Month: July 2024

Hydrate!

Are you carrying around a ridiculously huge Stanley cup? Do you have a timer for your water consumption? Do you even know how much water you drink in a day? When it’s hot, everyone keeps saying to make sure you stay hydrated. But what does that really mean?

Hydration is all about making sure you replace the fluids your body loses through sweating, breathing and waste elimination (I’m being delicate!). On average, our bodies lose between 2-3 quarts of fluid every day and it’s important – especially when you’re sweating more than normal – to keep up with that fluid loss.

What happens if you get dehydrated? You might just feel thirsty – but symptoms can escalate quickly and include dizziness, tiredness, headache, muscle cramps, rapid breathing, rapid heart rate and even fainting. When you get to rapid breathing, rapid heart rate or fainting, it’s time for immediate medical help.

If you have the less severe symptoms of dehydration, you can just move to shade/cool room to rest and drink water slowly – think by regular sips. Suck on ice chips or popsicles. But by all means – DON’T drink caffeinated or alcholic drinks that can only dehydrate you more.

Here are some great links where you can learn more about hydration so you don’t end up dried up!

HOT.

The forecast is for low 90s and HIGH humidity for the rest of this week – so what can you do when it’s too hot to want to be outside?

Living in the Midwest, we have at least one week like this every summer. My own personal to-do list today includes:

  • Trip to the grocery. I’ll be stocking up on veggies and fruits that will make quick, light meals. No oven for me this week!
  • Closing the blinds. You’d be amazed how much cooler my house is with the blinds pulled! Granted, I have a lot of windows (10 in the living room alone!) but that extra shade means my AC doesn’t have to work as hard.
  • Check the schedule for my AC. I have a “smart” thermostat so I program it for temperature by time of day. But when it’s really hot, I like to adjust the settings up a couple of degrees to save energy (and money). It’s also a good idea to check the filter for your HVAC system – no point in making it work any harder than it has to!
  • Check my queues for my streaming services – although the Olympics is also offering a lot of good entertainment too. Today is women’s team gymnastics – and over the next couple of days there is individual apparatus competitions! (Shout out to the Bronze medal winning US Men’s Gymnastics Team!)
  • Water my flowers outdoors. The pots need a little extra care when it’s this hot! And I planted a new shrub on Saturday so it’s going to need some TLC as well.

I think that should hold me. I have a couple of yarn projects to work on so I’m good to go. Stay cool everyone!

Olympics!

Are you watching the Olympics? Did you see the opening ceremony? I loved a lot of it – but it was LONG! Now I’m obsessed with the gymnastics competitions – I have the men’s team final on right now but I was up at 5AM both Saturday and Sunday to watch the prelims.

How about that Paul Juda? Shout out to all the Deerfield, IL Paul Juda supporters out there! The men’s team doesn’t get the attention that the women’s team does – but they are amazing! My shoulders hurt just watching them do the high bar.

If you are a Comcast or Peacock subscriber, I cannot recommend the OnDemand coverage of any of the events enough. Most of the OnDemand doesn’t have an announcer so if you get annoyed by all the pointless chatter and just want to see ALL the athletes from all countries, this way of viewing might be for you!

The US men are on floor – I have to go watch!

Binge watching

I’ve been binge watching M*A*S*H on Hulu lately. I caught an episode on TVLand one morning and it made me remember just how good that show was. It’s available to binge with me on Hulu. Really, I think my favorite thing about streaming TV is the ability to go back and binge the TV shows I loved when I was younger.

Who am I really fooling – I just love binge watching. Especially on the streamers I have with no commercials (guilty pleasure!). I love going to those worlds with very little interuptions – especially since there is so little on broadcast/cable TV that I want to watch most days now.

Next up for me? I really want to binge Schitt’s Creek – I’ve seen some of it, but not from the beginning so I need to get that full story! And Abbott Elementary. I hear so many good things about that show but I’ve never seen it!

I’d love suggestions on shows to binge – leave me your favorites in the comments!

Covid is back???

President Biden came down with it – again. His third go-around with Covid. And 5 members of the Austrailian women’s water polo team have tested positive for it. The stinking virus just won’t go away will it? According to a report by Newsweek yesterday, Covid has “very high” rates in 17 US states.

I feel like I have been really lucky – I still haven’t caught Covid. Of course, being vaccinated, living alone and having good cleaning/hygiene habits probably has a great deal to do with that.

I have a love/hate relationship with the vaccine. I was giddy with excitement to get my first shot because it meant the end of all the isolation was near. But I am one of those people that reacts violently to the shot – fever, chills, headache, body aches for a good 24 hours after every shot. And I get it – a little misery might save me from a LOT of misery if I actually caught the virus. I have had 3 vaccines so far but now I find myself being reluctant to continue getting the shots because of the reaction.

As the virus continues to mutate, everything I’ve read says that the symptoms are much more mild now and tends to stay in the upper respiratory tract rather than going deep into the lungs like the initial infections in 2019/2020.

It’s still a good idea to self quarantine and wear a mask if you have it – you never know who you might come into contact with who might be immunocompromised. And nobody wants to make someone else sick RIGHT?

Reporting on numbers of people with Covid has gotten a little dicy with the advent of home testing kits and the less mild versions of the virus. But everyone from the CDC to county health departments are reporting a surge in cases this summer.

This article has a lot of good info about the current surge in cases: https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/18/latest-covid-spike-update-new-variants-fewer-novids/

So let’s continue to be careful OK? Wash your hands, avoid people who are sick, keep up healthy habits and increase your chances of making it through this summer wave of Covid unscathed!

Go to the Library!

Have you been to your local library lately? It’s a to-do that you may not realize needs to be done!

Earlier this year, a Facebook group I helped start moved into the real world and we needed a place to meet. Centrally located and with a free study group room, was our local public library. But the more I go there to meet with my group, the more impressed I am with the amenities offered by libraries these days.

Honestly – until a few months ago I hadn’t been in a library for years. There were still card catalog cabinets the last time I had been in one! But today’s libraries aren’t just about finding a book to borrow, they are all about community and learning. Here are some of the things at my local library I really didn’t expect:

  • A Maker’s Room. Need to sew a seam but don’t have a sewing machine? Want to learn how to use a Cricut machine without having to invest hundreds of dollars? Want to try 3-D printing? You can do all of this and more in the Makerspace at my library. I’ve also read about other libraries where you can even check out tools.
  • E-book library access. Don’t want to buy a popular book for your Kindle or other e-reader? A library card can also get you access to thousands of digital books. My library is connected to multiple digital resources allowing me to check out books, audio books, magazines – even popular movies and TV shows. That movie you wanted to watch? Maybe you don’t need to shell out for a streaming service to see it!
  • Programs. From craft sessions for your kids to computer training for seniors, you’d be shocked at all the programs and classes available at your library. My library even has ongoing programs for small businesses!
  • Games and puzzles. Want to try a game without buying? My library has a HUGE variety of games available for check out. And jigsaw puzzles too!
  • Museum passes. I just found out about this program and cannot wait to try it. My library has a connection to local museums for free or discounted admission.
  • Freebies. My library occasionally does give-aways – I took advantage of the free eclipse glasses they gave away earlier this year. And they have free concerts regularly with local talent too!

Hope this give you the push you need to explore your public library – get out there and enjoy it!

Time for the Olympics!

Friday is the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics in Paris – but what do you know about the very first Olympics?

The very first recorded Olympics were held in Greece in 776 BC. No swimming, diving or gymnastics, but they did have a running race! Those first Olympics were part of a festival honoring the god Zeus who was the father of all the Greek gods and goddesses. The only event was the stadion race – a 600 foot running race in Olympia – near Mt Olympus. According to the Penn Museum, there is evidence that this festival and race went back to even earlier dates – but there is no recorded history prior to the 776 BC event. The winner at that first recorded stadion race? A cook named Koroibos from the neighboring town of Elis. His prize? A wreath made of olive leaves and of course a place in history!

The stadium at Olympia. It could hold around 2,000 people – who sat on mud seats!

Initially a 1 day event, the addition of more types of competition lead to it expanding to a 3 day event by 708 BC. Additional competitions included additional running distances, jumping and the discus throw. More and more sports were added over the years like the javelin, long jump, shot put, boxing, wrestling, riding and chariot races – and kept increasing the length of the festival as well. By the fifth century BC, the festival was at least 5 days long to accommodate the growing lists of competitions.

The ancient games continued until 393 AD when the Emperor Theodosius ended the festivals honoring the Greek gods because of the rise of Christianity. The games, with their roots in paganism came to an end and the stadium at Olympia was reduced to ruins by a series of earthquakes, floods and mudslides.

The modern Olympics were re-established in 1896 by a Frenchman named Baron Pierre de Coubertin. His original intent was to unveil modern Games in 1900 in his native Paris, but delegates from 34 countries were so enthralled with the concept that they convinced him to move the Games up to 1896 and have Athens serve as the first host. So the Olympics starting this week in some ways are coming full circle!

Want to know more about the Ancient Olympics? Check out these links:

Happy National Sour Candy Day!

I just heard on the radio that today is National Sour Candy Day. And it took me back to the beginning of the pandemic. Not the sour candy – but celebrating a weird holiday. Remember when Covid started and we couldn’t keep our days straight? Well, I started a morning message to my team saying good morning and giving them something to celebrate each day. Mostly the things we “celebrated” were weird holidays like National Sour Candy Day.

As the weeks and months of work from home went on, my team told me that they enjoyed the morning message. It gave us a bit of normalcy and let us virtually say good morning to each other and often sparked conversations via our team channel. I give it credit for my team engagement scores growing through the years of Covid.

So while I’m not a big fan of sour candies myself, I wish you the happiest of National Sour Candy Days! Learn more – and find other odd holidays to celebrate – here:

National Sour Candy Day