Emily Bloss

I’m leaving skin flakes everywhere I go today! When we went to Caspersen Beach, everybody but Terry got sunburned, and I’m peeling more than I ever can remember. Speaking of peeling, here’s something we found out about one of our kitties the first time we got burned down there in Venice… Stripe likes to eat sunburned, peeling skin!

This morning I was able to get 3 or 4 big pieces off the small of my back, and Stripe had himself a little snack.

We love jerky! Especially the real leathery, smoky kind. We’ll be visiting Michigan soon (for Tia’s graduation) and on Saturday we’re going up to Chase to visit Gramma, Aunt Susie & everybody. On the way we’re stopping at Dublin General Store to get some jerky. They have all sorts of interesting flavors… I’m hoping to try the cherry chicken and kangaroo versions. Should be interesting!

The other day I was watering the pineapples and noticed our oldest plant appears to be having babies! There are four mini crowns growing out from the bottom of the fruit - click the thumbnail for the full view. The other two babies are on the other side of the fruit. I would like to just leave them on the plant to see what happens, though I think we could take them off and start 4 new plants. Except then we would have 4 new plants to take care of (water, cover during freezes, etc.) so I guess we’ll just leave them. Survival of the fittest around here!

You may have noticed a new thing along the right side … or not! I finally got around to making a Twitter account, and it’s pretty fun! Under “What I’m Up To…” it shows my entries from Twitter.com. So far they seem to revolve around food and exercise, but who knows what I might write about.

Another recent development is the start of my 101 things in 1001 days list - I have 25 entries so far. I’ll publish it when it’s complete, hopefully soon! In the meantime, you can keep track of my breakfast and how many pushups I do that day. Exciting, eh?

On Sunday we were at Sam’s Club and I was lamenting about being discouraged from eating certain foods because of reading the label. Currently, we have three banned substances - high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners (sucralose, aspartame, etc.) and hydrogenated oils. Sometimes it’s a bummer to miss out on such delicious treats! But I soon come to my senses and then I’m glad we don’t eat all that crap. I know I would weigh 150 pounds if we did.

The thing that brought about this post is an article I read the other day:

The Truth About Saturated Fat

Now I don’t want to use corn/soybean/vegetable oil… ugh! I bought some sunflower oil for frying and such. We may be better off health-wise but our pocketbook will surely be lighter. I wonder how much of the article is accurate? I especially wonder about your own fat cells becoming hydrogenated from consuming hydrogenated fats… that can’t be good!!

While researching shark teeth and Caspersen Beach, I found this wonderful PDF on Florida Beach Safety. Very important to read if you visit the beach in Florida!

Today we went to Caspersen Beach and found TONS of shark teeth! Click the picture for a closer view, and my guesses on some of what we found. It was amazing and the best beach we have been to by far!! At least for finding fossils. One guy was a mini-celebrity today when he found a nearly 2″ megalodon tooth - it was spectacular and I hope we find one of those someday. We’ll have to keep going back. Here’s the link I used to try and identify the teeth - Quick and Dirty Guide to Fossil Shark Teeth.

The fossils other than teeth are really neat, too. The leftmost one looks like the tail of some kind of shrimp. The small comb-looking thing in the middle is a manta ray plate, and the rest are unidentified. I wonder what strange and wonderful creatures made them.

Our friend Wendy recently came out with a new product - the Enelow-Kursmark Executive Resume Toolkit. It’s a great collection of top tips and strategies for writing your executive resume. You can click on the book to read more about it, if you or anybody you know might have an interest! We do a lot of work with people in the careers industry, and Wendy is one of the top authorities in the field. She’s published many books (including one on IT resumes which helped me write Trav’s resume), done lots of public speaking, and she created an awesome association for career professionals - Career Masters Institute (now named Career Management Alliance). On top of all that, she’s a wonderful person and a good friend.

The other day I found this great article on CNN about things you can do with your body after you die. I wouldn’t mind being turned into a plastinated body to be hauled around and inspected by curious living beings. We went to one of those shows a few years ago and it was fascinating.

Things Your Body Can Do After You Die

The first item in the list is rather disturbing! Number 4 is really cool (OK, hot) and a great way to save space and resources! What do you think? Do you want to be recycled after you die?

I just finished a book titled “Outrage“, by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann. It’s about how much money our government is wasting, and it sure does make me mad!!! I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know just how terrible a state we’re in. When I posted a while back about “the best government money can buy”, I didn’t realize the truth of those words. The main problem seems to be campaign contributions. People and corporations are buying our politicians so they’ll do their bidding, so the country is being controlled by a select group of people who only care about making more and more money. The politicians pander to those who contribute so they can keep filling their coffers, hire their relatives, and get re-elected so they can continue to rake it in. It’s shameful and not at all in the spirit of creation of this country.

This book should be required reading for every citizen of our country. Maybe then people would see all that’s gone terribly, terribly wrong and have a go at fixing things. We can be great again, if people really want change for the better.