My dreams of a treadmill desk

I've been spending far too much time sitting on my butt lately. I sit in my office all day at work and I've been spending 2-3 hours each evening working on grants or papers. On the couch. Usually with a glass of wine in hand. Relaxing, but not so great for my health or my waistline.

Anyway, in light of the lower back and sciatic nerve pain that plague me when I sit too much (I'm getting so old), and a number of recent studies that show how bad it is to sit around all day, I decided I need a treadmill desk to use at home (not for work - I don't want to be the weirdo).

I searched around for a reasonably priced desk that I could use with the treadmill I have, but there was nothing under about $700. And I'm not willing to shell out that kind of cash for something that I freely admit may be a flash-in-the-pan for me. So I decided to cobble together my own DIY version using stuff I had around the house.

Two pine boards, a game of Perfection, and a box of Mecchano later and I had a decent mock-up. My elbows are at a perfect 90° angle with my hands on the keyboard. It's actually fairly comfortable to work on. I can easily walk at 2.5 miles per hour and still type. 3 mph is too fast and I start to make a lot of mistakes, but in an evening I can easily get in 4-5 miles while I'm working. Not too bad!

I am worried that all of the looking down at the monitor will make my neck and/or back sore, so I need to figure a way to elevate the laptop and build a small shelf at elbow height to hold a keyboard. That's on the agenda this weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The boys are getting a little old for Valentine's Day celebrations. Matthew flat out refuses to take Valentines to school. Cal wasn't interested in writing out Valentines to every kid in his class, but he did want to take a snack for the class party tomorrow. So I decided to take care of both issues in one fell swoop.

I had these little zip-top Valentine bags in the house and decided to whip up some pink popcorn to fill them. Valentine and snack all in one!

Remember Lucky Elephant popcorn? I haven't had that stuff since I was a kid, but the pink candy coating is so Valentiney. And luckily there are dozens of recipes online that mimic it. Here's the consensus I came up with.

Pink Candy Corn

1 cup popcorn kernels, popped

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup half & half

1 Tbsp white corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
pink or red food colouring

Mix sugar, half & half, corn syrup and salt in a pot and heat on medium stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a boil and cook until the syrup measures 235°C on a candy thermometer. Remove from hear, stir in vanilla and food colouring, pour over popcorn and mix well (on my first batch I found that a lot of the syrup ran through to the bottom of the bowl and made the popcorn at the bottom very sticky). When the candy coating starts to cool and the popcorn begins to separate, spread it on parchment lined cookie sheets and allow to cool for about half an hour.

It was a breeze to make, and the kids thought it was so delicious that they immediately snarfled down half of it. I was forced to make second batch.

Cal managed to stay focused long enough to package most of the popcorn and get them tagged with "From Callum" stickers.

They're all lined up and ready to go. It's a good thing they're leaving the house, because that stuff is seriously addictive!

The front hallway floor

Way back in early December when we were away in Mexico the magical tile fairy payed a visit to our house, and our front hallway, which had been unfinished cement for the past 18 months, was finally tiled. Couldn't ask for a better Christmas present than that!

I'm so happy that we took Cal with us when we picked out the tile as he was the one who chose it. I was leaning towards a much more muted mosaic, but he was extremely vocal about his choice. And he was right. It's very striking when you walk in, and gives the dramatic effect I was looking for. 

We went with a single strip of black tile to delineate the inlay. This strip is the same width as the edge of the vent cover on the floor. There was no way to work around the air return, so we decided to work with it as best we could.

The marble mosaic inlay is centered in the inner vestibule, with a 12" strip of Carrara marble tile bordering it around the edge. The rest of the floor is 12x24 Carrara marble tile grouted in pale grey. No scrubbing white grout lines for me!

It's amazing how clean and bright the hallway looks now. It's like the grey concrete on the floor previously sucked up all of the light in the hallway. This is the only "before" shot that I can find, but it's a miraculous change. And it's so nice to be able to mop the floor and get it actually clean again.

There's still lots to do to finish up. I'd like to install some wainscoting, the air return vent cover needs a good scrubbing and a coat of fresh paint, and we need to get some stuff up on the painfully bare walls. Now that we have the floor finished I actually have some incentive to tackle the rest of it!

Weekend in review

I know, I know, this should be titled "Last six weeks in review" because I've been too lazy to update my blog. Even a New Year's resolution wasn't enough to get me off my butt.

But my sister's demanding motivating phone call this morning was!

Work has been busy, hockey schedules crazy, I rejoined the gym to fight the extra 5-10 pounds that seem to creep on when I stop working out, and I've been spending so much time writing manuscripts and grants that the thought of writing for pleasure kind of makes me want to throw up. Just a little, but it's enough of a barrier that inertia reigns.

Anyway, back to the weekend review. I had lots of work to do, so I enlisted Matthew to help me out with some experiments. He wasn't exactly thrilled as he didn't want to play a role in the slaughter of innocents in the name of science.

Even if they are only pesky little fruit flies.

He cheered up and felt a little less guilty after I explained that the work could help find a cure for lung infections in kids with Cystic Fibrosis. Then he thought it was kind of cool, although still rather tedious, to be counting how many dead flies there were in at least a hundred little vials.

Not your average 10 year old kid's Saturday and Sunday morning chore! The big question is, when he grows up to be a scientist, is it nature? Or nurture?

But the really big news of the weekend???

My baby boy turned 8! It seems like just yesterday I was holding this in my arms

He had that worried look on his face for his first year of life, and now he's a fearless, rambunctious giant of a boy with long, gangly arms and legs. And since he's all about hockey, his request, of course, was for a hockey cake. So I just whipped one up.

He was thrilled with it, and so was I. Mostly because it was so much easier then other cakes I've made for them (i.e. Minecraft and Hockey Jersey). I can't believe I spent four hours modeling Minecraft characters for his cake last year. I must have been temporarily insane.

Or maybe just willing to do anything for my boy. How could you say no to this cute little face?

Tulum

We're back to a cold and very snowy reality this morning. It's hard to believe that just yesterday I was drinking my morning coffee on this deck 

and this morning I'm ankle deep in snow. Now it's time to cull through the thousands of photos I took while we were away and catch up on the posts that I meant to do while I was gone. I'm going to blame the slow internet connection for the lack of posts. It was pretty painful waiting for photos to upload.

The one attraction I was determined to see on our trip was Tulum. I've wanted to visit these ruins for years, and it's one of the reasons that I chose to stay in Akumal on this trip.

Tulum is the only Mayan city built on the coast. It was a major trade hub (mainly jade, turquoise, and obsidian) and served as the seaport for the Mayan empire. The beach below was the landing site for ships. 

The city was built with a 784 meter long wall complete with watchtowers along three sides, with 12 meter high cliffs protecting the other side. It's very different than other Mayan sites I've visited.

Tulum doesn't have a lot of buildings excavated, and the ones that are are mostly off limits for touching. This meant that the kids weren't that interested in the tour, but they were fascinated by the thousands (and I mean literally thousands) of iguanas sunning themselves all over the ruins and the pathways.

The site on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean was very picturesque and I'm glad that we went to see these ruins, but I don't think that I would hurry back. It wasn't nearly as much fun as wandering through the jungle at Coba, it was way more crowded, and it was hot as the dickens.

And anyone who knows Cal knows that's a dangerous combination. 

 The highlight of this trip was definitely playing in the surf on the beach at the base of the ruins. It was a very windy day, and the waves were huge. It was also a very hot day, and the water was refreshing after wandering around the ruins up top.

 It was a difficult task to drag the boys away when it was time to leave. We lured them away with promises of a visit to another cenote that afternoon after a trip into town to eat some lunch. But that's a story for another day.

Cobá's cenotes

The same day that we went to Cobá, we visited two local cenotes, which are natural holes in the limestone that expose groundwater at the bottom. They can be totally open at the top like a giant pit, or they can be a closed-in cavern with only a small hole open to the outside. The water in cenotes is usually crystal clear as it has filtered slowly through the ground and contains no particulate matter.

Cenotes are very common in the Yucatan peninsula, and were often used by the Mayas for sacrificial offerings. The boys and I watched a BBC documentary before we came down here where they explored a sacred cenote and found the bones of hundreds of small children. It made Cal a little nervous that we would take him to such a place!

The first cenote we visited, Tamcach Ha, had a very narrow opening from the outside, with a long, steep, slippery staircase for access.

Once you got down far enough, it opened up into a large, underground cavern with a cool, clear pool to swim in. It felt amazing after our sweaty, dusty trek through Cobá.

We spent at least an hour there, floating around or perching on the big rock (the only place to rest as the stairway ended right in the water) while Cal happily snorkeled around chasing after small fish.

When we arrived there were about 20 people there, but, like most places we've been, the tourist collectivos all cleared out by 3pm and we had the place to ourselves. It was silent, with the only sounds the dripping of the groundwater as it filtered through from above and fell into the pool from the stalactites that lined the ceiling.

The second cenote, Choo Ha, was just a few hundred meters away, and while larger and in some ways more impressive, was not as inviting for swimming as it was shallow and kind of slimy looking.

 This cenote had some really impressive pillars resulting from the fusion of stalactites and stalagmites. The next picture is hopelessly out of focus, but it's the only one I took that shows the scale.

Cal was ready to jump in for a swim, but the rest of us were beat out, and ready to head back to Akumal for late afternoon cocktails. Three against one ruled the day, so we headed back to catch the last rays of sun. 

Adventures in Cobá

The boys were itching to see some Mayan ruins, so we took them on a day trip to Cobá, which is thought to have been the largest of all the ancient Mayan cities. The ruins here are not as extensively restored as Tulum or Chichen Itza, but they are much less crowded and you can still climb the big pyramid. The kids were really excited by this.

It took about an hour to drive there from Akumal, along a well maintained highway. We passed through a number of interesting villages along the way, although we didn't have time to stop.

The name Cobá means "waters stirred by the wind". It is situated adjacent four natural lakes, which is very unusual in the Yucatan. This year, the wettest in 75 years, the waters are really being stirred by the wind. There has been so much rainfall that there is some pretty significant flooding at the site, which is right in the middle of the town. These pictures were taken from the ticket kiosk.

There were washouts in the road that were blocked off and partially repaired, water across the road that we had to drive through (holding our breath that we wouldn't hit some giant underwater pothole or be so submerged that the car would stall), but the town appeared to be going merrily along with daily life. They built walkways out of cinder blocks and some people had small boats tethered to their houses.

While the Cobá site is huge, containing an estimated 6500 buildings, few of them have been restored. As you walk along the pathways inside the site, everywhere you look you can see structures covered by jungle growth.

And many of the structures are only partially excavated. It lends to the overgrown lost-in-the-jungle charm. 

We hired a guide to lead us through the group of structures nearest the entrance. He was amazing with the kids, directing the tour mainly towards them. He was so good, he even managed to keep Cal engaged for 45 minutes - which many not seem long, but is almost unheard of for that kid!

The highlight of the ruins was definitely Nohoch Mul, which means "big mound". This pyramid is 42 meters (138 ft) high, which makes it higher than El Castillo, the main pyramid in Chichen Itza. Only one side of Nohoch Mul has been cleared of vegetation, which makes it seem rather wild and very unlike the perfectly reconstructed structures at Chichen Itza.

It was soooo hot climbing this thing in the blazing sun. The boys scrambled up it like billy goats, but Alan and I were considerably slower and more cautious. The steps were uneven and some were slippery, worn smooth by so many feet climbing. Honestly, the kids almost gave me a heart attack the way they attacked it.

We were all sweaty and out of breath by the time we reached the top, but the view was well worth it.

There was jungle as far as the eye can see. Off in the distance you can see the top of a pyramid peeking through the trees, and can just catch a glimpse of one of the lakes.

I learned an in interesting fact at the top of the 138 foot high, 120 step pyramid.

My firstborn doesn't like heights.

I have to admit that it was a little disconcerting standing at the top pondering how best to descend. Look how tiny those people at the bottom are - it was a long way down.

Cal and I scuttled back down on our bums, lowering ourselves one step at a time. It wasn't very graceful, but was much less nerve-wracking than trying to walk down. Alan bravely recklessly walked down as if he was descending a normal staircase. He didn't even hold on to the rope!

Thankfully, there was a small palapa at the bottom selling food and drinks where we stopped for a snack and a rest.

At this point the boys were overheated and started to lose interest, so we decided to ditch the third Groupo and head back the entry. There was still plenty to see along the way.

We finished it all off with a trip into town for a late lunch. We found an amazing little restaurant, and shared some delicious fish tacos, empanadas, quesadillas and queso fundido. Thankfully we have kids who aren't afraid to try new things. Unless, of course, it has too many vegetables in it.

After lunch we headed off on a trip to an amazing ceynote to cool off. But that's a story for another day.