9 Things I Learned This Week-#87 (Mangini, books, eduation, snails, movies, poll, blogs)

Mangini

In an interview for the PLAIN DEALER, Eric Mangini, head coach of the Cleveland Browns, said his all-time favorite book is Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx. Both Gerard and I read this one too and liked it a lot! Click the link to see our review of it over at "Grab A Book From Our Stack."

Snails

From a couple boys in my Sunday School class, I learned that snails help keep aquariums clean. When I asked if they had any pets, a couple mentioned a bunch of snails. I never realized snails were pets--I wonder if they name them all. Do you have any snails as pets?

Congrats To Suzanne Collins

Suzanne Collins has all three of her trilogy books on USA TODAY'S best-selling books list: Mockingjay is #1, The Hunger Games is #8 and Catching Fire is #14! Quite an accomplishment, especially considering they are all fiction! We are still waiting to read Mockingjay but loved the other two.

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7 Things I Learned This Week--Part 41

UPDATED AT 11:50 A.M.:

National Feral Cat Day

Just found out when reading Laila and Minchie's blog that today is National Feral Cat Day! In honor of this day, please read my post about missing my dad's cats here, all of which were strays.

Funny Video--The Yaya Ponytail

From watching the Yaya Ponytail video at Yaya Stuff, I learned how to make a ponytail and also enjoyed watching a hilarious video! You gotta check this one out but be sure to visit her blog and read the post about it--keep in mind this is a spoof video!

Sorting Programs

At Bloody Computer I learned this little tip: From the START on your computer, when you go into ALL PROGRAMS you can sort these alphabetically to find them easier by right clicking on one and then clicking on "Sort by name." Very easy!

Alexa

I read about Alexa, a system that rates blogs, at The Constant Complainer and finally took the time to register my two blogs and add the widget. I was surprised my rank was as low as it was. It took me awhile, but I finally got it.

Body Fat

When I worked out at the gym with a new trainer last week, I found out my body fat is back up to 32%. I know that body fat gadget isn't entirely accurate, but wow! That's back to where it was before I ever started working out, I think. At one point I had it down to 23-25% but that's when I weighed only 110 which didn't really look very healthy. People kept wondering if I was okay. As long as I can fit into my size 7-8 jeans, I'm not going to worry about it! I refuse to give up my pizza!!

Breast Cancer

At Chicken Nuggets of Wisdom, I learned that every 3 minutes in America a woman either finds out she has breast cancer or looses her battle with it. This is absolutely astounding to me! It was a long post about losing her Aunt Paula to Breast Cancer and participation in the Breast Cancer walk but one worth reading!

Healing Update

Yesterday the radiation oncologist told me it will take 6 months to a year for my breast to completely heal on the inside! I was shocked! I expected to be able to fully workout chest, biceps, shoulders and back by January--guess not! Get this, she said I could do bicep curls with 1-3 lb. dumb bells as long as I didn't do high reps! What good would that do??

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What I Learned This Week--Part 3

I wondered what was up with all the pirate stuff on blogs on Friday and now I know thanks to Random Thoughts and Hijinks. September 19 is Pirate Day! (This is another blog I found through Entrecard.)

There's a website you can go to called missingmoney.com where you can search for your name and it tells you if there's any unclaimed funds that are owed to you. I tried this and it did show my husband's that we are in the process of claiming. I found out about this site at Hillbilly Heart.

I learned a new word this week: "crabilated" meaning not happy! I found this on one of Daisy the Curly Cat's Fashion Friday posts. Here is the link if you want a good laugh and to see why Daisy was crabilated:
Fashion Friday My Two-Piece Outfit

The Cleveland Browns lead the league with 28 penalties! (I knew they had a lot, but didn't know it was this many!) This week I'm picking the Bengals to beat the Browns.

You can see video clips of Wednesdays With Beth Moore at:
www.lightsource.com. I just discovered this today!

What I Learned This Week

The Spanish word for bake is Hornee--I thought that was kind of funny. I learned this from I Do Things (So you don't have to) Thanks, Daisy for telling me where I saw this at.

What I type on the Internet is there forever, even if I delete it so I need to be very careful what I type.

To calm down dogs during a storm, rub a fabric softener dryer sheet on them which takes out the static electricity. I read this tip in the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER this morning.

Painting is tricky. Sometimes, you need to put on a grabber primer first for certain types of surfaces, such as the wall between my kitchen cupboards and counter. Even the painter had trouble getting the paint to cover and spread well and gave up. I had him wipe it off and will rethink this.

P.S. The first three things listed above that I learned were from reading blogs this week. Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark them and don't remember from whose blogs these bits of information were gleaned. If it was yours, please let me know and I will add the link to your blog. (I should have done this right away and next time I will note it promptly.) I know "Hornee" came from a new blog (I Do Things) I just discovered that was very funny as well. It was from a post about improving on chocolate chip cookies by adding M&Ms.

What I Learned Today

When the Basement Systems guys came to start our basement remodeling, I got to see what a hornets nest looks like. Right there in my basement rafters, hidden above the ceiling was a foot long nest. We were all afraid to go near it and the remodeling guys didn't want to touch it either so I called several pest control places. Fortunately, I got one that had a guy in the area who came by in half an hour to take care of it. He said it was dead and just got a broom to knock it down. We all felt a bit silly then, but I asked how he knew it was dead. He said because there was no activity going on around it. Normally, there would be hornets flying in and out. I asked how he could tell if they weren't all just out and would be back and he said because the queen and her drones would all stay and there would be some flying around it. I was very relieved that we didn't have hornets in my basement. Here is what it looked like--big, brown, flaky ugly thing.