Month: July 2024

New Bike!

So last week, I took my bike to the bike shop for a tune up. The tires weren’t holding air and the seat just wasn’t comfortable for me. Before I left for the bike shop, I was about 90% sure I was going to trade my bike in for a new one. And I did.

I got my old bike at a garage sale during Covid. It was fun to ride around the neighborhood – and to the local Dairy Queen – but it never really fit me. I could never get the seat adjusted to a good height and the handle bars were REALLY low. It might have been a good racing bike, but I just tool around the neighborhood and parks so a cruiser was what I was looking for. And I got one!

My new bike!

So now in addition to walking, I’m doing some cycling and it’s TOO MUCH FUN! I love having a bike that is sized for me and has been adjusted just for me. But in addition to having a lot of fun, there are a lot of health benefits to cycling as well.

Cycling is an aerobic activity so it helps with cardiovascular health as well as improving posture and coordination, building muscle and helping mental health. Steady cycling for me is burning almost an extra 150 calories in a half hour so I’m betting it will help with weight loss as well. (As long as I avoid too many stops at the Dairy Queen!).

It’s been more years than I like to admit since I rode a bike regularly. And while I haven’t forgotten how to ride at all, my balance isn’t what it used to be. The more I ride, the better it’s getting but I was a little shaky my first night out.

Apparently I’m not the only one rediscovering the fun of bike riding – when I Googled phrases around bike riding after years off, I found hundreds of articles! The themes of all of many of them are very similar:

  • Start small. Ride a few blocks or a couple miles. Get to know your bike and keep to areas/streets with little traffic to build confidence.
  • Safety first! Make sure your bike is in good shape and invest in a helmet. I laugh to myself saying that – I have a helmet, but I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not always good about wearing it. But a helmet can significantly drop the risk of a head injury in an accident. And remember, most bike accidents don’t involve another driver/person. Most bike accidents are bike versus some sort of obstacle in your path which may be as simple as a stick or water.
  • Ask for help if you need it. The people at my local bike shop were amazing – and they also organize outings for rides. Check at your local bike shop and see what resources you might be able to access. I’m guessing they’ll be happy to help you out even if you bought your bike at Walmart or another big box store.

I can tell you that I’m loving being back on a bike – my face actually hurt from smiling so much when I got home after riding it the first night. So it’s making me happy AND helping me be healthier!

Twitter!

On this day in 2006, Twitter was publicly launched. The idea for Twitter was originally to enable people to use SMS messaging to talk with a small group of people. At a brainstorming session at podcasting company Odeo, the idea took hold and became project TWTTR, using a 5 letter code as a nod to 5 character SMS codes. The idea eventually evolved into using the web rather than SMS technology with Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams driving the idea into what would become Twitter.

Originally the messages were limited to 140 characters and the service grew very quickly. In 2010, the service added the ability to send pictures and video which fueled another spurt of growth. By 2019, Twitter had more than 300 million active monthly users and had become a major factor in communications, marketing and politics.

In 2022, Elon Musk made his offer to buy Twitter and after some deal is off/deal is on drama, became the owner and changed its name to X.

I have a Twitter account but I rarely use it these days. What began as a fun way to connect with friends has for me become disheartening. A lot of what I see in my feed contains misinformation and vitriol so ugly that I just stopped opening the app. I think this is a sad fact that is true across social media these days although I have my Facebook feed locked down so I don’t see a lot of it there. I’m only an occassional user of Instagram and I don’t read comments there so I miss out on a lot of the ugly there as well.

I don’t have a solution for it – but I just think that social media is a sad place these days between the ugliness of hate/snark and the egos of social media influencers and wanna be influencers. The best thing I can say is to try to limit your usage and be very judicious with the functionality that allows you to filter/block misinformation and hate.

Throwing back to Hamilton

220 years ago today Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fought their famous duel. You might want to screen “Hamilton” on Disney+ today to celebrate!

I recently read a great book about the duel – oddly enough titled “Duel” by Thomas Fleming. Cannot recommend reading this book enough! It does an amazing job of diving into the political atmosphere of the time and the roles that both Hamilton and Burr played in it. In school we’re just taught that they dueled – not a lot about the circumstances so this book really gives you a detailed picture of who the two men really were and why they ended up facing each other over pistols. Give it a read – you won’t regret it because it’s a real soap opera!

Find the book on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=duel+thomas+fleming&hvadid=409971055199&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9021498&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=11310651608290146802&hvtargid=kwd-18321286397&hydadcr=22538_11318434&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_86bk7pb7h2_e

Enjoy this clip featuring the cast of the musical Hamilton from the 2016 Tony Awards.

Intermittent Fasting

I’ve been reading a lot about intermittent fasting and how it can help with weight loss as well as gut health. There are three basic types of fasting:

  1. Time restricted eating. The model I have read most about is eating during an 8 hour window of the day (i.e. 10AM to 6PM) and fasting the remaining 16 hours. There are all kinds of variations on this but all of them require a fasting window of time longer than the eating window.
  2. Fasting by day. This means eating normally a specific number of consecutive days/week and fasting or severely restricting food intake on the remaining consecutive days. The most common plan I’ve found for this is to eat normally for 5 days and then fast or eat limited amounts of food the other 2 days of the week. I personally think this would be hard – I get cranky when I’m hungry!
  3. Eat – stop – eat model. This model says you can eat normally but pick 1 or 2 days of the week to completely fast.

I’m most interested in trying the first kind of intermittent fasting. Given that my normal sleep pattern is 6-7 hours/night, it should be pretty easy to manage fasting 12 or more hours a day. Are you interested in giving this a try? Here are some links to give you more info:

Towel Animals!

I have a widget on my iPad that shows a random picture from my Photos every day – and today it showed me this from a cruise I took in 2016:

I always meant to learn how to do this so when I have people stay over at my house, I could make them laugh with their towels. You could buy a book in the gift shop to show you how to make all the different animals, but why buy a book when you have YouTube?

Check out this video with instructions on a whole bunch of fun animals to make with towels – a to do guaranteed to make you laugh!

Tudor Wives

There’s a new movie coming out about Henry VIII’s last wife Katherine Parr. But on this date in 1540, Henry got his first annulment (or divorce) from Anne of Cleves. I love the Tudor Kings – I’ve read a lot of history about them but Henry VIII is particularly memorable for his 6 wives who in order were divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. And by name: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Bolelyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Katherine Parr.

Catherine of Aragon was actually betrothed to Henry’s older brother Arthur – who unfortunately died before taking the throne. This paved the way for some fancy politics between Henry VII and Spain over Catherine’s fate. Eventually, greed for her dowery won over Henry VII and she was married to Henry VIII. Henry VIII and Catherine were married for over 20 years although it may not have been the best of marriages. Catherine suffered through multiple miscarriages with only daughter Mary living past infancy. And Henry was not faithful – he had multiple mistresses and at least one bastard son. His fixation on a legitimate son lead to many of his troubles with wives…

The second of the wives was Anne Boleyn – and I’m betting you’ve heard of her at least! She lead Henry on a quite a chase on her way to being queen. Their “courtship” lasted more than 6 years as they tried to get Rome to agree to Henry putting Catherine aside. Anne produced a daughter, encouraged Henry to break with Rome and put himself at the head of the Church of England and was beheaded 3 years into the marriage. And you may also know that Anne’s sister Mary was one of Henry’s mistresses before he fell for Anne. Scandalous!!!

The third wife was Jane Seymour – and her marriage to Henry came a mere 11 days after Anne Boleyn’s execution! After just over a year of marriage, Jane died of childbed fever giving Henry his longed for male heir named Edward.

The fourth wife was Anne of Cleves. Anne was more or less a mail order princess who was a pawn in a game of alliances between England and Germany. Henry never took to her and although they were married according to the alliance contract, the marriage was annulled about 6 months later. Anne retired to her dower properties and was referred to as “The King’s Beloved Sister” when visiting court.

The fifth wife was Catherine Howard – and she married Henry a full 19 days after his annullment from Anne of Cleves. Henry worked FAST. Catherine was all of 17 years old to Henry’s age of 49 – so today we’d call this marriage a mid-life crisis! Catherine was by most accounts a bit flighty but very beautiful. And before the first year of the marriage was over, she was receiving love notes from men that weren’t her husband. She was convicted of a treasonous affair with Thomas Culpepper as well as other charges of adultery and beheaded barely 2 years after the wedding.

Last but not least, was Katherine Parr. She was already widowed twice before catching Henry’s attention and at 31 years old was likely not going to give Henry more heirs. But she was renowned for her kindness and skill with nursing – and by this time Henry was 52 years old and in somewhat poor health with jousting wounds on a leg that would not heal. Their marriage also had some drama over the schism in religion and at one point, the Bishop of Winchester had a warrant for her arrest drawn up. However, Katherine was warned and managed to get Henry’s protection. After 4 years of marriage, Henry died and Katherine became the wife that survived.

Want to know more? You might want to go see the Broadway musical SIX! There’s a LOT of interesting history around Henry so check out these links for a start:

Itchy?

The mosquitoes are out with a vengeance. And while I’m not particularly worried about weird fevers or anything, the itching might make me crazy. More than 10 years ago, I stayed at a hotel at Universal theme park in Orlando and got bit by bed bugs – and ever since, I have horrible, swollen reactions to mosquito bites so I feel like an expert on itching. So let’s talk about some ways to make the bites stop being so itchy:

  • My favorite is hydrocortisone cream. It’s a corticosteroid that mimics how a natural hormone reduces inflammation. So it stops the itch and helps reduce the swelling around the bite too. I carry a tube of Aveeno 1% Hydrocortisone cream around with me almost every summer. It also has aloe and vitamin E in it so it’s good for your skin!
  • Old school? Calamine lotion will take the itch away! And give you pink polka dots to remind you of being a kid?
  • Washing the bite with antibacterial soap and cool water can help – but it’s never worked very well for me.
  • Ice it! Putting an ice cube or ice pack on the bite will lessen blood flow in the area and helps reduce the itch and the swelling.
  • Dab honey on the bite. It has anti-inflammitory properties and can help stop the itch – but on the downside, it might make you a sticky mess and attract other bugs.
  • Make a paste with baking soda and a little bit of water. Put it on the bite and let it sit 5-10 minutes before washing it away.
  • Dab a drop or two of apple cider vinegar on the bite.
  • Slice an onion and press the “juicy” part of the slice on the bite for a couple minutes. Then wash the area well with cool water and lots of soap or you might smell a little!
  • Mix peppermint oil with a little coconut oil and dab on the bite.
  • Wipe the bite with a cotton ball soaked in Witch Hazel.

Or just wear insect repellent and long sleeves/long pants? Or stay inside early in the morning and around sunset to minimize the odds of being bitten!

Italian Coffee Cream

I think I’m late to the party, but my new obsession is Italian Coffee Cream. Have you tried it? I may never need to get an iced latte at Starbucks ever again! So for this to-do Tuesday, try it out:

  • Mix together in a tall cup (16 oz or more):
  • 1 Tablespoon instant coffee crystals. I’ve used both caffeinated and decaf and it works with either.
    • 1 Tablespoon sugar. The recipe I found said to use raw sugar if you’re feeling fancy!
      • 1/2 Teaspoon vanilla extract. I don’t see this in all the recipes, but I think it adds a LOT!

Using a milk frother, mix the above ingredients until the mixture forms stiff peaks – like whipped cream. Add a handful of ice cubes and fill the cup the rest of the way with your milk of choice. I use 2% but I hear almond milk is also tasty. Drink with a straw – or you’ll end up with a really thick cream mustache!

If you’re really feeling fancy, you could add whipped cream and sprinkles. Or maybe add in some chocolate sauce. Experiment and personalize for yourself. But I cannot recommend enough – it’s so refreshing on these hot days!