Category Archives: health & happiness

how do you sleep?

15 Saturday Mar 2008

Posted by in health & happiness, miscellany, quizzes

≈ 10 Comments

What Your Sleeping Position Says


You are secretly sensitive, but you often put up a front. Shy and private, you yearn for security.

You take relationships slowly.

You need lots of reassurances before you can trust.

If you don’t get enough sleep, you are: cranky and a big baby

It’s hard to sleep next to you because: you are a light sleeper

All true except the being cranky bit. I never get enough sleep yet I’m actually one of those really annoying ‘happy morning’ people. Well, as soon as I’ve had my first cup of coffee – before that I’m just kinda groggy and zombie-ish.

I found this quiz on Miss Cellania (a fellow insomniac) along with this pic of the most popular sleeping positions.

sleeppositions.jpg

I usually go to sleep in the foetal position, though I really prefer sleeping on my back and often wake up like that (star-fish style), but when that happens my lower back totally seizes up.

[update: I found the following info relating to the positions shown in this pic over on Jahooni’s blog, thanks to a comment left here by upset waitress…]

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cats reduce heart attack risk

12 Wednesday Mar 2008

Posted by in animals & pets, health & happiness, life stuff

≈ 10 Comments

cat-heart.jpg

cats reduce heart attack risk

The cat owners had a 30 per cent reduction in heart attack risk than participants who didn’t own cats, said the study’s lead author

Yeah I know, seem to be on a roll with the cat stuff lately … but isn’t this excellent news for all of us who have cats that allow us to live with them!  So, does the fact that I live with two cats lower my heart attack risk by 60 per cent? Or do I also have to take Nog into consideration? 😉

fruit

05 Wednesday Mar 2008

Posted by in food & drink, health & happiness, home

≈ 25 Comments

fruit-bowl.jpg
Do you eat five pieces of fruit a day?

I know it’s the recommended daily amount, but I’ve never understood how people find the time to eat so much fruit in one day. I eat maybe five pieces a month, though I do eat lots of veg and also have some sort of fruit juice every day (and no, not just grape juicef_redwine.gif ). It isn’t that I don’t like fruit, it’s just that I never get round to eating it.

But thanks to my friend “S” (aka Pipocas, popcorn mule and international woman of mystery) and my student & friend Paco (aka iskenderum ) that’s all about to change . . .
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azahar again!

26 Tuesday Feb 2008

Posted by in health & happiness, life stuff, musings, sevilla

≈ 13 Comments

orange-blossoms.jpg
First sandals, then blackbirds and now the first azahar. . .

And it’s much earlier than last year. I was walking home from a class yesterday afternoon and when I turned a corner I was suddenly snapped out of my reverie; I closed my eyes, raised my face to the sky and inhaled deeply. Then I looked around and saw them – the first orange blossoms of the year.

It always takes me by surprise and always fills me with joy.

it was 20 years ago …

25 Monday Feb 2008

Posted by in culture, films, health & happiness, life stuff, rants

≈ 13 Comments

mystic_pizza.jpg

. . . that I first saw this film.

A very charming ‘coming of age’ film about three teenaged girls (played by Julia Roberts, Annabeth Gish & Lili Taylor) in the small town of Mystic, Connecticut. And I had vague memories of really loving this film a lot.

Got to watch it again yesterday as it was being shown on tv on Sunday afternoon . . . and I loved it all over again.

But something really niggled. which I know is one of my pet niggles . . . and that is about how women portrayed in films twenty years ago actually got away with having real women’s bodies. I mean, okay, Mystic Pizza was a small indie low-budget film and not a big-time Hollywood film, otherwise this may not have been the case. But man, there was ole Julia (I think it was her first film role) showing a lot of big sexy butt and voluptuous curves, and Annabeth and Lily also looked like … well, like normal women do when wearing trousers. Like, no three inch gap between their thighs. And all scenes showing any of them in a sleeveless top or dress also showed quite attractive and normal looking upper arms, not pencil-thin sticks protruding out of bony shoulders… it was really refreshing to see this for a change.

Well, refreshing and also sad to think of how things are now. Ah well…

An excellent film – does anyone else remember it?