students, swimming, cat litter, and cereal bags

what do they all have in common? Nothing. Except they are all in my random post below.

The students have all come back to Bloomington for the start of spring term. It’s a big adjustment going from our sleepy town over the holidays to crazy pedestrian traffic, cars everywhere, long lines at the grocery, and an abnormally high number of users at the rec-sports facility (you know they all have to get in shape before spring break!). So I headed to the pool after work yesterday expecting the 25 lanes to be pretty full, and possibly half of the lanes usurped by the little munchkin age group teams who pay money to steal lanes away from the IU students/staff/faculty (I’m not bitter or anything, I just like to have my own lane!). But I was happily surprised to find there were no swim lessons, no age group teams practicing, and I had my own lane for my entire hour long workout. That should be highlight enough for a swim, but last night I knocked out 10x50’s fly on 1:00, getting tons of rest, no one arm fly, no one handed turns, no one handed finishes. 6 dolphin kicks of every wall. I was completely legal the whole set! I was swimming ala Michael Phelps. Ok, not really, because he would probably do 50x100 fly, or something ridiculously embarrassing like that. But this 42 year old was happy enough with her 50’s.

Then I had to stop and pick up some cat and dog food. I noticed some cat litter that is made from corn. My sweet dogs, Daisy and Sam, like to eat the cat poop straight from the litter box (I know, it’s disgusting). But when they are all at home, and we are not, who is going to stop them! Of course, they don’t just get the poop, they also get the litter (and you know that stuff can be like cement, and its going into their stomachs!). So, I thought corn based litter was a great idea. Now they will just be eating all natural ingredients!

Another recent realization is not to throw away the wax paper cereal box liners. You can get at least one reuse of them, if not many, as storage bags. So next time you finish off a box of Cheerios, save the bag, and reuse it a couple of times, the earth will be happier for it.