Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Randomly Recent and a Treadmill Desk

Boys who once disliked writing can become happy note-takers!

He Who Hated To Put Two Words Together with a pencil is eagerly translating frames from his German Asterix comic into English! I'm glad I skipped penmanship lessons (it was too much busywork when I briefly tried it a couple of years ago).
Kiddo is also determined to see a free online course from the Stanford U folks through. It is harder than he thought it would be. But he is somehow plodding along. It's a wonderful experience for him in time management and note-taking and hopefully, he is learning a little about coding, ciphers, and all the technical jargon I can't wrap my head around.

Oh, I feel So Old sometimes. And. So. Slow.

Some notes from around the house...

I love watching the birds that visit our yard. We have scrub jays and mourning doves taking turns to sip from our water fountains. One day, I even noticed a mourning dove passive-aggressively trying to push the jay away! A hummingbird, too tiny to comfortably drink from the pool fountain, frequently visits our smaller fountain on the side to cool its body and quench its thirst. These beautiful visitors never fail to delight me!

I have started a blog category called "what's cooking". It makes me laugh I tell you. Me, the mom who will avoid cooking at all costs if she could, starting a category about what she cooks. Better check to see if something porcine is flying outside.

I hope you, dear reader, will laugh with me, and not at. :)

Here's a delicious (if I should say so myself) chicken porridge I made today. It smelled so good that kiddo kept getting distracted during his online math class. We have been avoiding rice but I thought we deserved a treat since we haven't had it in a long time. I used three quarters a package of low-sodium chicken stock and about half that amount of water plus sliced, boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces, sliced onion and some garlic-ginger puree for the base. I like to keep dry-fried tofu handy (it's great with stir-fried vegetables) and added some of that too. A little sesame oil and a handful of baby carrots went in next. And once everything was happily boiling, I poured in a cup and a half of rice and let it simmer gently for about 20 more minutes. Cilantro and sliced baby bok choy were added towards the end just before serving, with salt and spice to taste. A yummy meal perfect for an under-the-weather day or if you just want something easy to prepare for lunch.

Ah, and I hacked a closet wire shelf into a treadmill desk! It was so much simpler than what was suggested on various You Tube videos. Simply head to Home Depot and buy a 3ft x 1ft wire shelf, like this one by ClosetMaid. I had two, black snap-locking straps and used them to secure the shelf to each handlebar. These straps look very much like shoulder straps from laptop bags or perhaps, narrower versions of luggage straps. You could also use zip/ cable-ties in place of the straps but I wanted something easier to remove. Voila! I walked for an hour without even realizing it today while working on the computer. On a relatively gentle, no-incline pace, that was close to 250 calories gone!

Till next time, hopefully, by a slimmer, more streamlined Suji lol.

3 comments:

  1. Yum that looks good - you can cook that for us next time we visit:)

    Love Milly's desk - what a great idea!

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  2. I love how your blog is looking, and I love your header picture. It all looks great.

    That meal sounds amazing, and what a great idea for to add a desk to your treadmill. Such an easy solution, but one I never would have thought of. :)

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  3. Thank you Kerrie and Jill! I hope the desk holds up. I think it should be okay but if you have a heavier laptop, the wire shelf could sag a little.

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