Friday, September 21, 2007

Random Fridays: Getting Off the Computer

* No posting this week because I've been dealing with a nasty bout of ongoing repetitive strain injury. One doctor says I now have arthritis in my right hand. Fun. I told Brian that I was reading a copy of Arthritis Today and that all the active seniors pictured in the magazine are now my people. While I get all this sorted, I've been using some great (and free for 45 days!) software, RSI Guard. Even if you're not suffering from any symptoms yet, if you're on the computer or sitting at a desk regularly, I encourage you to try it out. Stretching and resting work best in preventing a problem rather than correcting one so take care of yourself now. The program interrupts your work, prompting you to stretch. And it also demonstrates the stretches for you! You can adjust how often you'd like the interruptions and can postpone them if you'd like (but you really shouldn't) or, if you're low on willpower, set it so that your mouse and keyboard will stop working until your stretches are complete. It also gives you a full report on your computer habits. In just about an hour and a half of use today, I've made 404 mouse clicks. Now I know why I'm well on my way to bingo tournaments and Tai Chi classes at the senior citizens center! I wish I had started using this about 5 years ago.

* Compassionate Cooks' Colleen Patrick-Goudreau has finally released her first book, The Joy of Vegan Baking. I ordered my copy yesterday and cannot wait to get my hands on it. Just the chocolate chip cookies featured on the cover alone seem worth the price of admission. I've tried out a few of Colleen's recipes already from her site (it was she who inspired the maple syrup and tamari combo I am now obsessed with) and they've all been tasty.

* On Monday I went to my very first cooking class. It was with vegetarian-friendly cookbook author, writer, and chef, Myra Kornfeld at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health in New York City. I had so much fun that I walked out of there convinced I should become a chef. For now I'm just going to take more classes. I will post more about the class when arm pain has subsided. The short version is Myra, the assistants, and all my classmates could not have been nicer; I ate a lot of macaroni cheese; I made yummy roasted curried sweet potatoes with shallot-yogurt dip and chickpea corn cakes with olive tapenade; and just about died eating the apple brown betty and ginger chocolate mousse (and I'm not even that big a fan of ginger!). Everything was so delicious. Don't tell Brian but I'm going to make him the potatoes this weekend. He'll die.

* I'm going to stretch now!

1 comment:

BK said...

Your secret's out, Palacios!

XOXO