Chores

I have a friend who wants to lose weight. So I sent her a link to a video I watched ten years ago titled "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead" (Wikipedia here, YouTube here) which chronicles the experiences of an Australian man who goes on a juice fast while driving across the U.S. It's an entertaining movie even if you don't plan on a doing a juice fast. She replied that she would like to try a juice fast but had only a blender in her kitchen. She plunged ahead and used the blender and loved the results. She first blended celery and liked it so much she blended carrot and liked it even more. 

I have a juicer and I'm thinking of returning to a juice diet for a while. Setting up the juicer and cleaning it after I make the juice do take time. So I'm thinking this time I'll buy cups with lids so I can prepare my day's juice in the morning and keep it in the fridge for drinking throughout the day. Or I could use a pitcher and put plastic wrap over the top to keep the juice fresh. Or I could use a wide-mouth bottle (from the grocery store) for which I still have the lid. I'll figure something out.

If my friend chooses to use her blender, she will be getting the entire fruit or veggie. She will be eating a lot of pulp. That's not a bad thing. The pulp is good for the bowel and contributes to a feeling of fullness. While pulp is good, juice is better. Juice is where the nutrients are.

You may be wondering about protein and fat. Don't our bodies need those? Of course, but a juice fast isn't something you do the rest of your life. It's a month or two.

I have another friend who natively speaks Spanish. I had two years of Spanish in high school but I never really learned it. However, I like the idea of learning another language and Spanish seems reasonable. According to Wikipedia, Spanish has nearly 500 million native speakers, mainly in Spain and the Americas. It is the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese, and the world's fourth-most spoken language, after English, Mandarin Chinese and Hindi. I know English, I'd like to know some Spanish, and if I can, I'd like to know a little Chinese. I don't know about learning Hindi, but it would probably help me to communicate with doctors.

So I've been doing a little chatting in short Spanish phrases: simple things like "está bien" and "duerme bien" or possibly "duermas bien" which I'm told is the subjunctive mood as opposed to the informal imperative mood—and there you go, right away we see why people don't learn languages. Even my friend who is a native Spanish speaker has trouble explaining which to use and why, and then gives up and tells me to use either one because she'll know what I mean.

I'm also on a house-cleaning kick at the moment. I periodically go through a lazy stretch—the duration of which grows longer with each cycle—until one day I look around and think, "My house looks like an episode of Hoarders." And then I make an attempt at house-cleaning. I'm going through a cleaning phase now. It's not just cleaning. I have to patch and repaint walls and ceilings where water came through the new roof and caused damage.

I've also been told that I need to walk more, to exercise more, to lose weight. Let me start a list:

• Exercise
• Diet
• Language practice
• House cleaning
• Painting
• Yard work
  

I think it's possible I need to start drinking again. Maybe I should add that to the list.