Sat, Sun, Mon

April 12, 2010

Saturday we fixed some plumbing. The project is now complete! We had to reroute the hot water to the kids shower, the kids sink and the dishwasher. Done!

Then I played Mom a bit and carpooled kids to parties, went to Target, etc. If you have an aqua kitchen, look for cute clearance items at Target like canisters and paper towel holder, etc. But don’t look there for a headband with a large funky black flower, because you won’t find it.

Sat night we went to a party for a Ragnar Relay friend. It was billed as a “beer pong” party. I’ve never played beer pong and neither has Brian, and I don’t drink beer - but we went and we learned. I’d prefer a germ-free margarita version.

Sunday I started the day hungry and with a bit of time to kill, so I made Speedy Banana Bread Pudding for me and Alice. No one in my family eats the end pieces of the loaf of bread (but me) so we usually have a bunch saved up in the freezer. I defrosted a bunch of slices (8?) and a mushy banana I had stored there that Alice left in her locker. I mashed the banana, tore up the bread, added a few eggs, a bit of milk, cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger. Then I cooked it up in a buttered pan and served with maple syrup and almond slices on top. YUM!!

Brian and I have been wanting to repaint our front shutters. They were forest green and faded in 10 years of Florida sun to light green. We found a spray paint at Ace Hardware for outdoor vinyl in a violet color and sprayed those down. Bright and cute! I’ve already overheard the neighbors complement them.

That night I was a kitchen beast. I had Indian food cooking to store up for work lucnhes, Mexican food for dinner that night, and choc chip cookies for the kids’ lunch boxes in the oven. We followed the Nestle Toll House recipe, but instead of 2 sticks of butter we used 1/4 stick butter, 1/4 cup oil and 1 banana. They kept a great consistency and the added banana flavor was light and subtle. We also added cinnamon.

Today - Monday - I started the day with 2.2 miles around the park with Brian. For me it was a hard push, for him it was “slower than after I got a cramp in my calf at the end of the marathon.” :P

I came home, stretched, did 60 bicycle crunches, showered and went to work.

wendy-lanternI’m lucky running didn’t bother my feet because Friday I was at IKEA for a couple hours with a client/friend in 2.5″ heels and got a couple blisters. But she gave Wendy a polka dot hanging paper lantern for her room, and the smile on her face was worth it. Plus, I let her climb on her desk and use the drill herself to hang it.

Tonight Brian is grilling turkey burgers, and I have an alum foil packet with asparagus and garlic in the toaster oven for me (drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with chili powder and pepper) and edamame steaming up for the girls.

Work has been busy! Working on a couple new web sites. Learning a bit about MX Servers. Life is busy, but good!

Posted in Food, running. Tags: , , . 3 Comments »

The week thus far…

April 6, 2010

Monday I ran to the gym and Brian was lovely enough to pick me up an hour after I left the house. That gave me about 25 mins to do an upper body weight workout at the gym before he got there. Flies, presses, wrist strengthening stuff since I sit at a PC all day, curls, etc.

This morning I went to the gym with a 10-20-30-40-50 in mind, but didn’t quite do that. I warmed up on the elliptical for 10 mins and then did 50 lunges as a combo of walking lunges with 8lb med ball, and front-side-back lunges while alternating legs. Then I did squats on an upside down BOSU - 20 deep squats with 8 lb hand weights. I flipped the BOSU over and did a squat with one leg on the floor and one on the BOSU, up to a knee raise on the BOSU balancing on one leg. 10 to one side, then repeated on other side.

I did 11 pushups on the upside down BOSU and then started core work.

1. Figure 8s with 8 lb med ball. Side to side core rotations with 8 lb. med ball.

2. Oblique crunches while laying on Swiss ball with one leg on the wall. Oblique crunches while laying on my side on the Swiss ball with my feet against the wall.

3. Captains chair crunches. I finally had Brian at the gym while wearing short running shorts so he could tell me if I should be doing these or if I was showing too much to the whole world. He gave me an OK.

Then I stretched. I noticed a weird twitch in my left arm just south of elbow when fixing my bra strap, but couldn’t replicate it unless I brought my hand up to my shoulder. I guess I won’t be fixing a bra strap any time soon. Easy fix.

I’ve been very focused on whole eating this week. I bought a tomato, green pepper and can of garbanzos to chop up and eat as salad for lunch the last 2 days. I have some potato kugel I’m sure is a bit too oily that I have a square of with it. Breakfast has been a banana and some type of grain carb (toast, wasa cracker, etc) I bought a bag of frozen chopped mango to snack on at work. I usually have half an apple around 3pm too. The worst part of yesterday were the ramens in our dinner, we’ll see what tonight holds in store.

I’ve learned a lot this month so far about how bodies processes foods, stress, sleep, exercise, etc. and it always makes sense that foods easier for the body to break down will be instant energy. The new addition to my brain was that if your body is not busy breaking down crap food, then it can use that energy to regenerate  - either to recover from a workout, rebuild unhealthy cells, restore the youthful glow to your skin, etc.

The best complement I received in 2009 was when someone who had not seen me for a year asked if I was aging backwards. That’s what it’s all about for me! Stay young, feel young, have energy, smile, love life. I don’t want to run 50 miles in Mexico or be a world class triathlete. I want to be able to run in a park with my grandchildren someday without complaining about aches, pains, heart disease and chemo treatments.

What - aside from your workouts - keeps you smiling?

Posted in Food, workout. 1 Comment »

Busy Weekend

March 7, 2010

Fri night Alice PR’ed the mile again - 6:27. There’s one more middle division meet this season, and then she’ll run varsity for another couple months.

I’ve started reading “Healing with Whole Foods”. I’m trying to catch up on the lack of nutritional education I received growing up in America. I love that their food pyramid includes exercise and thinking time to create a full body balance.

We spent the day working on plumbing. Not fun, but more fun than not having a dishwasher in the kitchen. (Due to hot water problems, we’ve had an actual dishwasher forever.)

me under the kitchen sink

me "under" the kitchen sink

The girls and I are visiting my parents soon, so I got them packed up - which allowed me to go through their closets and pull out dresses that don’t fit for the Girl Scouts who are collecting dresses for a local mining community.

Eventually Brian and I cleaned up and went out for his birthday. We ate at Texas Cattle Company because we had a $100 gift cert, and everything was “B” level and slightly overcooked. We started with Cedar Plank Crab Cakes- which were the best thing all night - and Wood-Grilled Bacon Wrapped Scallops - which would have been great with about 3 mins less cooking time. The crab cakes had a light glaze of the sauce that came with the scallops. It was a marmalade/apple/red pepper combo (I asked). I enjoyed it but figured it was mostly corn syrup so I didn’t OD.

For dinner, Brian ordered a filet with Roast Garlic Red Skin Mashed Potatoes. They kinda failed to mention the mashed potatoes come with cheese and bacon on top, but he loved them. They were very thick. It came with a salad which they said was “famous”, which is funny because I’ve lived here nearly 12 years and never heard anyone talk about it, and it was nothing special, except some green olives were thrown in. And there were dinner rolls that I avoided because they were white.

I ordered the 1/2 order of Tuna Sushimi from the app menu as my meal (totally overcooked, but surprisingly came with chop sticks) with a side of BBQ Spiced Sweet Potato Fries. I thought (based on the name) that the fries would have seasoning on them, but I think they came out of a frozen bag, and the “BBQ Spiced” referred to a spicy BBQ sauce on the side.(More corn syrup…)

Brian’s drinks were good, I drank water. For dessert we got the peanut butter pie, which was amazing, but I’m guessing they didn’t actually make it. We got a HUGE piece of chocolate cake to take home to the kids, but it was freezer-burned.

Because it was only $13 (after the gift cert), it was fine. But because we so rarely go out, I want to be WOWed and this place was just OK. But if you want crab cakes and peanut butter pie, I recommend it. Or a free steak on your birthday, because they offer that too.

This morning we woke up to Wendy puking. She threw up 7 times from 7am-9:30am. I think due to raw cookie dough last night because nothing else seems to be wrong with her. She fell back asleep on the bathroom floor until 1:30pm.

Today I took Alice to buy art supplies at Wal-Mart so she can make a display of what it looks like to have Yellow Fever for school. Then we went grocery shopping. I cooked up some black beans with onions and peppers for lunch and to have at work for lunch this week. I also made Aloo Gobi…so good and so easy!!

Yummy Aloo Gobi!

Yummy Aloo Gobi!

Do you like Indian food? Do you ever make your own?

2010 goal update (forgot this after Fri core class): 2630 crunches, 64 minutes of plank remaining.

Posted in Food, all about me. Tags: , , , . 3 Comments »

Protein and greens

February 25, 2010

I learned some interesting stuff today about getting protein from veggies instead of animals. But the info is copyrighted. If you are interested in learning it too, and also in getting some free smoothie recipes at the same time, sign up for the FREE 3 day green smoothie challenge from the Green Divas.

It wasn’t a life changing experience for someone who already puts spinach in the blender frequently, but the info is written in an easy-to-learn-from format if you want to improve your nutrition knowledge.

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Blender Bender

February 23, 2010

beet-root-bspTo boost my immunity during this week of little sleep and lots of fun / travel, I am adding lots of veggies into my diet. Last night I tried something I’ve been wanting to do for a while - I juiced a beet.

I grew up in a family that ate beet borscht, but despite the fun, hot pink color (and despite my more recent love for the book Jitterbug Perfume) the soup never appealed to me. My mom served it warm with some big bone in it on some occasions, and cold with sour cream on others. There’s also a spinach based borscht called shav (sp?). Those Polish and Russian Jews must have been desperate for food in the cold 900 years ago!

Before juicing the beet I did some Googling, because I did not know if I should leave the greens on or cut them off. I found a note that told me to ALWAYS mix beet juice with other juices because straight beet juice can cause temporary paralysis of the vocal chords. Not that Brian would mind if I couldn’t talk for a few hours…

It also said I could use the root and / or greens. So I juiced 1 beet with most of the greens, 2 carrots, and added apple juice and cinnamon.

I learned that I like beet juice, but not beet green juice. The leaves were a little to grassy/dirt tasting for me. I’ll leave them out next time and save them for roasting.

But what about all that great stuff that shot out the back of the juicer? Do you use it for soup or stew? Are the nutrients now gone? I wasn’t sure so I threw it in the composter this time, and will read some more about that.

This morning I tried something else I’ve read a lot about online — adding kale to a green monster smoothie. I’ve used spinach many times, but I have never eaten kale. I learned 2 things from my kale / vanilla yogurt / raspberry smoothie:

  1. I do NOT like kale
  2. Never put a knife in a smoothie maker while it is on

I tried to shove the kale leaves down and thought the knife was far enough from the smoothie maker blades, but when a hunk of plastic shot out the side of the blender into my abdomen I knew I was wrong.

Luckily what I thought was blood was only raspberry juice, and I’m hoping I can just order a part replacement from my smoothie maker company to make up for my idiocy.

But the kale sucked. Much stronger leaf taste than spinach and much more rubbery. I finished making the smoothie in my mini food chopper, and even tried adding extra yogurt and some honey, but I was still eating spoonfuls of kale smoothie the way Survivor contestants eat at a food challenge. Gulp down the back of the throat real quickly. I decided I’d eat till I felt like I had enough and would spill the rest down the sink, despite the fact that I HATE wasting food.


I’m not even sure I’ll try the kale cooked.

Meanwhile I have a crazy headache and I don’t know if it is because I tried new food or because I didn’t get enough sleep last night. I’m going to try lots of water today to see if that helps.

Workouts: Monday AM Yoga at home for 30 mins was all I had time for, so Monday night I went to the gym for Pilates mat class. The only other time I went there was a sub, and I liked the sub much better. This teacher kind of spoke like a woman leading 4 year old girls through a fairy princess party. Maybe my headache is from not getting a good sweat in yesterday due to meek workouts. But tonight is karate and I’m learning penon 2 - which I learned might be spelled pyung ahn 2. But I’ll use transliteration because I don’t know any Asian languages except for how to count to 4 in Japanese. And whatever was used by Styx in Mr. Roboto.

2010 goal update: 2920 crunches, 72 minutes of plank remaining.

What do YOU do with the stuff that comes out of the back of your juicer?

Posted in Food, Push-Ups, family, workout. Tags: , , . No Comments »

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