Posted on 24th February 2010 by Tara in Diary Entries
fitness, health, iPhone apps, RunKeeper
I love nerdy geeky useful apps on my iPhone – and RunKeeper is right up there with my Sleep Cycle.
I left the house this morning, opened my app, set it to walk and turned GPS on and away we went.
RunKeeper meaured distance, speed and calories. How cool!
A little training program for me stored in my phone.
Combine that with my pedometer – which I will be wearing for the 10,000 steps Challenge (we have a couple of teams made up of people from our floor at work) – and I can start to get rid of these couple of kilos I have put on from not diving the last month or so. Its astonishing how quickly the scales creep up! And I did not think that a pool session and a weekend’s diving was necessarily keeping that much weight at bay anyway.
I needed to edit my security settings – to keep my map details a little more private.
My RunKeeper 3.79 km Walking Activity.
Posted on 23rd February 2010 by Tara in Diary Entries
dating, Life, men, odd news
I’m not 100% sure why this appeared in the Odd Stuff section of Stuff – I think its more of a lifestyle piece than anything.
The article talks about the more “real” men that attract us women.
A new survey suggests that not all woman are after a hairless muscle-man from the pages of Men’s Health, but instead are on the lookout for a guy who is a little rough around the edges.
Top of the desirable traits was the unshaven look – a turn-on for 41 percent of women, while a slightly geeky personality was also popular.
Top of the list is the unshaven look.
Which I agree to, rugged and a little unkempt is definitely handsome (not so handsome that I could handle having my face and …. anyways, that I could handle permanent pash rash).
A well defined body is nice to look at, but oh so often it comes hand in hand (a little pun there?) with a terribly over inflated ego or no personality or a just plain mean temperament. A muscular body does not have the same cuddle factor that a more natural body has. Perhaps it is true that you can not have everything.
I like a little it of grey hair.
I like a bit of meat on my man – something to hold on to and something to drape myself over.
>> Women want ‘real men’ – oddstuff | Stuff.co.nz.
Posted on 22nd February 2010 by Tara in Diary Entries
Gardening, home, macadamia, The Treehouse
My nuts are huge
I love my Macadamia Nut tree.
Its quite a big tree – around 5m in height – and its always green …. and its perfect for hanging my dive gear in whilst I rinse and dry it.
And this year it has HUGE NUTS!
Huge I tell you. Nuts I tell you.
As I have not been diving lately, I have been finding new and interesting things to occupy my time.
(Its either that or I sit on the couch drinking beer and eating popcorn and generally complaining about how hot and muggy it is.)
Not knowing anything about said tree – or just not caring about it enough (other than picking up the dead leaves as they hurt my feet!) – I didnt look at harvesting the nuts last year. But this years crop literally looks like it could smack me in the face.
I’ve been reading a little on New Zealand’s macadamia nuts and they are indeed biennial – alternate years produce light then heavy crops – so no wonder this seasons nuts look bigger and better than last season’s.
The macadamia nut was originally documented in Australia – where the Aborigines called it kindal kindal and feasted on them in winter – by British Colonists. Funny to read that the sentences of history say the colonists discovered the nut, but if the Aborigines were eating them then surely they discovered them?
The first known orchard was planted in Australia in 1890 and now we see orchards planted in Hawaii, New Zealand, Costa Rica, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico to name a few. The macadamia nut is considered a delicacy but many people all over the world.
Ripened and unripened nuts can look the same so the advice is to wait until they fall to the ground which could be around May to June to July. If the spil is wet, I should be looking to see if the hard outer shell (pericarp) is splitting. Some times this period can be right up until November.
Once they start splitting and/or falling, then I can try husking some of them and seeing whether its better to roast them or not.
YUM!
If anyone knows what variety my tree – and nuts – are from, could you let me know please?
Any information or recommendations would also be greatly appreciated.
>> New Zealand Macadamia Nut Fact Sheet
But after all that excitement, it has to be said – god I need to get back into the water already!
I am enjoying the garden, dont get me wrong, but I miss my eels and my rays and my nudis and get narc’ed!
