Cathy Perkins's Blog, page 134

Lose weight in 2014!

The title sounds like an infomercial, doesn’t it? Well, it kind of is. I have a new book out and I’m excited to share it with you. It’s my first foray into nonfiction.

The Checklist Diet is a fun and simple way to improve your diet and lose weight. I’ve been a personal fitness trainer for more than 10 years and have helped hundreds of clients get healthier and leaner. I don’t believe in strict and/or crazy and/or fad diets. I believe in making easy lifestyle changes that will last. I believe i...

The Perfect Solution to No Resolutions

Do you make resolutions for the New Year? Set goals? Do you resolve to aim higher, faster, stronger (yay, Olympics!)? Many of us make them but, after the first week or two, the bloom seems to fall off the rose. I’m always leery of making resolutions. They never seem to stick.

Why would I want to embrace a goal that I won’t achieve? Yes, it’s what I call nega-talk, but it’s how I think about New Year’s resolutions: hide head in sand. The urge will pass soon enough. Maybe I’ll resolve to take m...

May Day

Sometimes adventure comes to you. On Saturday, May 1, 1971, the May Day protests against the Vietnam war began in Washington. Over 35,000 people came, determined to commit acts of civil disobedience, including snarling traffic. By Monday, most of the protesters were gone, with only a hardcore of about 10,000 still active.

My father went off to work. I boarded the Greyhound and took a nap. I had nothing more in my mind than an upcoming chemistry quiz.

I woke up in time for my stop. I never slept...

Light in the New Year

Flicker – Olli Kekalainen

It is that time of year when I become reflective, enter that quiet space of the calendar where I crave a moment to be still, take stock on the last year’s events, and think about where I’m headed now thatold man 2013 has faded to the ages. What will Baby 2014 bring into the world? Will he be precocious and playful, or disruptive and colicky? When I finally take down twinkling strings that symbolize the happiest time of the year, what will take its place when the dark...

Merry Post Christmas

I thought about writing something profound for today, reflecting on the season. Instead, I found myself looking back at an astonishing year and forward into the Great Unknown.

Mostly I thought about our mountain property.

I wrote my very first blog post (ever) right here at Blame It On The Muse, almost exactly two years ago -I Didn’t Get a Tractor for Christmas.

Since then, I’ve shared bits and pieces about our adjustment to rural life. My husband and I actually enjoyed clearing the property (fo...

Friendship

I won a trip to North Carolina, based on bad hygiene. For the sake of science, I avoided bathing for a week. Given my social life at that stage in my life, staying out of the shower was not much of a sacrifice for me. Those around me may have disagreed, but at least this was during the winter. I was looking for the natural growth of local flora to test a theory that scrubbing up could have unintended consequences.

What brought this to mind was the recent story on antibacterial soaps. Back when...

Survival of the Fittest: Re-Learning how to Bake

One of my favorite wedding gifts was the Hamilton Beach stand mixer a neighbor gave us. I’d been raised with the strict edict: you don’t make cookies with a mixer! (see my December 17 entry for details) But I certainly knew how to make cakes and brownies (well, maybe not brownies, since they’re a “dump” recipe from a box, but still…), and cakes and quick breads (uhm, another one-bowl recipe. Hmmm….) and bundt cakes and angel cakes and decadent chocolate cakes could all be made with the Hami...

Our Parents Really did Know Everything

Last Friday, the sweater I most wanted to wear was wrinkled. Crushed by all the other sweaters I own, it showed all the misery I’d put it through last summer. Yes, I’d forgotten all about it. Yes, I have plenty of other clothes to wear. But this one sweater is the one I wanted on that particular morning, and I sent Dear Man to the dryer, carrying the sweater and a hand towel I’d briefly run under the tap. “Ten minutes, on low,” I instructed him. “It should be good enough to wear by the time I...

Shameful

Shameless