HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

My contribution to this year's decorating was carving out the cat. As much as I'd love to say "Yes. I just saw the cat and carved it," I can't. As all of my friends know, I do not have a very good artistic eye. So I'd like to give thanks to the company that made the halloween stencils. Oh! But I can honestly say that I never placed the stencil onto the pumpkin. I did the actual carving free-hand... as noted by the lop-sided mouth.

Poor Casey. Every year he thinks that this is the year where every kid will come a-knocking on our door asking for tricks-or-treats. And every year I have to watch his heart sink as the 9 o'clock hour rolls 'round and no one has come to our door in the last 3 hours.

No way. As I wrote that last line the door-bell rang. Guess Casey got a special treat this year. Thanks Halloween Gouls!!

Cheeseless

I went 9 days without eating cheese. Honestly, I think the whole opiate theory is hooey. No cheese withdrawals. No cheese cravings. It was 9 days of... just no cheese.

I would have made it 10 days, but we ordered out last night. Italian. What Italian dish doesn't have cheese. Ok, let me rephrase that question. What Italian dish doesn't have cheese that is also found on a take-out menu? Yeah. Now you're with me.

Had the usual: greek salad with spanikopita (our Italian take-out also goes Greek. YAY suburbia!), which taught me a lesson: I really don't need cheese. It's rather heavy and I haven't missed the flavour. So I made the decision this morning to be cheeseless. Unless, someone cooks a meal that happens to have cheese--I can make an exception for that.

Nurture in Nature

Last weekend, Jen and I hung out in Harper's Ferry. A girls-only weekend. Friend's bonding. Being out in nature. It was fabulous. Jen, being the social butterfly that she is, has these retreats often. Me? Well, it's been a while, especially bonding with my girl friends. I think the last time I did something like that was back in high school.

Saturday was spent figuring out where Harper's Ferry was in relation to anywhere. Before escaping the city, I almost had us going in the completely wrong direction. Apparently Harper's Ferry is northwest of DC, at the beginning of Maryland's panhandle. My keen sense of direction would have landed us at Front Royal. I know, I'm that good.

The drive there was pretty straight forward. Our initial destination was the Youth Hostel, located 10 minutes away from the town. The hostel sits along the river, up on a hill. We ended up hiking our way down to the rail tracks below. It was the only hike we had that day since we arrived too late in the day to do any real hiking.

Although we spent less than 2 days at Harper's Ferry, we had some great adventures.

• Attempting to drive into Harper's Ferry without a map, we lost the road that we thought would have taken us there. Of course, the road that follows the river wouldn't have gotten us into town since the town is only accessible via the highway.
• When we were finally able to check into the hostel, we were told that a tour group had booked it for the entire weekend and beds may not be available. Lisa, the owner, wanted to contact me, but her copy of my confirmation didn't have any of my contact info. Luckily, a bunk bed was left empty in one of the rooms and as a consolation, Lisa waived our balance.
• Harper's Ferry closes down early. In order to get dinner we ended up driving about 20 miles to the next town over: Shepherdstown, WV, located in the middle of nowhere. As luck would have it, we ate at the local tavern where not only does the chef make really tender chicken, but a local jam band was playing that night. An interesting mix of people ended up in the tavern, including one guy who was a wee-bit drunk and entertained himself by trying to set some other guys shirt on fire with a bic lighter. But the one who stood out the most was an older man wearing full Scotsman attire because "I wore jeans all week and wanted to dress up."
• When ordering Bailey's on the rocks, I forget how little volume actually fills the glass. Therefore, I was the designated driver, which had Jen panicking the moment we got into the car. Coasting along, Jen grabs my arms, turns the steering wheel and proclaims "OH MY GOD. YOU'RE NOT IN THE LINES." So now that I am supposedly "in the lines", all is well in Jen's world except I was now driving in the opposite lane.
• I decided to have a bit of fun further down the road, wondering if her car would handle as well as my New Beetle when going around curves. I kept the car at 55mph as we entered a ver-ver steep curve. Jen begins hootin' and I'm feeling the car tip to its side. We're practically driving on two wheels, which got us safely to the other side of the curve. Thank goodness there wasn't any on-coming traffic because we would have ended up directly in the field.
• It took me about 3 hours to fall asleep because one of our roomies had a cough and another one was a snorer -- my biggest sleeping peeve. Luckily Casey taught me a sweet little trick about wetting toilet paper and stuffing it in your ears as plugs.
• On Sunday, we turned a leisurely bike ride up and down the C&O Canal into a 35-mile ride. That's right. 3-5-frickin'-miles! HARD-CORE! The most I've ever ridden was 16 miles.

Aside from all of the fun, I thank Jen for being the best and checking out Harper's Ferry with me. Mentally and spiritually I needed not only time away from home, but some serious girl bonding time too. It not only makes a stronger frienship, but also a stronger sense of self. And the experience is even greater when you get to spend it out in nature.

It's 2 days later and I'm still flying high.

For My Cat Lovin' Friends

Thanks to Aviva Trivia Blog:

Halloween and cats go hand in hand and you may be surprised to know a few facts about cats. Beware when trick or treating; you never know where a cat may be lurking!

1. Ever wonder why a cat sees in pitch-black dark? It’s because their eyes take light in and reflect if back out … like a flashlight!


2. Did you know that a cat’s whiskers could detect even the tiniest of creatures? A cat can detect any kind of movement up to 2000 times smaller than the width of the hair on your head


3. Ever wondered why cats constantly lick themselves clean after eating? A cat has natural instincts derived from the wild and this instinct tells them to wash away food scent to keep predators at bay.


4. Know how to tell when a cat is happy? That’s easy, they just squeeze their eyes closed.


5. Did you know that cats might have lived on earth 12 million years ago? A fossilized record similar to today’s cats suggests they did.


6. Have you ever wondered how many cat breeds there are? There are more than 100!


7. Did you know that the light displayed from your television could make your cat shed fur?


8. Cats purr at the same rate of a diesel engine, 26 cycles per minute.


9. Did you know that dogs have more teeth than cats, a dog has 42 and a cat has only 30?


10. Ever wonder what makes some people allergic to cats? It’s a protein in cats saliva people are allergic to and when a cat licks their fur, it can get in the air and cause lots of aaaaachoo’s!


11. Did you know that a cat breathes in anywhere from 20-40 times a minute depending on their health.


12. A cat’s heart beats twice as fast as a human.


13. Did you know that a cat can jump anywhere from five to seven times it’s own height?


14. Do you know who invented the famous “kitty door”? It was Sir Isaac Newton.


15. American’s spend lots of money on cat food every year; in fact they spend more on cat food than on baby food!


16. Do people talk to cats? 95% of cat owners say they talk to their kitty cat.


17. Just like humans are either right handed or left handed, cats are too.


18. I bet you’ve never saw a cat sweat! They don’t have sweat glands.


19. Did you know that a cat cannot move their jaw from side to side!


20. Do you know what a polecat looks like? It’s a European weasel and not any kind of cat at all!


21. In America a black cat is considered bad luck, did you know that a black cat is good luck in Asia and England?


22. Cats sleep more than any other mammal! The average is about sixteen hours … a day!


23. Did you know that cats like female humans better than male humans? Researchers believe its because women have a higher pitch voice then men.


24. Cats caused the black plague! People believed cats were associated with witchery, they locked all the cats away and rats took over, spreading the disease!


25. Did you know that the famous author Ernest Hemingway was a cat lover? Hemingway had more than thirty cats at his home in Havana.


26. Rags to riches! Morris, the famous “9-Lives” poster kitty was actually discovered at an animal shelter in New England.


27. Did you know that even Nostradamus had a cat? His name was Grimalkin!


28. Do you know how to discourage a cat from scratching up furniture? Rub it down with orange or lemon rinds because cats hate them!


29. Could you be killed for killing a cat? If you killed a cat 4000 years ago in Egypt, yep!


30. Do you know the correct terminology of a cat lover and a cat hater? A cat lover is called an “ailurophile” and a cat hater is called an “ailurophobe”.

The Challenge

Hubby and I had a conversation the other day about cheese.

I was reading an editorial where the author was fed up about the conflcting views regarding what pregnant women can and can't consume.  One of the items in question had to do with cheese.  Some say mould-ripened cheese, blue-veined cheese and soft unpasteurised goat and sheep cheese's should be avoided.  Other's say that although processed and hard cheese, cottage cheese and ricotta are considered safe, there is no guarantee.   I understand it's due to a bacteria called listeria, but wondered if there was more than that.

Hence, my conversation with Hubby.

He claimed that cheese is actually addictive and could be one of the hardest foods for humans to give up.  Reason being: cheese contains opiates.  Not a huge amount, but enough to keep us hooked. 

Skeptical, I did some research.  Health Diaries had an article "Casein and Cheese More Addictive than Chocolate?" where it explained the cheese-opiate relationship.

The first hint of a biochemical explanation came in 1981, when scientists at Wellcome Research Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, N.C., found a substance in dairy products that looked remarkably like morphine. After a complex series of tests, they determined that, surprisingly enough, it actually was morphine. By a fluke of nature, the enzymes that produce opiates are not confined to poppies -- they also hide inside cows' livers. So traces of morphine can pass into the animal's bloodstream and end up in milk and milk products.

...[O]piates hide inside casein, the main dairy protein. As casein molecules are digested, they break apart to release tiny opiate molecules, called casomorphins. One of these compounds has about one-tenth the opiate strength of morphine. The especially addicting power of cheese may be due to the fact that the process of cheese-making removes water,lactose and whey proteins so that casein is concentrated. Scientists are now trying to tease out whether these opiate molecules work strictly within the digestive tract or whether they pass into the bloodstream and reach the brain directly.

VegSource contained a similar article Breaking the Food Seduction.

Each article references Eli Hazum, the scientist who made this discovery.  I haven't found the exact paper or discovery that VegSource and Health Diaries cite. 

Nevertheless, this information has definitely piqued my interested.  So, I have decided to cut cheese out of my diet for one month.

How hard could this be.