Author: Mary

• 

• 

• 

Holiday shopping time will be here before you know it. Even if you aren’t in the mood to buy presents, maybe you’d like to tighten up a little before Turkey Day. To that end I’m going to let you know what I found out when I reviewed three different yoga mats.

I reviewed one rubber mat and two foam mats. Let’s start with the rubber mat.

The AmazonBasics Rubber & Suede Yoga Mat, Blue 0.16“, is as its name implies, made of rubber with the top surface of suede. The rubber mat seems to have developed a loyal group of users. Many people prefer the suede surface for its stability and softness. They also like the rubber material because they believe it moves around less than a foam mat.

These two possible benefits do not outweigh the biggest shortcoming for me. A rubber mat like this one is at least twice as heavy as a foam mat. This may not be quite as important if you are doing your workouts at home and do not have to take your mat back and forth to class. But when portability matters the extra weight of the rubber can be a big drawback.

In its favor, the AmazonBasics Rubber & Suede Yoga Mat does come with a nifty nylon carrying bag. The bag has a large-hole, fish-net-like weave in the center portion to let your mat breathe, and maybe keep some of the funk from compounding as if it were shut up in a gym locker.

Also in this mat’s favor, in comparison to the standard foam yoga mat, this rubber and suede mat is half a foot longer. Although this does contribute slightly to the weight, if you are over 5’6” and laying on your back you may appreciate the longer length.

I gave the AmazonBasics Rubber & Suede Yoga Mat a solid 3 Stars. But if you work out at home and are tall, I can see a clear case for a higher rating.

Now let’s look at foam mats. First, the FILA Assessories Yoga Mat.

I like that the FILA Accessories Yoga Mat – Classic Exercise Mat with Carrying Strap Sling for Yoga, Pilates, Stretching & Floor Workouts is light weight and very portable. It comes with a string slip-knot sling to make it even easier to schlep to class, if that’s where you do your workouts.

The FILA mat seems to be made of some type of foam which gives it that light-weight property, as well as providing cushioning. It is 5 mm thick, which seems pretty standard for this type of foam mat.

The surface is designed with miniature bumps and has an element of tackiness, especially once it is moistened with perspiration. The manufacturer recommends it be wiped down after use. I did not detect any chemical or other unpleasant odors from the FILA mat.

Also standard for this type of foam mat is the 68 inch by 24 inch dimension, or about five and a half feet long by two feet wide.
Another nice feature of the FILA yoga mat is the price point, which at $19.99 is good in comparison to similar mats.

I awarded the FILA mat 5 stars. It held it’s ground in price point, weight, and features.

And finally, let’s take a look at another foam mat, the Gaiam Yoga Mat.

This Gaiam Yoga Mat – Premium Print 5mm Thick Exercise & Fitness Mat for All Types of Yoga, Pilates & Floor Exercises ranked highly in just about every category.

As a foam mat, it is very light weight and portable, which makes a difference if you are carrying your mat to class. Although it is advertised as being 5 mm thick, the foam seemed more compressed than the same thickness FILA mat.

If you are a self-starter, the Gaiam Yoga Mat offers a free download workout to get going. You don’t have the excuse of having to find a class or not knowing how to do the poses or exercises. This is a feature unique to Gaiam of the three mats I reviewed.

As a personal preference, I would rather not have the mandala design which is associated with certain eastern religions.

My Conclusions:

Of the three yoga mats I reviewed, FILA comes in as my favorite for being the lowest priced, tied for the lightest weight, and having the string sling. The surface texture has adequate stickiness and there is good cushioning. For me, there were no major drawbacks with the FILA.

See the chart to make comparisons of the features that are important to you, and pick your favorite.

Born nearly blind with cataracts, her family foreigners in Vietnam, there were no doctors to correct Julie’s sight. Her spirit-worshipping grandmother commanded Julie be taken to an herbalist who would concoct a potion to make her sleep…forever. Fortunately the herbalist refused to cooperate.

So it truly was a miracle that her family fled to America and Julie was able to get surgery that preserved some of her sight. Still legally blind, she felt she had to prove that she was just as smart and could do anything the sighted kids could. She traveled the world, studied, and eventually graduated from Harvard Law School. Julie even met the love of her life and lived the dream she never thought would come true; she married and had children.

Stage IV colon cancer came worse than a punch in the gut on a trip across the country for a family wedding. In a whirlwind of pain and emotions Julie experienced crisis with unfamiliar doctors, panic sparked by what her symptoms could foretell, transcontinental consultations with medical professionals, and urgent directives to transfer to a different hospital to have emergency surgery. In Julie’s mind, this is where her miracle life began to unwind.

Julie began keeping a blog, somewhat introspective, painfully honest, and real. As her followers grew, Random House took note and offered to edit the blog into Julie’s memoir. Thus the book begins, “If you are here, then I am not, but it’s OK.”

Available in Kindle, Audiobook, Hardcover, and Paperback.

“As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”

https://amzn.to/344MlNK #PaidLink

The Anova Culinary AN500-US00 Anova Precision Cooker, 1000 Watts, Black and Silver is a cooking tool that uses the sous vide method of cooking. Sous vide (pronounced “soo veed”) is French, and its literal meaning is rendered, “under vacuum”. If I hadn’t looked that up I might have guessed it meant, “You ain’t eatin’ anytime soon.”

If the microwave is too slow for you, the sous vide method will be beyond your tolerance. Most things take at least an hour and a half to two hours to cook. But, if you have the patience, you will be rewarded with gastronomic delights.

Perhaps also from the French are the precise, unhurried methods, meticulous preparation, and careful presentation of food that results in world renowned dishes, chefs, and restaurants. Plan for a good couple hours for meal preparation with your Anova Precision Cooker. If you are cooking a steak to precise doneness, you will have exact results – every time – but cooking may take a good two hours.

The first step is to affix the Anova Precision Cooker to the inside of a large pot, and add water to between the minimum and maximum levels indicated on the cooker.

Place your food in a vacuum sealed plastic bag. If you don’t have a vacuum sealer, you can put your food in a Zip-loc bag. Push most of the air out of the Zip-loc bag and immerse the food under the water. That will cause most of the rest of the air to come out and you can zip the bag closed. If the food is heavy it may stay on the bottom. Otherwise weight it down, while also clipping the edge of the bag to the edge of the pan opposite the Anova Precision Cooker.

If a cookbook came with my cooker I must have misplaced it, but that’s not a problem in this internet age. I had two pieces of frozen salmon I wanted to cook, so I checked a few recipes and settled on a temperature of about 135 degrees F for about one and a half hours. The fish I bought already had seasoning on it, but you could add olive oil and your favorite herbs.

The time and temperature are easy to set on the Cooker. After setting it up and getting it started, the cooker heats the water as it circulates it in the pan.

I checked on the progress a couple times over the next hour, but I was working on something and didn’t want to stop when the timer went off. I assumed the cooker would automatically turn off when the time was up. Not so!

When I finally got to the kitchen, there was no burnt pan or ruined fish. The timer on the Precision Cooker was sitting on 00.00, but the cooker was still humming away and circulating the hot water. Neither the fish nor the pan was any worse for the extra cooking. The Anova Precision Cooker seemed just fine too.

Depending on what you cooked, this is the point where you would clean off any congealed blood and sear the outside, putting on some grill marks, and adding the final seasoning. My fish turned out flaky and tasty!

The best foods to cook with the sous vide method are eggs, and meat, especially the tough cuts of meat. High end restaurants frequently use sous vide to cook your steak to perfection. Pork does well, cooked by sous vide. Carrots are a vegetable that you can cook easily with this method.

You can also run your Anova Precision Cooker from an app on your phone. You don’t even need to be at home!

If you love food – not so much in the sense of stuffing your face – but love to cook, love to experiment, love to arrange presentation, love to deftly blend flavors, then I think you will love the ability this machine has to cook food precisely. You will be enthralled by the possibilities such a device will make available to you. Maybe “you ain’t eatin’ anytime soon”, but that’s not the important thing.

https://amzn.to/344MlNK #PaidLink “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”

“The link below is a paid link. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”

The United States in 100 Words, authored by Nancy Dickmann and illustrated by Paul Boston, is a enjoyable children’s book which is so engrossing, they will learn about nature, industry, history, government, culture, American values, and the mathematical concept of 100, before they realize it. Icons at the top of each page show which category or categories that topic draws from (besides math, which permeates every page).

The concept of the book is based on 100. One hundred words were chosen to represent America, words like Plains, Canyon, Vegas, Prohibition, Woodstock, Volunteer, and Rosa (Parks). Each of these 100 words has its own page, and that word is described in – you guessed it – one hundred words. The descriptions are therefore concise and not overwhelming.  Each of the main 100 words has its own large illustration.

Dickmann herself acknowledges that the words she chose to represent our country are a reflection of who she is and her personal experiences, although she did try to reach outside of that realm, as well as into the future and back at history to get a list that would represent all Americans.

Resources in the back of the book include a Timeline, a map of the United States with all 50 states labeled, a short glossary, a short index, and a list of references where more information can be found.

 Much can be learned from this book. If you have a child who loves to soak up facts, this is a sponge waiting to be squeezed out in a delightful way.

#TheUnitedStatesIn100words #NetGalley @QuartoKnows

“Do Angels Really Have Wings? And 199 Other Questions about God, Life and the Bible” is a compilation of questions and answers collected over the past thirty years from broadcast and print content developed in association with The Moody Bible Institute.

Although the title, “Do Angels Really Have Wings?” may sound lighthearted, this book doesn’t shrink from also answering more serious questions related to the Christian faith. Don’t fear you will be bogged down in theology. All the answers are short and to the point, and are designed to give you a better understanding of some of the things Christians have long pondered, and things that have been a stumbling block to the world.

Have you ever wondered why God doesn’t do something about the pain and suffering in the world? What happens to babies when they die? How can a good god send anyone to hell? Where did Cain get his wife? Will I know my spouse in heaven? Did Adam have a belly button?

The questions can be searched by the subject or scripture indexes in the back of the book, making it not just good reading, but a useful reference. If you’re looking for a good answer book for yourself or possibly for a gift, I recommend “Do Angels Really Have Wings?”

@MoodyPublishers @TheMoodyChurch @MoodySeminary @Moody_Bible  @MoodyRadio  @notderosset  @wneelymoodyedu @EricCRedmond @reachjulieroys  #TodayintheWord

Born for This: My Story in Music is the memoir of Benjamin, “BeBe”, Winans. Born into the large Winans family of Winans Family Singers fame, BeBe was the youngest son of ten children. BeBe watched his older brothers work diligently under the tutelage of their father David, or “Skippy”, first in the church choir and then as they formed their own Gospel group.  

Skippy was strict but loving. They had to give their best for God, but there was to be no boastful pride should they succeed. BeBe longed to join his older brothers on the stage, to make singing his career too.  He worked hard and begged God and his parents for his chance, but was told he wasn’t ready yet.

Finally BeBe and his younger sister CeCe were allowed to travel from Detroit to North Carolina to audition for Jim and Tammy Bakker’s televised PTL program. To BeBe’s dismay his sister made the cut, but he didn’t. Since CeCe was still shy of 16 years old, BeBe offered to go to North Carolina to live with her so she could follow her dream.

The book’s title, Born for This, comes from a song BeBe wrote out of his disappointment. It is an affirming lyric proclaiming that God gave him the talent and would indeed use him as a singer.

BeBe was eventually hired by PTL to sing with CeCe, but he continued to work through the dissonance of desiring to be a star while staying humble. BeBe and CeCe matured in their professional lives while at PTL, also learning how to navigate in the sometimes tricky non-African American world outside of Detroit.

BeBe has an engaging story that I’m sure would be of interest to many, but his book is presented as a rambling, scattered tale that would make it easy to not finish. With some better editing this could become a first-rate memoir.

Thanks to my reading friend Elyse who recommends the BEST books! This book was narrated by Elyse’s high school admirer, “Tommy” Hanks.

Many reviews have already been written on the Dutch House, so I won’t rehash what everyone else has already said. I only want to touch on one element, the symbolism of the house as wealth, verses love.

****SPOILER ALERT****

Cyril wanted the love of his wife Elna, so he gave her the Dutch House, but she despised the ostentation the house represented and wanted to serve the poor.

If only Mother hadn’t gone; perhaps Maeve wouldn’t have gotten sick, Cyril wouldn’t have been hoodwinked by Andrea; Danny could have taken over his father’s business (the love of buildings) which Danny loved instead of being made to study medicine out of spite.

Elna first moved into Maeve’s house to nurse her, and then into the Dutch House to nurse Andrea. She made remarks to the effect that she was paying for her mistakes, a very Catholic idea. However, after Andrea’s death Mother stayed on at the Dutch House, appointing herself as caretaker, apparently having lost the self-righteous attitude that compelled her to forsake her family and leave the opulent mansion.

Danny wanted a way to thank Maeve for all the work she did for his business, when she refused to cash the checks he made out to her. Danny bought the small rental house where Maeve lived and gave her the deed. This she accepted with magnanimous gratitude.

The children, Maeve and Danny, wanted the love of their mother and father, but grew to despise the house when it became a symbol of Andrea’s hatred toward them

Andrea wanted the Dutch House, and feigned love to get it.

Andrea sweetly and manipulatively handed out invectives like lunch money to kids heading to school. Sometimes Andrea lost her temper and hurled the hatred. Didn’t Andrea know that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?

Norma was forced into taking Maeve’s bedroom in the house, and she felt guilty about it. Norma loved Maeve and was still apologizing as an adult, for taking her room and for taking their house.

Only in the end is this juxtaposition of wealth and love resolved in Danny’s daughter. She fulfills her childhood dream of becoming an actress, falls in love with the Dutch House, and buys it from Norma. The book culminates in a lavish party at the house, even summoning the spirit of Maeve, and a tender father-daughter moment.

My husband was the first to use these gloves, and he said he loves the fit; they come up the arm far enough to keep water from getting down inside the glove. He also likes the grip pads on them. He has plans to use them as liners in his winter gloves when he needs to clean the snow off of his windshield.
I like that they are ergonomically paired into right and left hand gloves. I also like that they are reusable. That’s important when you are watching your pennies!

Barry Zito’s family was steeped in the occult from two generations back on his mother’s side. Barry’s father made it his mission to train Barry and manage his baseball career, which he did from the time Barry was a young boy. Barry’s dad taught him he could control everything with his mind. When his game was “on” Barry was full of confidence. When he was losing, Barry couldn’t figure out how to make his thoughts be in charge.

Berry fell into the same sins many ball players and others with an excess of money face. Because he was one of the highest paid pitchers in baseball, he felt he had to justify his outrageous salary with wins. This was a self-imposed pressure that only made his game worse.

Read Curveball to find out if Barry was able to pitch his way out of the slump, or if he got help of another kind.

#Curveball #NetGalley @ThomasNelson @barryzitomusic 

The audio book, The Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in the Age of Trump, by Stephen R. Haynes, opened my eyes to possible dimensions of Dietrich Bonhoeffer of which I was heretofore unaware.  Indeed, now there’s a chasm looming wide full of phrases supposedly connected to Bonhoeffer, like same sex marriage, abortion, evangelical agenda, Bonhoeffer Moment, religion-less Christianity, Critical Patriot, Righteous Gentile, Moral Hero, and Evangelical Bonhoeffer.

But perhaps the book is not so much about Bonhoeffer as it is about picking apart Eric Metaxas’ book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. At some points Haynes goes after Metaxas himself, calling him a non-theologian and accusing him of having an evangelical agenda. I’m not that fond of arguments or “debating”, so listening to this audio book made me feel…icky. If you relish a good back-and-forth you may enjoy this exchange of ideas, if that is what it is. It’s not for me.