Loss, And A Loving Link

We lost someone recently.  It's the saddest, most horrible thing.   A family member lost her husband, their young sons lost their father.  As difficult as it is for me to try to understand and accept how someone so healthy and kind and good can die, I can't even imagine what his wife and children are going through.  In the flurry of activity leading up to the services this weekend, someone told me about something called a Care Calendar.  There's a website where you can set up a calendar of a family's needs, such as meals and errands, and then family and friends can see what needs to be done and sign up for that task or event on their own.  Someone has to administer the Care Calendar account, so someone needs to stay on top of the family's needs, but that means that there is only one person the family has to update instead of needing to constantly go over everything with everyone who wants to help.  What an amazing, loving idea for a website.  Please check it out, maybe it will be useful for someone you know who is going through a difficult time.

Stupid Gym, Stupid Reasons Not To Go

I went to the gym today.  I had to outsmart myself to get there.  I never watched Stargate Atlantis when it was on television and have been buying the seasons one at a time on Itunes and watching it on my laptop.  Love that show!  And today I realized DUH I could watch it on my Ipod while I'm on the elliptical at the gym.
Stupid gym.  I've wanted to go for months and have only been going once a month. For various stupid reasons....

• I didn't want to be one of those New Year's resolutionists everyone complains about at the gym, crowding the place for the first few weeks of the year.  Really?  That was really a reason I didn't go to the gym?  Because of something someone wrote in an article or a blog?  Stupid reason. 
• I didn't want to go because we had over a foot of snow and driving was a bitch at the very least, hazardous at most.  Ok, good reason. 
• I didn't want to go because I'm fat.  Really, that was one of my reasons not to go to the gym and exercise.  In my defense, do you know that place is wall-to-wall mirrors?  I really regretted my decision to wear hot pink horizontal stripes today. 

So, I went.  I tried out the new "watching TV episodes on the Ipod while ellipticalling."  Awesome!  Much better than watching the sports that are on all the TV's in the gym.  By the way, that's just one more thing that makes me feel like I don't belong at the gym... sports on almost every TV.  I'm not a sportsfan, I'm just a fat chick trying to shed her fat-suit.

So now I've got a battle plan for the gym.

1. Load up the Ipod with more Stargate Atlantis.  Buy the next season and only watch it at the gym.
2. Choose an elliptical further from the wall o' mirrors next time. 
3. And no more stripes.

Lovely Limas

I hope everyone affected is recovering from Snowpocalpyse 2011.  I was grateful that my neighbor threw a plow blade on a 4-wheeler and took care of my driveway.  Maybe all the snow lately is why I've fallen in love with lima beans... their pale green bodies are the same color as new leaves in the spring, and man am I jonesing for spring. 

I really am obsessed with the limas right now.  I've been eating them once or twice a day, every day for at least two weeks.  And whew, that's alot of fiber, people.

luluisforlovers (Creative Commons-Flickr)

I've had them plain as a side dish, added to rotini with chopped ham, added to stir-fry with cubed beef and some other veggies, and in a thrown-together homemade soup.  I think my favorite way was the pasta dish.  I made a faux alfredo sauce by making a white sauce and replacing half the flour with grated parmesan cheese; it was perfect with the ham and pretty green little beans.

What's there to love?  What's in a lima bean?  According to The World's Healthiest Foods, not only are they chock-full of heart-healthy fiber, they are also a good source of magnesium and folate which can reduce your chances of heart attack.  Natures-health-foods.com says they also contain the mineral molybdenum that can help if you are senstive to sulfites.  Sulfites are preservatives common in salad bars and deli foods.  And I was surprised to read that one cup of pretty little lima beans contains 24.9% of your daily value of iron.

So they're good for you and they're yummy.  What's not to love?  Have you had lima beans recently?  What's your favorite way to prepare them?