Seven Quick Takes Friday

1. I was interviewed by a writer from the Wall Street Journal yesterday for a piece on white noise apps. I had blogged about it at some point (although I can't seem to find the piece now) and she contacted me by telephone. While white noise machines have been around for a long time for use in helping people sleep, the emergence of apps for smartphones is relatively recent and she's exploring what people do with them. My main uses are to block out noise when I am trying to read (in a waiting room, on the subway, etc.) or to help me sleep when I'm in a noisy environment like a plane or train. The app I use is White Noise and it's available from the App Store on iTunes.
2. I dropped by the Oakwood branch of the Toronto Public Library for the first time this week.Michael was at a trombone lesson nearby and it offered comfy chairs in a lovely light-filled space. Check out the door handles!
   
   
3. We've been loving our new grill! I can't believe how much more I am willing to cook in the summer when it does't involve heating up the house. We've made some great steaks, chicken, lots of grilled veggies with onion and mushrooms, and tonight we've got some wild salmon that I think I'll do in foil. Corn is in season, so I've also been enjoying that, although I haven't grilled any yet. I'm going to try that tonight using the advice from the National Post, which is to just shuck it, brush the cobs lightly with oil and pop it directly on the grill. Easy peasy. 
4. A couple of pieces from Zen Habits have really struck me this week. The first is a guest post by Chris of Zen to Fitness called Four Simple Fitness Fundamentals in which he encourages people to focus on the basics of living a fit life before getting all fancy. These include (1) using your bodyweight (squats, pushups); (2) not hyperfocussing on cardio; (3) walk and stretch every day; and (4) live an invigorating life.

   The second piece, written by Leo Babauta (the host of Zen Habits) is The Amazing Power of Being Present. So many people have monkey-brain these days, and spend a lot of time worrying about what they SHOULD be doing instead of focussing on what they ARE doing. There is definitely a lesson for me here, and practicing this, along with using the brain dump(pdf) recommended in Getting Things Done, are probably crucial to moving forward the million projects I have spinning around in my head.
   I'm looking orward to living an invigorating life when the temperature drops a bit!
    

5. I just discovered Val McDermid, a writer of rather gory police procedurals set in England. I've read the first two Tony Hill and Carol Jordan mysteries namely The Mermaids Singing and Wire In The Blood. Very gory. But hard to put down. I put them down when I needed a break from the gore and then picked them back up again. 
6. Another discovery this week:  we have free on-demand stuff with our cable* service. Maybe it's a new thing, but there are quite a few decent movies and a bunch of series that we can get. I watched the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce earlier this week and it was fantastic! Starring Kate Winslet and Guy Pearce, it is apparently a more accurate portrayal of the James M. Cain novel than the 1945 film starring Joan Crawford. I'm now catching up on Season 3 of Nurse Jackie that I somehow completely missed. Makes ironing pass quickly!
   *[Edited to correct: we don't have cable per se. We have IPTV or internet television. Glorious HD over a telephone wire.]  
7. My current reads are:
   Book:  Bech: A Book by John Updike. I haven't read any of the Bech novels, so am looking forward to this one.
   Audio: Apple Turnover Murder by Joanne Fluke. Slightly better than I was expecting, plus bonus recipes for baked goods.
   Kindle: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington. Haven't actually started this yet, but it's on my Goodreads list to finish by the end of August. 

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