Gotland Field School - Day 1

Just for the record, I can already see that I won't be able to keep this rate of posting up. This is tiring work. But today, we only dug for half a day and it was our first day, so it's special.

The morning was spent with Dan Carlsson and others introducing this year's dig - his reasoning for, and evidence behind, the choice of dig location this year. Pretty interesting, and well reasoned out, and well.... too long to go into here.

We are digging in the middle of a small town, in people's back yards, so..... I give you turf lifting the old fashioned way!



We are each responsible for a 1 metre by 1 metre square. This is Neil getting a start on his 1 metre square.




This is me sieving my first bucket of dirt.



This is the backyard of the house that we can dig in. Some homeowners were enthusiastic about the project and some put limitations on where and how long we can be there. This homeowner is very enthusiastic and apparently has said 'dig it all up!'



This is my first box of finds, in the first layer of the trench. For those not familiar with archaeology, that's the fairly modern stuff. You can see pottery shards, flint shards, chert shards, some glass bits, and two nails. Dan offered a bottle of champagne to the first person to find a Viking Age coin. Sadly, I am not yet that person.



And for the gastronomically inclined, this is tonight's dinner. We're eating as a group on a meal plan, at a nearby restaurant. Buffet style, limited choices each night. Tonight we had some sort of fish in some sort of sauce and chicken in some sort of gravey with vegetables and baked potatoes. Both lunch and dinner are very...... culturally specific.



I'm struggling with the language barrier. Although the course is officially taught in english, there are only 4 english speakers in the group, and the Swedes.... slip into what is comfortable and familiar at times. It will be an interesting experience.

Stockholm to Gotland, and settling into fieldschool

When last we left the story, Neil and Karen were saying goodbye to the Hotel Rival for a month. We have one more night there at the end of the month on the way home. It is a wonderful place, and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Snorri made a sad farewell to Teddy.



We trundled off to Bromma airport to pick up our flight to Gotland. A slight delay in that they cancelled our trip, and moved us to the next plane, an hour later. No big deal, we weren't in a rush.This was our plane - getting in by climbing up the stairs is old school now 'though - we did that on the last IcelandAir flight. But the propellers were new to me. And the experience of flying an entire trip in an airplane without understanding a word of the language was a first as well. Good thing the safety demo was pretty self-explantory. :)



The legroom.... not quite the same as we experienced with IcelandAir either.... it's a much much smaller plane. If there had been anyone in the seat in front of Neil, they would not have been able to recline their seat.



Visby is a delightful town to the senses - it really gives off a laid back beach front slow moving relaxed vibe - at least in the summer, at least inside the walls. The town wall was likely begun in the 12th century. It was rebuilt to it's current height in 1280, and finished sometime in the beginning of the 14th century, although some towers were added in the 15th century. See the Wikipedia entry here for more information.



This is the laconic waterfront.... note the entire lack of a fence on the boardwalk.



The whole town has these interesting sculpture/seats scattered around - some are adult sheep and some are lambs. Snorri and I visited.



Dinner was on another outdoor patio at a nearby hotel. Snorri and I were very very relaxed - I've got a sangria on the go, a blanket on my lap, sunshine, a good book and Neil's company. What more do I need?



Today, we got on a bus and headed to Farosound, at the top of the island. Our fieldschool residence is here, and the site we are digging is about 30km away. Tomorrow - school starts!

Living Gastronomically, and the "Viking" day tour

Three folks have commented on the food so far. Trust me, it won't be so exciting once we're established at the field school in another day. I expect it will be pretty standardized student food but I will endeavor to make it *look* exciting once in awhile.

I took pictures of last night's dinner but first let me tell you about the day itself. 8 hours in a mini-bus with the overly talkative driver on a "Viking" day tour. Right off the top, we had this inkling of trouble when he decided to use the "new" definition of the Viking Age as 400 - 1300 AD instead of the more traditional 793 - 1066 definition that we're used to using. He was straightforward about it, right up front. Apparently this means one can include a lot of gothic churches in the tour.

To be fair, there was an awful lot of interesting things to see and he had some interesting theories on the Viking Age to share, but the fellow just wouldn't shut up long enough for interaction or reflection or the chance to absorb through other means. Neil and I are both readers and like the chance to read the signs at places too.

Stops included (thefted from Neil's notes):
- Jarlabankes Bro (old viking bridge) - two runestones, some other stones
- Arkils Tingplats - local thing site, and another runestone
- Church at Vallentuna
- Granby
- Lunda (from bus - no place to park)
- Sigtuna (lunch)
- Gamla (old) Uppsala - mounds from the 500-600 with the Uppsala museum.  Lots of fun things to get photos of, and beads in the gift shop - not enough time here, but on our way out we did notice that the kind folks at the museum hadn't bothered to enforce the "no pictures" they have posted - we are grateful
- Uppsala - the Uppsala Catheral - construction began in 1287 with a focal point about King Gustav I

This is the runestone at Jarlabanke Bro.



And in Sigtuna, where we stopped for lunch, we saw this interesting use of a faering. We thought some of the parents in our friends might enjoy the idea. It's a sandbox.




Now.... dinner at Pontus by the Sea in old Stockholm.  Although the site in general is all in Swedish, here's a link to the english menu. It is a lovely restaurant, quite literally on the sea-side in Stockholm. We watched boats come in, people of all sorts walking by on the boardwalk, observed the weather and skyline of the city.... and ate delicious food.

Here's Neil getting drifty with the scenery.




My food - char with lemon foam and dill pesto.



Neil's choice - cod with shrimp and butter (again with the butter!).




And my dessert - fresh strawberries are a big thing at Midsummers in Sweden. Neil had a creme  brulee.


 
Today we leave for Gotland - we'll have one night in Visby before we report to the school on Monday. Work starts on the Tuesday.

By the by, I have neglected to mention the window dressings at the Hotel Rival. They have what amounts to blackout cloth! As I've mentioned the northern climes are no fun for the light sensitive sleeper, but this is not a problem at the Rival :)

On the Road - Iceland and Stockholm

Random bits from the travels thus far..

I was up at 4:30am Iceland time this morning to catch an 8something am flight to Stockholm and really since my body had only just barely adjusted to Iceland time itself, I may not be entirely coherent tonight.

The things you can find on the internet is rather amusing. Alda, from the former Iceland Weather Report has moved to Facebook with a fan page for IWR, and she recently posted a pic of the IcelandAir plane with the Eyjafjallajökull name on it. Apparently, IcelandAir recently renamed all of it's planes with the names of volcanoes in Iceland. Planespotters.net has a list of all the planes thus far - we flew from Canada in Hengill, and over to Stockholm in Askja. Neither have erupted in a very long time so we're probably not gonna have any problems.

Yes, I'm tired. I did mention that. Strange things are important when you're tired. :)

So.... starting the trip in Canada then. (I knew the chronological approach would catch up with me eventually.) Spent the day packing and cleaning house, left the doggie and got on an Airways Transit van, had dinner at the airport (lobster soup and a greek chicken salad for me, lobster soup and a burger for Neil - Anti-V likes to follow the food). Got on the plane - Hengill, mentioned above. Attempted to sleep - it might have worked in brief moments at a time - 4 hours had passed before I felt compelled to check the time.

Didn't feel too badly throughout the day (this part of the trip usually just kills the first day for me) so we wandered around quite a bit. Vikingaheimer again - some changes there but nothing big. It needs some more ... depth. The presentation is awfully light on information. But the addition of a sail, and the animals out front were amusing.



Snorri tried to get on the boat again.



Went into Reykjavik for a bit and found the ever delightful Icelandic Fish and Chips - the service is a bit slow, but the food is just so darned good. We split an order of wolf fish and handmade garlic potato fries, with homemade sodas - lemon mango for me, and pomegranite for himself. Wandered around a bit on the way back to the car, and missed the parking meter just long enough for the parking police to issue a ticket. : (

Off to the National Museum to see if newer cameras would get better results with the really low lighting in the museum. Some improvement.... but heck, what's with the low lights anyway? Okay, I get it on the textiles, but seriously... beads and metalwork aren't going to be harmed by too much light.

 

I think the new cameras made a difference - wouldn't you say so, Rob?



Dinner at the hotel - Northern Light Inn. Neil had catfish in butter *shudder* with shrimps. Butter just isn't a 'sauce' in my books - drowning anything in it is just..... wrong. Yes, I do love lobster, but I will never ever order it in this all too common form.  I had the lamb with wild mushroom sauce. The sauce was served seperately, and several long minutes after the lamb. Very odd. I'd actually forgotten about it when it arrived. We skipped dessert in favour of skyr back in the room.

Crashed pretty shortly thereafterwards.... having been effectively up for two days without real sleep. Had to put my night shirt over my head to block out the sun. The Icelandic hotels that I've been exposed so far don't seem to believe in blackout cloth and this really is the wrong time of year in Iceland for light sensitive sleepers.

Up at the crack of stupid, returned the car, bought some more skyr for the travelling, and off to the airport. I haven't mentioned yet but we somehow have managed to be upgraded to Saga class (1st, or business class) when we bought Economy Comfort (a middle state with slightly bigger seats but no perks). Let me say, the perks in the Saga class are fun! Comfortable lounge pre-boarding with free food and wireless, no lineups, pre-boarding (in Toronto only), gadget giveaways on the plane, free food on the plane and oodles of leg room.

Off the plane in Stockholm, adjust the clocks again (only two hours this time) and we're off to the Hotel Rival (pronounced Ree-val). The concierge here writes a blog called The Stockholm Tourist which is very helpful - that blog and TripAdvisor's ratings and comments are largely the reason we chose the hotel. The fact that Benny Andersson of Abba is one of the owners is just an amusing coincidence. Really. I found out that tidbit after we'd decided on it. Of course, it did explain all the Abba related comments on TripAdvisor. There are Abba cds in every room, should you choose to become assimulated.

And teddy bears. There are teddy bears in every room. If there's a connection between Abba and teddy bears, I'm not aware of it. But he's darned cute.

 

Wandered around Stockholm for a few hours before dinner - most of the small crafty tourist shops in the Old Town are open, even on Midsummer's Eve, and there are tons of them. This painting, in a store here, of old town captures it better I managed!



Stockholm is a city spread over 14 different islands. This is just one of the riverways that seperates it.

 

Some parts are very industrialized, like most cities, and some parts are still old and beautiful.




Dinner at the Rival Bistro - a delicious shellfish casserole for both of us. I had a lemon creme brulee with fruit, and Neil had a raspberry souffle with licorce sorbet.

New Adventure - the schedule arrives

I haven't mentioned this before on the blog, but certainly in Facebook.... we've been a little frustrated by the lack of communication from the school with information about this field school thing we're about to embark on. So today... we're packing, going to get on the plane for Iceland tonight.... and at the very last minute the schedule arrives. :)

 It's a good thing we have email access all the way along.

Anyhoo... here's the schedule for your follow along entertainment. Subject to changes due to weather and exciting finds. I do hope to be able to blog about it as we go but we'll have to see how a program designed for the average archaeologist (aka crazy people) and 20 year olds sits with this 40something person.

It's my birthday today, by the way.

Archaeological Field school 2011

Tue. 28/6 09.00-12.00 Roll call, grouping. Practical questions. Introduction to Slite. Info from
Alanna Scott
13-16.30 Field work. Find sorting.

Wen. 29/6 09-16.30 Field work. Survey about osteology, Astrid Lennblad
19-21 Lecture by PhD Christoph Kilger. Viking Age treasures and female
belongings

Thu 30/7 09-16.30 Field work

Fri. 1/7 09-16.30 Field work

Sat. 2/7 09-16.30 Field work. Summarise the week at Slite.

Sun. 3/7 09-17 Excursion with visit to the historical museum

Mon. 4/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture by PhD student Gunilla Runesson, Bronze Age on Gotland.

Tue. 5/7 09-16.30 Field work

Wed. 6/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture by MA Johan Norderäng. Västergarn-new excavations

Thu. 7/7 09-16.30 Field work. Summarise the week at Slite.

Fri. 8/7 09-16.30 Field work (3 and 4 weeks). Excavation, review, completion (2 weeks).

Mon 11/7 09-16.30 Field work (4 weeks). Introduction 2 weeks, see schedule for Tuesday
28/6

Tue 12/7 09-16.30 Field work. Survey about osteology, in groups.

Wed 13/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture by PhD student Joakim Wehlin. Baltic stone ships

Thu 14/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture. PhD students. Gustaf Svedjemo. Iron Age landscape on
Gotland

Fri 15/7 09-16.30 Field work 2 and 4 weeks. Review of the results, interpretation, and
completion for the 3 weeks group. Summarise the week.

Sat 16/7 09-17 Excursion with a visit to the historical museum

Mon 18/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture. Will be decided later

Tue 19/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture by Associate Professor Dan Carlsson. The Eastern
Connection. Scandinavia and Russia.

Wed 20/7 09-16.30 Field work

Thu 21/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Preliminary results, find analysis, bone analysis. Dan Carlsson, Anna
Pettersson, Astrid Lennblad

Fri 22/7 09-16.30 Field work, Review of the results, interpretation, completion for the 2
and 4 weeks groups.

Doggie Day Care

Nina asked what Doggie Day Care is?

Doggie Day Care is just like day care for children. You can drop them off in the morning and pick them up after work already pre-exhausted for you. A boon for those days when the weather is too bad for walking, or you're busy in the evenings, or you're just too lazy for a hour or more of walking / playing after a long day at work. The energy needs of a young puppy are often more then many of us can handle on our own.

Plus, there are benefits for your doggie in terms of socialization with other dogs. They play together in big groups and learn doggie culture - something us humans can't teach.

These pictures are from Country-Side Boarding, Grooming and Day Care. One of the staff is a very adapt photographer, and they often post pictures from the day care.


It's not something we do every day. We need to go on walks for ourselves, and throwing the frisbee is fun from this side too. But it's a great relief to have back-up in raising a highly energetic young puppy.

Shoutout

Still there? Probably not. I don't believe anyone reads me anymore.

*shrug* Oh well. I'll just blabber on anyway.

I was reading last few posts and thought I'd catch y'all non-existant readerly types up.

Thoka is now only occassionally the dog-from-hell. He's mostly a very sweet puppy who's exercise needs sometimes outstrip my ability to keep up with him. He's even sometimes lapsing into 'companion'. Doggie Day Care is so very yuppy a concept but I'd go crazy without the extra help.

Or maybe it's the spring, and I have more energy for endless walks and frisbee throwing. He really loves that frisbee.

Or maybe he's actually getting me .... *gasp* healthier. More capable of more walks! Nah, can't be that one. It's not like I have any weight loss to show for it. Yes, yes, I hear muscles weigh more then fat. Big fricking deal.... would it kill the scale to give me some achievement markings once in awhile?

Anyhoo.... the trip to Gotland to go on an archaeological dig is still in the planning. We leave in less then a month. The most frustrating thing right now is that the field school is incommunicado. Two months ago, they said they'd contact us with final payment  and more information in the middle of May, and well....you might have noticed that in a typical month averaging 30 odd days, that the 27th isn't generally considered "mid May".

If they need us to bring something specific - like steel toed boots maybe - then they need to give us enough time to find and purchase said object. If there's a pre-requisite reading list, then they need to give us enough time to find and read said books. If they want a final payment for the school, they need to tell us where to send it. Sleeping arrangements would be good to know. A map of where the school is, and which office to go to when we arrive would be good. I can google the school's address, but which office to go to isn't something Google can tell me.

Ya know... little things, like details. I've been married to a Project Manager for too long perhaps. Of course I've always liked to have plans.

Planning an archaeological dig in Gotland, Sweden

Hallo again :)

This year, Neil and I are planning going to an archaeological field school in Gotland, Sweden.

I plan to blog about it as it happens, but I'd like your input please. As you might have noticed, I'm a little short on original material recently. Facebook's brevity and immediacy has sucked my brain dry for intelligent, lengthier writing.

So.... what would you like to see me blog about during this adventure?

I've done previous trip blogging in May 2008 (Scotland, Iceland) and July 2009 (Iceland, the ring road tour), and in August 2010 (L'Anse aux Meadows, NFLD), but this trip is a little different in that there will be an educational component as well as entertainment.

Please be specific. Please feed my poor, starved-for-topics brain with ideas.

If you are not feeling inclined to using the comments field, I have added a Contact Me section to the sidebar - please feel free to email me. I don't promise responses.

Questions about trip preparation will be entertained as well.

Thank you,

Karen

Not entirely abandoned

I'm thinking about what, if anything, I want to do with this blog in the future.

With Facebook being so much more compelling and immediate, I'm not spending as much time here as I once did. Is it still useful a space?

Do I have enough readers?

Do you have an opinion?

Karen

This post picks up where we last left off, but peters toward incomplete at the end of it. I think the whole 'bloggging about the fitness thing' isn't necessarily working.

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I know we walked on Monday, but apparently I forgot to note how long it was and I've completely forgotten the route.

1.2 km.- Tuesday - Thoka, as always, totally annoying without Neil on the walk

2.7 km - Wednesday, I was feeling energetic and we went early in the evening, the weather was so fantastic.

1.9 km - Thursday, good walking for the humans, but Thoka was crazed and I had to hand him off mid-walk for the sake of my blood pressure.

1.2 km - Friday, both of us were incredibly tired. End of a long week and I actually brought work home. Thoka appears to agree, being asleep now.

Hmmmm.... seem to have lost the weekend. I think we both skipped saturday, and then on sunday, Neil skipped out on the flimsy excuse that giving a lecture and helping students make beads all day long was exhausting. I stayed home and entertained the dog all day, which is pretty exhausting in a way too but Thoka and I went for a walk in the evening too. I was afraid of losing my own habit. But we just did 1.2 km.

Have no idea what happened on monday, but on Tuesday, Thoka and I went to our first puppy obedience class. It is.... I don't know yet. I'm of mixed mind.

Wednesday night, Thoka and I walked 2.3 km. Neil joined us for the last 1.2 km. :)

Thursday - haven't the foggiest.

Friday - haven't the foggiest.

Saturday - Bogenschutzenfest! Thoka came with us - so many new smells, so many new people to con into believing that he's cute and adorable and needs to be petted.

Sunday - I stayed home and made pumpkin pie, and green tomato salsa. And did a lot of laundry. Thoka and Neil went to the Wareham Forge for the day to play with smelting like things.

Monday - Down to the parentals for turkey dinner! Brought the dog but had to leave him outside all day because my Dad is both allergic and asthmatic. It was a nice day, we could be outside much of the day with him.

Tuesday - Home sick, but had to take Thoka out for a walk before his hyperactivity killed me. 2.1 km. Puppy obedience class tonight - I don't know how I'm going to make it through that. I'm not at my best, and I'm ready to kill the damned dog after spending all day fending off his.... energetic.... approach to life.

Puppy obedience class that night was pure hell. He was such a frigging pain in the butt and I was so afraid of him peeing or pooping in the class (he did) that I couldn't focus at all on what the instructor was saying. I held it together til I was picking up Neil after his night class, and then bawled all the way home.  Spent the next two days avoiding the dog altogether.

Note to self: don't spend the whole day at home alone with the creature-from-hell just yet.

----------

Okay now... a whole other week has gone by and I like the doggie again. There has been walking. I have neglected to keep track of it.

My sinuses have been somewhat unhappy for ....say... the last 8 weeks. Is it the month we spent in Newfoundland clearing our systems of Ontario's pollution? Is it an allergy to the dog? (I didn't have that much of a problem with Leif.) Is it the change of seasons? The furnace coming on? A cold?

Karen

still more fitness and doggie - with flowers

1.2 km - Thursday

3.0 km - Friday - doggie was psycho, weather was fantastic

---------------

No walk on saturday. We went to Oakridge Acres Fall Farm Day, and spent a ton in the store. Thoka went along for the car ride, but it was too busy there to let him out.

In the afternoon, we had friends over to build a bead furnace and they brought Bella. Bella exhausted Thoka, and vice versa.




Neil found building a bead furnace to be physically challenging, and Karen's only excuse is pretty marginal in that her sinuses are trying to kill her.

------------

We did a ton of housecleaning today.

2.5 km tonight. Thoka was relatively well behaved. Or I was channeling Ceasar Millan. Can't figure out which.

Karen

Thoka helping out in the garden, more exercise

This is our first weekend with Thoka when we first discovered his 'talent' in the garden. Took a bit to convert the file. It's a bit grainy, but still funny.

Here you go...


Thoka Video


Walking on tuesday night was just 1.2 km, but Thoka was much better behaved tonight.

Had lots of sushi for lunch today - went with friends. :)

----------

It's wednesday and I'm looking back.... it's only been a week since I started this walking everyday and tracking it thing? It feels so much longer.

Well, I guess that's why I'm tracking it.

----------

Tomorrow, Thoka will have been with us for 3 weeks. That makes him 11 weeks old. He's gained 4 pounds (I have never managed to convert to metric in measuring my weight), and 3 inches in height. He's gonna be a big doggie.

-----------

Vandy asked me if my camera was broken. Apparently I'm not posting enough pictures of the doggie recently. I will endeavor to correct that oversight. :)

----------

Did 40 flights of stairs today. Up and down.

Where 'flight' is defined as 'all in one direction, two flights per floor'. 10 floors, twice up and twice down. Took about 15 minutes. Definite increase in heart rate.

Was able to report to facilities that the air quality on 5, 6, and 7 is seriously diminished. Turns out they knew already but still.... I should get a gold star for attentiveness or something. It's not an everyday occurence.

Both the attentiveness and the air quality problem, that is. :)

---------

Aren't you glad I don't have a Twitter account? At least this is one long post of seriously disjointed thoughts posted all at once and not millions of discontinuous thoughts throughout the day.

---------

1.9 km tonight.

Karen

Monday walking

Got an awesome letter from UW's food services, explaining which guidelines they use to calculate the sodium content in their meals. References and all!

We just disagree a little about the guidelines that should be used. But that they did some research and returned my letter is amazing. One so rarely expects that kind of service in bureaucratic institutions.

The long and short of it is that they are working from the old standard guideline based on an upper average of 2390mg per day, instead of the more current 1500mg per day. The Government of Canada has set new standards, and says it's working with food producers on a voluntary compliance basis to bring sodium levels down across the board by 2016.

Well.... good luck with that voluntary compliance thingy.

If I was in charge of the world, I'd make compliance mandatory. Better yet, I'd wave my magic wand and....

Anyhoo.... walked around Ring Road at work again today. The short version this time, cutting off one corner of it.The total was 2.4 km.

--------------

Tonight's walk with Thoka was just 1.7 km. He was psychotic, and we were both tired and wanting to get back to a new line-up of tv shows.

Castle returns from it's summer hiatus tonight! House was.... amusing.

Sunday walk

2.5 km today. But it seemed longer. We were working on correcting and controlling Thoka such that he will walk calmly in a way that doesn't entangle our feet.

He's a problem.

Remember those digging skills I mentioned last weekend? He demonstrated then again this weekend. Right in the middle of one of my more finished gardens. With rather fierce determination. Ample correction has been applied.

We think there might be mice in garden. He means well.

Fitness again, and Thoka

Short walk Thursday night, just 1.1 km.

It was just me again, and the weather was lousy. That is, I was the only human. Thoka the pup was along for the ride as well. He's a real pain when Neil is not on the walk with us. Thoka wanders all over and seems to prefer 'sideways' and 'backwards' to 'straight ahead'.  Yeah, I know, I'm never gonna end up in a sideways pocket of the universe this way.

But I'm really looking forward to puppy obedience classes in October so I can get some training in dominance behaviours.

-------------

2.5 km on friday night. Pretty much the longest route we can do in this small town, without repeating some part of the loop. Neil was with us tonight and Thoka was much happier.

-----------

1.01 km on saturday, but we did some work in the backyard, and to be fair, it was quasi-raining. Neil had his usual weather luck in that it opened up into a much heavier rain just as we arrived back at our own front door.
Thoka was all tuckered out after the time out working in the backyard -  His persistence in digging is ... quite remarkable.

I'm finding that I'm feeling better after a walk. I still resent the time it takes, know that this small town will bore the crap out of me soon enough, and I won't be quite so eager in the oncoming Canadian cold weather...... but I like the feeling of the lungs getting some sort of workout.

And as I gaze at my napping puppy..... I know that "a tired puppy is a good puppy".

Day 2: fitness reporting

I'm just arbitarily gonna call it Day 2 of fitness reporting. This isn't by way of promising that I'll blog every day like the esteemed Grondzilla, but I need to track the fitness thing somehow.

For breakfast, I had the Tim Hortons' breakfast sandwich - bacon and egg on an english muffin. Their nutrional information calculator kindly informs me that the sodium content is 710mg, with 3g of sugar. Yes, sugar is bad now too. :(

http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/menu/nutrition-calculator.html

I had sushi for lunch - while not the exact version of what I had, a similiar package is nutritionally calculated at 860mg of sodium and 12g of sugar.

I then walked around the campus Ring Road (sort of, I elongated it in places). This really neat newly discovered gadget calculates my walk at approximately 3.13 km.

gmap-pedometer.com

Highlights from that walk were the skinny little size 0 passing me when I'm at my briskest pace! and noticing that Concrete Blonde makes really good walking music.

Supper tonight was two very fresh pieces of corn on the cob and we won't even talk about the butter and salt that is necessary to it's enjoyment, and a homemade mini pizza (bruscetta and cheese on a pita).

And tonight's walk with Neil and Thoka was approximately 1.9 km.

I hear that if you can get through the first 14 days of any new habit, it's supposed to have a better chance of sticking. Wish me luck, send me kudos!

Tonight's walk

Thoka was very scared of everything without Neil's dominant presence on the walk tonight. I nearly had to drag him around for most of the walk. Of course, we did try a new route and there were people, and other dogs, and people cutting their lawn.

It's hard to get Google to tell me exactly what the mileage is but I figure it's approximately 2.2 kilometres.

I really need to just stop looking at this stuff

I'm eating lunch and congratulating myself on choosing a healthier alternative this time.

UW food services has a nutritional information database on much of what it serves on campus. I had the California Chicken Pita.

http://www.foodservices.uwaterloo.ca/nutrition/itemsearch.php?id=1989

It looks good, if you're only reading the percentage column. When you actually look at the milligrams, and do the math, and are aware of the Government of Canada guidelines on sodium consumption....

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2006004/article/sodium/4148995-eng.htm

One really has to wonder in what weird Universe the University of Waterloo is calculating 640mg to be 23% of 1500 mg.  I wrote them of course. UW is famous for it's math faculty and all.

Thoka, exercise, changes to Blogger and my Blog

Thoka and I weeded the comfrey bed, of the comfrey, today. He helped by terrifying me with his digging skills. I think I am going to be using the NO word loudly and frequently when I'm trying to plant in the spring.



Blogger has made changes to the editor, and (also in the range of terrifying) --- I like it!

Also in the way of news - I've been worried about my health for a few years now. Long and short of it is that the Doc says I need to lose weight. More specifically, I need to exercise. I'm not good with that.

I mean, I'm not good at it. I make a lot of excuses. Anyhoo..... new puppy. New leaf to turn over?

Thoka is definitely a purebred mutt, but there's a lot of Australian Cattle Dog in him. This breed needs a lot of exercise.

I need to keep a fitness and nutrition journal. And frankly, the easiest way for me to do that is to blog about it. So.... dear readers, I'll be posting more often, but you may find the content more boring.

Today I walked approximately 3.8 km. And well.... ate 96% percent of my daily recommended intake of sodium at lunch alone. I looked up the nutritional info after I ate the sandwich.

I'll try to do a picture a week, just to keep it entertaining.

Oh, and by the by, I went to the Kitchener Knitters' Fair on saturday and tried out a few spinning wheels. I'm circling around to making a decision. Soon.

Thoka

Yes, we're back from Newfoundland and starting to get unpacked. The weaving is back up on the loom and surprisingly, I'm still willing to work on it.

So... two days ago, himself says 'want to go and look at puppies when you pick me up from work?' And....

Meet Thoka. The name is Icelandic for 'fog'.



He's 9 weeks old, 16 pounds, and a cross between a Mom that is mostly an Australian cattle dog and a Dad that might be a collie. So far, he's beyond adorable.