Worth Reading

Summary of recent research by James Heckman, one of my economic heroes.

Daniel and Ashley Update

Sorry to make people chase around on the internet but my fingers are tired. I have written about my most recent adventures on our blog.

We just (at 10:30 pm) sprayed part of our lawn with poison of death so that we can begin our new yard project. We'll keep you all updated. Does anyone have suggestions about perennials that would be good, fast growing flowers for a trellis? Ideas would be great.

This is the best my flowers have looked this year. Everything is just green now. No color.

Bosworth Update

It's been a while since we've had anything to say. Since mom and dad left, we've been sick. Molly has had the worst of it: hand, foot, and mouth disease; a staph/strep infection; an ear infection; and two molars came in. So, I've had my hands full. But I thought that you might like to see some pictures of our little escape to the mountains.

Goodreads

I have been really enjoying my recent discovery of goodreads and I thought that some of you might like it too, so I sent you invites. I have really been enjoying the chance to keep a list of books that I'd like to read and write reviews of things I have read. I've done a lot more reading in the last month or so. I hope you don't mind the invite, don't feel obligated to join if you don't want to.

(By the way, my profile—linked above is public, so you can see it. If that makes you nervous you can set it to be seen only by people that you accept as your friends. Ryan's is like that—you can check it out before you add him as a friend, just look him up with the search function.)

The Great Sunflower Project

A friend told me about this project. You plant some sunflowers in your yard (they send you the seeds) and when they are blooming you time how long it takes for 5 bees to come to the sunflowers. I thought it would be great fun with your kids.

Here is the link

http://www.greatsunflower.org/

I also thought while you were planting sunflowers you might be interested in the sunflower fort idea.

http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=11660

The new us.

So about two weeks ago we had joy school at our house, the lesson was about how each person is unique and special. One of the things we did was write down lots of things about each child's physical appearance; for example, height weight, hair color, eye color. As I was preparing for the lesson I realized that our bathroom scale was broken (and had been for a long time) consequently Matt and I went and bought a new one. As soon as we got home form the store we weighed ourself. OUCH we both were heavier then we wanted to be. So I decided it was time to get super serious about us loosing weight. Most of you know I have had a hard time loosing weight since Grace was born but now was the time. anyway that was two weeks ago and I have lost 9 lbs. I don't know how much Matt has lost but for me 9 lbs is HUGE. So how are we doing it. Mostly be eating small meals and snacks that are lower in calorie. We plan snacks 3 a day and each one needs to be 100 calories or less. The problem is that I love cookies. (and Matt loves icecream) I don't have a solution for the ice cream problem but I have found two recipes that are less then 100 calories that are still tasty. So here they are.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Muffins (2 cookies for 89 calories)

½ cup raisins (or try substituting chopped dried cherries)

½ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup quick oats

1/3 cup Splenda (or regular white sugar)

¾ teaspoon baking powder

¾ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup low fat plain yogurt

1/3 cup no sugar added applesauce (or try substituting canned pumpkin)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 egg while

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spray 18 mini muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray

Stir together raisins and all dry ingredients in medium bowl. In separate bowl , mix together remaining ingredients and add to dry ingredients, stirring just until incorporated. Spoon into prepared muffin tins and bake12 to 14 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean

Makes 18 mini muffins/cookies

Whole Grain Sugar Cookies Recipe From Set for Life Yield 40 medium cookies

Ingredients:

1 c low fat margarine (I like bluebonnet)

3 c hard white wheat flour

1 c sugar

1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp soda

2 eggs

1/4 c white flour1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c plain yogurt, or sour cream, or buttermilk

Directions:

1. Cream shortening, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

2. Mix in yogurt.

3. Stir in rest of ingredients.

4. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes.

5. Preheat oven to 375°

6. Roll into balls, place on ungreased cookie sheet, do not flatten.

7. Bake for about 8 minutes; do not over bake.

8. Frost when cool.

Accumulated thoughts

I was walking past Starbucks the other day. The music playing inside was the theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." A little part of me died.

Autocross in the rain is possibly the most fun you can have in a car. For maximum entertainment, make sure the traction control is off. Please note: if you are going sideways, the speedometer tends to be unreliable.

Dilemma: is believing in the Jazz worth the risk? If you believe and they lose the pain is that much worse. But if you don't believe and they do win, the victory is not as sweet. Being able to say "I told you so" is hardly comforting when they lose. Is this the same as Pascal's wager? Or do the actual probabilities matter?