music to swim to…

I have been swimming 2-3X a week now for the last few months… it is something that has now become a habit and if I miss a usual night I feel a bit weird… like there is something missing…

Not only have a gained more strength in the pool and can now go the 55 min that I swim with minimal breaks I have also gained more energy out of the pool (when I am not in the midst of AF of course)… I have also been able to shed a few pounds and inches which also feels amazing… and I am not going to stop… When I look at the numbers I have lost about 20 pounds since the beginning of the year and about half of that in the last month and half…

The only thing about swimming is that is pretty boring… I mean going from one side of the pool to another and only hearing the splashes of those around you because the of the training sessions in the next lanes over… at least when the pool is quiet the quiet is relaxing but this is not the case at this pool… So when Simon talked to me about getting me a gift for Mother’s Day that meant that I could listen to music while swimming I got really excited… what he was originally looking at was a water proof case and earphones for the player I have now but I took over the search and found what had the best reviews albeit a bit more expensive… So, around Mother’s Day I bought this…

Finis Swimp3 v2

The SwiMP3 V2 Waterproof MP3 Player allow you to enjoy incredibly high quality audio while swimming!

The SwiMP3 V2 is a fully waterproof MP3 player that uses a unique system of sound transfer to provide you with incredible sound clarity under water. Standard players transmit sound through air and water, causing you to hear only muffled noises and poor sound quality. The SwiMP3 V2 uses “bone conduction” - sound travels from the cheekbone to the inner ear to give you excellent sound quality — in fact Beethoven used this same technique after he became deaf to compose music by placing his head on his piano. Bone conduction technology is a safe, and has been used in military headsets.

So… I bought them from the US (link above) for 100$ less than what I would have paid in Canada… and it took about 10 buisness days to get it… which means that I got it today…

So I loaded a few tunes on it and headed out to go swim and yeah… I might look a bit weird but it was so cool to be able to listen to music while swimming…

I got stopped by a few fellow swimmers who even tried it out and thought that it was the coolest and I think one or two of them might order their own… Anyway… like the description says, they use bone conduction.. so when you are out of the water and it is against your cheekbone you can’t hear anything really but once you get your head in the water and start swimming the sound is amazingly clear and they are really comfortable so you don’t even feel them…

and my swim today… went by fast and easy….

So… I got to ask… what is your fav music to get moving to?

I really hate computer problems…

I know I spend too much time on the Computer… but I really enjoy having my online community…

But when things go wrong, it is hard…

Last week my external hard drive failed… or died more like it… …

it was mostly a back up but I had also been putting pics directly on it before transfering them to the other computer so when it failed I had a months worth of pics that were not backed up… and there were a few other things like that an though it is frustrating, they were not as important…

So I spent the weekend, the long weekend at that, backing up my computer onto another external drive and then reinstalling everything again…

I have to redo my music collection over again (all the music was still on Simon’s computer but the things that I had customized were not…  even that is not too bad though it is a bit time consuming…

what bothers me the most though are the pics that I lost…

I was able to recover a few from recovering the pics on my camera’s CF card but there are some that I couldn’t get back….

The problem with these machines are that they can hold so much of our lives in them and then fail without warning…

Thai Coconut Curry soup

Saute 2 chopped stalks of Lemongrass, 2 cloves Garlic, about an inch of Ginger and a large onion…

once the onions are translucent add a few tbsp of Curry paste and Miso and a bit Chile sauce…

Add whatever veggie (I have carrot and Cauliflower in this one) and some cut up tofu… saute for a few more minutes…

Add about 6 cups of veggie stock, 2 cans of coconut milk and a bit of sugar to even the taste out and let simmer….  then add the juice of 1 1/2 limes… simmer again and add rice noodles…

How do you know your kids are smoking pot?

I got this little booklet from a friend… it comes from the govn’t of Canada and is full of information, and misinformation on MJ….

What I found funny though was the page that explained the signs of pot smoking and what to look look for… or smell for… of course, not everyone knows what Marijuana smells like…

So what is better than a Scratch & Sniff?

a bit unnerving…

Some of you might have gotten a message from my rss feed this morning that had a bit of spam… first I was wondering how it got there but then I realized that it was not a post that was supposed to be published publically but that I had published privately last week….

what was really unnerving was that the spam was in the actually message and then the message was saved and published this morning while I was still sleeping…

I changed my password but I am wondering how it happened… :-/

Pita Bread…

2 1/4 tsp yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon brown sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup lukewarm water

Activate yeast by mixing with 1/2 cup warm water and tsp of sugar

Mix flour and salt

Add yeasty water to the flour

Add the cup of warm water… start with 1/2 cup and slowly add more until it comes together…

Put on lightly floured counter and start to knead

Knead…
push

turn

fold

Place in bowl lightly covered in olive oil

Cover and let rise

Double

separate into small balls and let rise again about 10 min (preheat oven to 450)
I made 14….

roll out the dough

let rest another 10 min…

put in oven and watch them puff up…

Enjoy!!!

Salt Cured Salmon…

I was buying some Cured Salmon from the fish store once in a while because I love it… but it is expensive!

A few weeks though I saw recipe and I found out that it is really easy to make… pretty much just pack the salmon in Salt and whatever else you want… So I tried it… and I can’t stop making it since then…

What I have been doing is taking the filet, brushing a bit of liquid smoke on it  (to give it a bit of a smoked Salmon taste) putting a few tbsp of salt over it plus pepper, dill, sugar and granulated onion… then I weight it down with some cans of tomatoes and stick it in the fridge…

After about 12 hours I drain it a bit and add a bit of everything if needed… and then put it back in the fridge… another 12 hours later I drain it again and put a few paper towels under it to saok up the rest of the moistur and stick it back in the fridge… A few hours later it should have a slight rubbery feel to it… then it is time to slice…

Slice at an angle as thin as you can get it…

then you can store it in the fridge… I am not sure how long it lasts, but it is cured so it should last a while…

but it also gets eaten very fast…

(on a whole wheat english muffin with a bit of butter and cream cheese)

630$

That is what my car just cost me this afternoon…

it sucks…

but at least I will feel safer on the road and the squeaky noise will be no longer…

but it sucks.

I still need two new tires and a tire change…

mmm…. bbq season is back….

Well officially for me every season is bbq season but this winter when I went to make supper one evening I found that the burner had completely rusted though… So we were stuck for a few months without the great taste of grilled food….

I didn’t feel like finding the parts that I needed to bring the BBQ back from the dead so I decided that I wanted a new BBQ this year… and I am going to try to sell the old one to someone that won’t mind doing that…

So on Friday, after looking around for a few weeks, I decided on a new one… I picked it up yesterday and then today we brought it in the house this morning started the daunting task of putting it together…

After 2 1/2 hours of figuring out the puzzle that they call a BBQ…. I finished putting it together, brought it outside and fired it up to make sure it works… and it did…

Guess what we are having tonight

Miso Paté

2 cups broken pieces whole wheat bread
1/2 cup water or broth
1/4 cup tahini
2 tbsp miso
1 small onion (minced)
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp of poultry seasoning (mix of sage, thyme, rosemary etc)

break the bread into peices and add the broth or water and mix until moist with your hands…
add the rest and mix well…
put in the fridge and let it sit for a least a few hours… but better the next day….

So good!!