Ringing Bells

Today I went to a funeral for a woman I knew slightly.  I went because I know her son and wanted to offer my support.  She was a popular woman who led a long and fruitful life.  The minister did did a good job describing her life so we all knew about the significant events in her life and how much she treasured her family.  At the end of the service it is the tradition in this church to ring the bell for each year the deceased lived.  We all sat in the pews and listened to the bell ring 89 times.  I counted.  As I counted I tried to picture her at each age.  Here she is as a five year old standing with her two older sisters.  Here she is at 22 meeting her future husband at the Prom Ballroom.  Here she is on her 30th birthday bringing her little son home from the hospital.  Now she is in her 40's and her son starts junior high and they move out to a new house on the lake.  In her fifties her son gets married.  In her sixties she has two grandsons.  In her 70's they sell their house and move into a condo.  In her 80's she becomes a widow.  I fret knowing the bell will soon be silent.  The bell stops ringing after 89.  The silence was overwhelming and incredibly sad.  The ringing of the bells was an awesome and moving tribute to her.  I have heard bells at other funerals but never like this.  I was very touched.

Thanksgiving

Alphabetical list of what we are grateful for in 2013: animals, bread, cash & cats, dreams & dance, electricity, fire, google, health, internet, jeans, kidney stone remover, latkes, mashed potatoes, nature & needles, online shopping, potatoes, queens, reading, safety & spelling, taxes, unicorn tears (we grateful for the emotional manifestations of imaginary animals?), vasectomy's, women who wear yoga pants, xerox machines, yogurt, and zippers.  As the list was read by each person taking a letter around the table, I was confused by the "U" and the "W."  I was wearing black yoga pants (and a red top and someone said I looked like Olive Oyl but I don't think so).  So I said, "What is with the yoga pants?  Is this about me?  I'm wearing yoga pants."  The snickers, giggles, and laughter of the group of nephews gave me the answer - it wasn't about me at all.  The fact that I asked was hilarious to the randy young men.  Despite this defeating moment a good time was had by all.  I was really impressed by the art contest.  People put a lot of work into their entries.  One turkey had a Mohawk and a face looking out of the cabin window, some turkeys were purple and blue, sunflowers were drawn in the field, one very colorful turkey had flames on it's wings and back, one turkey had actual feathers on it, one turkey told the story of the French revolution, two turkeys had axes in the scene and one of them displayed the farmer's head in shocking irony.  I was impressed with the effort everyone made and the creativity they used.  So I think the art contest was mostly a success.  But golly - we almost needed Judge Judy in the house at some moments.  Rules were being bandied about.  We almost had a riot. I was surprised how much competitive spirit we had about coloring pages.  The intensity of feelings about the art contest was way out of proportion even though the prize was fabulous.  We had a recount of the vote.  Voter fraud was suspected. Individual ballots were examined and questioned. Democracy in art contests is difficult. Lessons have been learned.  Next year I will have to be more explicit about the rules.  I am seriously considering the suggestion of ranked choice voting. An unintended result of the Thanksgiving art contest was an intense, unforgettable lesson in citizenship. 

Hilarious Tweeting

http://storify.com/EliLanger/this-man-is-hilariously-live-tweeting-his-flight-n

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all you pilgrims out there.  I'm busy baking buns, peeling potatoes and folding napkins tonight.  To spice up the holiday I mailed out a turkey coloring page.  I'm sponsoring an art contest with a little trophy and a fabulous prize.  Fabulous I tell you.  Tomorrow should be a wonderful day!

Feeling Left Out

This morning I went to a meeting at 8 o'clock.  Eight people were in attendance.  Everyone brought a drink.  The drinks included a Caribou coffee, a Holiday gas station coffee, a McDonalds coffee, a coffeepot coffee with lots of cream, a coffee from Starbucks, a Red Bull, a Monster Drink, and a bottle of ice water.  I had the bottle of ice water.  I felt left out of the caffeinated crowd.  Was I as alert as the rest of the group?  I felt alert.  But could I be more alert? How would I know? Maybe I'd be wittier or more clever if I had some caffeine.  Even when I drank caffeine regularly, I always started the day with four cups of water before my first can of pop.  Coffee drinks are a clique that I never have and probably never will be a part of.  I've tried.  Coffee, to me, tastes like dirty, bitter water.  I don't like the taste of coffee as I drink it and I don't like the taste it leaves in my mouth after I drink it.  I don't like coffee flavored candy or coffee flavored ice cream.  But I'd rather have my hands wrapped around a warm cup of coffee than a bottle of ice water on a cold day such as this.

 

Mayflower

I just finished a timely holiday book called Mayflower by Nathan Philbrick.  This was a non-fiction tale of the Puritan settlers that landed in 1620.  Right off the boat they proceeded to rob the graves of Native Americans.  The Puritans took advantage of the native Americans from the start.  The conflict between the religious extremist Puritans and the native Americans changed both cultures.  For the next 50 years the conflict simmered until it broke out into "King Phillip's War."  The native Americans were decimated to 18% of their population.  And the Puritans lost some of their extremist views and took up Native American foods, skills, and culture.  So the whole Thanksgiving Day scene with the Pilgrims and the Indians peacefully sharing a meal is more of a myth than a reality. I wonder if Massasoit, the Native American leader at the scene, would have behaved differently if he had a glimpse of what would occur in the next 50 years?  If he could foresee that his grandchildren would be killed or sent as slaves to the West Indies, would he have been as helpful as he was?  American history, it can be a sad subject sometimes.   

Zoo

Today we went to the zoo in Apple Valley to celebrate a birthday.  Once I recovered from paying admission ($18 each plus $7 for parking) I had a good time enjoying the plants, birds, animals, fish and people.  We spent a lot of time in the tropical area where the green leaves, the humid air and the smells were a great relief from the cold, colorless, stark world outside.  I enjoyed seeing the Victorian crowned pigeons (as in the photo), the lesser flamingos, the rhinoceros horn-bill, and the Asian pheasants.  There is so much to see at the zoo that a person can't catch it all.  Sometimes I feel bad for some of the animals.  After all, what kind of life can an animal have in a cage?  Some animals will live a longer and healthier life in a zoo.  And the zoo helps endangered animals come back from the brink of extinction.  But I saw a wolverine pacing back and forth in front of a window in what looked like a state of caged insanity and it made me sad.  The coral reef fish tank was cool even though the coral was fake.  The unicorn fish have extraordinary long nose that makes me wonder what the evolutionary purpose of such a big snout would be.  We came at feeding time.  A diving zookeeper went into the fish tank and fed the fish while explaining everything.  A zebra shark bopped him in the head as he fed the smaller fish.  What I think the zoo does best is cater to the little people.  There are kid sized niches and caves for them to explore and see nature up close.  And anytime you can get a kid interested in nature, you help protect our one and only planet in the future. 

Alpha Waves

It happens to me about once every three months.  I sit down as instructed.  I relax; not just relax but R. E. L. A. X.  Sounds diminish.  I loose the boundaries of my body and sense of place. The alpha waves move through my brain.  I feel so relaxed that my spine seems to disappear and I become just a head floating in space. I can hear but feel no need to respond.  My eyes are closed or open - it doesn't matter.  Saliva gathers in my mouth because I'm too relaxed to know I need to swallow. This feels so good, I think to myself, why don't I do it more often?  

I really enjoy getting my hair washed at the beauty shop. 

The Nicest Place On The Internet

Got a few minutes to spare?  Want to have a warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest?  Go to this website:    http://thenicestplaceontheinter.net/

Take the time to watch for a while.  You will wonder what will happen and then you realize the person on the screen is giving a hug.  I liked the lady with the large coffee cup.  She is awesome.

Owls

Last night I went to a Master Naturalist meeting where Dave Crawford talked about owls.  This time he used a different method of presentation.  There was no power point.  I like power point but to tell the truth, it was a relief not to have a power point presentation for once.  Instead he made his points through story telling.  For instance when talking about owl eyesight he told a story of a falconer who had a great horned owl.  The owl did not like to sit in a crate when being transported. This owl preferred to perch on the passenger seat back and would be more cooperative when allowed to sit on the passenger seat back.  As they drove along the falconer would notice the owl change demeanor when it saw something on the road side.  Looking ahead, the owl would focus on something the driver could not see.  Eventually it would turn it's head as the car passed the object it was looking at and the owl would look behind for a while until it lost interest.  So the falconer decided to watch the odometer and track how far the car traveled from when the owl first focused on something until it turned it's head back and how long the car traveled before the owl quit looking behind and looked forward again.  Turns out the owl would focus on an object a full half mile away and would continue looking back until another half mile had passed.  See, this is so much more interesting and easy to remember than seeing a slide that says an owl can see .5 miles distance.  When talking about the strength of the owl's talons he talked about a volunteer at the Raptor Center.  The owls never liked being taken from their room to go and see the vet. So the volunteer knew it would be best to walk past their room first (as if he wasn't going to stop there) and then dash back and enter the room and grab the owl before it could react.  If the owl knew the volunteer was coming to take it to the vet it would fall off it's perch and lie on the floor making it impossible to pick up safely.  One day the volunteer was going to take an owl to the vet.  He went past the door, dashed back and tried to grab the owl but the owl was quick and was halfway falling to the floor.  The owl grabbed the man by the hand.  The man was wearing a falconer's leather glove with extra padding over the palm.  The owl pierced the thick leather on the palm of the glove, pierced the man's hand between the finger bones, and pierced to top layer of glove on top of the man's hand.  Again, this graphic story is going to help me remember that an owl has a super strong talon more than any power point slide ever could.  I had a great evening listening to owl stories.  Owls are fascinating creatures.

Hot Cocoa

I'm trying a new hot cocoa recipe.  Rather than buy the commercial no-added sugar hot cocoa mixes, I'm making my own.  My recipe doesn't have any chemicals or preservatives in it.  And it's easy to make.  Ingredients are 2 cups dried milk, 1/2 cup sugar substitute, 3/4 cup dark cocoa powder and 1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Mix together.  Put 3 spoons into a cup of hot water and stir.  Keep stirring because unlike commercial mixes, this doesn't totally dissolve into the water.  In fact, not matter how much you stir you will end up with some delicious chocolate sludge in the bottom of the cup.  I suspect it's the undissolved chocolate chips.  What better way to finish off a cup of hot cocoa than a spoonful of sweet chocolate sludge?   And today I read that dark chocolate helps reduce back pain so please excuse me while I go get another cup - for medicinal reasons.

The Time It Takes To Fall

I read The Time It Takes To Fail by Margaret Lazarus Dean.  The book went fast; like a row of ritz crackers from a sleeve, the story was gone before I knew I was nearing the end.  A teenaged girl named Delores is the main character.  Her Dad works for NASA and she lives in Florida near Cape Canaveral.  Delores is scientifically gifted and she promoted to high school early.  She is a leader of her friends.  As her parent's marriage falters she is given more responsibility over her little sister.  Someday she wants to be an astronaut until she, along with the rest of the nation, sees the Challenger disaster. I also remember the Challenger.  It was the first time I heard about O-rings.  (O-rings - so redundant, like there would be N rings or P-rings.  Of course they're O-rings). A faulty O-ring is why the Challenger expedition failed.  Delores struggles because she isn't allowed to be a child or a high school student.  She is expected to pick up the duties her mother neglects when Mom moves out of the house to "find herself."  This is a good story.  I get a good feeling about Delores.  She is strong and smart.  I think she is going to make it. 

New Way to Serve Potatoes

When you grow your own potatoes, as I do, you don't get the uniform size and shape that you do when you buy potatoes from the grocery store. This summer especially, I got a lot of potato buttons. I call them potato buttons.  Small round potatoes of one inch diameter are potato buttons.  And they're hardly worth bending over to pick them up because by the time you peel them, there's nothing left.  Until now. I have a great recipe for potato buttons.  First scrub your potato buttons to get all the sand off.  Cut off any parts that are green or sketchy.  Boil your buttons for 10 or so minutes until they are soft when pierced by a fork.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Drain the water off the potato buttons.  Place the buttons on a cookie sheet and smash them flat with a potato masher.  Drizzle olive oil over the smashed potato buttons.  Sprinkle with herbs (like oregano, basil, chives, parsley) and Parmesan cheese.  Bake for 20 minutes.  These potatoes are so good you might mistake them for cookies. This recipe will work for potatoes larger than buttons but not for full sized potatoes.

A Wonderful Find

Today I started getting ready for the holidays by cleaning the lower level.  I didn't want to do it. I only use the lower level once a week to launder my clothes.  But I thought it would save time later by getting rid of those spider webs today.  So I was downstairs sweeping up spider webs, vacuuming and organizing.  I was very much rewarded to find a piece of clothing I've been missing for at least 8 years.  I was missing a coat. I looked nearly everywhere for it. I actually thought one of my kids took it.  It's a fleece jacket actually; gray with a blue stripe, 1/4 zip up the front.  I loved that jacket.  It's large and warm and comfy.  It offers variety in winter outerwear which is really important to me because I get sick to death of wearing the same old winter coats by the end of the season.  Where was it?  On the freaking coat rack of all places!  It was underneath Offspring #2's letter jacket.  I am so happy to find my old fleece jacket.  It wasn't mine originally.  I believe it originally belonged to my father-in-law.  But I've been wearing it, off and on, for over 20, maybe 30 years.  Off and on - get it?  I remember wearing it when my old dog, Ruby, was a puppy.  I'd walk her around the block in the winter with that fleece jacket on.  I'd zip up the zipper and have to pull in my lips so they wouldn't get frost bite from the metal zipper.  Sometimes I'd use one dog leash on the dog and I'd put the other dog leash around my waist and attach it to the rope of the sled to pull the kids around the block.  I've been looking for a fleece jacket to replace it and could never find one as heavy as this one.  Sometimes it pays to clean the house. 

The Best

I finished this book of short stories.  One of the short stories was a chapter from a book I read earlier this year, A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.  When I read that book I thought it read like a collection of short stories and, lo and behold, it was or at least one chapter was.  Some of the stories in this book were better than others.  I read most of them while exercising on the stair master.  If the story was good, time on the stairmaster flew by.  If the story was boring, time dragged on that machine; stretched out like a worn out piece of elastic.  I read them all though.  None of the short stories was so bad to warrant skipping.  One of the stories was very disturbing and futuristic.  It was enough to give you nightmares.  I like short story collections; it's like ordering the sampler platter. 

Tiger Cruise

I found out today that there is a pretty good chance that I'll be able to go on a tiger cruise.  A tiger cruise is where family and friends board the ship of a Navy loved one for the last few days of a deployment.  If I go, I will board the USS Nimitz in Sandy Eggo and land in Everett four days later around the middle of December.  I am super pumped to go.  I have to start practicing my sailor talk.  Aft?  Mizzenmast!  Poop deck!  Mains'l!  Port, bow, stern!   Aarrgh (wait, no, that's pirate talk).  Starboard!  Keel - I wonder if the Nimitz has a keel?  What an opportunity to see a carrier at work, to see fighter jets land and take off, to see the crew at work and to meet some of people Offspring #1 spends his time with.  I had to fill out an application, promise to act responsibly, and have my doc sign a form saying I was physically fit enough to make the journey and carry my own luggage up two sets of ladders.  I know I can carry my luggage up two sets of ladders.  I can manage the stair master at level 6 for 30 minutes, I can certainly go up a couple ladders.  I just hope I don't bump my head too hard or, worse yet, bump my shin.  Or fall off!  Yes, that would be terrible to fall off and land in the Pacific.  Being seasick would not be good either but I usually don't have any trouble with that.  My doc think I'll be fine and will have a good time. Strange man that he is, he told me about the medical problem of most of the pilots on carriers who make repeated landings and take-offs; hemorrhoids.  Yes, that part of the body gets damaged the most from the G forces.  When the pilot comes to a sudden stop I guess that is the last body part to end the journey.  If I meet any pilots I hope I don't think about hemorrhoids and come up with something appropriate and cultured to say.

Strength In What Remains

I read Tracy Kidder's book, Strength In What Remains this week.  I thought it was a fiction novel. It wasn't until I read the second part of the book that I realized this story was about a real person.  Deo Gratias is a young man from Burundi in central Africa is a medical student when war breaks out between the Hutu's and the Tutsis.  He escapes the genocide in Burundi by traveling to Rwanda on foot.  The experience scarred him physically and psychologically.  He escapes to America.  With $200 in his pocket, he leaves the airport and tries to survive.  He lives in an abandoned tenement in Harlem and delivers groceries for $15 a day.  He doesn't understand English and finds very few French speakers in Harlem.  He meets up with a woman, a former nun, who tries to help him out.  She finds an older couple who take him into their home (by now he is sleeping in Central Park) and send him to college at Columbia University.  Deo is not only smart but he is lucky too.  He is focused on building a medical clinic in Burundi.  Tracy Kidder wrote a compelling story about Deo and his journey.  In this story I painlessly learned quite a bit about genocide, African politics, immigration policies, and how the kindness of strangers can turn a person's life around.  Fascinating story!

Love It When A Great Plan Comes Together

Today I had a great day at work.  We had the Years of Service Ceremony and it's my favorite work day of the year.  You know what it's like when your passion and what you do for a living come together? It's a great feeling.  It's not that years of service is my passion but honoring the work of others and appreciating their accomplishments is important to me.  Planning, delegating and trusting people to do what they agreed to do, anticipating problems, triple checking the details - I love it.  And now that the day is over my stress level has gone way down making room for the Thanksgiving Day stress.

Switch Key

I had a meeting in Anoka today and our new car at work was available.  I signed out a key from the key cabinet and I looked at it a little confused.  This key didn't look like the other car and van and bus keys.  It almost looked like a hybrid car key.  I thought maybe it was one of those keys that you don't actually stick into the ignition but just have somewhere in the passenger area.  But I was pretty sure this Ford Focus wasn't a hybrid so I asked.  "Oh," said a helpful staff person, "Do you want me to show you how to use the key?"  Trying not to feel insulted about being offered a lesson on how to use a key, I smile and say, "Sure."  She presses the round metal knob on the upper corner of the key and PRESTO!  A switch key flies out of the key fob.  It's like a switchblade but a key.  A switch key!  I am fascinated.  Grabbing my coat and my papers, I walk down the hallway popping my key in and out, in and out.  "Check it out!" I swagger, "I got a switch key!" People look at me quizzically (it happens quite often).  I hold up the key fob and press the button.  I falter and fumble.  It takes 3 tries to get the key to pop out when I'm trying to show off.  Serves me right.  The world is changing so quickly.  Even car keys are confusing to me. 

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky

My book club read The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Heidi Duerow.  The story is about Rachel, who, like the author is biracial.  Rachel has a sad life.  Her mother has a sad life.  Her father has a sad life.  There is a little boy in the story who is a bystander in Rachel's young life and then meets her again when she is 18.  And he, yes, you guessed it, has a sad life.  The whole book is a 5 layer sadness cake.  There is enough sadness in this book to make 6 Lifetime channel shows.  If you're looking for a sad story, this is the book for you.

Did You Notice The Sky This Morning?

This morning the sky was like a wintry blanket of cotton batting. I could see the layers of batting fill the sky except at the south and east horizon where some clear sky showed through.  At the beginning of my trip the clouds were a dusky gray.  As time went on they picked up the color of a grayish blue before becoming periwinkle.  As the sun rose it trimmed the lower reaches of the cloud with gold edges.  What was interesting about the clouds was a big hole in the southeastern edge of the gray blanket.  This hole was big - probably miles in diameter. Inside the hole were some strands of clouds that were of a totally different texture than the rest of the clouds.  The sky almost appeared like the bottom of a huge trampoline where some angel had tromped too hard with a large oval foot and stretched and ruined the fabric of the trampoline.  Or maybe an angel had done a butt bash and stretched the trampoline.  The sunrise was pretty amazing this morning and I'm glad I got to see it.

Winter HQ

Offspring #2 and I moved the chickens to the winter headquarters.  They are close to the house, out of the wind, and easy for me to access without having to shovel very much snow.  Now I have a decision to make.  Should I, as in previous years, keep the coop warm and lit with an incandescent light and reflector shade?  This will keep them warm and keep them laying eggs all winter.  Or should I not use the light?  With five chicks they are bound to stay warm in there with just their body heat and the break from laying eggs all winter will extend their life spans. The light doesn't use much electricity so that is not really a factor.  I think the chickens will eat an equal amount of food whether they lay eggs or not.  So far in all my years as a chicken farmer, I've used a light in the winter.  I get a warm comfortable feeling in the long, dark winter when I drive up in my car and see a light shining out of the chicken coop. Now that I think about it, another advantage to using a light in the winter is that I can see to check the health and welfare of my chickens every day.  Using a light will bring me eggs all year.  I guess I don't have to decide right now. I put the light in there and made sure it works.  I can choose to plug it in tomorrow, next week, next month, really anytime I want. 

What Frustration Looks Like

Today if you look up frustration in the dictionary you will see a photo of my Sears Craftsman self propelled walk-behind lawn mower.  Ooooooh, baby.  See the machine wouldn't start a couple weeks ago so I took it to Sears for service.  I picked it up on Saturday and paid for a tune up.  Today, being Sunday, I took it out to cut the grass and bag up the leaves. So how many pulls on a starter rope should a newly tuned up mower take?  One pull should do it. Three pulls is acceptable.  Five to seven pulls would be no reason to complain.  Ten pulls is too many.  Fifty-five pulls (who counted?  I did) is also too many freaking pulls on a starter cord.  Hence my sore right arm.  But that's not all.  After emptying two bags of mulched grass and leaves the left rear wheel fell off.  It fell off!  But did I give up?  No, I did not.  Hence sore left arm from holding up the left side of the mower.  Also the grass on the left side of the path is way shorter than the grass on the right side of the path.  Every time I empty the bag I have to turn off the mower.  Eventually it wouldn't start again.  Ugh!  I suppose it's not worth fixing and I'm in the market for a new mower.  If I had known the wheel was going to fall off, I never would have had it tuned up.  On the other hand, the end of the mowing season is a good time for the lawn mower to expire.  Most of the grass is cut at a slant.  I declare it good enough for this year.  

Traveling Music

I did a little traveling today with offspring #1's new spouse and offspring #2.  I asked for some traveling music.  I think Offspring #2 was looking for Leonard Skynyrd but instead she found Leonard Nimoy (yes, Dr. Spock) singing "Proud Mary."  She also found Mae West singing "C,Mon Baby Light My Fire."  Really, Mae West singing rock and roll.  She had to be 70+ years old when that song came out. Also in her collection was James Shatner reciting the words to "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds."  She has all this   c r a z y music on her phone. Well, the music helped the miles go by faster.

The Art Of Fielding

I guess I'm not so good at judging books by their covers because I didn't realize The Art of Fielding would be about baseball.  Yeah, it's a sports book.  But I still enjoyed it.  Like Chad Harbach notes, and I had never thought of before, baseball is a difficult thing. Unlike music or art where your very best work effort is the final product, baseball is an average of all your efforts including your best moments and your errors.  In this story, Henry Schrimshander, a skinny shortstop from South Dakota is recruited to Westish College in Northeast Wisconsin by a ball player and mentor Mike Schwarts.  By his third year in college, he is playing ball so well the scouts are recruiting him for the big leagues. The book is about the art of fielding and the relationships Henry has in his life including his mentor Mike, his roommate Owen, his love interest Pella, and the president of the college, Guert Affenlight.  It's a good story.  I never would have read it though if I knew it was about baseball.  Baseball is the medium Chad Harbach used to get the philosophical points across.

New Snow

New snow on a new deck (from here the deck looks like it is finished).

Snow on the garden fence.

Snow on a crab apple tree.

Early Morning Sky

Snow on a black spruce.

Snow on a Colorado Blue Spruce

Snow on a red oak.

Snow

A little snow was coming down as I drove to the polling place tonight for the school board election.  As I heaved my body out of the car, arthritically stiff from the wet weather front coming through, I looked up at the parking lot security light and "whoa" motion sickness set in.  The extra large flakes were illuminated and enlarged by the light.  It was like looking out of the window of the USS Enterprise at warp speed six.  I like that.  I'm a summer lover but there are some things about snow that I enjoy.

Kombucha

I tried a new product yesterday.  It's called kombucha and it is a flavored, fermented drink.  I selected the gingerade flavor.  It's different.  It smells like wine or vinegar and it has an acidic taste.  The fermentation destroys most of the sugars so it is low in calories and full of probiotics.  I believe it has trace amounts of alcohol. Being a teetotaler, I can detect the alcohol right away.  The bottom of the container is sludgy and the bottle says do not shake.  The liquid has some natural carbonation to it so maybe that is why they suggest you don't shake it.  You get the most probiotic benefits if you drink it all including the sludge.  My bottle is only half gone and I doubt I will drink the sludge.  When I swallow it I can feel my gut get more active.  And I think it has an appetite suppression side effect too.  I'd buy it again but it's not something I would like to drink everyday.

Practice

With working on the deck the past two weekends, I have almost 200 times to practice drilling and screwing with my cordless drill and a square nosed drill bit.  It's getting easier.  I'm not as fast as some people.  I watched my neighbor drill and install a screw lickety split in May when he installed a security system on my garage door.  I am no where as fast as he was.  But I'm a lot faster than I used to be.  I can't believe I waited all these years before getting a cordless drill.  There will be no more struggling with a manual screwdriver for me.

What Does The Fox Say?