Happy Canada Day!

Photo: Phillie Casablanca

We’ll get to the low-key-Canadian-patriotic celebrating stuff in a minute.

First, I want to say thanks to all you lovely Internet People who sent emails, noticing that the Domestik Goddess was uncharacteristically quiet and wondering if I’d died… got me all misty-eyed, some of you!

“Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated,” to crib from Mark Twain.

The truth is that I’ve been working super-long hours on a big new project, and it’s almost done. Well, done enough that I can come back to the real world now that the end is in sight! (Did I just call the Internet the “real world”?!?) Anyway, today I celebrated that long-awaited “Almost Done” milestone (and Canada Day, too) by spending a little quiet quality time with dogs, food and the traditional Maritime icons of beer and music…

Healthy Outdoor Exercise

The best part of the day for me (and, frankly, the most productive) was taking my dogs for a long long long walk in the gentle warm rain. Three white-tailed deer stood and watched us wander out from the woods trail into the open fields, and didn’t seem at all troubled by the presence of the dogs. I do believe that they couldn’t even see the Golden Retriever over the tall grass, and they think the long-legged Greyhound is just another deer!

Here are the dogs, at home — I didn’t have the camera with me, so you’ll just have to imagine the deer:

Food!!

For supper, I invented a new recipe. The dish is too simple to deserve to have a name, but it turned out very well for something so very healthful and high-fibre/low-calorie, so I thought I’d share it here:

Cooked chicken breasts (I had some waiting in the freezer, previously cooked for just such an occasion): thaw and slice thin. Thin-slice some carrots, celery, yellow bell peppers, and onions. Heat a splash of olive oil in a giant frying pan, throw in the veggies and cooked chicken, and sort of stir-fry them for a few minutes until the carrots start to soften. Salt and pepper to taste. I also sprinkled on just a touch of cayenne. Then splash in just enough gingerale to moisten, and cover the saucepan. Let it simmer until heated through. At the last minute, toss with about a tablespoon of lemon-poppyseed salad dressing. Serve over flax/whole wheat spaghettini.

The Traditional Brewski

And afterwards, a refreshing glass of Dooryard Summer Ale. Yes, that really is the name of a beer — I’m not making it up. It’s an organic wheat ale made by Picaroons, a micro-brewery here in our region.

What goes with a brew?
Tunes, of course!

Sing Along!

Because this is Canada Day, I was digging deep at Blip.fm for some dusty Canadian classics and having a great time doing it — but the song that summed up the whole mood of the day, for me, is this one by Julie Doiron that I heard for the first time today on CBC radio’s all-day CanCon programming, part of the Canada Day celebrations.

Here’s my new favourite song, “Nice to Come Home” by singer-songwriter Julie Doiron for your listening pleasure:

And there you have it.

If you’re not Canadian… so sorry you didn’t get a holiday today!
(Your turn is coming, right?)

And tell me, my fellow Canadians — how did you celebrate? Drop a note in the comments (since I’m not actually dead, and thus able to read it) and share the joy. And if you blogged about your Canada Day celebrations, leave a link so I’ll be sure to come visit your blog and read all the festive details!

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1. Winter Storm Treats
2. Heirloom Beer Glasses
3. O Canada Day

So you never got around to making those New Year’s Resolutions?
Nuhuh, me neither.

Frankly, on New Year’s Eve I was far too busy playing Settlers of Catan with the delightful DJ and He-Who-Hogs-The-Power-Tools and Captain Morgan to bother much with introspection and plans for self-improvement.

But it’s still not too late — we’ve got 364 days ahead yet, after all, so in the worst case we can get a jump on next year: “I have adopted the practice of stating NY resolutions in October,” says quick-starter Coughlan, “so that when Jan 1 arrives I already know which were pure BS.”

And if you’re at all like me, your list of resolutions for 2009 — if we were going to make resolutions, which I’m not saying for a minute is going to happen — are high-quality BS indeed!

In fact, the current list might look disturbingly like the very same resolutions we made back in senior year of high school, and every year since then:

• Lose weight;
• Lose clutter;
• Lose a few bad habits;
• Save time;
• Save money;
• Save the world;
• Be healthy and fit;
• Be kind and patient (especially with ill-bred idiots in positions of petty power, like (hypothetically) clerks at the motor vehicle branch);
• Be smart and ambitious;
• Be an oasis of calm strength in a turbulent world;
• Be clever and creative, yet organized and self-disciplined;
• Be more loving and giving;
• Become wise.

Every day, in every way, better and better…
Setting ourselves up for certain failure!

[British mental health charity Mind] urged people not to make resolutions focusing on physical imperfections — such as attempting to lose weight — because they create a negative self image and lead to feelings of low self-esteem, hopelessness and even mild depression.

And when such optimistic resolutions fail, that could spark feelings of inadequacy and failure, the charity warned.

I ask you, is that any sane way to start off a New Year?
Especially one that, if the financial gurus and media headlines can be trusted, promises to be more challenging than any year we’ve woken up to yet?
Heck, no!

MsHerr asks, “Why are resolutions always about self-improvement? People should resolve to develop more vices.”

Okay… good in theory. Tempting, even! But there’s some nasty bit of cause-and-effect all ready at play here, is there not?

After all, it was the vice of gluttony — a shameless over-indulgence in chocolate, to be precise — that’s now leading us to loosen our belts and be tempted to feats of exercise and dietary self-denial. Meanwhile, the sin of sloth lets paperwork pile up on every flat surface, and emails clutter up the Inbox… and we won’t even think about the rest of the sinful list.

Steve Drees was way out ahead on this one, anyway, reporting in mid-afternoon on January 2, “I’ve already broken my 2009 resolutions, and 3 of the 10 commandments.”

So what options are left?

You know, I rather like Chris Knight’s approach: “I don’t do New Years Resolutions: Instead, I re-commit daily to what’s most important to me. Every day is a good day to re-commit.”

Leaves lots of space to accomodate those small personal lapses, doesn’t it?

The slip-up that would otherwise be called a “failure” of will, the last-minute change in plan, the shift in direction to suit a changing world… all are accomodated if we make a series of small step-by-step one-a-day commitments, instead of great huge lumbering New Year’s Resolutions carved in stone. Yeah, we can do that.

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One battered old-faithful dictionary on my shelves, published circa 1975, defines a geek as “a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken. ” You may be deeply relieved to know that I’ve upgraded to a squeaky-new Canadian Oxford, although I can’t claim it’s a whole lot more flattering:

geek noun esp. N. Amer. informal 1. An uninteresting, ineffectual, socially inept person; a nerd. 2. A person thoroughly devoted to one usu. technical interest, study, etc., often at the expense of social interaction (computer geek).

Whatever.

Point is, the 1970s chicken-beheading freak is not at all what I have in mind here (try wikipedia, maybe) when I say that 80% of the most fabulous men I’ve ever known were geeks.

Other top contenders leaned towards the arts or construction trades, but that’s a shaggy-dog story for another place and time.

Geeks? You may well ask, O-mouthed with shock and doubt — geeks are sexy?

Absolutely.

Consider the facts.

To begin with, and on the most facile level, all those years of hunkering down with twelve-sided dice or closeted with computers, far from the damaging sun, means that adult geeks — those mercifully past the curse of teen acne — have the softest, most touchable skin any woman would envy. (If our own complexions are showing the effect of too much quality time at the beach, second-best is to be able to enjoy someone else’s baby-smooth skin, am I right? Tactile enjoyment. It goes a long way to explain why you can still find clothing made of velour.)

Secondly, as oodles of experts on women’s mating preferences will attest, intelligence is pretty darned sexy. And the defining characteristic of the geek is, of course, intelligence.

True, as my dictionary points out, the geeks among us are often behind-hand in developing the social savoire-faire of other types of men — but is that necessarily a bad thing? Many have evolved over time to compensate with a quick wit (sexy), attentive listening skills (very sexy), and a keen if transient interest in absolutely everything (also sexy) including what the woman he’s with is thinking (devastatingly sexy)!

To all their other fine attributes, add the fact that many high-functioning adult geeks have a significant potential for long-term rewarding employment. Let’s be practical: a steady income is not a bad attribute.

Fashion sense? — Ah, that’s nothing. That can be bought — or learned. Geeks love to learn new things and problem-solve, of course. It just all depends on what they consider the most urgent (or intriguing) topic to get their undivided attention at any given moment…

And if you’re lucky, sister, that undivided attention could be on you!

Fact is, geeks are fairly unlikely to have spent their teen years mingling with perky cheerleaders and sinful intent. As a result, the young geek reaches his maturity without an inflated BMOC ego — in fact, without too much at all in the way of annoying habits trained into him by Barbie and Tiffany girlfriends in his formative years.

Moving out into the working world, where his skills and qualities are more widely appreciated, the geek gains a quiet confidence. He begins to come into his own — yet retains a deep appreciation of his female companions that is seldom seen in other subgroups of the modern male.

Geeks don’t take women for granted: they pay attention.
And that, my friends, is the bottom line for any relationship.

I rest my case.

Rebuttal, anyone?
Comments?
David Krumholtz’s private phone number?

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Remembrance Day is the only thing that can make our grey bleak November weather seem exactly right. The sound of the distant pipes; the few old men who still march to the cenotaph in berets and medals; the young cadets standing with heads bowed and hands crossed on rifles at each corner of the square…

And more than anything, what really catches me in the back of the throat, every year the same, is the sudden deep booming sound of the cannons’ salute — those big guns echoing down the years and down the river valley, from village to village, each small community with its own memorial cairn, its own group of silent observers to wipe away a windstruck tear, and its own list of long-ago farmboys’ names to be read aloud on 11 November.

But like the brave red poppies of Flanders fields and Remembrance wreaths, those bright red sparks against the grey of rainclouds and gravestones, there’s something indomitably bright in the human spirit. And as long as we can see those poppies bud and bloom — in the fields of Normandy, or in fields of hope and imagination — surely, all is not lost.

Photo: amandabhslater

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Let the ooh, sweet doggie baby-talk commence!

This beautiful 12-year-old Golden Retriever has just moved in. She needed to find a new home quickly — and I thought about it for all of, oh, maybe a nano-second, when asked if I had room for a second dog.

Casey the Wonder Hound (my long-suffering greyhound), fortunately seems to agree that Cinder (that’s her name) is the kind of gentle, calm, refined lady-dog with whom he can share his domestic arrangements.

He’s still in charge of the squeaky ball — in fact, of any dog toy that sounds like prey in its final death throes — but she is allowed to wander about with a knotted rope or a Kong in her mouth, dropping it at people’s feet. Oh, and Cinder is also responsible for making sure that large amounts of white-gold fur are properly distributed all over the house; greyhounds aren’t famous for doing much shedding. And both dogs are sloppy eaters, but not inclined to guard their spilled food.

So, really, it’s all working out quite nicely.

Want to see another picture of what might very well be the world’s most attractive geriatric Golden Retriever? Sure, you do!

All together now — Awwww!

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My sister-in-law, the mad daylily collector, was among 2000 who rocked our local Run for the Cure this past weekend, to help to raise funds for breast cancer research. She’s one good reason why DomestikGoddess.com goes Pink for October — well, even more pink than usual. She also comes from a long line of photographers, and that’s where this next bit comes in:

Yesterday, my friend Gui mentioned that Flickr’s gone over to the pink this month, too. Yahoo! will donate 1 euro for each pink photo added to the Pink 2008 Flickr group, up to 30,000 EUR for five charities in Europe that support breast cancer research and treatment. You can add up to 5 photographs each day until the end of October.

How cool is that? An easy way to support a good cause — easy as pinning on the pink ribbon, but way more creative — with the added benefit of getting much-needed funds to fight breast cancer. If you can’t manage the cash to donate to the cause right now, yourself, why not upload a couple of pics and let Yahoo! make a donation for you?

These are my favourite dwarf daylilies, by the way. Don’t ask the name, it’s Strawberry something-or-other, but I never can remember: to me, they’re just “those pretty bright pink ones”! I’m a lousy photographer, as we know, but couldn’t resist grabbing a shot of these daylilies just as their blooming season came to an end.

p.s. If you post a pink pic to Flickr’s Pink 2008, feel free to drop a link in the comments so we can all come over to your place and go ooh and ahh!

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Do you know about Alltop.com? It’s sort of a “digital magazine rack” serving up the “best of the best” news stories from across the Internet. Sounds impressive, no? All the cool kids hang out there — and now, it seems, you and I do too!

Through some lucky oversight (or perhaps a computer melt-down somewhere?), Domestik Goddess has been tucked cosily into the Alltop Frugality page along with all your favourite penny-pinchers — like About.com Frugal Living and Uncommon Cents and Frugal Simplicity… well, you get the idea!

Fun With Frugality

This might be a good time for a quick word about what frugality is, as I see it:

Frugality is not about living mean and small. No, I love beautiful and foolish things as much as the next person (as regular readers will very well know!) and never could get my brain in gear for clipping coupons…

Frugality is about knowing the difference between want and need — and setting priorities for your life. It’s about “old-fashioned values” — if you’ll forgive a hackneyed phrase that only a politician can say with a straight face these days — and making the most of our own strengths and talents, lending a hand to neighbours, nesting at home, enjoying the moment, and recognizing that there’s more to a creative and fulfilling life than the figures on a paycheque.

We’re looking at some tough economic times ahead, folks, and really tough times for the environment, too. We can’t be out there frittering away our money and our resources like a sailor on shore leave. But that doesn’t mean your life has to be a grim and narrow round of drudgery — quite the opposite!

Frugality (actually, I prefer to think of it as being “thrifty,” it sounds so much softer) can be a lifestyle full of colour and creativity, if you put your imagination to work.

And that’s what Domestik Goddess is all about.

If you’re new here, stick around and you’ll see what we mean… And if you’re a regular and you can’t help feeling you’ve heard quite enough from me for one day, well, you know that’s cool, too.

Take a moment and check out frugality.alltop.com, if you like — and take a scope around there to see what else Alltop has to tempt your tastes. Major subjects are Work, Living, Culture, Interests, Tech, People, Good, News, Geos and Sports: and each one has lots of sub-topics to help you find the stuff you like.

Especially, don’t miss the Moms — they’re the ones who secretly rule Alltop, I suspect, along with the rest of the world!

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Writing the “interpretive text” for an art museum’s exhibition is nowhere near as glamorous and creative a job as you might think. And whenever that’s my job du jour, the thesaurus gets a total workout.

Oh, sure, the dictionary sees a good bit of action, too —

Photo credt: nugun

• Should we capitalize Raku?
• How do you spell trompe… tromp l’o… trompe l’oeil?
• Is hand blown (as in glass art objects) properly set as one word, or two? Maybe it needs a hyphen.

But it’s the thesaurus that is begging for mercy by the end of the project.

Consider this:

Where do you go, to avoid repetition, when you’ve written at length about an artist’s body of work, and the particular pieces and works in this exhibit? Without getting all specific about the medium or form, I mean.

Sure, one can ramble on endlessly about sculptures, weavings, hangings, paintings and portraits, pots and bowls, quilts and collages and found-object art… But put them all together and what have we got?

Works of art.

It’s that same darned collective noun, again.

We need to have more words for work in this language, that’s all I’m saying.

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“White wedding” took on a whole new meaning for me, a couple of years ago.

I’m reminded of this by the convergence of three things: another wedding in the family this summer, the pending conversion of yet another neighbourhood dairy farm into a subdivision, and the playful reincarnation of the iconic Got Milk? campaign.

(Bear with me — this will all start to make sense in a minute!)

So, as I’ve hinted, we’ve just celebrated another wedding in the extended family — and those of you who’ve been there can well understand the potential for both magic and disaster. So many details to coordinate with military precision! Everything must be perfect… Such high expectations, and such high stress!

Well, our most recent family wedding breezed through on the magical side, I’m thrilled to report.

But in this story I’m about to tell you of another wedding, a few years back… not so much.

Let’s not even speak of the soloist’s hiccups, the drunken photographer, or the brutal heat wave that turned the wedding reception into a sauna and the expensive ice sculpture into a melting lopsided phallus that soaked the buffet table linens.

No, we’ll pass over those minor points.

Because the element of the unexpected that came closest to causing a Total Bridal Meltdown was the adorable flowergirl. Six years old, angelic in pink satin, with blond ringlets cascading from a wreath of tiny rosebuds, tiny patent leather shoes…

Angelic? Give that child one piece of candy too many (and no, it wasn’t me who did that!) and she turned into hyperactive devilspawn:

Poking her finger through her Granny’s antique silk lampshades. Hog-tying the cat with ribbon stripped from the wedding gifts she’d decided to open. And drawing big blue daisies on the train of the wedding gown — minutes before zero hour — with a leaky ballpoint pen.

Yep, that’s what I said.

While the bride was sitting about in her lacey underthings, under the hairdresser’s care, and the limousine was pulling into the curb, and the father of the bride was pacing the front hallway with his watch in his hand — the flowergirl drew big blue flowers on the pristine white field of the wedding gown.

With a ballpoint pen.

See, this is the point where the milk comes in — and a tip from the calm and practical wife of that same dairy farmer whose fields, sadly, have just been sold off for building lots (because that’s what happens to far too many family farms, these days: but don’t get me started!) —

Milk removed the ink stain.

Soak in milk, rinse in cool water. Soak and rinse, soak and rinse, until the spot comes clean. Then a quick bit of work with the hairdresser’s blow drier — and the gown was once more whiter than the bride’s conscience… er, white enough to walk down the aisle!

Yes, it’s true. Milk can take out many kinds of ink from almost any fabric that you can get wet without worry. Whole milk works best, by the way. Mind you, there’s nothing I’ve found yet that will get out ink from permanent markers (which is probably why they call them “permanent,” d’ya think?), but for your basic flowergirl graffiti with a regular ballpoint pen? Magic!

And perhaps best not to talk about what happened to the unwisely artistic flowergirl, when her mother took her upstairs to have a little chat…

The key point is, a glass of milk saved the wedding day.

Now, the people over at Got Milk?, keen folks though they may be, won’t be bragging up the stain-removal properties of milk. They can (and will, at the drop of a hat) tell you all about the other benefits of milk — healthy hair, stronger nails, better sleep, and all that lovely PMS-fighting calcium, and so on — but they won’t tell you that milk gets out many kinds of ink stains.

My theory: it’s probably because milk’s not registered as a laundry product, and there isn’t the “scientific evidence” to back up any big ink-cleaning claims. Fair enough. But I can tell you — I was there; I was the one who wrestled the Satanic pen-wielding flowergirl to the ground; and I saw the milk do its magic with my very own eyes.

Got wedding? Got kid?
You might want to pick up a quart of milk.
Just sayin’.

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As a child, I was a soft-bellied sloth.

In my young-adult prime, a mix of healthy outdoor physical activity, all-night dancing, and obsessive weight-training created a woman who could appear in public in a bathing suit without making people think of beluga caviar.

Over the past few years, however, the sloth has returned.
Not satisfactory.

Because you just know it’s the start of an irrevocable downhill slide into physical decrepitude and stretch polyester from a discount department store.

Sure, a walking program and healthier eating habits have started to turn around the waistline expansion, but there’s still good reason why I flee from certain fashions — and have no upper-body strength to speak of. (Jello arm flaps are looming in the near future, I tell you!)

And that’s why I’m cursing Kristen Healy.

Runner, knitter, spinner, geek, and otherwise quite a perfectly lovely person, KCH refused to let blissful ignorance lie on soft pillows.

Note the runner bit — that implies a modicum of fitness, and a good headstart on this 100 Pushups challenge she’s unaccountably sucked me into.

The only running I ever do, these days, is away from a camera…

But I digress.

Here’s the deal, for anyone else with a masochistic yen for self-improvement who might care to follow along (yes, misery does love company):

To improve your strength, fitness and general health all you need to do is commit about 30 minutes of your time per week, and follow the push ups training program as closely as you can.

It’s a 6-week program, beginning with an initial test –

Once you’ve collapsed in a sweaty heap on the floor and your arms have stopped trembling from the exertion, make a note (mental or otherwise) of how many, or how few, push ups you were able to perform.

Right.
And from there, we go to week 1 and choose the program that matches our starting rank.

Steve Speirs, the sadistic mastermind behind the challenge, claims that it’s possible to reach the 100 push-up mark in that six weeks, even if startng from my own level of astonishing lack of fitness.

Who is this guy, anyway? I’m all tired and wobbly from just looking at the website! But hey, a challenge is a challenge… and even a soft-bellied sloth can rise to a challenge, if you poke it hard enough with the mighty stick of potential public humiliation!

Whee-ha!
So… who’s in?

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As those of you following the Canadian news (or my other River/Road post) may gather… we’ve had a spot of flooding, here in the St. John River valley of New Brunswick. And as I said yesterday,

When Nature gets nasty, know what we do around here?
We rush out and take pictures, of course.

Especially those of us who live up on high ground.

Here are the flood photos that He Who Hogs The Power Tools took yesterday and this afternoon, while I wandered about with the dog and chatted with other flood watchers:

Highway 105 at Keswick, NB, 30 April 2008


Highway 105 at Keswick, NB, 30 April 2008


Highway 105 at Keswick, NB, 30 April 2008


Mactaquac Dam, NB, 30 April 2008


Mactaquac Dam, NB, 30 April 2008


Corner of Brunswick and Carleton Streets, Fredericton, NB, 30 April 2008


Back of Crown Plaza Hotel, Queen St., Fredericton, NB, 30 April 2008


Officers Square, Fredericton, New Brunswick 30 April 2008

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So, we’re watching the river rise in the St. John River valley… feeling grateful for living up on very high ground… and the radio says this could be the worst flood in 35 years. Everyone’s talking about The Big One back in 1973 and wondering what will happen overnight.

When Nature gets nasty, know what we do around here? We rush out and take pictures, of course. And gather at the Department of Highways barricades to chat with neighbours and feel sorry for our friends and family who built their homes on the flood plain. Maybe bring a thermos of coffee and the dog… All of which is to say, I’m planning to go out and do just that, right now — to return later with a few scenic shots (low light levels permitting) of the soon-to-be famous Flood of 2008. Meanwhile, CTV News is doing a pretty good job with the video coverage at www.ctvnewsnet.com.

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On top of losing 7 pounds in 10 days — yes!! yes, that happened! — one of the best things about doing my 4-week Healthy Eating Challenge is discovering new cool guilt-free recipes.

Low fat, low calorie, high in all sorts of dandy nutrients and vitamins, and pretty frugal, too… This recipe, discovered in the PC Healthy Living Recipes vault, is definitely going into the regular rotation in our household:

Chicken Thighs in BBQ Sauce

Combine:
8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
+
1/2 cup barbecue sauce for chicken and ribs
Put on an oil-sprayed pan.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes at 400°F, turning once.
Eat.

I’ve been enjoying the BBQ Chicken Thighs with a small baked potato and a hefty side salad, as called for in my 1500-calorie Menu Plan. Now, what could be quicker and easier for a healthy supper?

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Madly off-topic, I know…

but I’ve really got to have a rant — followed by some truly useful links, I promise! — about the Vile Pond Scum known as Scrapers.

Scraper blogs are those ad-splattered automated blogs that steal content from the RSS feeds of hard-working real human bloggers, slap on some Google Adsense ads, and churn it back out again with flagrant disregard for law or ethics. They’ll even hijack your illustrations — so you pay for the hosting space and bandwidth, the Pond Scum Scrapers flash your pretty pictures to make their blogs look deceptively genuine…

Yep, those scraper blogs have finally ticked off the mild-mannered Domestik Goddess enough to make me drop the oven mitts and fight back.

They’ve cost me money, created confusion, sucked up my high quality crafting and gardening time, and (worst of all) spoiled much of the idle socializing that I’d had planned for this past sunny spring weekend.  

Where’s the Beef?

(Why are scrapers a problem?)

Let’s say you’re an independent artist… *analogy alert* … with a studio full of stunning collages, all beautifully framed.

You put hours into creating these works — thinking up fresh new original ideas, collecting the precious raw materials, arranging the elements to match your vision, putting on the final polish, selecting the frames, assembling the finished piece…

But that’s not the end of your Labour of Love.

Those paintings aren’t going to get up and go out and sell themselves to he art-loving public who’ll treasure them forever!

No, you still have to tote your portfolio around to galleries and Arts Council meetings, trying to negotiate with agents and curators to look at your work, get a toes in the door and just pray that they’ll take an interest.

But there’s a lot of competition out there…

And one day, you waltz yourself into a brand-new gallery with a brand-new original collage under your arm, full of optimism, chin held high. You’re sure that today’s the day you’ll break through into the big-time art world… but shock! The gallery walls are already covered, top to bottom, with perfect copies of your original work!

“Why would I want to offer your collages to the public?” asks the gallery owner, “when this charming fresh new artist, Admin from Indonesia, has given me exactly the same thing?

“Sure, according to long-standing international copyright agreements, what’s protected in one country is protected through most of the civilized world.

“And true, even in the US (now the the Digital Millenium Copyright Act has been enacted) any original work — whether it’s in pictures, music, writing, anything; yes, even blogs — is automatically copyrighted as soon as it’s created.

“Sure, we all know that stealing is just plain wrong…”

Don’t relax just yet!

“Tell you what,” the gallery owner says, “if you think this guy might be copying your original work and passing it off as his own, all you’ve got to do is prove it — and I’ll be happy to stop selling his work (eventually). Of course, there’ll still be copies floating around on the market for years to come… but hey, it’s only art, right?

“And if you want to make a living, forget that creative stuff! Why not join the 21st century, get yourself a couple of nice scraper blogs…

“Oh, that reminds me — here’s Admin’s bill. You’re hosting them, so you’ve got to pay the price of getting his pictures up on my gallery wall.

“You have a nice day, now!”

Whatcha Gonna Do?

So I’ve been wasting far too much of a lovely sunny weekend here:

• tracking down that ubiquitous Pond Scum Scraper named admin
• writing the required “Cease and Desist” letters, asking Pond Scum sooooo politely to please stop stealing my stuff, pretty please, if it’s not tooo much trouble?
  and
• filling out DMCA forms to get web hosts and domain registrars to take action against the scrapers they serve, not to mention the advertising folks who make a Pond Scum Scraper’s life worth spending the 3 whole minutes it takes to set up yet another fake blog…

Because I’d hate for you to have the same degree of sunshine-wasting hassle, if the scrapers hit your blog — here are some handy resources to help you squish the bottom-feeding scraper-blog operators like the repulsive cockroaches they are:

• Who is the owner of the scraper domain? Look here: whois.domaintools.com
• What company is hosting the scraper site? Look here: whoishostingthis.com
• • How to file a copyright complaint with Hostgator
  • How to file a copyright complaint with GoDaddy
  • Other hosts’ requirements will be similar. Search the hosting company’s name and ‘copyright infringement’ for details.
• Here’s how to tell Google that you’ve been violated by a site they’re listing: http://www.google.com/dmca.html and here:
  http://www.google.com/blogger_dmca.html
• And here’s a really top-knotch post from SEO Logic that explains in simple terms what you can do about Internet copyright infringement; See also how to file a copyright infringement complaint with the major directories and search engines for step-by-step instructions to make life a whole lot less profit-rich for content thieves.

And if all else fails, you can always go straight to advertisers. I’ll bet these big reputable companies would prefer not to have their corporate brands used to pad the pockets of Pond Scum content theives, if it were only brought to their attention.

Squeaky wheels, baby, squeaky wheels…

Now, go get ‘em, tiger!

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It’s true. No threats, no bribes, no whips and chains were required — not even any withholding of chocolate chip cookies — to get He Who Hogs The Power Tools to snack on a breakfast cereal with soy protein in it.

(PC Blue Menu Soy Crunch Multi-Grain Cereal, in case you’re wondering. It’s one of the new foods I’ve been trying as part of the Healthy Eating Challenge this past week.)

Honestly, when I started out on this 4-week adventure, I was bracing myself for a certain air of quiet martyrdom from the meat-and-potatoes man who shares my fridge.

Oh, sure, he was saying all the right things:

Really, whatever you want to do, I’ll support you. Yes, dear, this is a good thing. Yes, I suppose we should be getting more healthy foods and watching what we eat… Whatever you want to do, really, no, it’s fine…

But I wasn’t convinced that his heart was in it.

You should have seen us shopping for the motherlode of Healthy Groceries! Toddling around the store, menu plan in hand, I’m loading up with fruits and veggies and are you sure you need that much yogurt? …

Telling you, I’d have paid good money for one of those quick-snap photographers to be on hand to catch the expression on HWHTPT’s face when he saw me pick up the umpteenth healthy fibre-rich low-fat feeling-all-virtuous food product with Soy in its name!

So today, here we are, cruising the sunporch, watching the Sunday afternoon go by and having a cup of tea with my visiting mother.

HWHTPT suddenly clears his throat:
I made a sandwich yesterday with one of those Soy Deli Slices.
It wasn’t bad. Tasted a bit like bologna.

Silence. We turn to stare at him. He won’t meet our eyes.

After a minute he looks up, takes a deep breath, and says:
I’ve had a couple bowls of that Soy Crunch Cereal, too.

Pause.

I kind of liked it. Actually, it would be okay if we got some more of that stuff. It’s a pretty good TV snack… I’m not sure how much is left in the box.

Score one for the humble soy bean — magically transformed into a form of tasty low-fat high-fibre nutrition that even a Cookie Monster man will choose to eat.

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Before:
Soft ‘n’ Squishy Not-So-Fit
Virtual Jen

So, I mentioned how keen I am to get on board with the Healthy Eating Challenge, right?

Brace yourself, we’re ready to rock!

And, by the way, nuts to those of you who expected me to post a real-life “before” picture! My Virtual Model here will do the job for now.

Besides, there are more motivations to eat healthy food in sensible amounts than a photo could show.

You know, like feeling all perky and fit and firm; and walking uphill without having to call for a tow-truck; and not having your mother try to slip a bottle of vitamins into your coat pocket whenever you drop in to visit her… all that sort of Quality-Of-Life thing.

Moving on…

I had my first chat with a Loblaw’s dietician this morning, picked up a few good food pointers, and I’m ready to head on over to PC.ca to pick out a menu plan for the next 4 weeks.

Feel free to follow along, by the way. The menu plans (and recipes and healthy eating tips) are available for anyone to use, not just us Loblaw’s groupies.

How many calories do I need in a day?

So, we’re looking at 3 different 4-week menu plans there, for three different calorie-intake levels.

Fortunately, there’s also a little questionnaire form to help you pick the right plan. Enter this info:

• gender,
• age,
• height,
• weight,
• activity level, and
• weight goals.

So far, so good. (And you might as well tell the truth for the first few of those, since no one’s looking. I won’t ask, or tell.)

Activity level?

Yesterday I organized the big basement freezer and mucked out the fridge, in preparation for doing this Challenge — is there a physical activity category for “stupidly exhausting”?

The National Institute of Health gives some helpful examples of moderate physical activity: washing your windows for an hour, say, or walking 2 miles in 30 minutes. (Given that choice, I’ll be going for a walk!)

Okay, now, do I want to gain weight {*snorf*} or lose weight, or maintain?

I know what my waistband is telling me. And that Virtual Mini-Me picture. And — here I go again with the confessions — on the weekend I tried on my dear old black jacket, that faithful old companion of the road adventures of my misspent youth. Ah, memories… But it wouldn’t fasten up!!

Yeah, I think we could use a little trimming down and tightening up on the way to better overall nutrition and health. But let’s get all scientific about this, shall we? and see what story the body mass index (BMI) has to tell.

BMI is a measure of body fat that’s based on height and weight (kg / m²) — but never mind wrestling with the math, just use an online BMI calculator to get the number, then check what range your BMI falls into. Since we’re in such a confessionary mode today, I’ll tell you that my BMI is 25.7 (yes, that’s in the overweight category). See? That’s what a normally semi-fit woman gets from a long hard winter of potato chips and sitting on the couch!

Granted, the BMI index is more of a guideline than a commandment (and sometimes reality makes BMI a joke)… but still, I’d like to kick mine back into the normal range.

Normal is good.
I’ve heard.

1500 Calories, eh?

So I’ll be going for the 1500-calorie Healthy Eating plan. Three meals and three snacks a day? Wow. I’m not even sure I can eat that much…

Looking ahead…

The biggest challenge for me is going to be portion control — that, and doing the breakfast thing.

Yes, yes, we know. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The nice Loblaw’s dietician I talked with on the phone this morning says a lot of people have a struggle to make themselves eat breakfast. That’s because we snarf down a big snack at 10:00 at night — yep, guilty as charged! — so we’re not hungry in the morning.

So, that’s one eating habit I’ve got to change — less late-night snacking, more breakfast.

As for the portion sizes, there are a couple of thing going on here. One is that restaurants have been super-sizing our meals for so long now that we’ve lost all sense of how much food we really need.

Also, as usual, it’s the man’s fault.

Live with a man and you’ll get fat — studies prove it! Naturally, men can eat more than women without porking up, so dining with He Who Hogs The Power Tools has led me into the habit of matching what’s on our plates when dishing out the food. Not so good.

So that’s the second major change — reading the package nutrition labels, and getting out the measuring cups, and generally trying to re-learn what a proper healthy portion is supposed to look like.

Next step:
Play with the drop-down selections to finalize my Healthy Eating Challenge menu plan, print out a shopping list, and try to hook up with the local grocery store’s dietician… Wish me luck? There could be a roasted-veggie lasagna involved, if I play my cards right!

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Lately, now that we’re finally starting to peel off mega-layers of winter clothing, unpleasant surprises have come to light. Look away now if you’re squeamish. (Or skip down the page to something far more visually rewarding, if you prefer.)

It’s this pasty-pale end-of-winter body — so long covered up in wool and fibrefill and fleece — so long neglected because, really, who cares when all you want to do is hibernate? Now there’s a hint of spring, of sunshine, of the possibility of weather warm enough to want to wear shorts and little sun dresses and dare-to-dream a bathing suit, perhaps… so I’m suddenly aware of a certain softness at the waistline…. A certain avoir-dupois in the rear end…. A certain alarming lack of firmness about the inner thighs…

What, too much information?

Sorry. I’ve been hanging out with CardioGirl too much lately, and listening to Claudia boast about finding her hip bones when Karen whipped her back to the gym…

Peer Pressure + Vanity = Healthy Eating

Long story short, I’ve signed up for the President’s Choice Healthy Eating Challenge.

This means setting some goals for health and fitness and whatnot, and then dragging my cushy tush into town once a week, to meet with a Loblaw’s dietician and confess my chocolate sins.

The idea is that I’ll follow a 4-week healthy eating plan that’s based on the PC Blue Menu line of products, while Loblaw’s kicks in for groceries and nutrition counselling. Which all works out pretty well because (a) I lack the gene for self-denial and self-control, and (b) I like most of the Blue Menu foods I’ve tried — can we say “Roasted Vegetable Lasagna”?

So, it looks like this will be starting up in the next week or so…

Must confess, I am a bit nervous.

I have a vision of these weekly dietician visits as something like being called into the high school principal’s office — “Just where were you, young lady, when you should have been in your third period Home Economics class?!”

But if you could see what happens at my belt line when I forget to suck in my gut (and just be glad you can’t see that, really), you’d know I’m not just doing this because Loblaw’s is picking up the check.

And no, I’m not just doing this because Galen Weston’s hot, either.

Although he is.

Especially for the 30-something exec of a grocery chain. It’s sort of like that boy-next-door thing that John Denver worked like a gold-plated mule about a century ago — but updated with a sophisticated hint of urban geek chic. Bonus points for having a billionaire daddy, naturally. Points off for turning in his Eligible Bachelor status a couple years back…

But hey, who’s counting? Put the man in a crisp chambrey-blue shirt up there on my TV screen, talking PC Organics with a dimple-cheeked baby —

Yeah, I’m watching the commercials.
And not eating chips.

So now for you, my dears, here’s the oh-gosh charming outtakes reel:

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My younger brother was a real comic as a teenager. Night after night, doing the dishes after supper, his song-and-dance routines used to get the rest of us just splitting our sides with laughing.

(Notice I’m not telling you my brother’s name? — that’s because I enjoy my life and limbs intact, and would prefer to keep it all that way, even if he finds out that I’m telling about his entertaining teenage years!)

As I recall, he did a great straight-faced parody of different tunes from our parents’ collection of funny old LPs — I can still almost hear him singing the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace” in a basement-deep voice, doing a cool little jive step, making goo-goo eyes at his dish-towel dance partner.

And there was a sort of Russian-inspired squat-kicking dance routine he did sometimes, and an Al Jolson (”Swanee River” era) impression… but my all-time favourite After-Dinner Show was when my brother danced the Charleston.

See, he’s a tall man, my younger brother.

And he was one of those tall skinny impossibly-long-legged teenagers.

So you can just imagine how that whole Charleston loose-jointed, leg-sliding, knee-crossing fast Roaring Twenties jazz-baby style llooked when those long legs got flying!

Well, just have a look at the video (below) and you’ll see what I mean — the tall guy who’s 4th on the floor in this dance-off competition? I have no idea who that dancer is, but his Charleston style just reminds me of so much of my brother showing off his own moves, when we were kids.
Good times, good times!

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How do you know when it’s time for Spring Cleaning? Some people go by the calendar, to know when it’s time to roll up the sleeves and muck out the house.

My grandmother was one of those housekeepers. Not that Gran’s house was ever anything less than pristine (and we’re talking “eat off the floor” clean, not a concept with which I, myself, am intimately familiar!) — but she did watch the calendar.

Every year, immediately following St. Patrick’s Day, she’d boil up gallons of water and get out the scrub brushes. Curtains were washed and ironed with starch. Rugs were draped over the clothesline and vigorously beaten with a wire gizmo that was made for the purpose. Beeswax and lemon oil were melted gently together into a furniture polish that filled the place with that evocative scent that, ever since, has spoken to me of damned hard work, dust up my nose, and rubber gloves…

Some people go by the calendar to start their spring cleaning; but others go by the weather —

Is it warm enough outdoors to throw open the windows? Yes? Then it’s time to start washing those windows, inside and out.

Yep, that would be another way to go…

But the truly gifted Domestik Goddess relies on more subtle signs that Spring Cleaning Season is once more upon us:

• Your mother admires your attractive beige mini-blinds; but the blinds were white, when you put them up last fall.
• The mudroom has been earning its name for at least three weeks.
• No matter how often you put it firmly away, the vacuum cleaner keeps re-appearing, as if by magic, in the middle of the living room floor.
• The dog’s squeaky ball rolls underneath the spare room bed… and he refuses to go in there after it.
• The cobwebs are getting dusty.
• A visiting small child gazes around your home, then looks up at you wide-eyed with awe and wonder, and asks: “Did you know that people can tidy up sometimes?”

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Arts and Crafts

This was a spur-of-the-moment craft project, instigated by my young friend Kelly (who was spending March break with her grandmother, our next-door neighbour) and carried out on a stormy evening when our other entertainment options were limited.

Remember the Bendy Holdy Wondervase? If you’ve got a pair of them, you’ve got great fun! Kelly had had her heart set on playing with those flexible vases from the moment she laid eyes on them, so of course that was the very first project we had to do!

And what’s a vase without some flowers?

They’re a bit of a tough job, these flowers, since we didn’t have much in the way of materials — Kelly glued together popsicle sticks and painted them green to make the stems, for instance — but hey, we had fun doing it!

One of the tissue-paper flowers — the white one printed with tiny red hearts — went home with Kelly as a gift for her Grammie, because grandmother’s have a deep appreciation for such things.

Granny Squares

What can I say? For the better part of a year, I’ve been griping about the sad state of the throw pillows on the couch.

Scraps of yarn, a couple of crochet hooks, and an eager young helper with a week’s break from school… and now I’ve got plenty of “granny squares” to fashion into cushion covers!

Healthy Exercise with Dogs

The long-faced greyhound — who can’t get out to his running yard, with all that snow, enjoyed a Novice class in Rally Obedience. (That’s a dog sport that involves high-speed obedience moves around a timed course: great fun! You can learn more about it at RallyObedience.com.)

And when the weather wasn’t too bad outside, we had some doggie visitors… and some lovely brisk walks on snowy trails, coming back home to cinnamon buns and hot chocolate.

…and Nature Appreciation

Because winter in Atlantic Canada may last just a teensy bit longer than we’d really prefer… but, still, it does have its moments!

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