Viruses

Last week's technical debacle pretty much fried my nerve ends that had not already previously dis-attached since the bridge going out incident. After my last blog post of 4/20, I was more than ready to settle in for a quiet Easter weekend. Alas, such was not to be the case...

Unfortunately, Dear Child had caught a bug from someone someplace in our township and came down with what will forever be called "that first stomach bug."

Who knew (other than more experienced parents) that a child could throw up once, not eat for three days and then poop enough for five well-fed adults? One simply does not intuit that from childfree life. Nor does one know that one can become best friends with a pediatrician who LOVES to hear your anxious voice at 3:30 am night after night after night...

One learns so many things during a child's "first stomach bug."

I did not know that the banana, rice, apples & toast (BRAT) diet excludes apple juice. It seems that the juice form of the fruit has the opposite effect on human stomachs (natch).

I did not know that Pedialyte comes in yummy flavors and can be made into groovy ice cubes.

So much learning, so little time...but thank God the bug was programmed to run its course in approximately 36 hours, which meant that Dear Child was better for Easter. My nerves sang in jubilation and were ready to catch up and get ahead on a number of projects big and small, when....

My computer came down with its own virus someplace from someone, which will always be known as the "Vista Security 2011 Fiasco." At first, being technically naive, I believed that I need to buy Vista Security to stop getting pop-ups warning me of breaches in my McAfee Firewall.

After days of ignoring, then searching the desktop, then trying to buy the program, I realized as I was reading the terms of purchase that there were typos in the online document. Now, typos we see everywhere, even in this blog, but this was supposedly a Microsoft agreement. There is no way in this universe that Microsoft would ever, and I repeat ever, have a typo in one of their contracts. They're about as anal as I am about contracts. And there are more Microsoft lawyers looking at the same documents before they go live.

So I knew something was afoot.

Upon a quick Google search, I had what I needed: numerous website giving me instructions on how to wipe the virus from my computer. Yet none of them worked.

Finally, I called McAfee and paid the $90 to have them take over my computer and clean it for me. That $90 was money extremely well spent.

Dear Child and computer are both healthy again. My exergaming workouts continue. Weight loss carries on. And now, ten days later, I'm able to catch up and get ahead on projects that are stockpiled. God willing, we'll be free of other such viruses and seriously horrible impediments for quite some time.

Food, Glorious Food

Image via Wikipedia Passover Seders; Holy Week food fests. What's a girl to do when she's watching her weight and trying not to watch it skyrocket this week?

Exercise helps somewhat. While travelling to and from family, and spending a lot of time in kitchens and dining rooms in this holiday week, exercising at other times during the day is somewhat limited. But I do count going to the local Italian bakery and walking around while picking up baked goods as exercise. So is one hour a few times a week on the Wii with The Biggest Loser Challenge. So get active in ways that work for you, you don't need to go crazy, just mobile.

Make better choices. The New York Times must have known that publishing "Is Sugar Toxic?" on Palm Sunday, one day before Passover begins, is somewhat ironic. What else do people do this week, other than sit and mill around eating dense food, whether leavened or unleavened? In our household, we read the article and thought, "well, yes, of course; that makes sense; duh; what took them so long to put this out." The theory put forth in the article won't stop us from having a piece of wheatberry pie on Easter, but it will have us keeping our consumption to one instead of two pieces. Everything in moderation, mind you.

Allow yourself to indulge. Ok, seriously, this is Holy Week. For Christians, this is the week where we celebrate the foundation of our faith - Christ's rising from the dead. For those of us with wee ones, it's a bit more about the Easter Bunny and Easter baskets, whether filled with candy or not, but I digress. The point is, it happens once a year. If there would be three times in the (American) year that one goes whole hog, if you will, it'd be this week, Thanksgiving and Christmas. So one can go all out, allow oneself to indulge and pick up the pieces next week. Life is about overall balance, after all. Which leads me to...

Pick yourself up again. Whether you're going to eat a second (or so) piece of wheatberry pie, flourless chocolate cake, or Cadberry cream (CC) egg, it's all ok. Just do it knowingly, balance your other activities this week around your ability to do so (like try to exercise an extra hour for each extra CC egg), and assess next week what you need to do to clean up from this week's bacchanalia.

How are you approaching the holiday food fests?

Related articles

• Easter eggstravaganza (grubbyknees.wordpress.com)

Spring Springing

With temperatures reliably hitting the mid-sixties, and today even going up to the mid-eighties, one’s mind naturally turns to outside activities. Like our blooming daffodils, pictured above, I want to turn my face up to the sun.

But practicality prevails. Generally I can work out early in the morning, before shifting my attention to work. Right now, with early morning temperatures still in the 30s, my Wii is a much more realistic workout for me. Most other people around here seem to feel the same way, as we see runners jogging by in the weekend afternoons, but no one is on the road on foot as I work out in the workweek mornings.

Video game publishers seem to understand this will to go outside. Both EA Sports Active 2 and The Biggest Loser 2 set a good portion of their workouts outside. It’s as though nature is calling us to be healthy and simply stick with the program.  Unfortunately, the setting doesn’t make the workouts any easier.

In this season of renewal, with green things blossoming and baby animals frolicking, personal rebirth also comes into play. Lent, Passover and Easter all guide us renew ourselves spiritually. I’d argue that it’s also a good time to revitalize our contracts with ourselves to get fit and lose weight.