Easy Mashed Potatoes

I love mashed potatoes and I almost never made them because I saw them as a multi-step process. Then I figured out how to make them quickly and easily.

First scrub enough potatoes to fill a large microwave safe bowl, then cut into one inch cubes (I leave the peel on for nutrition and flavor and because it saves time.)

Chop a small handful of onion.

While you are doing this heat a small amount of water in the bowl in the microwave.

Add the chopped onion to the bottom of the bowl then the cubed potatoes.

Cover with a microwave safe lid (I use a glass plate) and cook until tender (this can take 10-15 minutes depending on your microwave -I use the baked potato setting on our microwave)

When cooked there will be some liquid in the bottom that I leave there because it contains some of the nutrients from the potatoes, add a stick of butter and some milk along with salt, pepper and granulated garlic, mash and enjoy!

Mitigating the side effects of Metformin

When I first started taking Metformin I had a lot of stomach upset and later acid reflux, and it took me a while to figure out what to do to mitigate the symptoms.  As instructed by my endocrinologist I ramped up slowly. Started with two a day, then three then four. He prescribed 500 mg Extended Release (ER) tablets because they are easier on the stomach. So I started with 1000 mg ER per day and ramped up to 2000 mg ER (this is the therapeutic dose for PCOS.)  I remember going to three tablets a day and taking them every eight hours, I could feel them wear off and would watch the clock until it was time to take the next dose! I felt like an addict, but they helped tremendously. Recently I got a bottle of Metformin from the pharmacy and noticed that they did not give me huge bouts of diarrhea and almost no stomach aches. Looked at the bottle, it said Amneal Pharmaceuticals. Now I have it listed at the pharmacy that I can only take Amneal. Since it is generic I don't pay anything extra.

I started to lose inches, more than I lost weight and began to look like I remembered myself from years ago. I felt good. My bad moods slowly slipped away. I used to be just fine then in a second I would be screaming at anyone near me. It was awful and the Meformin corrected that. All during this time I was having diarrhea on and off from the Metformin. Yes, I took it with food and no I didn't break or chew the tablets. When I went to the pharmacy for antibiotics the pharmacist told me to take the pills at least an hour before going to bed, otherwise they would sit in my stomach all night. AHA! I realized that is what I was doing with the Metfomin, then taking the morning dose on top of that then running to the bathroom. So I started to take the nighttime dose earlier. Often I would remember just before going to bed, I found that two pills was too much for overnight but I could take one and not have much in the way of side effects (I talked to my endocrinologist about this, your should too) and then take the full dose the next day.  It makes it harder to keep the weight off if I do this all the time but is easier on my stomach.

Another side effect of Metformin is acid reflux, I called it in and was told to take an acid blocker (it tells your body to make less acid) so I scooted over to the pharmacy and asked for it. There, it was explained to me that this was an everyday medicine used to prevent your body from making acid, not a "take if you have symptoms" medicine. We need the acid in our stomach to break down the food we eat. I ended up with the one you take only if you have symptoms. When I was talking with a friend about this, she suggested I think about why there would be an abundance of acid. It made me think, and I remembered that I had learned about digestion (from a book by Adelle Davis, nutritionist in the 50's) and that I could help my body digest the food by taking an enzyme pill (I like Trader Joes Papaya enzymes) and by taking a pro-biotic (make sure it comes refrigerated) so I did. In addition, I cut back on things that cause acid reflux like caffeine, acidic foods and fatty foods (you can find a full list on www.medlineplus.gov.) With these changes my acid reflux went away. I could sleep peacefully again.

Metformin blocks the absorption of B vitamins, this can make you tired. So to combat this I take a B-Complex, when you are low in one B vitamin you can easily be low in others because they all work together (that is why they are called a complex) I started with Trader Joe's B-100 and my urine was always dark yellow. B vitamins are water soluble and the extra is excreted in the urine. So I switched to the B-50, which I still take today, sometimes my urine is dark and other times not. You can also take Nutritional yeast (it is an acquired taste, but I love it now!) as it is full of B vitamins.

A friend of mine who is a nurse and took Metformin explained  that eating a large amount of sugar with the pills will cause diarrhea too. I probably did that in the beginning unknowingly, now I don't. 

One small change that helped me a lot was to have a bit of food about half an hour before my morning or evening  pills, something on the order of toast with butter (plain toast will shoot your blood sugar up quickly, the fat slows it down) or an apple with a bit of cheese. When that is in my gut digesting I take my meds with my morning/evening  meal.

How I deal with Insomnia

Recently a friend complained on Facebook that she is bothered by insomnia. So I made a couple of suggestions and one of her friends said that she would try them too. So I thought to share them here.

The conventional wisdom is that you reserve the bed for sleeping and sex, and that is a good start. Reading and watching TV in bed gives your body conflicting signals. Will we be going to bed to stay up and watch TV? Read an exciting book? So when you see the bed and the bedroom, thinking of sleep will help.

Yes, exercise helps too, as long as it isn't too close to bedtime so do that as well.

A couple of weeks ago I was reminded that taking calcium is crucial for me regarding sleep. For a week, I left my calcium pills in the car after a trip, and I noticed that I couldn't fall asleep.  If I did sleep, I would wake up in the night and not be able to fall asleep again. This was getting worrisome until I remembered my calcium pills. Started taking them again and the insomnia went away.

I have been taking Tri-boron Plus by Twin Lab for many years now. Ever since they were recommended to me by a clerk at at health food store in Everett, WA where we used to live. I have strayed to other brands, and then I come back to this one. I won't leave again!

In addition, sleep can be affected by a lack of  B-12 (maybe this is why all the vegetarians i know need more sleep?) and since all the B vitamins work together a lack of one can also indicate a lack of others, I take a B-complex. My favorite is Trader Joe's B-50. I started out with the B-100 and was peeing dark yellow all the time, indicating that some of the vitamin was going out in my urine. So I switched to the lower dose of the B-50 and only pee dark yellow some of the time.  Nutritional yeast is also a good source of B vitamins and I love in on popcorn, beware that it is an acquired taste!  The first time I had it was at a leadership camp in California when I was a teen, I HATED it. By the end of the week, I was gobbling it up with the rest of the campers. Then I introduced it to my family, who ate it in small amounts (hey I was making pop corn for them, not an easy feat with the old aluminum pot we used on the stove top!) until I put so much on they couldn't stand it!

So now that I have been reminded to take my calcium, including boron, magnesium, and Vitamin D among others. I am sleeping better again. Hope you will too.

Shachor--our loyal cat of 15 1/2 years

We used to live in Puget Sound, and while we were there my husband commuted to work in Seattle by bus. It was a long trip, over an hour and then he had to walk about a mile home. Usually he asked me to come and pick him up at the bus stop, but one day in early December he told me not to pick him up. So I waited until he would be at the end of our long block and I started to walk to meet him. Didn't see him, kept walking. Got to the end of the block and he still wasn't there. Debated waiting, going forward or going back home. Finally decided to keep going, then I heard a small "mew." He was carrying a small black kitten. I took her in my gloved hands and felt her shivering so I tucked her under my coat and carried her home.

My husband told me the story, he was walking home and at the curve in the road this little black kitten had walked up to him and said, "mew" she wasn't even big enough to say meow. He was late because he had knocked on the doors of the houses there and asked if she belonged to them, he even left our phone number in case they found the owners. 

When we got home we gave her some milk, I noticed that her tongue was cherry red, didn't seem healthy to me. We kept her in a large cat carrier, because we didn't want our cats to hurt her. Later when I realized that she had fleas, I washed her with dish soap. I was only successful because she was so small, she fought like a bandit!

Back then we would close the drain of the bathtub and fill it with a bit of water, it was changed daily and the cats liked it. Shachor wouldn't drink out of there for months, especially after the second bath a couple of days later! Then I combed her out with the flea comb, over 40 fleas!! By the end I counted 200 fleas on her tiny six-week old frame.

The next day, one of the people that my husband had left our number with called. Their cat had been run over the night before and she would be happy to take the kitten if we didn't want her. I was surprised at my immediate possessiveness as I told her firmly that we would keep her. We had planned to get two kittens after our housewarming and she found us the Friday after the housewarming. 

All weekend I thought I heard a cat crying outside. I would go to the window and listen and there would not be a cat there. The cries were continuous, barely stopping for breath. I remember thinking that since we had a black kitten a white one would be a nice match.
Since we had decided earlier to get two kittens, on Monday we went to the local shelter. I opened the door to the large room and could hear a cat crying, continuously, barely stopping for breath. We rounded the corned and I found a small white kitten in a cage, alone. The attendant told us that his brother had just been adopted and that was why he was crying. I checked every cage just in case there was another white kitten, he was the only one.
So I called the attendant over and told her that we wanted that one. She said okay and was going to send us to do the paperwork, when she got suspicious and said, "Did you hold him?"  I said no. She said, "Did you want to?" I shrugged and said okay. I knew he was ours. So we took him home.

We named the black cat "Shachor" and the white one Fife. Shachor died today (she was 15 1/2) and we buried her in the backyard (we checked years ago and it is okay in our town) many miles from where she was born, in our hearts always. She waited for us to get home from Finland, where we were for six months. We had a week with her, pets and smiles and hugs.

No Rise Bread in the Sun Oven

Today is hot. Sunny. and I have a craving for bread. Not the stuff from the store, which I have and is full of salt and sugar, but fresh bread from the oven. But it is hot, and sunny. I refuse to start the oven in the house when it is 98 degrees F outside and I have the air conditioner on.

This leaves me two options. No bread or use the sun oven. Earlier I cooked eggs (in the shell) and potatoes (they come out roasted) in the sun oven, but I still have sun left and the oven is already at 300 degrees F. So I needed a recipe for bread that could be ready right away, I didn't have time to wait for an hour or two (as all the recipes I looked at called for) for the dough to rise. So I went online and found this:


2 ½ C warm water
6 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp yeast
2 Tbsp oil
6 C flour (can use white or wholemeal)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder

Stir water, yeast, sugar and oil together. Leave for 5 minutes until it becomes frothy on top. Add flour, salt and baking powder. Mix well. Knead. Roll out if making a pizza base or shape for use as buns / bread / loaf. Paint with oil or milk (if you can be bothered). Bake at 200 degrees Celcius for 10-15 minutes.

from  http://craftykin.blogspot.com/2008/10/back-as-promised-with-some-finished.html

The rolls are in the sun oven now and I have enough for a small loaf that will go in when they are cooked. Smells good!

Politeness Pays

Went for a walk tonight. Twilight at 11 p.m., soon it will be light most of the night.  When we walk I usually carry a plastic bag and we pick up things that can be recycled. Juice boxes (tetra packs), and aluminum/plastic/glass  (deposit and not.)  I aim for one Euro's worth of bottles and we had not quite reached that on our wanderings by the lake, glassy and reflective of the lights. Very pretty. So we wandered near the square and made our way back home, we were less than a block from home and I remarked that I wanted, "one more." We heard one drop to the ground. I looked across the street to see an aluminum (,15 cent deposit)  can rolling on the sidewalk. So we went to get it, I could tell that it came from an open window, where I knew two young men lived. This had happened before. So I called up, "Kiitos (thank you) and was rewarded with a large bottle (,40 cent deposit) we were happily amazed, so I called up again and they threw down another aluminum can. We were laughing on the way home, politeness pays!

Scrabble-tips and tricks

One of the things that keeps me sane is playing Scrabble. It is enough of a mental exercise that I can't do it when I am tired or "out of it" and that means I have to think.

It is also a challenge, can I find that bingo?  that high point word? Can I filter enough letters to get the ones I need to make a certain word? Some day I will spell Quaalude, like I did in Bookworm. Got rid of all the letters that didn't help me make that word and voila, I spelled it.

Recently I asked friends to post their Scrabble tips on Facebook. It was a short conversation. So I thought that I would share some of the things that I have learned. Some are mine and some are from friends. I welcome them all. I would love it if this conversation sparked more tips and stories, tragic or funny.

First let me say that I still lose more games than  I win. Partly because I play people better than I am, it makes me try harder and learn new words. Those odd short words, three and four letters are really helpful and I don't know many of them.

Studying the list of Q without U words, helped a lot because I don't always have a U when I need one. Qi was very helpful and so was Qat. I use those all the time now.

Playing online (through Facebook) helps, because if I have a difficult set of letters I can skip the game and come back to it. Since I am usually playing 50+ games at a time, it is usually not an issue for my fellow players (hmmn that is a sexist word.) since they are often playing many games at once also.

Tips:

• First thing I do is look for a bingo (when you use all seven letters on your rack at once,) when I started playing I had no hope of finding one so I didn't look. Therefore I didn't find any. There were rare exceptions, like when the word came up already formed on my rack. Very rare. 
• Get rid of difficult letters. What do I mean? Letters that don't form two letter words (C and V) and letters that are rarely in longer words (Q, X, Z)   I dump C and V as soon as I can and I use the others in triple letter or triple word spots.
• Save letters that are easy to use.  Most of the rest of the letters, you will see what works with your vocabulary.
• Make -ing words. It is the way I make most of my bingos. I save the I, N, G and S for this purpose. That is three or four of the letters that make up a bingo.
• Vowels for bingo: I find that A is the easiest for this, O next, I sometimes works, U is difficult and E is very difficult. Mostly because in English we drop the E when making a -ing word.
• Second thing I do (if I don't have a Bingo) is look at the board to see which "spots" are open, and if I have any high point letters to put there (ie. using the X on a Triple letter spot, going in two directions so I get 2 x TL)
• Can't do either of these things, then dump the difficult letters and go on the the next game. 
• When opening the game, you must put the word across the star in the middle of the board. When you do, line up the consonants between the double word tiles, so you make it harder to use the two dw tiles with high point consonants. 
• Pay attention to making it easy for your fellow players to use the triple word spots, they can add up to as many points as a bingo.
• Look for one (or two) letters between the triple word spots. If you can make a bingo around it and hit the tw spots twice, it is easily over 100 points.
• Save your 's' tiles, there are only 4 in the whole game. They are useful for attaching your bingo to a word.  
• There are two blank tiles in the game, I save mine for bingos. If I am missing any of the letters for an -ing bingo the blank can go there, or be an 's' because they can be any letter. 
• If you have a rack of vowels, change some/most of them out. It can easily take you three turns to get a good rack. 
• Don't use your last vowel/consonant.
• Remember that 'e' is the most used letter in the (American) English language.

Good Luck!