuing bothers.
The one I'm dealing with lately is not sleeping through the night. It is as if my sleep button gets turned to the off position around 3:30am. If I were worrying about something specific I could understand, but I am not worrying over anything. So I am awake, laying there, eyes wide open trying to will my body and mind back to sleep. This is not a good thing on the nights before I have to be at the gym, ready to teach a class at 6am. Last night was one of those nights. Constantly looking at the clock. Thinking, "you have to get up at 4:45am, what is wrong with you?" Of course I did finally doze off and before I knew it the alarm was going off. Sigh.
There is no end in sight at the moment. This could go on for many more years. Guess I'll get use to it. Then maybe another symptom will appear. Let's hope it is not night sweats!!
Posted by Sonya at 8/01/2008 02:42:00 PM 0 comments