Omega 3 Capsules and Dream Houses

Oh, Sports Chalet, why did you have to open a new store less than 2 blocks from my house?

I've been window shopping at the sports chalet for a couple weeks now, fantasizing about which pieces of equipment will go in my uber personal gym in my dreamhouse.

The gym would be near the kitchen, or near my blender so I could make my weight loss shake after I'm done working out. Also, so I can take my omega 3 vitamins, but I digress.

I'm an advocate of variety when it comes to exercise. I like to keep my muscles on their toes (wow, what a weird metaphor in context). Thus, I'd need plenty of equipment. But to start off with a basis:
1) Set of rubberized free weights. I like the rubberized because you can drop them.
2) Elliptical machine. This is my go-to aerobic exercise. Low impact on the knees, works out the whole body
3) Lower back incline lift. Lower back strength is so important, I don't want my back to go out!
4) Jump Rope. Cheap, powerful.
5) Yoga mat. For yoga, dummy!
6) 60" plasma screen TV. For all those aerobics/P90/spin/power lifting videos. Videos are great for variety.

That's to get me started. There's an assortment of other equipment I'd love to have, too many to name really. The great thing is, I can actually start building my dream gym today, adding piece by piece. Right now I've got the jump rope. Next step, some free weights!

I saw Sex and the City recently. Carry Bradshaw is going to marry Mr. Big and they buy their dreamhouse together. Their dreamhouse, nothing like mine, is a Manhattan penthouse flat. Which means Mr. Big must be a quadrabillionaire. That's beside the point. Carry floats around the loft, enjoying the rooftop patio and all the wonderful lighting. Until she gets to the closet. The closet is very small. Mr. Big grins and says he'll build her a new one.

More than anything about this film, I was vexed how Mr. Big seemed to create space when he rebuilt Carry's closet to be the size of most houses. The only thing I could think of was, "what room disappeared?" The apartment was on top of a building. It's not like you can add a side wing. Giving Carry a big closet meant getting rid of....the living room? The kitchen?

I don't think I'll ever need any such closet in my dream house. I don't really do shoes. I've got running shoes, hiking shoes, house shoes, and about four pairs of fancy shoes. That's less than most men.

And my clothes don't need their own space to breath. Who knows, maybe when I get married my priorities will change and I'll become as superficial as these fictional clusters of housewife socialites, but until then, a couple racks for hangers and a nook for shoes is about all I need.

The only other thing I need these days is a good health blog. And I seem to have found that blog with this paleo diet post I read recently. It's funny, informative, and true. What could be better?

Gardens are a tricky business. Do I go English or do I go French. Do I raise vegetables, flowers, vegetables and flowers, or do I stick to lawns, shrubberies, and trees. Landscaping a dreamhouse is tough to do!

The answer of course is, do it all! I love fresh vegetables. Homegrown are the best (when they come from YOUR home) because work went into, they have more value, and even though its just psychological, anyone who's grown their own vegetables will tell you they just taste better. Of course, I want my yard to be lovely, and vegetable gardens aren't....well they're not parisian in any sense.

So I've decided to make myself a greenhouse. It will be a long walk to the greenhouse, a stroll through the rest of my lush backyard to the sacred place of my vegetables. The greenhouse does not need to be large, I would call it quaint,  just enough for some patches of greens and tomatoes, nothing tricky.

The rest of my yard would be in the French style of gardening. I just like angles and lines. I guess I first got the idea from the museum of art in Los Angeles, the bushes were clasically hedged in those brick and conical patterns, they formed a sort of maze. Speaking of which...

The center of my garden would be a labyrinth. A labyrinth isn't technically a maze. It is simply a path that wind in and out of a circle. There are no dead ends, just a lovely stroll, a great place to develop abs on a high fat diet, and my dream backyard.

In health news, I found a good way on how to deal with stress is to increase one's orac value. Or so I've been told.

I could spend a week designing a dream bathroom. Certainly there is jacuzzi. The shower would have to have various nozzles of different sizes and at different heights, and I would neat one of those giant head to toe mirrors, and enough towel racks to hold a dozen towels.

But recently I've decided to add something....quirky to my dreamhouse...

The Bidet.

I laughed the first time I saw a bidet. It's an enema machine! It squirts water at your bum! And worse, it's French!

Then I got to thinking, I wash my bum in the shower. I like having a clean bum. And I know this sounds gross, but I always make sure I've showered before I go on a date for specific reasons having to do with a cleanly washed bum. Sometimes I'll take a shower even if I've already showered that day just because....well because of the whole bum situation.

Yet a bidet perfectly solves this problem. A clean bum after every trip to the bathroom! Is that too weird? After all, the French do have a better health care system, it might go to say that they have a better hygiene system as well. Then again...they don't shave their armpits so I guess it's give and take.

Link Time

1) Find someone: it's a simple public records search engine. Easy to use, try it out.

2) Orthorexia Nervosa: It's a post from a health blog about the dangers of obsessing over healthy eating. Yes, you can eat TOO healthy.

The Atrium. It sounds like the place where people are always murdered in the clue game. Or perhaps the place where those scientists are attacked by pterodactyls in Jurassic Park III: More Jurassic Park. Maybe I'm thinking of an apiary. Anyway, I'd like one in my house.

The great thing about the atrium, is the sunlight. I imagine this room to have windows on all sides except one. Sort of like an indoor porch. There would perhaps be a way to open the windows onto a patio, grill burgers and lamb kabobs, I do love the smell of lamb kabobs. The atrium would be a place to teach the children on Sundays. Perhaps I'm getting a bit romantic, or just Victorian with these notions.

The atrium would most likely be an extension of the main Hall. This would provide a nice air flow through the house during early autumn or late spring. As I've mentioned, I'm a musical sort of person, and I would perhaps grace the atrium with a small string ensemble to be rehearsed as a family. I would play the cello.

This room is really getting ridiculous now. Most likely, and probably most comfortably, I'll just have a porch.

And finally, find out some vitamin information about Primal Nutrition. It's a great place to start if you've read anything about the primal blueprint and you want to live a healthier outdoor life.

For well over a decade now I've had a clear picture of the library in my dream house. It's my favorite place to be, the library of my mind.

I'm a sucker for classicism, and the room was borne out of a trick through Virginia. My parents planned a family vacation around antebellum architecture. We visited the Monticello. We visited several southern manors and bed & breakfasts. And we visited the Vanderbilt mansion. The place was from another time, glorious and elegant and the heighth of taste built in a decade run amok with decadence.

My favorite room in the Vanderbilt was the library, thus my picture created...

Two stories, balconies of American Oak, a spiral staircase, and wrought iron railings.

A large panel of glass windows facing slightly south to west, to  catch the sunset indirectly, the whole of the panel at an incurve, wrapping around right to the beginning of the books.

And books. Miles of books. Most read. This is the part of my dream house I carry with me and work on daily. The library contains every book I've ever read as my room does now, accumulating my past literature, the comic books of my youth, the pulp of high school, the classics of college, the best of modern lit from my post grad, and finally the new and cutting edge of today. This is my wall paper, my worldly decoration, and I hope to eventually fill two stories.

The only other thing of important note for the library is the piano. Grand and center, this room contains the collection of things I keep in my heart, it is the forbidden room I keep for myself, I allow others to enter occasionally, but not for the general consumption of guests.

My dream house has shifted, but the library has never changed.

And now for some clicks to the good health posts on the internet. The two I've found for this month are omega 3 supplements and vitamins online. Hope you enjoy.

Right now I live in a very small apartment with too many roommates. There is no space, no private corner, the television is always on blaring and screeching with car chase movies and the kitchen wreaks or stale ingredients burnt into a miserable looking oven.

So, I'm writing this blog to describe my dream house. I may change the look or size of my house as I see fit. But for the most part, I'm building an directory of fine rooms, designs, and styles to create the place I eventually want to call home.

BIG.

That's the first decision, and an obvious one. My dream house will be as big as possible. There is a common opinion that a house can be TOO big, but I believe this to be erroneous. I say, bring on the rooms, stretch my yard to the horizon. Give me an ocean to gaze across from four stories up, I'll take a seventh guest room, and a ballroom past the foyier, and a 22 car garage. I like wide open spaces, especially when those spaces are indoors.