Sunday Letters

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Iowa Master Conservationist

heather

Have I mentioned yet that I am taking a class to become a Master Conservationist?  It’s offered through the Iowa State University Extension Center.  It’s a program that lasts from February – October.  We attend 10 classes which cover biodiversity, woodlands, water quality, wetlands, sustainable agriculture, etc.  Some classes are held in the Nahant Marsh training center.  Other classes will be held out in the wild! I’m really looking forward to those.

Our first class was Tuesday night.  It was a full-house too.  The attendees run the gamut from Biology students working part-time at Nahant Marsh to retirees trying to turn their acreages back into Iowa prairies.  It’s an interesting bunch of people.  The instructors seem great too – very well educated on the subject matter and with a knack for interesting stories and good humor.

I learned a lot of interesting stuff, just in that first night.

  • Members of different species cannot mate and have viable offspring.  For example, if a horse and donkey mate, they produce a mule, and almost always the mule is sterile.
  • Our current time has the highest rate of species extinction.  Way to go, Humans!
  • Main causes of extinction: habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, population (the human population has grown from 1 billion in the 1800s to 7 billion in 2012!!!), over-harvesting (which has caused the extinction of plants like Ginseng).
  • Fire and bison kept Iowa as 85% prairie (and prevented it from becoming forested).
  • Within 140 years of white people moving into Iowa, the diverse prairie was almost completely replaced with row crops, destroying the habitats of several animals.
  • Iowa used to be where Costa Rica is now.
  • Sandstone in Iowa is found in the location of ancient lakes.  Limestone is found in the location of ancient coral reefs.
  • Glaciers used to block the Mississippi and reroute it.  At one time it formed a huge pool over by Plainview, IA.  That huge valley used to be the home of the mighty Mississippi.

Good books to read, if you are interested in this kind of stuff: Iowa’s National Heritage, A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, The Emerald Horizon by Cornelia Mutel, The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson.  I have a feeling that these books will depress the hell out of me, but I’m going to read them anyway.

And that was the first night in a nutshell.  I think this will be a super interesting program.

Uncategorized

Zentangle – Day One

heather

The Mammacita and I took our first Zentangle class at the Figge today.  Mom has been interested in Zentangle for awhile, and she got me interested in it as well.  What is Zentangle, you ask?  Well, despite what the teacher said, it’s essentially structured doodling.  You take a 3.5 inch square of nice paper, draw a dot in each corner, connect the dots with rather “floaty” line (no straight connections).  Then you draw a dot in the middle of each line and draw a swoopy Z between the lines.  This separates your square into 4 sections.  In each section you design a different “tangle” which is basically a pattern that can range from dots, to lines, to branches, to grids, etc.  There are probably literally hundreds of different predesigned patterns, and of course you can always design your own.

Here are the tiles Mom and I created yesterday:

Mom’s, of course, are better.  Hers are the ones on the right – beautiful balance of light and dark and excellent shading!  But the first rule of Zentangle, is “There are no mistakes.”

Despite being a very simple idea, it’s actually pretty fun to do.  A while back Mom got a huge kit of Zentangle books and markers (Micron pens in all shapes, sizes, and colors), so she split her hoard with me.  I woke up thinking about creating some “tangles” today.  I have to say, it’s pretty addictive.

The woman who organized the class, Pat Bereskin, mentioned that she might organize a group of people who want to meet regularly and do Zentangles together.  I think that would be really fun.

I have a hard time explaining the allure.  I think it’s a combination of several factors.  For people like me, who have a hard time creating art not based on a picture, the art form gives you a template to work with – just enough structure to provide comfort, but enough flexibility to let your creativity shine through.  Also, the small size makes it manageable.  It’s hard to find an hour or two to work on a 25″ square watercolor painting, but finding 15 or 30 minutes to do a tile or at least one section of a tile is completely doable.

I think it would be fun to make time to do a tangle a day.  I think it would be a good way to flip your brain to the Left Side for a while, and it would end up being almost a visual diary of your life.  I might do that…

The creators of Zentangle (who, Mom and I decided, should have really been Tim, based on the artwork he showed us), offer a Zentangle Certified Teacher program.  Of course, like all things branded as Zentangle, it is quite expensive (around $800).  But it sounds like a good time. 🙂  Plus, our 3-hour class yesterday cost $45.00.  I bet around $30 for each student went to the instructor.  There were at least 30 people there – so that’s $900 she made in 3 hours.  Plus, she had the official Zentangle supplies there for sale.  And they are NOT cheap.  The paper they use for the tiles IS beautiful, but wow – it’s like $ 0.55/tile.  So what I’m saying, is that in a couple of classes, you could recoup your expenses.  Maybe you could write the class off as a business expense too.  Hmmm….

Anyway, I didn’t spring for any of the pricey Zentangle stuff at the class.  Instead I pulled out my huge stack of partially used sketchbooks and cut up some 3.5″ tiles.  Using the scissors to cut them up was annoying, so I found a paper cutter on eBay for $9.99!  The shipping is $15, but that still seems pretty cheap.  I’ve been wanting one anyway – to cut up ATCs (Artist Trading Cards).  I’m really going to need to convert a room in our basement to a studio.  I’m accumulating too much art junk.  The Computer Room can no longer contain it.

If you are interested in learning more about Zentangle, here are  a few links for you to check out:

Official Zentangle Site:  http://www.zentangle.com/

Neat company that sells cool pens, paper and Zentangle junk & stuff:  http://www.paperinkarts.com/zentangle.html

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Arts/Crafts Projects

heather

I have not been a total lazy bum lately.  Actually, my productivity will probably continue to go up, as Tim and I recently finished watching Lost on Netflix.  That a was a huge time-suck, but what else are you supposed to do in the dead of winter in the middle of the Midwest?

Anyway, I’ve worked on a couple of projects lately.  The first one I started a few weeks ago.  My brother took this amazing picture of his dog, Jojo, staring straight into the sun.  You could see the sun shining through his eyes.  So beautiful.  I tried to capture it with watercolor, but it didn’t quite pan out.  Here is take 1:

I like how light his eyes are and how the front of his face (the side facing the sun) is pretty bright.  However, I didn’t get the slope of his forehead right (Jojo is part Pit, part Boxer), and his juicy jowls were underdeveloped.  I also wanted to blacken the background some more with another coat of Lamp Light guache.

I think I just made it worse.  Here is take 2:

I ended up darkening the face too much and accidentally took the light out his eyes.  Oh well, live and learn, right?  I should try the whole painting over again, but that’s just so frustrating to me.  I have a zillion (almost literally) pictures of JJ to work from, so maybe I should just try one of those.

I’ve found, however, that I paint and draw things better that I am intimately familiar with.  When I am sketching or painting, I can almost feel the curve of the eye or the ear in my fingers if I’ve touched it enough in real life.  We are visiting Jojo (and my bros) this July, so maybe I’ll have to give Jojo a good, thorough head scratch, and then try my hand at painting him again.

In between takes 1 and 2, I worked on something much less frustrating.  Tim got me a Sony e-Reader, but I had no cover for it.  Tim suggested crocheting one. I decided to take him up on his suggestion and made this over the course of 2 Bones episodes:

It took 3 tries to get the coozie to be the exact right size (not too tight, not too loose), but the final effect is kinda pretty.  The coozie is unsealed at the top, so I cannot use it upside down (until I figure out how to make some sort of clasp, at least), but at least it keeps the Lucent hair off.  I just stitched a chain with a combo of Peruvian Print and Heather Grey and then did double crochets off that chain, working up until the coozie was tall enough to cover the e-Reader.  Not too shabby.  Maybe I’ll try selling these on my Etsy site. I haven’t sold one thing on it so far; maybe this is my meal ticket.

So that’s what I’ve been up to.  Mammacita and I are taking a Zentangle class on Saturday.  That promises to be fun!  I will post pix from the day afterward. I’m sure Mom’s stuff will be amazing 🙂

Cooking/Recipes, Uncategorized

Love You Long Time Cupcakes

heather

Despite the title of this post, I am still PRIMAL!  I slipped a bit yesterday, admittedly.  I participated in the Junior Achievement Bowl-a-thon, which always involves lots of unhealthy behavior.  I did pretty good except for I caved in to stress and my frustration with bad service at our supper joint and ate quite a few handfuls of popcorn.  I also drank more Bud Light than is good for me.  It didn’t even taste good, but, you know how it is at stuff like that.

Anyway, today I am back on the wagon.  Timmy Tee made me a delicious primal breakfast of bacon, eggs, and avocado.  For lunch I had a delicious curry from Exotic Thai – full of eggplant, basil, green pepper, and pork.  So tasty.

I’ve been browning some bananas for a week in anticipation of making this amazing-sounding recipe: Love You Long Time Chocolate Cupcakes.  I finally got them made this afternoon.  I ignored the instructions to use cupcake liners.  In my experience, the cake always sticks to the liners, so you end up picking cake off of paper.  It was not a good idea to ignore those instructions in this instance, however.

I don’t know if you’ve ever cooked with coconut oil.  Well, I have.  Twice.  Both times the results tasted good but were incredibly, well, moist?  Greasy?  The oil is just so oily!  The cupcakes looked awesome from the top, but when I turned over the muffin tin to dump out the cakes, only the top 2/3rds came out.  They didn’t have enough adhesiveness to stick together, and when I picked up the tops, you could tell that they wanted to fall apart into cakey goo so bad.

I popped them in the fridge while I made the dark chocolate chip & coconut milk ganache.  Then I proceeded to further mangle the cupcakes by trying to dip the tops in the ganache.  it was a rather messy affair to say the least.  Once ganached, I stuck the cupcakes in the freezer.  Hopefully they will firm up in there.  I love cold chocolate, too, so I think these might turn out to be pretty tasty.  The bits I scraped out of the bottom of the muffin tin were pretty damn tasty, at least.

Here is a photo of my sad, little cakes.

I’ll let you know how they taste frozen.  If anyone has any tips for cooking with coconut oil, I’m all ears!

Uncategorized

bAH!

heather

Bah, I say!  Tonight I did absolutely nothing. Well, I tried to bake a chicken, but it was a “stew” chicken.  Which I guess means you shouldn’t try to bake it and then eat it.  It was the scrawniest-looking bird I’ve ever seen, and after it was baked, it didn’t look much better and tasted even worst.  Well, I couldn’t really get a good bite of it because it was the consistency of rubber.  It smelled delicious, but was bad in every other way.  So, I made that and then retired to the couch and Lost for the reminder of the evening.

I did nothing constructive.  I blame the greyness of the weather.  It’s the only reasonable explanation for my total lack of initiative.  Bah!  Bah, I say.

Cooking/Recipes, Product Reviews, Uncategorized

It’s my Hundred and Elleventieth Birthday!!

heather

No, it’s really just my 35th birthday.  And actually it was on Thursday.  But at my current place of employment, you get your birthday off, or at least a day off relatively close to your birthday.  So I took yesterday off.

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a day off without some specific reason such as, one of my brothers is in town, we’re going to Chicago, Tim has the day off, etc.  I forgot how nice it can be to just spend the day by yourself to do whatever you want.  And I did.

I made myself a delicious breakfast of sautéed kale & red peppers, topped with avocado (10 for $10 at HyVee this week!) and two fried eggs.  Then I did a little online shopping.  At Sephora, you get a free gift when you place an order during your birthday month.  You can also always find extra promo codes to get even more free stuff when you order.  Plus I had over 100 bonus points, so I got to upgrade a sample.  So, I got a ton of stuff for $50.  Way more stuff than I need, especially considering I got one of the Sephora sampler kits.  They are always so fun – so many different things to try.  With makeup, I am definitely on a pendulum, I will go for months, trying to pare down my makeup kit to the bare essentials, trying to minimalize and simplify my daily routine and life.  I will start to feel suffocated by all the little bottles and tubes and cases clogging up my bathroom shelf.  So I will purge the stuff I don’t love – giving it away or tossing it.  Then, eventually, I will swing back the other way, buying way more makeup than I can use before it gets bad.  Maybe this swing is because I turned 35.  I think it probably has more to do with me working in an office that is predominantly women, so there is A LOT of estrogen floating around, making me extra girly.  Also, since I’m trying to eat primally, I fully expect to lose 5 more pounds at least, which means it’s silly to buy any new clothes right now because I will likely need new stuff in a month or two.  So my shopping outlet (since I just bought a new purse) is forced in the makeup direction.  Enough about that.

What else did I do?  I tried to order some pork from Geest Farms, a local farm that raises non-CAFO pigs.  They are out of pretty much everything, so I have to wait until they kill some more pigs in a couple of weeks.  Poor pigs.  Poor, delicious pigs.

I did some tech maintenance – figured how to listen to the iTunes radio stations on my iPhone. Just copy the URL from the iTunes station to a text document in Dropbox, open Dropbox on your phone, click the link, and you are listening to All 90s All The Time in seconds flat.  Of course to get that to work, I had to install Dropbox on both sides of my laptop (the Windows side and the Linux side).  I also found out about East Village Radio from my bro, so I downloaded that on my phone and got to listen to some cool tunes from NYC.

I sifted through pictures on my phone that I want to try painting in watercolor and ordered them online from Walgreens.  I love their 5 X 7 prints, but they are pricey.  I found a coupon online (SITE40) and saved 40% on the prints!

Finally I rounded out the morning by doing a little eye-glass frame shopping at WarbyParker.com.  This is a website where you can pick out up to 5 frames, the company will ship them to you for free, you can try them out for 5 days, and then ship them back for free. If you like any of the frames, the frames plus lenses are only $95!! Well, since I have such a strong prescription, mine would be an extra $30, so $125.  That is SOOOOO cheap for fashionable glasses.  I have 5 frames coming my way to try out.

I did a quick PEM workout (plank, pushups, and pullups), hopped in the shower, and then headed out for an 11:15 at Lillee Leighton Salon for my shellac polish. The shellac polish is is made out of polymers that harden (almost like acrylic) under a special light.  The polish stays on for at least 2 weeks.  The application process is a little time-consuming because there are 3 or 4 coats that need to be put on.  Also Kristin, the girl who did my polish, is very fastidious about not getting polish on my skin, which is hard to do because my nails are pretty short.  She did a great job, and she only charges $20.  Plus, with the first visit, you get cuticle/nail oil which you are supposed to apply 2 times per day.  Supposedly it soaks through the polish and moisturizes and strengthens the nail underneath. Kristin even told me how to remove the polish myself.  While she only charges $5 for removal (other salons charge up to $15), she said you can do it at home the “ghetto” way.  Soak cotton balls in pure acetone, and leave them on the nail for 10 minutes.  She said you can wrap tin foil around the nail to keep the cotton ball sealed on there.  When you pull the ball off, the polish should come with it.  Anyway, the polish looks great.  You can see a picture in my Instagram feed to the right.  Next time I have it done, however, I will be more careful about doing a pre-manicure at home.  I didn’t do a great job filing my nails, and I didn’t have my cuticles pushed back to where I wanted them.  So, that’s my advice.  If you’re going to get this done – prep your nails first (or get the full manicure with the shellac polish).  Also, it sounds as if a lot of places don’t do the whole process correctly (I think there was a basecoat, a very light buff, a removal of the buffed materials with an alcohol swab, two coats of polish, then a removal of “stickiness” with another alcohol swab, then the cuticle oil.  And between each coat, the nails went into the “oven” to bake), so be sure to go to a place that is doing it correctly.

After the polish I had lunch with a friend at Bent River (burger, no bun for me, of course).  Then I headed to Target.  I spent some time in the optical shop, looking at frames.  I found two I liked, but just the frames alone were $150 +.  I went home and found them online for 1/2 that.  I’ll have to see how the WarbyParkers do and then decide what to do.

I also transferred my generic Ortho Tri-Cyclen script from Walgreens to Target.  FYI, anyone who is on that script, Walgreen’s generic is $27/month, but Target’s is NINE DOLLARS!!  Tim and I are very frustrated with Walgreens right now because they delayed in getting doctor’s approval for Tim’s asthma inhaler, which led to a frenzied Friday night while we tried to track down a doctor to fill his prescription (which we had filled at CVS where the pharmacy staff was super nice).

I also shopped for some summer stuff (for our trip to Ocracoke).  I know it’s not for 5 months, but I’m super excited already.  I got a sun hat and a sun dress.  The hat is a keeper (so says Tim), but the sun dress makes me look preggers, so it’s going back.  Hopefully I can find something better in the next 5 months…

I got home around 3:30 and started to pull out the ingredients for Corned Beef and Cabbage, only to realize that we bought a beef brisket, not a corned beef brisket (I had to Google it to see if there was a difference).  I searched online for a good beef brisket recipe, but I just found tons of them that wanted a lot of sugar and/or whole bottles of chili sauce.  I finally hit upon this Paula Deen recipe.  I left out the sugar and instead rubbed the brisket with some honey.  I didn’t have any beef broth, so I used chicken broth.  The brisket wasn’t ready in time for supper last night, but we did try a little slice when it finished up.  It was spicy and delicious.  I can’t wait to eat it today.

Then I opened a bottle of wine and started watching Beautiful Girls.  It was a very laid-back movie, which totally fit my mood.

Thanks to my employer for giving me the day off.  I had a wonderful, enjoyable day.

Product Reviews

Maybelline Dream Mouse Blush

heather

Um, yeah, I hate it.  At first I thought it was the bees knees, but now I’ve noticed that the fine little particles of mouse actually settle into each individual pore on my cheek.  It looks weird and is disturbing, so this is going in the trash.  What have I replaced it with, you ask, so my face doesn’t look deathly pale and colorless?  The famous Nars Illuminator in Orgasm, that’s what.  It’s this super liquid color that’s a pretty peachy-gold color.  You can’t really tell you are wearing anything other than you look better…somehow, healthier.  It’s pricey, but a little goes a long way, so I think a tube will last at least a year.  I like it.

Speaking of makeup, my birthday is coming up which means a free gift at Sephora, I do believe.  What to get?  What to get?

I just purchase a new eye liner too – Cover Girl Liquilineblast.  I dislike how everything from CG is “blasted, ” but this eye liner is pretty awesome so far.  It glides on very smoothly and stays forever, or at least for most of the day.   I’ve only been using it for 2 days so far, but at less than $7 (compared to the $29 for the Lancome Art Liner I’ve been wanting to try), it’s pretty amazing.

Health & Fitness

Primal 21-Day Challenge: A Retrospective

heather

So, the challenge is over.  Results?

Starting weight 149.3, Chest 36, Waist 31, Hips 43

Ending weight 145.5, Chest 34.5, Waist 29, Hips 42

I would call that success.  I would have liked to end the challenge at least at 142, but I will take it.

Outside of the challenge, I’m still adhering to it.  I’ve been eating primally and trying to exercise more.  I did have a little bit of an energy crash this afternoon.  I choose to blame damn hormones.  Overall, I feel so much better and usually have so much more energy, that it’s totally worth it to stay on.  I don’t really miss rice or bread or corn chips. I do crave sugar a bit, however.  I ate a date when I got home, but I really wanted to eat a Snickers.  But, feeling my pants be a little loose is all I need to just say no.

So, now that the challenge is over, what will I write about every day?  Well, I’ve decided that writing daily is too much – it’s too much to keep up with and too much for people to read.  It gets to be overwhelming, and overwhelming gets to be daunting, and daunting gets to be Heather Doesn’t Do It Anymore.  I do enjoy writing more regularly, however, so I will try to write at least once a week, on any one of the random topics my random blog covers – makeup, painting, conversation, hiking, biking, books, movies, recipes – anything is fair game.

Thanks for following me through this “journey.”  Man, do I ever hate it when people refer to things such as this as “journeys, ” but I’m going to do it be ironic.  It’s been a good trip, and this is but the beginning.

Health & Fitness

Primal Day 21 – The Finale

heather

Today draws the 21 Day TOTAL BODY TRANSFORMATION!!! to a close.  Reflections?

Most clearly, I noticed two things.

1.  My energy levels were much, much better.  Except for a day here and there, I didn’t have the post-lunch energy lull, where you feel as if you just want to crawl under your desk and take a massive nap.

2.  My allergies have been so much better.  I still have that persistent feeling of needing to itch the back of the roof of my mouth with my tongue, but the head-fog and pressure behind my eyes has all but receded.  I only took Allegra 1 day out of the 21, after taking it almost daily for the past 12 months.  Amazing.  I wish I knew exactly what caused that.  Am I sensitive to gluten?  Dairy?  Carbs??  As noted in previous posts, if I drink more than 2 drinks in a sitting, my allergies tend to act up.  I start sneezing and will wake up in the night with a drippy nose.  Weird.

Over the past week, I have been cheating more than I did the first week – some Nestle dark chocolate chips here (lots o’ sugar), a low carb beer there, a bite of a breaded pork tenderloin there (but just a bite).  I did feel better – cleaner, almost – when I was more strict with myself.  My stomach was flatter too, which felt awesome.

So, how to proceed?  I plan on following the 80/20 rule.  At least 80% of the time, I will eat primally.  I will indulge in pizza or a microbrew here or there and not feel guilty about it.  It’s all about balance and moderation.

I like how my life has changed over the past few weeks.  I spend more time cooking, so we are eating food that tastes better than restaurant food, and food that is way healthier for us.  I know what I am putting into my body.  I’m experimenting with different cooking techniques and kitchen equipment.  Tim and I have eaten way more meals at the kitchen table, talking, instead of in front of the TV watching dumb mind-numbing television.  I don’t even mind washing up afterwards.  It’s kind of a relaxing ritual.  Plus, it keeps my on my feet instead of my arse.

I enjoy spending 20 minutes on a Sunday morning looking through recipes and picking out tasty, healthy meals for the week.  It’s so nice having everything planned out for the week, so we don’t end up getting Taco John’s because we don’t have anything in the house.

So, thank you, Mark Sisson, for making so much information available on the internet and introducing me to to his concept.  I look forward to what the next few months will bring.  Hopefully I will be in swimsuit shape by June for our trip to Ocracoke Island!

I will try to remember to take measurements tomorrow morning.  I have a feeling that I didn’t loose anything from last week (due to the aforementioned cheating), but that’s alright.  My health is definitely better, and that’s what’s really important.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Primal Days 19 and 20

heather

Disclaimer:  I am writing this post whilst watching Start Trek: The Next Generation, so this post may not be as sharp and entertaining as usual.

I neglected to make a post yesterday.  Hmm… yesterday was so long ago.  What happened yesterday?  I had lunch at Exotic Thai – red curry with pork, to be exact.  It was delicious but gave me brief, sharp, shooting pains in my stomach.  I cannot account for it, since the curry was comprised of all the same types of ingredients I’ve been eating steadily for the past 2.5 week.  Since I didn’t eat the accompanying rice, the lunch was rather small – just the small bowl of curry.  Consequently, I was hungry all afternoon. The only primal snacks I had were pecans, walnuts, and almonds, so I ate a bunch of them.  I probably consumed way too many calories.

For supper we went to Azteca.  Actually, we went to Los Agaves first, but the hostess sat us by the kitchen entrance, in the north-facing section of the restaurant.  We looked at each other, looked at the kitchen entrance, replete with wash buckets and mops, and got up and walked out.  We went to Azteca instead.  Our table was much better, albeit louder, as there was a mariachi band playing a few feet away.  I ordered the fajita taco salad.  It was pretty good, but the steak was a little gristly.

Today I was supposed to do more IF (intermittent fasting).  I lasted until about 10AM when I made another delicious shake of blueberries, coconut milk, shredded coconut, pecans, dark cocoa powder, a date and ice cubes.

For lunch we went to 11th Street Precinct.  I had one of their delicious grilled tenderloins (bunless, of course), topped with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mustard.  I got cole slaw instead of fries.  It was very tasty.

We ate supper at home, and it was delicious.  Based on a recipe I found here, I boiled a chicken neck and back in the leftover chicken stock from Thursday night’s dinner, adding carrots, onions, celery, garlic, and parsley to the stock.  We brought it to an almost boil and then simmered it for 2 hours.  Once the stock was close to being finished, I sautéed the onions and garlic in butter, then added chopped up carrots and celery, sautéing for a few minutes more.  Then we added the strained chicken stock, some chopped cabbage and thyme and basil, simmering the soup for 25 minutes, at which point we added the leftover chicken from Thursday’s supper.  We let the whole batch cook for 10 minutes more.

It turned out super good – one of the best batches of chicken soup I’ve ever made.  Yum.

For exercise, I did a modified PEM workout today and also walked to the QCBC bulletin board on the bike path and updated the board.

Tomorrow is my last official day of the diet, but I plan on keeping up with the primal principles.