Sugar, ah honey honey. You are my candy girl....

As we enter the Valentines season, I can't help but think about Chocolate, and sugar. I have been on a quest of late to remove excess sugar in our diets, sometimes much to my families dismay. And while we will never get rid of all sugar, not would I want to, I have been working to educate myself a bit more about it, so that when we are having "treats" we know what we are getting. In the end, while I profess to NEED chocolate, I want know what that chocolate is doing to me.

I did some digging on the web, and it did require some digging, no one really seems to want to give a cold hard number of how much sugar we should be consuming on a daily basis. I did find a news segment from MSNBC from 2006 which indicates that adults should consume no more than 32 grams of sugar per day. That is a TOTAL of 32 grams per day. That is roughly the equivalent of 8 teaspoons, seems like a lot, until you really start looking.

Here is a list of some of my Chocolate haunts and the grams of sugar they contain.

• Skittles = 47g (not chocolate, but I had to include, wow!)
• 3 Musketeers = 40g
• Baby Ruth = 33g
• Junior Mints = 32g
• Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar = 31g
• Snickers = 30g
• Reese's Peanutbutter cups = 25g
• Krackel = 24g
• Kit Kat (personal favorite) = 22g
• Mounds (sometimes you don't) = 21g
• 100 Grand (another fav) 21 grams
• Almond Joy (because sometimes you feel like a nut) = 20g

Wow, nothing like shooting all your sugar grams for the day on one candy bar. But where else in our diets are we getting sugar. First lets look at the obvious, sweetened drinks.

• SoBe Green Tea 20oz = 61 (and you would think green tea was good for you)
• Mello Yello 12oz can = 48g
• Mountain Dew 12oz can = 47g
• Barq's Rootbeer 12 oz can = 45g
• Dr. Pepper 12oz can = 41g
• Coke Classic 12 oz can = 40.5g
• Pepsi 12oz can = 40g
• 7 up 12oz can = 37g
• Lipton Brisk Lemon Iced Tea 12oz can = 33g
• Chocolate milk = 24g

Grab and 20oz bottle of pop and a candy bar and you could be nearing a weeks worth of sugar intake in one small snack. But those are the obvious places sugar is lurking check out some of these not so obvious offenders.

• DelMonte Fruit Chillers Frozen Fruit Sorbet: 1 small individual cup = 26g
• DelMonte diced pears or mandarin oranges in light syrup: 1 small serving cup = 17g (I love these)
• Hunt’s Snack Pack Pudding, Chocolate Mud Pie: 1 snack pack = 20g
• Hostess Ho Hos: 3 cakes = 42g (looks like Ho Ho's are No No's)
• Pop Tart, Chocolate Fudge: 1 pastry = 20g (and with 2 to a pack, no one eats just one)
• Prego Fresh Mushroom Italian Sauce: 1/2 cup = 11g
• Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Barbecue Sauce: 2 tablespoons = 15g
• Yoplait Original 99% fat free, Lemon Burst: 6 ounces = 31 g
• Hershey's syrup 2 tablespoons = 20g
• Heinz Ketchup 1 tablespoon = 4 g

Eating out might also garner more sugar than you had anticipated, check out a few from McDonalds (their site actually has a good amount of nutrition information, kudos)

• Strawberry Triple Thick® Shake (32 fl oz cup) = 168g (yep that's 5 days worth!)
• Nonfat Hazelnut Latte (Large) = 55g
• Hot Fudge Sundae = 48g
• Snack Size Fruit & Walnut Salad = 25g
• Fruit 'n Yogurt Parfait (7 oz) = 21g
• Premium Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich = 12g
• Premium Southwest Salad with Crispy Chicken = 12g
• Big Mac = 9g
• Hamburger = 6g

So, shall we sharpen the pitch forks and start the crusade to rid ourselves of all sugar? No, absolutely not. It is all just information. Start to make better choices for yourself and your body.

The American Heart Association is recommending a bit stricter number at 6 teaspoons for women which is about 24g. There is some great information in this Wall Street Journal article.

So, as Valentine's approaches and you are thinking of your loved ones, be sweet, but watch the sweets.

Back the truck up!

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast — you also miss the sense of where you are going and why. ~ Eddie Cantor

As I was blocking out my coming week on the calendar this morning, I was thinking of all of the "Have to's" and all of the "Want to's" and once they are all charted on the calendar I went back to find some time for myself, and it was looking pretty sparse. Determined to find some pockets of time to "affix my own oxygen mask" I found a lot of time wasted, time not used effectively, so I began to re-engineer my week.

Think of it this way....if you are going on a road trip and you are packing your car, what are you choosing take? What things aren't going to help me get where I am going? What are the things you can't leave home without? Now it wouldn't make sense to try to pack the entire contents of your home into the car, if you did that, you will arrive with a number of problems...

1. You can't see out the windows. How will you enjoy the scenery if you can't see out the windows?

2. You won't be comfortable. If you don't have room to move and stretch, to lean back and relax, even a short trip can be uncomfortable.

3. You can't use your strengths. If you have moved your seat as close to the steering wheel as possible, so that you can accommodate some more "stuff" in the back seat, you lose the leverage in your arms, to steer and brace yourself in an accident. If the steering wheel is only inches from your chest to begin with, it will take your arms considerably more strength to hold yourself from colliding with the wheel, and the windshield.

4. You don't have room for others. What if you come along an old friend, or someone you would like to be a new one, if you haven't left room in your car for them, how do you welcome them into your life? Now I am not suggesting you pick up every hitch hiker you see, but make some room for little opportunities that might come along. The people you take with you are the things that are going to make your the happiest, make room for them.

5. You won't be able to find the map. How will you know where you are going, if the map is buried under the seat somewhere? Sure, you can always stop and pick up another one, but why, if you already have it in your life and it is perfectly fine, then why waster your time and money in search of another one? And if you fine with flying by the seat of your pants, then great, but how will you know if you have reached your destination? And will you be able to find your way home? With a map, or an itinerary, you will be able to pick out those roadside attractions you want to see, as well as the big monuments, big attractions that you want to be sure not to miss.

6. You can't let the wind blow through your hair. If you have your vehicle packed so full of stuff, you won't be able to roll down the windows and just feel the wind in your face, blowing through you hair. You can't stretch your hand out the window and feel the wind passing by, drawing your hand in different direction. Dear old Rex can't hang its head out the window and breath. If you drive a convertible and can't ever put the top down, then what is the use?

So, you obviously wouldn't pack the car to the roof if you are going on a trip, so what are your options? Well, you can get a bigger car, or you can quit trying to cram so much in. Sure a bigger car might be nice, but you can't really get more hours in your day, everyone's car is the same size in the end. When our life is over our destination is essentially the same. At the end of our trip, will you have experienced all you can, really soaked it in, or were you too busy rearranging and searching for things in your car? Tripping over the garbage?

So this morning as you are looking at the trip you have ahead of you, think about what you are packing into the car? Maybe leave the kitchen sink at home, they will probably have one of those where you are going.

Thumbnail Place in InDesign

InDesign CS4 had added a number of new features that I’ve grown accustomed to using each and every day. One of those features is the Thumbnail Place feature. The ability select multiple graphics after choosing File > Place is a great new feature in and of itself, however often I find that all I want to do is see all of the images in InDesign so I can analyze them or begin placing them and sizing them in my document. Let’s take a look at how the Thumbnail Place works in InDesign CS4.

1. Choose File > Place and select several images in the place dialog, then click the open button. The place gun appears with the number of selected photos in parentheses.
2. Hold down Shift + Command (Mac) or Shift + Control (Windows) to get the Grid Place icon and click and drag with your mouse to draw a grid using your placed images. Don’t let go of that mouse yet!
3. As your dragging with your mouse, you can release the modifier keys but continue to drag to establish the size of the images in the grid. While dragging, press the right or left arrow keys on your keyboard to add or remove columns from the grid or press the up and down arrow keys to add or remove rows from the grid.



4. Once you’re satisfied with the number of thumbnails, release the mouse button and voila! Instant thumbnail placement.

After releasing your mouse button, the images are placed in a thumbnail grid.

Once you know this trick, you’ll be surprised at how often you’ll use it and wonder how you lived without it.

Chad Chelius
Adobe Certified Instructor, Adobe Certified Expert, Chelius Graphic Services
Blog: http://cheliusgraphicservices.com/wordpress/