Flamingo on a Stick

If I'm making lunch, it'll be something quick. Leftovers if we have any. Maybe peanut butter and saltines with string cheese and a beer. If there are any hard boiled eggs, those are always good. Mashed up with salt, pepper, hot sauce and olive oil and you have a fast, and really good, egg salad. Not too long ago, I would've just ripped open a power bar or a granola bar. But then I read a book by David Gillespie called Sweet Poison. He's a lawyer in Australia who became interested in why so many of us were over weight, and why that trend is accelerating. Lawyers aren't trained in science or nutrition, but they know how to research a topic and build a case, and he proceeds to build a case against added sugar in our diets that is hard to refute. I was convinced, and I convinced Janie we should stop eating any foods with added sugar. No soft drinks, no power bars, no granola bars ... you get the idea. When you start reading labels, you end up eliminating most p...

Evelyn's first birthday! So we made it back to Iowa on April 15th, the first day the local parks opened. It was cold and for the first 24 hours the water wasn’t turned on because that night temps were down in the 20s. We are now in May and though we have seen some days with warmer temps its still a bit chilly for May. I think we all feel it has been the never ending winter. Being back in the Midwest also means being in the zone for severe thunderstorms and tornados. It is the season. We have had one warning that sent us to the shower-house for awhile and we’ve stuck out two severe thunderstorms in the trailer. Typical spring in Iowa. Obviously we’ve survived them all. Once we get here it seems we are on the run just catching up with friends and family, our granddaughter’s 1st birthday, lots of babysitting, and this year we added working to the mix. We are Ushers for the Cedar Rapids Kernels, a Class A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. We’ve worked about 5 nights now, thre...