Thursday, March 31, 2005
"Happy Birthday!"
Happy Birthday to my beautiful little girl. I can't believe she is six years old already!!! I love you, Sierra!
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Happy Birthday to my beautiful little girl. I can't believe she is six years old already!!! I love you, Sierra!
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Thursday, March 24, 2005
"In other news"
We have been on a low sodium diet for a little over a month now and I've actually lost a few pounds because of it. We have had to completely eliminate fast food, soy sauce (this one is KILLING me), any prepackaged foods like macaroni and cheese, noodles, rices, soups, even chicken broth and are living a bland, bland existence right now. Haywood's blood pressure was high and mine was intermittently high so we have decided to try this method to see if it would help. So far it seems to be working, but it is very tough to do. I challenge to you look at the sodium content of what you're eating to see what I mean. Just one tablespoon of soy sauce is over 50% of your RDA for sodium. 1 can of Campbell's Tomato soup (which is 2 servings - for a mouse!) is 100%! The list goes on, but the bottom line is, there are diets for low carb, and low fat, and gluten-free, but trying to find good tasting products for a low sodium diet is near impossible, especially since I got so addicted to using tons of kosher salt on everything, and I know we're going to crash and burn any second!! But for the meantime, we are actually now "healthier" than some of our "healthy" friends!
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We have been on a low sodium diet for a little over a month now and I've actually lost a few pounds because of it. We have had to completely eliminate fast food, soy sauce (this one is KILLING me), any prepackaged foods like macaroni and cheese, noodles, rices, soups, even chicken broth and are living a bland, bland existence right now. Haywood's blood pressure was high and mine was intermittently high so we have decided to try this method to see if it would help. So far it seems to be working, but it is very tough to do. I challenge to you look at the sodium content of what you're eating to see what I mean. Just one tablespoon of soy sauce is over 50% of your RDA for sodium. 1 can of Campbell's Tomato soup (which is 2 servings - for a mouse!) is 100%! The list goes on, but the bottom line is, there are diets for low carb, and low fat, and gluten-free, but trying to find good tasting products for a low sodium diet is near impossible, especially since I got so addicted to using tons of kosher salt on everything, and I know we're going to crash and burn any second!! But for the meantime, we are actually now "healthier" than some of our "healthy" friends!
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"Me? A Teacher?"
Well, while it is true that I have not yet applied for a job, I am actually thinking more seriously about returning to the work force. I am currently studying for the Praxis II exam for Elementary Education, which I'll take April 16th. There's a chance that the technology teacher at Sierra's school will be leaving and if the position becomes available, I'd like to have it. It's a bit of a crazy move on my part - after all, it would be more than a 50% pay cut (or actually a huge increase over my current "salary" of $00,000), but I'd have benefits, summers off and shorter days, as well as being able to drive Sierra to and from school - for me, the quality of life is worth it. I hardly spend any money on frivolities anymore and you can't take it with you, so who needs stockpiles of cash lying around? Not me!
This studying thing is really hard for me, as I have never studied a day in my life (which is why I now have to re-learn everything that I glided through during my years in school). My test has four counterparts - Language Arts, Social Studies, Math and Science. I feel great about the Math and Science parts (except for brushing up on the exact moon - sun positioning for each moon phase and each season, what the hell!!), but the Social Studies is killing me! I don't have a good knowledge of history and dates escape me sometimes, so I'm doing my best to try to find overviews of these topics online that are not too detailed. A lot of the questions are meant to apply my knowledge, for example, I wouldn't have to know if the printing press was invented in 1836, but I might need to know that it was invented during the Renaissance or that its invention was a cause of widespread increase of the distribution of written works during the Renaissance. So basically what I'm saying is that this is a huge pain in the ass because all I really want to do is teach kids about computers, but I have to get an entire elementary ed certification to teach them at this level. I must admit I am happy to be able to fill in a few black holes of memory and potentially make myself a more well rounded person, let's just hope the knowledge sticks with me this time.
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Well, while it is true that I have not yet applied for a job, I am actually thinking more seriously about returning to the work force. I am currently studying for the Praxis II exam for Elementary Education, which I'll take April 16th. There's a chance that the technology teacher at Sierra's school will be leaving and if the position becomes available, I'd like to have it. It's a bit of a crazy move on my part - after all, it would be more than a 50% pay cut (or actually a huge increase over my current "salary" of $00,000), but I'd have benefits, summers off and shorter days, as well as being able to drive Sierra to and from school - for me, the quality of life is worth it. I hardly spend any money on frivolities anymore and you can't take it with you, so who needs stockpiles of cash lying around? Not me!
This studying thing is really hard for me, as I have never studied a day in my life (which is why I now have to re-learn everything that I glided through during my years in school). My test has four counterparts - Language Arts, Social Studies, Math and Science. I feel great about the Math and Science parts (except for brushing up on the exact moon - sun positioning for each moon phase and each season, what the hell!!), but the Social Studies is killing me! I don't have a good knowledge of history and dates escape me sometimes, so I'm doing my best to try to find overviews of these topics online that are not too detailed. A lot of the questions are meant to apply my knowledge, for example, I wouldn't have to know if the printing press was invented in 1836, but I might need to know that it was invented during the Renaissance or that its invention was a cause of widespread increase of the distribution of written works during the Renaissance. So basically what I'm saying is that this is a huge pain in the ass because all I really want to do is teach kids about computers, but I have to get an entire elementary ed certification to teach them at this level. I must admit I am happy to be able to fill in a few black holes of memory and potentially make myself a more well rounded person, let's just hope the knowledge sticks with me this time.
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