Consumer's How To #44: How To & Make

1. I thoroughly enjoyed all the How To sites listed. The only problem is the amount of information! I could get lost in those sites for days. I think Instructables was my favorite. I will write about it in the next activity.

2. Homemade Jam, the French Way. I saw this link on Instructables for how to make jam and it is so easy I want to try it. It basically just boils down to cooking fruit with some sugar until it gets to the consistency you want. The beauty is...you can even use frozen fruit. How easy is that? And they said that the fruit cooking on the stove makes your house smell like pie, and that, once you make a batch or two, you will not want to buy the jam at the store.

The article also quoted a book I would like to read: Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living. by Robert Arbor. We don't own it, but I think I will order it on Interlibrary Loan.

Here is the article from Instructables;


- More cool how to projects

A Consumer's How To: #43 Buying & Selling Online

1. I enjoyed exploring the sites listed. I searched for things I was interested in on ebay and found some nice items, but nothing I wanted enough to bid on. My favorite site was Craigslist because the posts were interesting. I've never used any of these to buy and sell items except for Amazon. I can see myself buying things easier than selling them, simply because I don't want to be bothered to send things in a hurry. I thought the Etsy website with the handmade items might be good for some unique gifts.

2. I could use PayPal because I buy fairly items often on the Internet. It seems safer and easier than entering my credit card information with each new company. I recently bought a gift and the website listed PayPal as the preferred method of payment, but I didn't have an account. I will probably sign up for one soon.

Wellness #42 Staying Well

1) I tried out the symptom checker on a condition I had this past spring that resulted in surgery. The results were good and mentioned all the different aspects of the condition. This would have been another tool to use when I was trying to figure out what the correct diagnosis might be for the symptoms I had. I don't think it would have helped me more than the searching I did in other sources, but it would have confirmed things I found.

2) I searched for Music Therapy programs in Harris County on the local MedlinePlus database. Not surprisingly, only one came up, and it was almost 60 miles from my home. I did another search on Genetic Testing, and two organizations were listed within 10 miles of my home: United Way and Harris County Public Health and Environmental Servies.

3) I put together a family medical history tree. It helped me to see that I need to talk with my relatives to get more detailed information, and to make sure the information I have is accurate. It would be a useful tool to add to genealogy records so that future generations would be able to have their medical history information already stored and hopefully updated from time-to-time.

Wellness #41 - Going Green - Part 2

1) An easy change to make in Going Green is to check the tires on cars monthly to make sure they are inflated properly. Also having the A/C unit tuned up next spring would be relatively easy.

2) Plugging air leaks around the doors and windows of the home would be something requiring more commitment and time, but it would be worth it. Making some natural cleaning products and using those instead of store-bought chemical products would take some effort but would also be beneficial.

Wellness #41 Going Green, Part 1

1) My carbon footprint was bigger than I thought it would be. I drive a fairly small car, but I guess the fact that I am single and live in a single family home is not energy efficient. And taking big trips doesn't help either. I need to check my tires more often.

But I am recycling more than ever and switching over to the energy efficient light bulbs.

2) I wish there would be a farmer's market closer to my house. The closest one is probably about 15-20 miles. If I were to visit one of the three listed, it would be the Urban Harvest one. The website looks interesting and the place looks well-established.

Wellness #40: Fitness

I figured out my Body Mass Index, Calorie Requirements, and did the questionnaire. The BMI was no surprise; I had done this before. The calorie requirements were lower than I would like...or that I know I eat per day! I guess I need to get moving so I can eat more! The questionnaire made it sound like I am healthy which was good to hear.

Wellness #39 Nutrition

1) The Nutrition Data website has a lot of features that would be useful in planning a nutritious diet. I looked at the Better Choices Diet, the glycemic index section, the daily needs calculator, and some of the details for individual foods. I learned that Cheerios is a negative 10 on the glycemic index, making it mildly inflammatory. This surprised me, as I thought it would be a little on the positive side of the glycemic index.

I would be able to use and find interesting several features on this website. I probably will not follow through with this, but if I did, it would be useful.

2) Recipes.sparkpeople.com: I entered the ingredients for the pumpkin pie recipe listed on the Libby's pumpkin can. I knew the results would be deadly, and they were. I discovered, however, that using nonfat evaporated milk took the fat content down by about a third.

Here are the ingredients:

Pie crust, frozen, ready-to-bake, 1 crust, single 9"
Granulated Sugar, .75 cup
Cinnamon, ground, 1 tsp
Salt, .5 tsp
Ginger, ground, .5 tsp
Cloves, ground, .25 tsp
*Grade A Extra Large White Eggs, 2 serving
Pumpkin, canned, without salt, 2 cup
Milk, canned, evaporated, nonfat, 13 fl oz

Here is the nutritional information for the whole pie:

Pumpkin Pie

1 Serving (Whole Pie)

Amount Per Serving


Calories 1,909.0

Total Fat 55.8 g

Saturated Fat 18.6 g

Polyunsaturated Fat 5.2 g

Monounsaturated Fat 20.3 g

Cholesterol 506.6 mg

Sodium 2,631.5 mg

Potassium 2,557.4 mg

Total Carbohydrate 304.0 g

Dietary Fiber 17.0 g

Sugars 227.6 g

Protein 56.4 g


Vitamin A 1,574.1 %

Vitamin B-12 17.0 %

Vitamin B-6 30.5 %

Vitamin C 44.5 %

Vitamin D 82.9 %

Vitamin E 57.9 %

Calcium 143.1 %

Copper 34.9 %

Folate 41.7 %

Iron 74.2 %

Magnesium 62.9 %

Manganese 115.6 %

Niacin 28.4 %

Pantothenic Acid 52.3 %

Phosphorus 105.8 %

Riboflavin 121.2 %

Selenium 24.9 %

Thiamin 44.0 %

Zinc 33.9 %

Games and Gaming #37

1) I read both the New York Times article and the Shifted librarian article.

2) I did the reference game on the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries' website. It was harder than I expected because it took awhile to figure out what I was supposed to do. In the meantime, the patrons were fuming, and some of them stomped out before I could help them. It was fun to play.

3) I do agree that games belong in a library if a library system chooses to go that route. Since so many public libraries have them, I do think it will continue to grow and evolve. It is a good way to bring young people in the library, and perhaps some of them will also discover the joy of reading books.

Games and Gaming #38: Console Gaming

1) I only played PacMan during college and I enjoyed it then. The only advantage I have over someone who never played was that I knew how the game worked.

2) I do not know which of the 3 gaming systems listed would be the best for the library. I would have to research it more.

I think these games can be a boost to learning, but they can also be a detriment to learning if they are used in excess.

I think most of our young people (and many of our adults!) are here for the computers, both for gaming and for social websites like MySpace. When the Internet goes down, the library becomes fairly empty.

Games and Gaming #36: The Wide World of Online Role Playing

1) I went through about half of the tutorial for Runescape. This took me much longer than 15 minutes. It was easy to get around, but somewhat frustrating. I kept burning the shrimp, and could not figure out how to do it without burning it. When I finally cooked it properly, I didn't know what I did right. I chopped down numerous trees in my efforts. It was funny to see all the newbies running right through each other, standing in the fire, etc. It was hard to remember those characters represented real people doing the same thing I was doing...trying to make my way in this new game world.

It was educational when it got to the bronze/copper part.

2) My character had about shoulder length brown hair, a green blouse, black pants and brown boots.

#35 Games and Gaming

I spent time using FreeRice and WordSplay. It was easy to kill 15 minutes! Both were enjoyable and I very much like the idea behind the FreeRice game. I found WordSplay to be the more frustrating of the two because I couldn't get words longer than 4 letters and the clock was ticking.....

FreeRice helps build vocabulary and WordSplay builds dexterity and quickness as well as the ability to unscramble letters and think of different combinations of words.

Maps #31: Have Map, Will Travel

States I Have Visited


View Larger Map

Using Google Maps was easy. It took me awhile to get the map embedded in my blog, but I finally did it. I can see a lot of uses for using the placement marks in Google Maps. It could be used in business, in travel, in genealogy, and many other ways.