House Plants

 

Taking care of ficus is sometimes a difficult task:  The plants require light, moisture and temperature at specific levels, or they drop their leaves.  The ficus on the left is a Ficus benjamina, that requires a consistently wet root ball, and has enjoyed being outside this summer.  The ficus on the right is a Ficus carica, and requires pruning, or grows rather wide foliage, but does produce fruit. 

The left plant is a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum), which does not require much to do well here in the summer months here in Minnesota.  The right plant is a Hoya carnosa which has been in the family for generations, however is now suffering from a tad bit of blight, which can be mitigated by controlling moisture.  It is an excellent air purifier.

The Dracaena fragrans lindenii or corn plant grows very quickly.  Every year I chop it in half and plant a stalk and I got another plant.  This is excellent at removing formaldehyde and other aromatic hydrocarbons from the air.

The plant on the left is a money plant (Epipremnum aureum), and grows very well under all conditions including the dark.

The plant on the right is a sword fern (Nephrolepis exaltata), and is also virtually indestructible.  It has come back from very poor conditions. 

Triceps pushup device

The following triceps pushup device is made simply with a block of 4" x 4" pine and PVC piping.  This PVC pipe is wide enough to allow for both your hands to grasp around it, such that you make a fist in the center of gravity while doing a push up.  This allows for targeting your triceps muscle on the outer part of your arms more than your pectoralis muscle. Developing the triceps muscle makes your arms bigger, more so than your biceps--which people often try to do with curls.  The pectoralis chest muscle would be better targeted with very wide hand stance for your pushups, which can be done well by doing pushups while grasping small dumbbells that are on the floor far to the sides. 

Combination dard shin splint and forearm exerciser

This combination shin splint and forearm exerciser can be made with simple pipe tubing from a home improvement store: Tubes, caps and elbows--The tubing is relatively cheap.  I recommend wrapping the pipe threading with PTFE tape to make sure the pipes fit snugly together.  Pipe insulation makes a cheap padding.  Then wrap the handles with tennis tape to get a good grip.

You can work the outer part of your lower leg, the tibialis and foot extensor muscles with this device as shown below.  Strengthening these muscle will help prevent shin splints while jogging.

You can also grab either of the three sets of handles and curl your hands back to work your forearm extensors from two or three different angles. 90 degrees, 45 degrees, or the 180 degree foot bar. 

The amount of weight on the end is adjustable.

Low carb-recipe blog

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By limiting your consumption of carbohydrates you have found the only effective practical method of weight management. This does require a lot of discipline, but it gets easier as time goes on.

Recipes for pizza, egg dish, desserts, as well as low carb snacking are all here.