Check out my guest blog post today where I write about how my diagnosis of ms inspired me to invent a new cooking method at the Weighting Line, a weight-loss blog by Hope Wilcox. This is part of a contest she has going on all week where she’s giving away free stuff!
Lettuce Garden
I would rather not pay for lettuce.
I don’t know what it is, but of all the produce available, it irks me to pay several dollars for the privileg
e of making a few salads out of leaves. And then it goes bad so quickly
So I grow it.
This year I planted a variety of lettuce leaves in two window boxes.
One of the benefits of container planting is that I can move the boxes from spot to spot. In the hot days of summer, when grounded lettuce usually wilts and suffers, I can move these boxes into the shade, and enjoy a longer summer of salads.
To harvest, I simply slice off the larger leaves and drop them into the mesh strainer of my salad spinner.
I planted these boxes a month ago, on Mother’s Day (May 12 this year), and they’re already flourishing. We’ve been harvesting leaves for a while already.
Computer Lap Desk: Save your back, wrists, etc. with the right equipment
As someone who has made my living writing for 15 years, I literally live on my keyboard. At the moment, it’s a laptop. Years ago, when I had my first laptop, I had weekly visits to the massage therapist to unwrench my back and wrist muscles. Too much time spent slumping on a lumpy old couch while using my laptop!
My lap desk up until a month ago has been one I literally purchased when I was in junior high and used paint pens to write my name in stick letters with big dots on the tips (this was the early 80s, after all!). It got me through high school, went to college with me, and has been with me all the time since. I use my lap desk to do everything from pay bills to read the paper. While it still functions, it’s seriously leaking beads and no amount of duct tape seems to fix it anymore. It’s time to let it go. Sniff.
So I began my search for a new lap desk. I wanted one that wasn’t too expensive (I found many for around $50!), would sit comfortably on my thighs, and wasn’t too big (some are extra-wide for setting on chair arms). What I found even had a non-stick surface so I won’t lose my laptop unexpectedly, a tray to hold pens, and — here’s the best part — a cushy wrist guard for my carpal-tunnel-prone forearms.
The black strip up the center is slightly recessed so it vents the heat from your laptop. Clever.
The only thing that took some getting used to is that the surface is foam and you need to add a harder surface when writing.
Ergonomics is an overlooked part of natural health, but if you can keep your body healthy and strong, then you won’t need to fix it.
I’m just so thrilled with my new computer lap desk that I wanted to share it with you. It’s even on sale right now for $19.99!
Keeping Cool in the Heat: Sun Tea and other solutions
Now that the temperature has started to seriously climb — summer seems to be coming a bit late this year — I look for ways to stay cool in the heat. Those of us with MS know that raising our core body temperature can not only slow us down, it can exacerbate existing MS symptoms.
MS patients try everything from cold showers to wearing cold-packed life vests to keep cool. Here are a few of my favorite ways to keep cool that are a little more enjoyable than a bracing shower:
1. Run cold water over your wrists. The inside of the wrists are like the body’s thermostat and the most sensitive place for temperature changes. That’s why we test for fevers with the inner wrist across the forehead, or judge the temperature of the baby’s bottle by splashing a few drops on the wrist. I find that cooling off the inside of my wrists can bring my entire body’s temp down pretty quickly and make me much more comfortable.
2. Frozen washcloths. Every summer my jazzercise instructor freezes wet washcloths in a zip-top baggie. She pulls out the baggie at the start of class and by the time we’re ready for the anarobic floor work segment at the end, they’ve thawed just enough to separate. You haven’t known paradise until you mop a sweaty brow with a frozen towel! I usually try to drape the rapidly-thawing towel across the back of my neck (tucking the corners into my jog-bra to hold it in place) as I do the weight-training routines.
3. Drink sun tea. I love making sun tea in the summer, and it’s a great way to stay hydrated without 
pumping your body full of extra calories or artificial ingredients. In my 20s I always kept a pitcher of Crystal Lite in the fridge, but now I wonder if all that aspartame might have contributed to my body breaking down with MS. Aspartame poisoning can mimic some MS symptoms, even though we’ve been sold it as a “safe” sugar substitute.
To make sun tea, fill a large glass (not plastic!) jar with cold, filtered water. Drop in a couple of tea bags (I’ve used 3 “family-size” tea bags here). Close the lid loosely as you want the air to be able to circulate as the water heats. Set it in direct sun for a few hours and voila! Remove the tea bags and store the jar in the fridge.
I always make my sun tea decaffeinated so that I can drink it with impunity and
not suffer the effects of caffeine. Personally, I like to use black tea, even Liptons, but feel free to use your favorite herbal teas as well. The photo on the right shows the jar at the end of the day with fully-brewed tea. Garnished with fresh mint from the garden, sun tea is one of my favorite summertime treats!
Look for sun tea jars at Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, or even your local supermarket. I like the ones that have a pour-spout at the base so that I can dispense tea without removing the jar from the refrigerator shelf.
Gourmets Get Connected
The June 9th, 2008, issue of Newsweek arrived at my house today. It contains an article about underground supper clubs: semi-secret groups of people who meet at someone’s house for home-cooked gourmet meals. Donations from the guests help cover expenses.
The article suggests that you can find the clubs as easily as doing a search for “underground dining Denver.” If this is true, it must mean that this phenomenon has yet to come to the Queen City of the Plains. Give it time.
What caught my eye was that Jeremy Townsend, founder of the Ghetto Gourmet, has created a “social networking site where foodies can find each other to host their own events, as well as share recipes.”
Social networking sites, like the Ghetto Gourmet’s Forum, are great places to find like-minded people to discuss important things, like food. You can find a forum for discussing Glorious One-Pot Meals on my Glorious One-Pot Meals Facebook page.
I’ll be talking about forums and other Web 2.0 publicity strategies for authors during a FREE teleseminar Wednesday, June 4th, at 2pm EST. Visit my other blog, RecipesForPublicity, to learn more and register.
