Fun Facts Friday and New Additions to the Library

TGIF, Woo Hoo! Can you tell I am happy it is Friday? I love my weekends, LOL. ;-) The weather here is unpleasant, but it has been worse so I am not complaining. On the bright side the UPS man brought me a nice surprise a little while ago. I will tell you all about that is a few minutes but let’s start with fun facts Friday instead.

Fun Facts Friday:

As usual I am going to ask you all to answer a few questions so we can get to know each other better and I will go first.

1) Do you have any pets and if so are they part of the family? As you all know we have three very spoiled little Turkish Angora felines that live with us.

The oldest by a few months is our only female, Luca Belle (her name means beautiful light in Italian). She is clearly the queen of the house with a diva attitude a mile wide. She definitely has the attitude of a big sister that would rather her little brothers go away because they bother her.

Then there is Massimo who is definitely a momma’s boy. He is named after my favorite wine Masi. Don’t judge, LOL. Masi has the most gentle and loving personality. He is the first one to snuggle with you when you don’t feel well. Sorry for the picture quality I took this one with my phone so I could get at least one pic with his eyes open. He has the most beautiful eyes.  Don't they look human?

Finally the bad baby of the house is Nicco (aka Binky), daddy’s little man. Dan loves Nicco, they are best friends. We call Nicco our little sweet tart because he is either being really sweet or really tart.  No in between moods for this little guy.  He is all or nothing all the time.

When Dan comes home the boys greet him at the front door every evening. Luca Belle waits for Dan is sit down then she plops in his lap. They have distinct personalities and are very much their own individuals. Spoiled doesn’t even begin to describe them. Needless to say they are an integral part of our family and we would have it no other way. Dan and I often say they didn’t get the memo that they are cats. All three of them love people and are normally either on us or within a few feet of us at all times.

2) Are you an optimist or a pessimist? This is an odd one for me because I used to be a pessimist but have become an optimist since the cancer. If you had told me this a few years ago I would say you were nuts, but it is true. I think cancer has a way of putting things into perspective for me. Things that used to bring me down like appointments that started late, people being incompetent, mean or lazy just doesn’t matter to me any longer. It takes a lot to fluster me now. My glass is definitely half full these days. I must say it does make it much easier to deal with life when the universe seems to want to teach you patience and tolerance.

3) What is on your summer reading list? Do you like to take books to the beach or the pool? I read all year long so the idea of summer reading list is somewhat foreign to me but I have lots of friends that read more in the summer. I always have 10 or books in the queue to be read. I added three more to the “pile” today in fact. I will get into that in a separate section.

New Additions to the Nutrition Library:

This will come as no surprise but I bought three more nutrition books two days ago and the UPS man delivered them today. I must say I love Amazon. Things just show up at your door which I think is great. Obviously I have not had a chance to read this books since they only arrived about an hour ago but I will get through them in the next week or two and let you know what I think. Here is what I bought:

First I ordered “An Evidence-Based Approach to Dietary Phytochemicals”. Sounds like a page turned doesn’t it? LOL, I love this sort of thing. I am such a nutrition geek.

Next I picked up “Nutritional Science From Fundamentals to Food”.

Finally I added “Nutrition in Clinical Practice” to my nutrition library. This one I flipped through first. I had to read what the doc had to say about diet and cancer. I only skimmed that chapter but it appears we are right on track. That made me very happy.

I realize that most of you don’t read nutrition textbooks for fun. This is something that I used to do either. But now I find them to be a very enjoyable read. Dan thinks I need to go back to school to get my Masters in Nutrition. I am seriously considering it but with my educational background I would have a lot of science courses to get out of the way first. This coming semester I may take a course or two to see how I do in chemistry. Since I have not had a college level science class (computer science doesn’t count) I don’t know if I can hack it or not. One of our young friends, Aimee is thrilled that I am considering going back to school and has offered to help me should I need it. Since she is a 4.0 student I don’t think I could ask for a better tutor. Thanks again Aimee for all your encouragement!  We will see what happens. I decided to get a jump on the process by reading everything I could this summer with the idea in mind that it will help me make the decision on whether to go back to school this coming fall or not.

Unrelated notes:

I have finished my errands and checked on the parents, like any typical Friday around here. Now it is time to spend a little quality time in the kitchen. Nothing mellows me out more than cooking. There is just something therapeutic about it for me.

I will be back later with a recipe or two. I hope Friday is going well for all of you. Talk to you soon.