Eric was in Germany last week, and a few days into the trip, a coworker traveling with him posted to Facebook a picture of part of the meal they were eating. It was bread, and a bowl of…something. Immediately, there was dubious speculation amongst our friends, made all the more incredulous when the men said it was a bowl of goose fat, brought to the table as a spread, like butter. According to them, and to the disbelief of almost everybody reading stateside, it was delicious.

So Eric came home, and he wanted to share the “joy of schmalz” with everybody here, so he asked me to call the local butchers to see if they had any rendered goose fat. Failing that, he suggested some fresh goose or goose pieces we could roast on our own, in order to get the fat. Nobody had any fat, but one butcher was getting in some fresh geese this afternoon; did I want to reserve one? Well, Eric had told me to…

Fast forward. I came to the store, and was handed:

That is what we call a Whole Lot of Goose. It’s about ten pounds of previously honking, vicious, beaked and winged animosity, and it wasn’t cheap, either – not by a long shot.

I suppose I’ll be roasting goose tomorrow. I’ve never even tried goose before (let alone the rendered fat of one!). This’ll be an adventure, but I guess I’ll have to follow it through to the end at this point. Stay tuned…

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There were eye drops involved. No coincidentally, there was screeching and red-faced struggling, as well. In his defense, halfway through the appointment, he did stop, unprompted, to say, “I’m sorry I said mean things.” That’s my Gabe: shoot first, apologize later. (And, also in his defense, Sam did corroborate his story that the drops stung.) The eye doctor was very gracious and said that, aside from the drops tantrum, Gabe did very well. He even refrained from saying “I told you so” when she told him he didn’t need glasses (he had insisted quite loudly that this was the case, as she stood over him with the eye drops)…though he did barely restrain the eye roll when she had asked him to tell her when the letters on the screen started to “turn all fuzzy.”

“I know what ‘blurry’ means,” he said, sounding slightly offended.

So, I think that’s all the body parts that need checked, cleaned, or trimmed before school starts next week, which is a good thing for my nerves. I can tell they’re really fraying, because I lost my temper and laid down the freaking law last night at dinner. Among other things on their plates was a tiny slice of grilled zucchini, and you’d have thought it was fresh excrement from their reactions. After one too many rude remarks from Sam, I made a decision: “That’s it! I have one more zucchini in the fridge, and it’s for dinner tomorrow! And I’m hitting the farmer’s market for more zucchini, and there’ll be zucchini at every dinner from now on until it gets eaten without a fuss!”

Anybody got any good zucchini recipes? I’m thinking a gratin, maybe…

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That’s fine, but can a vegetarian and a Paleo eater coexist and dine under the same roof? I’m all “a bean, a green, and a grain” for a balanced meal, and he’s cocking his eyebrow at two out of the three. He’s in the “Slay me your finest beasts and bring me their flesh!” zone, and I’m going, “Um, tempeh, please?” It’s very weird. No idea how dinners are going to work, now that even our side dishes won’t match. (And I’m telling you right now, spaghetti squash might be all right in and of itself, but it is not spaghetti. This is not a viable compromise area.)

I’m telling you where this is really going to be bad: pizza. Specifically, Eric’s fabulous homemade pizzas, which are beautiful and delicious and do NOT need to be adapted to involve almond meal-based crusts. I mean, really? I’ll give it a try, because I’ll try anything once, but that just sounds bizarre.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Health comes first, and if this is the path toward greater health for him, then I’m all for it. It’s the logistics I’m sweating here. Might be premature, though; perhaps I need to wait and see whether he really enjoys the diet enough and sees strong enough results to stick with it long-term before I start fretting. (And, meanwhile, Gabe was gaping at both of us in horror last night as we offered him our options – leftover noodles with vegetables, or grilled skirt steak – for dinner. He lobbied hard for just being allowed to make his own meal instead. )

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Just made these for a choir potluck tonight. Started as a thing where I thought, okay, I’m making my own baked beans to take tonight, because in years past, all kinds of beans showed up and smelled so gosh-darn good but were full of meat, so instead of feeling sad, I’ll bring vegetarian ones. So that was settled, but I wanted to bring something else, too, and since my mind was wandering along vegetarian/vegan options anyway (I’m making the beans from The Veganomicon), it landed on Katie’s Fudge Babies and how I’d been wanting to make them for a long while.

I went with the Cashew Cookie Bar and the Peanut Butter ones, since, truthfully, I don’t really like the Larabar recipes that combine dates and chocolate. It’s never either “chocolatey” or “datey” enough for me; the flavors fight and both lose, in my book. No chocolate in my “babies,” then. And they are goooooood. Oh, good heavens. Too easy, too. This could get dangerous. On the other hand, they have just about perfect proportions for long trail-running fuel (I know lots of people who use trail mix, dried fruit, or even Fig Newtons already), so now I’m wondering about that…

Have to get started on these beans now.

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Mind you, our long-standing policy is that if you try to eat your dinner, you can subsequently make something else for yourself (not doing it for you, though), but if you don’t at least try, the kitchen is closed. So there will be no snacking tonight for little gentlemen, which they both claim to accept.

Anyway, Eric’s almost recovered from the strep throat; he doesn’t feel great, but he didn’t feel bad enough to stay home from work today. Gabe had a bumpy day back at school, and Sam has had his rocky evening, so between all of us, it’s the sort of evening that begs for everybody to stick to his own corner as much as possible, avoiding interaction with everybody else.

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They go back to school tomorrow. Gabe’s been singing “Monday, Monday, going to school on Monday…”

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For Valentine’s Day, I got Eric a carry-on suitcase, since he travels so much for work and his current carry-on bag has a busted zipped. This one rolls and is much nicer. He asked me whether I wanted him to get me a gift, and I told him no. This dinner, the one he was planning and for which he was not giving me any tempting details, was going to be more than enough of a gift. I was very, very right.

I had mentioned in passing to him that a blogger I follow had very concisely described the vegetarian approach to meal planning as being “a bean, a green, and a grain.” Eric took that and ran with it. Now, he’s not a vegetarian, but he planned four lovely vegetarian courses (the garlicky lentil soup was actually vegan) that left us both feeling perfectly satisfied in both belly and mouth. This beats flowers or boxed chocolates any day of the week, in my book! (I actually want to get him to write down the recipe for the soup, which, like most of the meal, he developed himself; it would be a perfect carbing-up meal for the days before a race).

Running is going adequately. My foot is fine; my groin is mostly recovered. I suppose all things work as they ought to, since I wouldn’t have had time for a long long run this weekend, anyway; Sam’s Scouting pack has “Mike Fink’s Winter Challenge” this weekend, which will involve spending a very long day out in the snow, playing games and such. It’s warmer this week and supposed to rain between then and now, so there’s a good chance the day will be spent in icy slush instead of snow, but I guess that’s what boots are for!

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Sam ate…cornbread. Apparently, the bean soup wasn’t what he thought it would be. Gabe wouldn’t eat it, either. Surprisingly, he was willing to eat a chard stem. Only one, but, hey, it’s the small things. Sam wouldn’t even touch them with his utensil.

But we didn’t go out to eat. Yay?

I think I’ll just enjoy this glass of red zinfandel, here – purchased before the budget went into effect, naturally.

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First, although unrelated to the actual sample, I have to say that the packaging was a bit of overkill. The bar was in a sturdy box far too large for it, filled mostly with shredded paper. Still, it didn’t hurt, and it was attractive. Easily recycled, too.

The Clif Crunch Granola bars reminded me a lot of the Nature Valley granola bars: two thinnish, crunchy bars, light brown in color. The taste, though, was sweeter and more complex; I could definitely taste more honey and less of the plain sugar that the other granola bars use for sweetener. The oats came through more cleanly, too. I know that I was hungry, but I positively gobbled these down and wished I had another!

Comparing the two bars, which I do because of the obvious similarities, the nutrition is basically the same, though there’s a touch more iron in the Clif bars, along with calcium that isn’t showing at all on the Nature Valley label. The larger difference lies in the ingredient list (first is the NV; second is the Clif):

If eating organic is important to you, the Clif bar is a winner. Actually, though, the main deciding factor for me would still be the taste. These things, after all, are meant to be treats in my book, not dietary staples. I can overlook much, in that framework; a granola bar doesn’t have to be a huge contributor toward my nutritional needs for the day. But taste is important, and the Clif bar tastes really, really good.

So, Clif, you win! Can’t wait to see these show up on the shelves at my grocery store! (Hopefully, my new grocery budget will allow for some bars when they do. )

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But once I was out, it was a glorious day for a ride. Did have an interesting moment when I stopped for lunch. I went into a restaurant, and the table kept vibrating unnervingly under my forearms. I remarked to the waitress that I hadn’t thought the roads were that bumpy, that I should be dealing with the reverberations so long after I stopped riding, and she told me that that particular table vibrated, due to something on the other side of the wall.

Now it’s feeling a little chillier, due to wind picking up, so I came home and checked the weather site…and there’s a Tornado Watch until 8 this evening. Yay? Some storms are supposed to crop up around 7, turn into real gangbusters later on, and then (HOPEFULLY!) disappear in time for my friends’ marathon and my own long run tomorrow morning. Going to be a warm one for that sort of running, but that’s better than storms or tornadoes…which will also HOPEFULLY not re-arise tomorrow afternoon or evening and make Eric’s return in any way complicated. Up with that, I will not put!

Trying one of these for the first time, in Cherry Pomegranate. It’s mushier than the picture indicates, with less delineation between the fruit and the crust. I think I like it better this way. It reminds me a lot of Larabars, except that since I sometimes find the dates overpowering in those (except in the peanut butter varieties), this is a pleasant alternative! Go, Clif! (Wish your pace teams were doing Green Bay. )

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It’s basically wheat gluten, which has all the starch and whatnot washed away from it. (In other words, not a celiac-friendly food…but then, if you’re in a situation where that’s relevant, you probably already knew that. ) In its finished state, it makes a credible “mock meat.” Theoretically, you know. I’d never even eaten it before, let alone made it from scratch. The ingredients for it couldn’t be more basic, though, so I was perfectly willing to give it a go. Whole wheat flour + water. What could be simpler? Many of my resources suggested I could do things more easily and quickly by starting with vital wheat gluten instead of whole wheat flour, but that seemed to defeat the purpose for me, since it would add cost and a grocery trip to the mix. We usually have whole wheat flour on hand, so if I could make this work the minimalist way, it would be best.

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Read the rest of Wheat Meat (533 words)

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Myself, I don’t eat nearly as much meat as I once did. In fact, I’ve unconsciously moved to a place where I usually eat only a small portion of it, once a day, if even that often. Eric eats more; his meals at work often have meat, and his favorite splurges are meat – wings, for example. I proposed to him that he cut back to once a day, and he suggested going to once a week. Okay, I can work with that.

Today he forgot and accidentally had some grilled chicken at lunch, but dinner was meatless. I roasted cauliflower, made fresh guacamole, and curried some beans, peppers, and onion (which somehow turned out drastically WRONG until Eric got home and saved it with a few alterations). It was a satisfying meal; it even worked out okay for the boys, who ate the cauliflower and quickly-assembled quesadillas. Now Eric’s at the gym, which also seems to provide an immediate blood sugar lowering effect. I don’t know what he’ll do tomorrow; Tuesdays, he plays Scrabble at a bar with friends, eating wings for dinner there. I don’t think there’s an extensive vegetarian-friendly menu, unfortunately. I forgot to ask him about that.

Anyway, it’s not a huge change for the family, in most regards, but it’ll be something to consider. Thank goodness the Farmers’ Markets will be opening up again soon!

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I haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m making for dinner tonight, and we don’t even have much in the way of raw ingredients to begin making it, but the boys are playing happily and peacefully upstairs and I don’t want to ruin it. On the other hand, Eric’s at the gym, and sometimes he comes home from there with some pretty wonky blood sugars (oh, come on; “hinky” isn’t a word, but “wonky” is?), and it might be nice to be able to present food to him. What would be really nice would be to have an idea for a dinner that both boys would enjoy. Sam has been begging for white bean soup for a while, and I’d like some, too, but Gabe would probably eat the bowl and spoon before so much as tasting the soup. (He’s still on a jag of mostly cheese, bananas, and ham, with occasional requests for chicken nuggets and pizza. Only the fact that I know Sam did this, too, keeps me sane.)

Oh, here they are. Playtime has ended; nightly demands for food (“Can we make cookies? Right now?”) have commenced. I guess it’s grocery store time. (And not (just) for cookie-related items.)

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Came home, got dressed, and went out on my Free Day! First I went to the bookstore, where I got, among a couple other books and a magazine, Tara Weaver’s book, The Butcher and the Vegetarian. It is phenomenal! I’m enjoying it so much! On the one hand, I’m not a vegetarian personally, but I do have leanings toward – oh, what’s the term they’re bandying about these days? Flexitarianism? So I’m enjoying both the detailed descriptions of the meat dishes she was learning to prepare as well as being able to sympathize with her conflicted feelings. The chapters on industrial farming and the treatment of food animals are particularly powerful.

Then I went to lunch and had Thai Chicken pizza. Well, I hadn’t started the book yet.

After that, I ran some errands and then went to coffee, where I plowed through a bunch of my book over several hours. By the time I looked up, it was dinner time! I went for sushi, because it’s been way too long. Had myself a nice little pile of sashimi, then walked around a little downtown before I realized that it was way to cold to look into windows of closed businesses. (It’s really pathetic down there these days.) Decided I needed one more indulgence before heading back home, so I went in search of dessert, which I found in a very crowded Olive Garden. Hey, I didn’t mind; I had my book! Got myself a piece of tiramisu and a glass of Pinot Noir, which I savored for a long while (by the time I got my table, the crowd had been dispersed, so I didn’t feel guilty), and then headed home and helped put the kids to bed.

Eric had been working all day, preparing for our Valentine’s Day meal! We’ve decided to do Valentine’s Day here, eating a late dinner after the boys are in bed. I put the menu decisions firmly into Eric’s creative hands, and I don’t expect to be disappointed that I did! He gave me a small taste of the coffee creme anglaise he made as part of the dessert, and…oh…

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

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Results: I had several large mugs of coffee this morning, with no food to cushion the blow to my system, as I flung together random ingredients and made this:

Red pepper and goat cheese frittata. I think it looks good, but I also think my computer chair is softly bouncing as I type this. Or maybe it’s the computer screen. Bounce, bounce…

Gabe is dressed up for MOPS, for some reason. He wore a necktie last night for our church portraits (side note: it takes a special kind of optimism on a photographer’s part to push forward in trying to sell packages to couples who burst out laughing, harder and harder, with each take shown to them. “I look completely drugged!” “Sam looks like he’s about to barf!” “So…we can do twelve wallets, and a lovely eight-by-ten for you?”), and now he’s taken with the idea. Never mind that one doesn’t usually sport an ivory necktie with a long-sleeved tee-shirt; he thinks he looks “fancy.” Well, I suppose he does, at that.

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We’re in the 50-75% zone. And there’s snow on the ground right now, with temps in the coming days that don’t look high enough to melt it. Mind, there’s not much snow, but it’s there. It was enough that I broke out the YakTrax for my run this morning, and that I was glad to have them when one of the running club members slipped and rolled down a little hill right behind me. He’s fine, happily, but I’m just as glad it wasn’t me who felt the group’s good-natured ribbing after that!

We went to church for the rest of the morning, preparing for tomorrow’s cantata. Eric and I have a duet in the cantata; he refers to it more as a solo for me, with him accompanying me for the chorus, but that’s neither here nor there. I don’t like using microphones, and these are the sort that basically require you to put your nose directly on the metal in order to work their best. “Pretend it’s an ice cream cone,” the sound folks told me. I muttered something to Eric about having seen Trent Reznor do something similar, but I’m not sure how acceptable that’d be for a church music program.

Anyway! Moving on!

Related to absolutely nothing except that I love soup when things get cold and snowy, I have to highly recommend the Pacific Natural Foods boxed soups. I know! Soup in a box! It’s positively not the sort of thing you’d admit to enjoying, most cases, but these, or at least the ones I’ve tried, are really really good. I had the Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato first, and now I’ve also had the Cashew Carrot Ginger; both are delicious! I had a bowl of it tonight with a wrap sandwich I made (spicy black bean dip, sun-dried tomatoes, pepperjack cheese, sunflower sprouts, roasted red peppers, and spinach), and I feel completely satisfied, both in belly and mouth. And it’s pretty light in calories, for a cream soup, and nutritious, too! Go forth and enjoy.

Bedtime for Bonzos, I think; they’ve begun to chase each other around the house with scary pictures they’ve drawn. As far as play activities go, I’d call that fairly creative, but it’s time to bring the madness to an end.

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I also replenished my chia stash at the store, which had big jugs of it instead of the little baggies my local natural food store keeps on hand. Making a tiny pot of Irish oats for myself right now, all stirred up with a banana and the chia. Might add some pumpkin butter, walnuts, and a touch of the peanut butter granola I got for crunch. Mmmm!

Gabe was AMAZINGLY well behaved at the grocery yesterday, despite all signs going in that he wasn’t in the mood to be. Seriously, I grabbed a cup of coffee from the counter as I entered, and he was an absolute chimpanzee while I was trying to do that, but then we hit the customer service desk for the “kids’ surprise” before shopping, and he got a mango-flavored fruit leather, which…well, I bet they laced the thing with opiates or something. Not that I’m complaining. “Cooperative” doesn’t begin to touch his behavior for the rest of the time! He walked happily next to me, quietly pointed out interesting things on the shelves, and didn’t even flip his lid when I decided not to get the $20 wheel of goat cheese he thought would be delicious in his lunches.

Sam has “Pajama Day” at school today, but I don’t know how this will work, since all of his pajamas are thin flannel things, not up to withstanding single-digit temps. I doubt they’ll let kids head to the bathrooms to change upon arrival, either. Hmph.

Time to go wake Eric.

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It’s raining today, really raining and not just drizzling, for what feels like the first time in a while. That’s likely just my imagination, but it does seem like I haven’t had to run in rain in a long time. I did today, though! Well, I suppose I could have gone to the gym and played hamster for a bit, but…ugh. It’s not unpleasant to run in the rain, even if you choose the wrong pants and discover a few minutes in that this fabric loves water and will happily absorb just as much as you can throw at it. And then I gave up trying to hop puddles (running by the lake means, of course, that that’s where all the run-off is running off, so the path was flooded muchly) and just splashed right through them, which, when added to the pants miscalculation, meant that I was probably toting several pounds of water in my clothes and shoes by the end of the run. Whatever; at least I didn’t overheat!

And it’s time to lose any prissy sissy notions about not getting messy on runs, anyway. And I quote from the Devil’s Lake website:

Basically, a difficult, wicked on and off trail run with stupid spots. Stupid spots include swamp crossings, river crossings, hills too steep to climb and can only be a butt slide down. Did we mention poison ivy, thorns, poor marking, bad (no) footing, a waiver that mentions your death 3 times and that we charge you for this?

Yeaaaaaaaah. So who wants to come out and pace Rachel and me? (Actually, can you have pacers for this one? The site doesn’t mention. Often, they’ll say no pacers until the second half or something, and 50Ks don’t really need pacers, anyway, but it could be fun.) The course leg descriptions are also cracking me up:

There are some dangerous steep drop offs in the area … follow pink and be careful, we don’t want to have to go in there and try to find you or your splatter.

Now, beside that, what’s a little rain matter on a five-mile mid-week jaunt?

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I’m up this early not for the usual reason – that is, to go running. It’s a rest day for that. No, this morning we have MOPS, and my small group is to bring food to feed everybody, and I have this weird compulsion not to bring the same stuff that everybody else always brings: sausage and egg casseroles with tons of cheese, Kringles, mixed fruit. Last year, once, I brought steel-cut oats in a crock pot, along with some items to top it with. This morning, I’m bringing the crock pot again, this time filled with warm fall fruits and walnuts. I hope it works out; I should know better than to try out an untested recipe or preparation on other folks, but I didn’t get up the energy to make it for the family earlier. Smells good, though. I can’t decide if I need to go add more liquid or not…

It’s funny how you can go from being so on your game to being completely flummoxed, and then back again within a single day, or even hours – or minutes! – isn’t it? Right now, these days, I feel like I’m doing an excellent job parenting Sam, but my skills with Gabe? Half the time, I feel like I want to crawl in a hole and hide when other people witness me trying to mother him. He’s nuts! Now, as usual, I hear from his teachers and caregivers that he’s just fine for them, but the moment I appear, he starts going berserk, throwing things, running away, cackling and hooting like a madman. I can’t get through to him! He turns off all receptors for me, just spinning crazily around me and being a wildman. Sam, on the other hand, is definitely having his moments, but I can handle them; he gets angsty, but it’s a very short-lived thing, and I can almost always say to myself, “This is only going to last five minutes, tops; keep your cool!” After the angst bubble bursts, his inner pendulum swings back into sweetness and honest remorse for anything he said in anger. With Gabe, there is no predictable pendulum, no way to pace myself. He goes to eleven, if you know what I mean.

The scary part is that in three years, when Gabe is (hopefully!) hitting the easier stage at which Sam is currently, Sam may be nearing puberty, which could well be even more terrifying. It never eases up, does it?

Hmph. Where did my coffee go? Why is this mug empty? Bah.

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Lady next to me at the coffee shop is working my nerves. She has a book, but every few seconds, she stops to lift her head and stare at me. I’m simply not that interesting, and it makes me want to stop and yell, “WHAT?!” when she does it.

In other news, Gabe apparently informed the kids in his preschool class that Eric and I are vampires. One mom had to grab me this morning at drop-off and introduce me to her little girl, who was frightened. Oh, Gabe…mind you, this is the same kid who kept flashing his light in people’s eyes at the candlelight hike this weekend (oh, such fun! I have to get back there to run those grassy trails!) and only stopped when he’d reassured himself that they weren’t aliens. He confessed that near the end, and it busted up the Earthmen who happened to be passing us at the moment and who’d passed the test of planetary orientation, I suppose. There’s really never a boring moment.

Sam and I are diving into the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series; we tried it a while back, and it didn’t capture him, but this time it has. Well, it took convincing; his teacher wants him reading to us about 20 minutes a night, and last night he decided that all the books at his reading level on our shelves were crap. Tears and shrieking ensued before Eric finally stepped in and convinced him to give it a shot. Five minutes later, Sam was apologizing and full of remorse for his overreaction. Love that about him; like me, he tends to blow up quickly and cool down just as fast, and he’s usually able then to realistically grasp what happened and what he did right or wrong. I know adults who have trouble with that.

If it stays this cloudy and dark all day, I’m thinking soup for dinner. Chicken noodle for the kids? Squash for us? Needs thought.

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This morning, I took my usual Sunday bike ride, and I managed to get all the way up into South Milwaukee before having to turn around to get home in time to be ready for church. I didn’t feel like I was pushing a lot harder than usual, but I averaged an extra mile per hour for the ride than I usually maintain, and my quads were feeling it for a few hours afterward. Sadly, I didn’t leave myself enough time to make my coffee, so the harder-than-usual ride plus no caffeine led to a sleeeeeeepy morning in the pews. Sorry, Pastor, if I yawned a bit; I promise, I did absorb everything you were saying!

Eric went on his own bike ride this afternoon. We’re trying a new schedule to incorporate more endurance training for him, too, and I think it’s going to work, but it’ll take tinkering. One thing I’m planning: on Mondays, since he’ll work out after work and therefore get home late, I’ll use the time to prepare a groovy meal for just him and me and not have to worry about it being “kid-friendly.” Heck, it may even “backfire”; if the boys see Mom and Dad having a “treat,” a special meal that they don’t get to share, maybe they’ll start taking an interest in it, as a whole forbidden fruit sort of deal. Ooh, food with sauces…

Speaking of interesting food, Eric is doing this with dough as I type. Glad it’s him; if it was me making that bowl of soupy dough, I’d totally have chickened out by now.

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(Something tells me that movie made something of an impression on Sam, since he only watched it once or twice, at least a year ago. Or maybe Eric and I have quoted it around him once…or twice…)

Tonight’s dinner is experimental. The boys won’t touch it, I know, so they got orzo with cheese and asparagus; I’m nibbling on the asparagus while I cook a pumpkin saag, based on the Veganomicon recipe, only with chard and slightly different seasonings. Heck, this recipe is just lucky I couldn’t time the roasting of the beets I’m also doing to coincide with the pumpkin’s finishing time, or else there’d be those in there, too. Very experimental. Eric is playing Scrabble tonight, so I’m the only one to witness either the success or epic fail. I’ll have it over the last of the orzo, for purely authentic what-on-earth. I’ve been enjoying The Man Who Ate the World quite a lot, and the desire for the new has seized me – even if I don’t have access to blowfish sperm at my local grocer.

Later…
This might have been better before I added the chard. It was smelling and looking pretty good. Still cooking.

Still later…
No, sir, it isn’t great. The chard is way more, well, “chardy” than spinach would have been “spinachy,” despite my best efforts. My excuse is that the whole reason for the dish is that I had the chard, and it needed to be used before it went bad. Well, it’s been used, and it’s certainly edible, so I guess we’ll call it a success in that respect – if in not many others. If Eric had been here, he could have saved it, I’m sure, but he’d have done it with seeds and other things that aren’t even labeled in their containers, so I wasn’t going to try that route.

Oh, well. Tomorrow’s another day. Gabe’s first day of school, in fact, so I have other reasons to remain optimistic.

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Soup, then.

Confession: I can’t ever just add the amount of garlic that a recipe recommends. If it says “two cloves,” you can bet there’s at least three or four in there. You ever come to my house to eat, and I’m cooking, and you don’t like garlic? Better let me know ahead of time.

In other news, it was all rainy this morning, and I liked it, because it suited my mood at the moment: tired, slow, a little pensive. Now the sun’s out, and the kids are celebrating, because that suits their moods, which makes me feel all irritated. Bring back my clouds! I want the sound of raindrops hitting the porch and roof! I want a cool, damp breeze blowing in my screen, wafting the smells of onion and garlic around me. I think…I want fall.

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Sam doesn’t want to hear my explanations about how this is all part of growing up, because, as I’ve mentioned, he doesn’t want or plan to do that. Grow up, I mean. He’s still this kid, two years after I recorded it:

(Sheesh, look at Gabe!)

We’re going out tonight to get him some new pants, since he’s rocking the Pee-Wee Herman look lately. (I pulled up the old Tequila scene to show him what I meant, and he watched it with raised eyebrows, just taking it in with solemn bemusement; suddenly, I felt really, really old, imagining the same thoughts going through his head that went through mine when Dad would listen to “old guy” radio in the car.) He’s pessimistic, though.

ME: “So, where do you think you want to go?”
SAM: “Um. Not Sears…”
ME: “Okay. What brought it to mind, then?”
SAM: “They had a commercial. They have all ‘rocker clothes’ that I don’t really like.”
ME: “Maybe you should tell me what you do like.”
SAM: “Um. Nature clothes? Things with animals on them.”

Somehow, I doubt he’s talking about alligator shirts. My big kid still wants to wear the adorable jungle prints of his toddler years. I hope to be able to find some more conservative clothes that won’t make him feel rushed into the teen world; I think that’s what he means by “rocker clothes.” In anticipation of his frustration, I’m already secretly planning an ice cream consolation prize for after our efforts tonight. A kiddie cone somehow manages to make almost everybody feel small again.

I booked my flight for Marine Corps. Looks like I’ll be hitting DC around 10:30 AM on Saturday, October 24th, racing on Sunday, and then hanging around with the folks there in town until my 6:30 PM flight on Monday. Not looking forward to flying on my own (which I’ve never, ever done; I’m as scared of missing the flight or ending up on the wrong one as I am of crashing and burning…); is it odd that the marathon seems like small potatoes compared to the travel?

We also booked our hotel for our mini-vacation to Green Bay next weekend. It even has a tiny little water park in it, as well as a hot tub in our room! And the price isn’t obscene, for that! There looks to be a ton of things to do in the town while we’re there (not a tourist attraction, but I can’t wait to eat at this place), though we learned from last year’s Dells trip that keeping no plans at all is what works best for us for now. If we leave the hotel at all, and nobody is shrieking about it, we’re ahead of the game. (Hence our desire for the hot tub and the water park that don’t require travel beyond crossing the hotel grounds.)

Of course, between now and then is my tooth extraction. Focusing on the other side of that particular event is what is keeping me sane right now. That, and these cookies.

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I’ve been eyeing this hat at Copacetic for a month or two, and I finally bit the bullet and got it. It’s specifically designed for running! I’ve actually been pretty lucky so far this summer not to have gotten burned while running, primarily because most of my runs have been pre-dawn or in the first hour or so of daylight, but I’ll feel better having this hat in my arsenal for the occasions where that’s not the case. Besides, I don’t have to use it just for that purpose. I wore it out a couple of times so far, and, dude, in combination with my sunglasses, I feel positively shaded. Why did I and my pale skin and blond retinas wait so long?! I could use another couple, for when this one’s in the wash!

We went out and did Sam’s school shopping this afternoon. Predictably, there were a few squabbles, mostly over a pencil sharpener he really wanted but which wasn’t on his list. Kid, at least ten percent of your teacher’s complaints last year surrounded you fidgeting with things in your desk, and many of those incidents involved your pencil sharpener. If this teacher doesn’t specifically request that you have one, then we’re sidestepping that trap altogether! He still needs a few new items of clothing and some gym shoes, but we’ll do that when Gabe isn’t a complicating factor; he also needs a new lunchbox, having beaten the bejeezus out of his old metal one. Land’s End is running a sale on one that will hold his current water bottle nicely, and I have a coupon for free shipping, so we might go that route if I don’t find something better locally (the pickings are fairly sour, from what I’ve seen). I have no idea or recollection of what Gabe will need; there’s a school open house in a couple of weeks (the week before his school starts), so if I don’t hear anything before then, I’ll at least have a cushion after that to scramble for those items.

Ouch. My lips are burning from the pepper I put on my sandwich at lunch. Every time it dies away, I mindlessly touch my mouth, and the oils around my nails from chopping it up start the burn anew. If I were smart, I’d go wash my hands, especially before I rub my eyes or something, but… We have a bunch of peppers that need used up fairly quickly; what would be a good trick for that? (Putting them into salsa, for example, might not work because I probably wouldn’t work through it any faster than I will the whole peppers.) Cucumbers, too; Eric’s dad brought us a whole bunch of pickling cucumbers, and all the uses I’m finding call for English cucumbers that are somewhat sweeter. I don’t love pickles that much, and Eric hasn’t shown enthusiasm for making anything beyond the refrigerator pickles that take up valuable fridge real estate. And then there’s the corn, which both Ronnie and I purchased accidentally and which my boys (gasp!) don’t love, or at least not on the cob…

Sam is outside with my old digital camera, experimenting. He was feeling sad that his neighborhood friend hasn’t come out to play, so I sent him on his way with it. Wonder what he’ll return home to show me?

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(Sorry, a little Westing Game reference.)

So I had a fridge slightly brimming with leftovers, and the groceries are being delivered this afternoon in preparation for a visit from my father-in-law. Clearly, something needed to be done. Of course, for most folks, cleaning up might have been higher on the list than, say, making a GIANT PURPLE MESS in the kitchen, but what can I say? I gotta be me.

What to do with a bag of leftover roasted beets? I didn’t feel like just eating them, though they’re quite tasty with honey or masala curry spices. I wanted something a little different – something (dare I say it?) that the children might actually be willing to eat. Pink pankcakes? Well, maybe, but they use so little puree and make so many that the diner winds up consuming about a quarter-serving of beets. Beet gnocchi? Tempting, tempting!

(...)
Read the rest of Purple waves… (82 words)

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Yesterday evening, I went out for French food with Eric, including awesome wine, and this afternoon, we’re all heading to Taste of Wisconsin (after the Pike River Rendezvous), and it’s possible we could even wind up at Classic Slice for dinner, depending on how the day turns out (it’s near the co-op we just joined, and Eric wanted to go check it out) and whether we’re running behind on everything and run out of good cooking time.

I have a headband I wear when running sometimes that reads “I RUN SO I CAN EAT.” It’s silly, but, honestly, not 100% untrue.

From left to right: our appetizer (a cheese and fruit platter), my caramelized goat cheese and onion ravioli, and Eric’s veal meatloaf. I don’t know how I managed to skip taking a picture of our dessert, Oeufs a la Neige.

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I could have put this over at the foodie blog, but I want to share the love far and wide. I Twittered about doing this yesterday, and I got mixed reactions of horror and intrigue. Mind, it’s far from my own original idea! Near as I can tell, the first person to blog it may have been Polly, but it’s been adopted by many people across the net, and I was eager to try it myself.

Spinach oats.

Now, now, I need to be crystal clear: it does NOT taste like spinach. That big handful of spinach leaves that I blended to bits in my pot of oat bran and sliced banana just…vanished! The oats were dyed green, and all the nutrition stuck around, but the flavor? Gone. And I was more than prepared for a spinach taste to remain, as I love spinach and would have been fine with then searching out a way to flavor the bowl to complement a more savory profile. Nope! No “green” taste at all! Yesterday, I then added some pumpkin, granola, and walnuts; today, as pictured, I added cherries and blueberries, ricotta cheese, and slivered almonds.

In fact, I’d say that the bigger adjustment I had to make was getting used to the oat bran I prepared in place of my usual steel-cut oats – an unnecessary change for the addition of spinach, but a choice I made based on finding a big bag of bran at my health food store. They’re very nutritious, and they cook up super fast! But they are much stickier than regular oats, which Eric, for one, found disagreeable; he plans to mix oats with oat bran, rather than have straight bran in his bowl. I don’t mind the new texture a bit, so I’m happy to have an alternative cereal choice for days when I’m more pressed for time.

Anyway, why not give it a shot? I promise, if you like oatmeal, you will like spinach oats. Heck, eat ‘em in the dark if the color freaks you out.

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Of course, we still have plans. I need to do the farmers’ market this morning, and I think I’ll take them to the library on Friday afternoons throughout the summer, based on the emptiness of the day. There’s also a free concert on Friday afternoons downtown, but Sam made a face when I mentioned that, so I doubt we’ll stick around for it. We’ll see.

Forgot to mention that my appointment with my new/old doctor went really, really well. She really couldn’t tell me much more beyond what I already knew, but she listened a lot more, and she brought in another athletic doctor who also listened a lot, and they both agreed that my issue has to do with the weight loss finally catching up to me – or, rather, that the rest of my body is trying to catch up to the weight loss. She wrote me scripts for a pelvic ultrasound (to make sure that the endometrial lining is as it should be) and for a bone density scan, since a big problem with amenorrhea is bone loss. If both tests are normal, we’ll do a wait-and-see, and if I haven’t gone back to normal in a year, we’ll do another bone density scan. The male doc suggested using birth control pills to regulate my cycles, but I’m reluctant to do that, and they didn’t seem concerned that I didn’t want to go that route.

One thing they also suggested was having my body fat tested; if it’s under 15%, apparently, that’s sort of a threshold point where it would pinpoint definitively why I’m not cycling. You need fat over that point, I guess. I have no idea what my level is, and it’s difficult for me to tell, since I have loose skin that would make calipers all but useless. A local facility has a different method of testing that my doctor says would be accurate, so I might give that a shot. The male doc surprised me by saying that, just to his eyes and without me standing or being undressed, he’d guess that I’m not far from that point, based on my shoulders, neck, and chest (I was wearing a spaghetti-strapped sundress). I don’t believe that one lick, honestly, since I’m really more bottom-heavy. Still, knowledge is power, right?

The heat broke this morning, though it was more of a slow bending than a break. My 4:30 run was still very warm, and I came back inside covered in white pellets of salt, but it’s not supposed to get a whole lot warmer than that all day, and it’ll cool from there a bit. Summery, yes, but a Wisconsin summer!

In the heat yesterday, I prepped a chilled carrot and parsnip soup (didn’t wind up eating it, as it didn’t have enough time to chill fully before dinner), and the tastes I nipped of it were good. We’ll have it tonight with grilled Cornish hens, roasted beets, and the beet greens. I’ve been cutting back on meat to only about once a week (usually on the weekends), and I’ve got to start clearing the frozen meat out of the freezer – need to make room for casseroles, soups, and baked goods!

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I didn’t even try to surprise Eric, since I usually fail at it. Sam mentioned the idea of getting him a new mixer, and I decided to explore that. A little searching led to a sale on refurbished mixers with higher wattage, and after checking with Eric to make sure it would be exactly what would serve him best, I leapt on one, even scoring a coupon for free shipping (on a very heavy package!).

That’s the old one on the left. It still works, for the most part (though a bit roughly and loudly), so we’re searching for a good home for it. The new one has yet to be christened – got to find just the right idea to start. The first mixer made her maiden voyage with Eric’s Chinese dumplings, so maybe we could do a repeat performance of that.

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Meh. I’m just feeling out of sorts today. Had horrendous stomach cramps last night after dinner, and while they were gone by the time I woke this morning, I still had a blah kind of run. Was intended to be a tempo run – slower warm-up and cool-down, with twenty minutes of race pace in the middle – and it was that, but the slow felt very slow, and the fast felt sluggish to me, like running through wet concrete. Oh, well.

I have a doctor’s appointment this morning that I’ve been dreading and delaying, but it really shouldn’t be put off any longer, so duly I trudge office-ward. Without getting too much into details (and wasn’t I the one who referenced Colon Blow cereal yesterday?), let’s just say that systems that should be working like clockwork (presuming a really, really big clock with a dial spanning about four weeks) aren’t. I figured I’d give it a month past the marathon to fix itself, but it hasn’t. Hurrah. Let’s hope there’s a simple answer and, more importantly, a simple solution?

I made cookies yesterday that Gabe won’t touch. That’s flattering. I guess they’re too obviously wholesome for his tastes; even with the carob chips, there’s visible FRUIT in there, and that’s just unacceptable! Sam says he likes them, but he’s unreliable as a food critic…and he hasn’t gone back for a second one. Eric said, “Not bad.” Sigh! Anybody local want some cookies? I don’t feel up to consuming them all myself before they go stale. I promise, they’re decent; I even used real butter this time instead of subbing in flaxseed meal.

Tomorrow is the choir potluck, and we’re signed up to bring a “hot dish.” We still have no idea what it will be; we’re not really the casserole type to any extent. Also, we don’t want to kill off half the choristers via flaming esophagi, so that eliminates a segment of our repertoire, right off the bat…

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Then, yesterday, while I was having the insurance exam physical and I had to leave the room to use the bathroom, he seized the opportunity to confide to the paramedic administering the exam that “Mommy is making me gather up all my toys so we can get rid of them.” This, mind you, is his interpretation of the fact that we’ve discussed having a yard sale to weed through things that have been outgrown. Actually, having a toy sale component of the yard sale was his idea! He even suggested making signs for it: “THESE TOYS ARE ALL FOR SALE.” But, of course, that wouldn’t have been as dramatic a tale to give to a stranger, so…

He’s going to get more attention than he planned, one of these days.

Eric’s making ravioli tonight, sauced with some of the leftover red pepper sauce he made for pizza. I’ll probably write about it here.

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Fasting for the exam did not make me smile, but my scrambled eggs with scallions and peppers that I made after we were done? That did, as did the coffee I’d been craving since waking.

And this:

…Well, it might look mysterious and not so exciting to most, but it’s a four-day-old starter for sourdough! It smells deliciously fruity. Tomorrow I’ll feed it some more flour, sugar, and milk! Eric remains dubious. I just wish it would be ready in time for me to make some bread with it for my babysitting friend, but, alas, it won’t be mature by then. Oh, but I don’t need reasons to spoil people with bread!

I have fresh pink Kalanchoes in bloom on my dining room table.

I’m experimenting with a chickpea and caper salad for dinner tonight.

I bought a domain and can’t wait to put it to use.

The sun is shining, and I don’t need to wear a heavy sweater anymore.

What’s got you smiling today?

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So! What should I make for her?
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Please feel free to elaborate (what kind of cookies/cake/muffins/bread/whatever?) in the comments!

We’re going to take the train into Chicago and walk around, just hanging out together.

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But today! Today was different! (Odd how that always seems to happen the morning after I have some red wine. ) I woke up before the alarm, got out and – crossing my fingers – attempted the mile repeats that were so painful last week…and rocked ‘em! No pain, lots of fun! Rawr! Came home, showered, and had possibly the best bowl of oatmeal I’ve had in my life! Added Grape Nuts, banana, walnuts, a little milk, some ricotta cheese, and a splash of sugar-free caramel coffee syrup. I melted with the first bite! Then Eric and I skipped The Love Dare in favor of spending the time in each others’ arms.

So far, this has been the best day I’ve had since the marathon, and possibly one of the best for the YEAR.

And here in a bit, I’m going to take Gabe out and select the tree that will finally serve to replace the one we took down a few years ago. We want something smaller, prettier, and – if the rest of the family has their way; I don’t care, myself – potentially fruit-bearing. Then the two of us get to get all down and dirty to plant the thing. Fun times – and, amazingly, I’m not feeling sarcastic when I’m saying that.

I hope I’m not blowing all my “good day” karma on today. Sure feels like I could be!

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Tonight I made a white bean soup. I’d have pictures, but it was so delicious that it was almost entirely gone before I thought of it. It was a pureed soup, so although Sam’s enjoyed bean soups in the past, I wasn’t sure how this one would go over; I mean, it was essentially a pot full of velvety white gravy-like liquid, and gravies have never been his thing. So I brought him in and had him taste it – and he actually danced. Loved it! Then I let him read the ingredient list – a dangerous step, but calculated – and he was stunned that it had onions in it, when he swore he hated them. Many kids might have switched their opinions of the soup, but Sam actually rejoiced all the more at discovering that he didn’t hate onions, after all. Hurray!

(In case you’re curious, the recipe was very simple. White beans, cooked (3/4 cup) and set aside; two onions, 4 celery stalks, and a parsnip sauteed together in a little canola oil; beans added to the veggies, with a quart of stock; mixture simmered until veggies are soft, then pureed and reheated. Season with salt and pepper; garnish with cilantro and paprika.)

But my sweet child has been having behavior “issues” again, and again I find myself confused and unsure. Instinctively, I find myself in his corner, because hey! He’s a seven-year-old kid, and seven-year-olds wiggle in their seats! It’s not like he’s shooting spitballs or putting tacks on chairs! On the other hand, intellectually, I know that I need to work with him on focus and concentration, because this isn’t something that can continue, and I see it in person when I do violin lessons with him. The other kids sit and listen; Sam taps his bow on the floor, plays air guitar, examines his hands…

There’s a time and a place for goofiness, and he’s having difficulty discerning when it’s the wrong time. How does one teach that? Rhetorical question, that; I know that if there were an easy answer, we’d have a darn sight fewer behavior issues in schools. I also know that I was that kid, too, and I outgrew it…though not without several years pretty much an entire elementary school career’s worth of tormenting my mom and teachers. Is that what we’re going to have to endure? Because it didn’t look like fun from my mom’s end of things. Then again, Sam may be me, but I was not my mom, at least then. Should it be easier on me…or harder?

I just need to survive mostly sane, because you can place your bets now on how it’s going to be when mini-Eric hits the school years. Today, he was eating a scone, and I asked him if it was yummy. “Yes, it is. Do you have any more questions?”

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I can’t help it. They’re fun to peruse, studying the ingredient lists to see what would be feasibly attempted without additional shopping; it’s entertaining to piece together entire menus full of dishes that I’ve never made but which sound intriguing. Lately, it’s become even more fun to see which meals include ingredients I’ve never tried (even basic ones; I only recently started eating cottage cheese!), and which ones will be both nourishing and drool-worthy.

Back on Earth Day, people were twittering about what they do, or were planning to do, to be more earth-conscious. I’d seen the stats trotted out about how if everybody in the US went vegetarian for one meal a week, it would have enormous positive impact on the environment, so I considered doing that. And then, after consideration, I realized that we already do that. Well, how about another meal added? How about going veg one day a week?

I like vegetables an awful lot. I even have a number of ways that I enjoy preparing them, outside of boring old steaming or boiling. But, as with meat, I do find myself getting a bit restless. Eric’s very good at experimentation in the kitchen, but while I can do some of that with baking, I find it less intuitive for cooking and meal preparation. Hence…cookbooks.

We are not, as I said, vegetarians. As of today, though, I will be studying and working from my two new cookbooks:

Quick Vegetarian Pleasures looks like a simple go-to book for fast meals or dishes. The recipes are plainly assembled, and the ingredients are mostly common. Flipping through at random (mmm, polenta with spicy eggplant sauce…), I see very few items I don’t have on hand, and many of those are just because I don’t typically keep heavy cream or many different oils around for use.

Veganomicon: “…But just to be safe, don’t read this cookbook backward at the stroke of midnight.” Now, how could I resist? I compared it, talking to Eric, to his beloved Joy of Cooking, in that there’s a heck of a lot of assistance given beyond the selection of recipes. How to cook various grains, veggies, and beans; what to stock in your pantry; and really helpful tips and information about various ingredients in individual recipes. The recipes themselves look more complicated than in Pleasures, but they’re not obscenely so; any cookbook with full pages of ingredients gets put back on the shelf with no further glance, as far as I’m concerned, and there are plenty of recipes in Veganomicron that top out at five or six. I love that there are little icons indicating which recipes are low-fat, gluten or soy-free, prepped in under 45 minutes, or “supermarket friendly.” It’s possible, in the end, that I could have been persuaded solely by the White Bean Aioli; Eric loves aioli, but as an anti-mayonnaise-ite, I’ve remained opposed. Now I can join him!

If I make any real winners over the next few days, I’ll be sure to post. Looking forward to this!

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Also stirring that compulsion is that I don’t feeeeel good [sniffle]. *Coughswineflucough* No, really, I’m just hoping it’s not the Post-Marathon Sick that strikes down a whopping large sector of people who run long. You tend to not get sick during training, but right afterward, it whaps you upside the head. Um, sort of like the clothes iron I accidentally pulled down onto my right temple yesterday while trying to organize a closet. Well, maybe that explains the headache, but it wouldn’t cover the slightly runny nose or the touch of a sore throat. Never mind, though; the cookies will heal. Yes, they will.

And I got to run today, so that’s good. IT band pulled a touch during the second mile, but I have faith that continued stretching will bring it back in line.

With that, I think I’ve successfully emptied all that was in my mind. Cookies, running, and sick [achoo]. I think I need a nap.

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So I made steel-cut oats in the crockpot for this morning, complete with raisins, and they were delicious. Even Sam enjoyed a bowl, which he topped with more dried fruit and a banana. But there were a ton leftover, since I apparently lack the ability to figure out the quantity of dry oats necessary to feed one adult and one child (or, for that matter, any other number of diners of any age; I’m really winging it over here, folks). Last time I did this, I made bread. This time, my freezer stash of muffins happened to be dwindling, so I decided to replenish that.

I opted not to follow any particular recipe this time, as an eventual goal of mine is to be able to bake “off-book.” I perused a few muffin recipes and came up with my own strategy:

Dry ingredients:

• Flours – half whole-wheat and half cake. I used 1 cup of each.
• Sweetener – Splenda Baking Mix. Half a cup.
• Things to make it rise. 2 teaspoons each of baking soda and baking powder.
• Salt. 1 teaspoon.

Wet ingredients:

• The oatmeal. I had about 2.5 cups.
• Oil – applesauce. I used 1 cup of unsweetened.
• Fat – Egg Beaters. Two eggs worth (6 tablespoons) of the whites-only version.
• Extra flavoring – maple syrup. Sugar-free, 2 teaspoons.

Extras:

• Raisins. About 3/4 cup, what was in the oatmeal.
• Dark Chocolate chunks. I had a 3-ounce bar that included espresso beans.

Stir together dry ingredients; mix together (separately) the wets. Add wet to dry, mix just until moistened. Throw in chocolate last. Bake at 350 degrees for about 18 minutes. My amounts made 24 of the most absolutely moist muffins I’ve had in my life. Seriously, were they any more moist, I’d say I needed to add more flour, but as they are, they’re just perfect! The applesauce just shines through, and the chocolate isn’t overpowering, but provides a nice contrast. And, to boot, they’re less than 120 calories each. Win!

(Gabe won’t even try them. Pbbbbbt. More for me! )

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Doesn’t help when wrenches are thrown into the few plans I’m actually almost able to see through to fruition. Last night, Eric came through the door as I was taking dinner out of the oven, and he announced that he wanted to go out for Japanese. Sam leaped on that like a cat on a bacon-wrapped mouse (do cats like bacon? I do.), and I swiftly wound up packing up the dinner and heading out the door. Mind you, that was an entirely welcome little wrench. Eric took the high road and ordered hibachi so that Sam could have it (they don’t tend to allow parties to have only one member request to fire up the hibachi grill, especially when that one member is still regularly offered crayons at many places), but he spent the evening gazing enviously at my purty little plate of sashimi. “Mommy likes fish!” the chef crowed to Sam, who politely edged away from my ika. Yum.

This morning, I did about four and a half miles, and I somehow did sub-eight-minute paces for each of them. Milestone, dude.

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned that Eric is traveling to freaking Mexico next week. My poor kids; Mama’s going taper-crazy, and they won’t have Daddy around to buffer them through the worst of it. He’ll be back on Friday night, just in time for the race the next day. I don’t think I have to tell you what will happen to my head if his plane is delayed. Only worse timing I can picture would have had him MIA for the race itself.

I’d like to use up a bag of black beans tonight. Enchiladas? Burgers? Hmm. Not that the kids (at least Gabe) are likely to touch any of it, but I can try. I could also do a soup; I discovered that an acorn squash makes a divine little soup bowl and turns almost any soup or stew into heaven.

Sam finished Bible Blast for another year.

This year, he got two trophies: the participation one, and one for doing well on all the quizzes. Gabe is technically eligible to start doing Bible Blast next year, too, but we’ll wait until the end of summer to decide whether he’s up for the challenge of staying calm and focused that much. Mostly, kids start in kindergarten, but there are a handful of four-year-olds in there, as well. (The learning requirements are scaled by age, so he’d have easier questions and memorization than Sam, although they’d be using the same materials and covering the same basics.) It might make for a nice way to incorporate the whole family into the studying. We have time to decide, though.

It’s a lovely day (warmish weather; I’m wearing a skirt!), and Gabe and I will take a walk in a bit. Rain for the next four days, though, and as of now, they’re calling for showers on marathon day…

I think I used up my parentheses allotment in this entry. Better stop now.

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Yesterday was a gorgeous day, and it was 47 degrees at 6 AM, so I wore a new pair of running shorts to test them out. They worked well.

We finally bought a dishwasher today. I think it was a Whirlpool? I can’t remember. White, and it’ll hold my dishes. Eric handled the details, once I ascertained that it looked decent, was Energy Star whatever, and fit the price range I had figured. I’m not hard to please. Now, if we’d been oven shopping, it would have been another matter. So long as my dishes are clean and my hands can not resemble prunes for large portions of the day, I’m good.

I’m super-jealous of everybody running Boston tomorrow. I’ll be there in spirit.

Yesterday having been warm – seventy-some degrees in the afternoon! – I put on shorts…and discovered that I wasn’t as small last summer as I thought I was. Whoops. Had to locate my belt again and make another shopping list. But it’s rainy and more seasonably cool today, and it’ll stay that way for a while, so it’s not a pressing issue. I had to take a shawl to church, which I’d been wishing I’d done for every service for a while. Church is always especially cold. I told Eric I ought to buy a Snuggie and store it under a pew.

Well into my taper now. Only short runs this week, with a “long” run of eight miles on Saturday. This is ridiculous, feels excessive, and my next training program won’t include a three-week-long taper, I can guarantee.

Where’s my cookbook?

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Made cupcakes with the boys this morning – reduced sugar cake, reduced sugar frosting. Reduced sugar taste. And they stuck massively to the liners. The boys don’t care, but I won’t be tempted to eat many.

On the other hand, I got a package from a swap partner this afternoon, all the way from the UK, and it contained this and this. Excuse me while I hide them from the kids…they can eat the cupcakes, you know.

I’m grilling out tonight. Hot dogs, baked potatoes, possibly some leeks or whatever else I find to throw on there. Very simple. Anybody care to join us?

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Run today was just so-so. What with my stuffy head, the cold gusting wind, my shoes refusing to stay tied (don’t ask why I didn’t double-knot them; I have no answer except “SNARRRRRRL!”), and some little yappy dog that wasn’t leashed and whose owner was probably lounging comfortably inside their house, I was kept going by sheer force of “if it’s going to be bad, might as well get my money’s worth.” For a moment, when I opened the window and got hit with that first blast of blowing rain, I almost decided on the gym and the treadmill, but then I remembered that A) the gym didn’t open for another hour, and B) It Could Be Just Like This On Race Day. (Have I mentioned that that’s one of my mantras these days? Well, it is, along with HTHU: Harden the Heck Up.)

Aaaaaaand I just spilled coffee down my front. Considering that I already managed to spill coffee beans (unground, thankfully) all over the kitchen counter this morning, I’m dying to see what exploit I’ll manage next. Ooh, ooh! Can it involve Sam’s violin class this afternoon? ‘Cause that’s already a whole bunch of fun; it needs more awesome-sauce on top.

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Funny part was when Sam saw the video, heard me talking to him, and fell for it. “I was there? You said my name! When did we have a wolf?” Small, gullible kids mollify me when my jokes aren’t bought by other people. Yesterday morning, I woke up Sam by saying, “Why did you go back to bed?! Get up! It’s dinner time, and we’ll be late for Bible Blast!” For a good ten minutes, he was believing he’d managed to completely forget an entire day of school somehow – until I had him check the calendar, then stared meaningfully at him for a bit. Then he was mad, so I pranked Gabe for a while (“There’s a mouse on your head! Ooh, he just ran down your shoulder – he’s in your ear!”) to cheer Sam up and get him into the spirit of the holiday. Worked like a charm. I hope my kids carry the spirit of playfulness with them forever.

In the time that I was offline, we had plumbers out to the house again. Started running the dishwasher, only to hear Eric call from the basement that water was streaming from the ceiling. Plumber said it was the dishwasher, not the pipes; repairman said that there was a leak around the motor, but that the dishwasher was so old (possibly about 15 years) that repairing it wasn’t worth the cost of a new one. So we’re appliance shopping. Feel my enthusiasm? Yup. But I loathe doing dishes by hand, so it must be done. I’m a very grumpy girl at the moment, and one with dishpan hands already.

Oh, but we made Dirt Cake for preschool. That was a fun diversion.

And I registered for the Marine Corps Marathon yesterday! I’ll be bouncing around over that for a while. Have to get into planning now, though; I think we’re driving down, but when? And where to stay? (Around my folks for a bit, but we’ll need to stay in DC at least the night before.) And, most importantly, who will I be able to meet up with while I’m there, at least for lunch or something?

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Last night was chaotic. I had originally planned on briefly enjoying Sam’s Safari Night, then taking the family out to Jimmy John’s for subs for dinner. Well, the “tasting menu” for the night wound up being a largish buffet, and, well, NOM NOM NOM. As much as I like the Unwiches at JJ’s, I’m am so much more a fan of foreign cuisine, and there were stews! And a peanut soup! And noodles! And, and, and…well, I decided it was dinner, and I enjoyed. Gabe did, too – to the tune of about five bananas and a whole bunch of bread. Sam and Eric ate lightly, but every time he evaded our sight, Sam was drinking another cup of proffered juice (it was hot in the crowd), so he upset his stomach that way. By the time we were leaving, Gabe was bonkers, Sam was irritable, Eric was grouchy (he hates crowds), and I just wanted to send everybody to corners for towel-offs and a break. Gabe wound up with an early bedtime; Sam suddenly remembered a homework assignment he hadn’t even begun, so he roped Eric into helping with that. I snacked. Gah.

On SparkPeople, one of my teams has started a message thread about weight loss/maintenance for runners. I asked about the whole evening snack thing this morning, since it looks like it’s just the way of life that I’m going to get peckish a couple of hours after dinner, but I don’t want to just head for sugar like I seem to do. Another runner, though, advised me that it may be exactly what I need, considering that I then get up very early and run most mornings; I often do that before breakfast, and my body might have adjusted to craving the sugar I need to fuel those runs before I go to sleep.

Well, fine. But I think we can do better than a microwaved Pepperidge Farm cookie, in that case.

I sort of cobbled together various muffin techniques with some healthier ingredients, and came up with these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip muffins. Le yum. For the record, I intend to freeze these, so I can have them as I see fit instead of needing to see them gone over the next couple of days.

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::scrambling to find something else to feed them::

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So Wednesday nights have officially become “improvise nights” with regards to dinner. Last week, I ordered pizza, timed to arrive at the beginning of that hour. This week, it’s Lentil Chili in the crockpot. (I have no delusions that Sam and Gabe will enjoy or even try this, so there will also be salad and some leftovers available to them. Nothing terribly fancy, though, as I do want to encourage them to at least try the chili. Sam is doing his best to become a fan of beans, so he was already intrigued by the lentils, but the large amount of tomatoes and onion will likely scare him off. But darn it, I wanted to try this, and I get to do that once in a while!) As a side note, I find it funny that two of the five reviews mentioned adding meat or a meat replacement to the recipe – can’t have chili without it, I guess! I’m not adding any meat, but I plan to top it with a bit of cheese, so I guess that blows the “vegan-ness” out of the water.

I’m feeling odd today. This morning, I went on my run earlier than usual; last night’s forecast was wishy-washy about whether there’d be rain this morning, so when I woke early and it was dry out, I got out as fast as I could. (Now the rain has been pushed back to noon, of course.) It was very dark and early, therefore, when I was coming down a somewhat major in-town road and saw ahead of me in the streetlamps a man, weaving wildly across the sidewalk. He was so drunk, it was patently obvious from a quarter-mile away; it was a miracle he was upright. Had I been a man…larger, stronger, more intimidating…I’d have stopped. I had a cell phone. I could have seen if there was somebody to call for him, someone who could come get him. But I’m not a man, or even a large and intimidating woman. And so, instincts buzzing, I crossed the road and turned. He called out to me: “Hey-eeeeeeeey…” in what I think was supposed to be an enticing way; I kept going.

I don’t know. Later, over breakfast, it occurred to me that perhaps I should have called the non-emergency police number. It was after 5 o’clock when I saw him, and traffic was beginning to pick up; this guy could easily have wandered off the sidewalk and in front of a car. Eric pointed out that if the police had sent somebody, the drunk would probably have been arrested. That’s not what I would have wanted; I just wished somebody could have shepherded him to a safer location, preferably with a bed and a nearby bucket. “Saint Patrick’s Day brings out the amateur drinkers,” Eric mused. I sort of hope that’s the case, and not that this guy lives like that full-time.

What would you have done?

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As of 10:30 this morning…

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GABE: “Mom. I told you I just wanted cheese on my burger.”
ME: “…there’s just cheese on it.”
GABE: “But what’s under the cheese?”
ME: “A burger? Bread?”
GABE: “And I didn’t want them!”
ME: “…you didn’t want a burger on your burger? Gabe, you are bizarre.”
GABE: “‘Bizarre’ means ‘scary.’”
ME: “No, it means ‘strange.’”
GABE: “Oh. That’s bizarre!”

Whatever. Mine was better.

With onions and mushrooms, cooked with turmeric, cumin, and paprika in vegetable broth with a splash of Worcestershire; some balsamic roasted eggplant; served over a bed of baby arugula. I assure you, there’s some beef in there someplace…

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It’s been a good morning. Eric had a medical appointment and some vacation time to use up, so he took the day off work, which meant that I didn’t need to bust my butt to get in my run before he needed to leave. It was an awesome run, mostly in the warm sunlight – nearly fifty degrees! – and I came to the decision that, you know, I’m just not going to do Daylight Savings this year. I don’t care what y’all do, but I’m just leaving my clocks as they are. I like my mornings sunny, and I couldn’t give two craps whether it’s dark at dinner time. (Makes it easier to convince Sam to come inside to eat, anyway.) It’s not fair to change it just as it started getting good!

Anyway, I finished that, had a nice breakfast and put on a lightweight dress (because it’s almost fifty degrees! Yay, Wisconsin heat wave!), and Eric and I took Gabe out for errands together. Gabe just ate up his daddy’s attention, not having to share it with Sam, and when I finally had to put him down for his nap a little bit ago, he was…reluctant. Vocally so. Sorry, neighbors.

Eric headed off for a nice workout at the gym (in daylight!), and he’ll be making pizza for us tonight! There’s a ball of whole wheat dough rising in the sunlight on my kitchen table, and it’ll be turned into a curry pizza later on. I’ve already been asked for the recipe, so I’ll have to beg that from him later. All I know is that I’ve been fantasizing about it since waking up…

Could the day be any better? And the weekend should be a little slice of all right, too, since we’ve already made rainy-day plans involving the Titanic exhibit at the museum (courtesy of Sam’s request, since his school field trip to the African exhibit quite unfairly didn’t involve any scenes of shipwreck). Maybe I can add on a sidestep into the Butterfly Wing, too! I bet Gabe would enjoy it.

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Gabe is better today. I kept him home from school because we hadn’t passed twenty-four hours without a fever or fever-reducing meds, but I probably could have sent him, as he’s fine. Well, he’s healthy. He’s also as ornery as a beestung grizzly bear. When I told him he couldn’t watch the TV channel with the commercials, he screamed and threw pretzels at me. (Earned himself some “calm down” time in his room for that.) I’m glad he’s feeling better, but, boy howdy, was he more pleasant to be around when he was queasy. Strange kid.

As for me, I’ll just be relieved when everything returns to normal, my husband is home with me, and I can get back to the occasional sense of predictability.

(On the other hand, when Eric isn’t here, I get more leftovers after dinner. Last night, I made an Amish Beef Stew that I expected to be good, but which turned out divine! Even Sam ate it, and he’s not a fan of red meat. I just had some for lunch, over cornbread – almost out, must make more – with cheddar cheese on it, and it was even better today.)

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I like my chocolate dark, and I tend to like it exotic. Given a great chocolate bar, I can make it last for weeks, savoring each half-square as a luxurious treat at the end of a day. My current bar is a Lindt Dark Chocolate bar with Chili. It’s got just the right mix of sweet and burn, and I love it.

But I kept coming back to those cookies.

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We now enter a second solid week of Sam dressing to the nines for school. Today it was a black dress shirt and tie. This girl must be exceptional (though now he’s suggesting that there may be a second girl catching his attention, the little player). Of course, the alternative is that he’s enjoying the attention he gets from adults in the school for looking like this, or that he’s relishing the role of “boy interested in girl.” He tried to insinuate that I was proud of him because he “finally found a girl to like!” but I shut that down in a hurry. Good grief, Mister Seven Years Old. On Friday, he went with his dress shirt open at the neck, with a hematite cross pendant around his neck; he looked like a member of a church praise band. I’d take a picture, but I don’t know how much I care to encourage this. On the other hand, he did choose to dress like a complete slob all weekend long…

Eric has taken to heading to the gym on a regular basis! He’s going in the evenings, which works nicely with my morning running preference. He’s actually doing a walk-run thing on the treadmill, and he’s musing about possibly eventually working up to being able to do 5Ks. It’s a struggle, now, not to want to talk about running ALL THE TIME with him, which would be a complete turn-off for him…but, like I said, it’s hard not to. He does need new shoes, fitted properly, so that lines up nicely with my desire to get up to one of the big running stores soon and check out fuel and hydration systems for the marathon. My Crush Fuel Belt isn’t going to do it, I think I’ve decided. Just too much of a pain to get the bottle in and out; once, this past run, when I tried, I managed to accidentally rip the whole belt off my waist. Suggestions for an alternative, and one that hopefully carries more than a single packet of something besides the bottles? (I hate gels, so need to carry Beans, Blox, etc.)

Been running a smidge earlier in the morning than I have to, so that I have time to sit and eat breakfast with Eric in the morning before he heads to work. (Meaning that he, too, is rising before he had been, so he’s not rushing and eating a few bites while standing over the kitchen counter.) It’s nice – so much more satisfying than an extra 15-30 minutes of sleep time would be.

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Tonight, we had kale. I ordered a large bag of Dole’s Fresh Kale, purported to be washed and ready to cook. Eric prepared them as usual, and we loved them a lot…until Eric suddenly said, “Hmmmm. Don’t think I’ll trust that ‘ready to cook’ business anymore.”

Why was that?

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Also, boo on the book I just finished. I don’t know, guess it wasn’t my cup of tea; it wasn’t poorly written, but I just felt completely unmoved by any of the characters. Instead of feeling pulled along by the tale, it read like, “Oh, hey! This author learned a bunch of Chinese history and designed a little story around that framework! Hurrah, history!” I like history, but in this case, I’d just about rather have picked up a history book than wasted the time wading through the narrative. Meh.

Sam is still dressing up for school. I tried to encourage a sweater this morning, but he came down dressed in a button-down shirt again.

In the car this morning, Gabe cheerfully remarked, “Those buses are peculiar, aren’t they? They’re blue and white.” (I can’t recall using that word in casual conversation in…well, ever, though I’m sure I have.)

If I eat enough iron-rich foods, will I stop feeling like I’m walking through a fogbank and every little thing is catching me by surprise?

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Lately I eat breakfast around 7:30, most days (not Saturday long runs, for one; I’ll eat a little before running and then after on those days). I try to make it something with fiber, protein, and some fat – maybe a small amount of cheese or peanut butter. By all accounts, I should be full for a while, right? Like, today I had a big bowl of oatmeal, into which I stirred raisins, milk, and a tablespoon of peanut butter. That was at 7:30, and by 9:30, I was famished. I just had a small yogurt, and now I should make it to 11:00 before ravenously descending upon the kitchen.

I don’t get that way between lunch and dinner, and I don’t wake up starving, either. I also don’t have snacking issues in the evenings unless I get bored. What is it about 7:30 to 11 that makes me feel as though I must eat everything in sight? And it’s not just that I run; on Thursdays and Sundays, when I don’t, I still get the same thing happening. Sometimes my stomach growls loudly all the way through church.

Last night I finally had it with the dinnertime arguing, and I decided that the boys were plenty old enough that I didn’t need to be filling their plates for them. Instead, I put all the food out on the table to let them serve themselves, and I resolved that I would stay uninvolved in what they selected. After all, it was all good stuff: a spinach salad, roasted beets, sauteed mushrooms and onions, steamed mixed vegetables, a chopped pear, and roasted pork tenderloin. How could it go wrong?

In fact, they ended up eating about the same amount of food as they would have eaten otherwise. Sam chose the pork, some pear, and some mixed vegetables, and then he massacred the pork to remove any traces of fat or skin; I figure he got maybe three bites in total. Gabe chose the veggies and the pear, and then he shocked me by grabbing some spinach leaves. “Hey! This spinach doesn’t make me feel like I want to throw up! See? It’s just good!” Later, he “cheated” by sneaking a piece of cheese from the fridge, but that’s fine. In the future, I’ll make sure there are other protein choices on the table, too. That’s always a challenge for them, but I keep trying.

Snow coming today and tomorrow.

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Actually, though, now it looks like they’ve switched things up yet again, as far as recommendations go. The CDC site is now telling me I need two cups of fruit and three cups of vegetables each day. I think that’s lower than it was. I can’t remember, though; my brain is still operating on the Four Food Groups standard.

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(But I ask, who could predict that of the dinner of sweet-glazed meatloaf and various vegetables last night, the only thing the boys would eat would be the asparagus? What sort of aliens am I rearing? And how do you not spend the night in miserable hunger when that’s all you’ve eaten?)

I was feeling rotten last night, anyway, on top of the soul-crushing dinner rejection. My weariness and headache turned sharply into waves of nausea, and I spent the evening making sure I had a large bowl within reach at all times. Never had to use it, but Murphy’s Law surely would have come into play had I stepped more than six feet from it, so I kept it cradled to my chest for the most part. By bedtime, I was feeling a bit better, but when I woke up early this morning, I decided to do my run outside instead of in the gym, as I’d planned (due to rain in the forecast), just in case; suddenly dodging to the side of the path to throw up sounded better than jumping from a treadmill and dashing for the nearest wastebasket. Thankfully, going early saved me from having to run in the rain after all, and I stayed nausea-free for the run and the rest of the day so far. My throat even feels a bit better, too! Hurray!

Almost naptime. Just keeps getting better!

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The wind is quite strong, too. When I was running, I kept getting hit with blasts of air that would nearly stop me in my tracks, and I wound up having to take off my hat to keep from losing it entirely. Oof!

Here’s a random confession: when I’m tracking my nutrition, I get a little thrill to see that my meal total will bring me in under my daily calorie and sugar goal, since that means I can snack with more abandon. Today, I had one of the pretzels that were leftover from Gabe’s preschool snack. We made them yesterday, and I was a bit disappointed that I hadn’t budgeted my kitchen supplies to be able to make extra for the family; we ran down to the very bottom of the box of baking soda with the batch we made. Luckily, Gabe brought home the extras, so I got to enjoy them after all! Very good, they were, and simple!

Dough:
4 c. all-purpose flour
1.5 tbs. sugar
0.75 tsp. salt
2.5 tsp. yeast
1.3 c. water
2 tbs. butter

Cut the dough into strips, roll into ropes, and shape. (We made the letters of the month – P, Q, and R – and various shapes.) Cover and let rise on a greased baking sheet, about 45 minutes.

In a non-aluminum pan, bring 4 cups water and 1.5 tablespoons baking soda almost to a boil. (We used an electric skillet for this.) Gently lower the pretzels into the water for about a minute, turning once. Remove and return to the baking sheet; sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 475 degrees for about 12 minutes. Easy-peasy!

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Chopping brussels sprouts, checking the recipes for dinner, listening to music. Tonight: punk and ska. Suitable for baked tilapia: y/n?

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I’m now in for the night, having picked up the stocking candy when I hit the grocery store during my run. (Had to make sure that not all of it was chocolate; Gabe has decided to forgo any pretense about abiding it.) Eric and Sam still plan to run out for last-last-minute shopping in a bit. I’m making another Pepperoni Loaf, as well as some cookies for Santa; Eric is just now finishing up some dumplings for Amanda’s clan to enjoy tomorrow. Lots of little things going on, miniature hustle and bustle all around us.

I hope everybody reading this, and everybody they love, and everybody who doesn’t read but whom I love, and everybody with whom I happened to come into contact this season – yes, even those people who splashed me – have a happy holiday. God bless us, every one.

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Pepperoni Loaf

Roll into a rectangle:
1 loaf of frozen bread dough, thawed and raised Presumably, one could make one’s own dough, but we went with frozen for authenticity’s sake.

Spread with:
1 T. margarine
1 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 1/2 c. pepperoni

Roll up from long side and seal edges. Brush with:
1 egg beaten

Top with:
pepper to taste

Bake at 350 degrees on greased, foil-lined cookie sheet for 25-30 minutes.

  

We cut into it almost as soon as Eric came through the door, and the boys got their first taste. The entire loaf was gone within minutes. Minutes, I say.

ERIC: “It is exactly as it should be. Now I’m sad.”
SAM: “It was awesome!”
GABE: “Do you know why I ate it all? Because I’m the Foodinator!”

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They are delicious, every bit as good as I remember from when we’d visit her for the holidays. (Eric says, “Just like I remember, except not in a red Tupperware box.”) I worried that somehow the magic would be gone, that without her, the food would be lacking, but her notes proved true.

Rita’s Marble Squares

Mix together:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/3 c. sugar

Add:
1 egg

Mix well. Set aside.

Combine in a sauce pan:
1/2 c. margarine
3/4 c. water
1 1/2 squares (1 oz. each) unsweetened chocolate

Bring to boil. Remove from heat and stir in combined mix of:
2 c. flour
2 c. sugar

Add:
2 eggs
1/2 c. sour cream
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix well. Pour into greased 9×13 cake pan. Spoon cream cheese mixture over batter; cut through batter with knife several times for marble effect. Sprinkle top with:
6 oz. semisweet chocolate chips

Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool and cut into squares.

Unfortunately, reactions were mixed. Eric and I love them, but Gabe refuses to try them (“I hate chocolate!”) and Sam said they were “too chocolate” and wanted a banana to “get the taste out of [my] mouth.” Weirdos.

For most of the day, though, Eric has been occupying the kitchen, preparing for the “Day of Feasting” at his workplace. On the last day before the holiday shut-down, everybody brings in food to share, and people move through the building, grazing and socializing. For the past few years, Eric’s dumplings have been a hit, and now he even has permission to use the industrial steamer in the cafeteria to cook them. He made them in big batches today – mild beef ones, medium-spiced pork ones, and kill-me-now cream cheese ones – and froze them in batches before packing them in bags. It’s an assembly line process, and very streamlined. I wish I could be there for the actual feast, but these darn kids…

Tomorrow I may try a different Rita recipe and see if it fares better in the tastes of my little critics. Stay tuned!

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How about a recipe?

Basmati and Wild Rice w/Asparagus

• 1/2 cup wild rice, cooked (I use a pressure cooker for this)
• 1 cup basmati rice, cooked (you may substitute any cooked rice: long-grain, brown, etc. I wouldn’t use a short-grain rice, though.)
• 1 bundle asparagus (my store sells them in bundles. YMMV)
• 2 tblsp butter
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 yellow onion, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• lemon zest
• Salt & pepper to taste

1. Trim the asparagus and blanch it, either by steaming for five minutes or immersing it in boiling water for approx. 1 minute. After blanching, rinse with cool water to stop the cooking process.
2. Melt the butter in a large skillet or sauté. Add the garlic, olive oil, sliced onion, and a pinch of salt and sweat for five minutes, or until the onion is translucent.
3. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the asparagus. Cook for five minutes, stirring frequently.
4. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the lemon juice and cooked rices and heat through. Season to taste with salt & pepper.
5. Remove from heat. Stir in the lemon zest. You may optionally add a little olive oil and chopped fresh parsley, too.

So, enjoy. Here’s a not-so-good picture of it, in this case topped with oven-baked Neapolitan meatballs. Oven-baked (in a mini-muffin pan, so they won’t burn) since the boys hate tomato sauce.

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It should be noted that we chose to serve ham as our primary protein due to our kids’ usual reluctance to eat roasted bird, and it should be noted also that both boys decided to turn their noses up at the ham yesterday and instead eat from the small Rock Cornish hen we got just to satisfy my inner traditionalist’s need to have at least a little fowl on the table. Hmmph. On the other hand, what they really enjoyed was the green beans (Gabe) and the carrots (Sam). That’s satisfying.

Most popular with Gabe, though, was what he smelled as he woke from his nap before dinner. Eric was preparing the brussels sprouts, which he served with (among other things) finely chopped bacon. Gabe scented that bacon like, well:

It was a thing of beauty, watching him nearly fall down the stairs, trying to get to Eric’s outstretched hand that held the plate of bacon; he grabbed with both fists, trying to stuff it all into his mouth before Eric took the bulk of it away. This morning, as an apology for having to do that, Eric made bacon and eggs for breakfast, and Gabe was satisfied…almost. At the mall, later, a meat and sausage kiosk ran out of bacon samples before Gabe got there, leaving nothing but aroma for him. He confided his misery to a woman in the perfume store, and when I mock-sighed that bacon for breakfast just wasn’t enough, he suddenly yelled, “BACOOOOOOOON!” at the top of his lungs, nearly making her fall down in giggles.

Tomorrow: the tree!

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I got myself an electric blanket a few days ago. Twin-sized, since Eric has diabetes and isn’t supposed to use them, so it only covers my half of the bed. From one angle, it was a very good buy, since I’m almost always freezing and the blanket make me feel toasty and warm and (strangely) loved and cuddled. On the other hand, I really don’t want to do anything except stay there under it all the time now. I’m sitting here in front of the computer, wishing like heck for evening and bedtime to get here now. And it’s not even as though I could do any daytime work from my bed, either, since once that heat starts working, I go all beautifully semi-comatose.

I’d have made a good bear. Mmmmm, hibernation.

Took the boys to the cheap theater this weekend to see Wall-E; Sam had already seen it, but Gabe has been afraid of theaters (the darkness and noise, I think) for a while now and could only just be cajoled into going there this time. He spent the first segment of the movie asking, “Is it going to be scary now?” over and over, and the second segment was full of, “Hey! This isn’t scary at all!” The ending confused him a little bit, and he keeps asking the same questions over and over (and over) as he processes it, but I think his theater phobia might be over. Of course, the large popcorn didn’t hurt that at all; he ate most of the tub himself, double-handing it as fast as he could, despite Eric’s efforts to slow him down.

Hmm, popcorn. Might be time to make some popcorn balls again!

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Also, I can get a special reserved spot in a “Cheesehead Corral” (separated starting area, usually organized by pace times) if I’m willing to at least start the marathon in some sort of cheese-related apparel. I have no idea how to approach that. The fun of the idea appeals, but I don’t want to deal with anything like a Cheesehead hat (the ponytail holder could be a possibility, though), and I can’t find anybody selling technical shirts (no running in cotton!) that have anything to do with cheese. Could make my own…

Mmmm, cheese.

I want potatoes to go with the honey mustard pork roast I’m making for dinner tonight, but all we have are these freaky little fingerling potatoes Eric picked up for God only knows what reason. Seriously? What the heck am I supposed to do with these? They look like what grows into potatoes, not like real, y’know, potatoes…

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And now I’m fighting off something trying to take root in my throat. Not going to even hint that “I’m getting sick,” because I’m not. Y’hear? Not going to happen! So what if I needed an extra cup of coffee this morning, just because the warmth felt so good in my throat? Whatever works is fine by me!

I hate winter, y’all.

It’s our turn to take in snack to preschool on Tuesday. They’re currently studying fruits and vegetables, and it’s nice if the snack goes along with the lesson. Somebody already did fruit skewers, though. Also, that’ll be the day they celebrate Gabe’s birthday at school, so I’d like the snack to be something special for that. Carrot muffins? Not sure yet. Ideas?

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I just had the best little mini-bagel. Normally I shy away from sweet-flavored bagels, but every year around breast cancer awareness month, I just get the urge for pink – pink shirts, pink accessories, pink foods. The strawberry mini-bagels called to me and I couldn’t resist. But I put peanut butter on them to cut back on the sweet factor, and they’re perfect.

Back in Ohio, we used to frequent, as I know I’ve mentioned before, a local bakery that wound up closing when the baker tried to burn down the whole strip mall and was later arrested for murdering his wife and a former prison acquaintance. (You’d think it’s a long story, but that pretty much sums it up.) Anyway, he made these fabulous tomato basil bagels, and I’ve never had anything as good since then. Makes me sort of wish that whatever prison he’s currently inhabiting (looks like Lebanon Correctional Institute in Ohio) has some sort of work program than involved baking. Err, or maybe not. Oh, but he also made some sort of chocolate bread…hey, he wasn’t a poisoner. Worth the risk? I’ll keep looking for a substitute.

(Main thought that always runs through my head whenever I have reason to recall all that: though he often mentioned his wife when we’d stop in the store, jovially talking about what new recipes she liked or whatever, I never had occasion to meet her. I’m sort of relieved about that; if I’d known them both by their faces, it would make it harder to comprehend. That I knew a guy who turned out to be a killer – surreal. Knowing both the killer and his victim – heartbreaking and gut-wrenching.)

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Mmmmm, pumpkin bread. With chocolate chips!

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Anyway. It’s drizzling on and off now, with thunder every now and again. Gabe is amused. I’m just trying to stay awake, which is a big problem because I’m coming down hard off a little sugar binge, which was totally not my fault. How was I supposed to know that both my children now turn up their little noses at chocolate chip cookies? I thought I was being a Good Mom by having a batch of them ready when Sam came home from his first day at school, but apparently that was misguided. So I ate more than I planned, and I’m suffering the consequences now. Since I always forget about this part…

NOTE TO FUTURE SELF: Step away from the sugar. A little is fine, but stop there! The crash is every bit as bad as you remember – your memory isn’t exaggerating! – and you will not be able to compensate for it with “just a little more coffee.” Just, no. Not worth it. Sugar buzz does not equal endorphin rush, neither in the short nor the long term. Step away!

Yeah. Maybe that will help.

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What are the best packed lunches, in terms of flavor and practicality?

(I had a cup of coffee and some homemade oatmeal bread with peanut butter for breakfast. As far as lunches go, I’m stumped, as everything that I know that tastes great is a pain to pack and to clean up later, and I don’t like doing them very often.)

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SAM: “That’s stupid.”
GABE: “MOM! Sam said ‘stupid.’”
SAM (heavy, beleaguered sigh): “If I offended you, I’m sorry.”
GABE: “That’s not a real ‘sorry.’”
SAM: “I know. But let’s just play.”
GABE: “Okay.”

Good day to go to the Farmer’s Market. Fresh tomatoes rock! I remember how when I was a kid, my next-door neighbors grew tomatoes in their backyard and sold the extras out front; they just had a box of tomatoes next to a scale and a jar, and it was all strictly on the honor system. We’d run over and buy a few whenever we needed them, and they taste so much better than the fake-ripened hothouse tomatoes you get at the grocery store. It’s like they’re completely different species, almost.

The coffee came from the shop down the block from the market. Mmmmm, fresh-roasted beans.

It’s a beautiful day, and the walk there and back felt good. My legs are just a little bit tired from today’s run; I added in a little extra speed work, just for fun, after reading a tip in “Runner’s World.” I’ve written about my dislike for Fartlek, in which you basically pick up the pace for random short intervals (“Sprint to that tree!”) and then slow down. The magazine gave me the idea to pick of the pace, instead of racing for time or short distances, for an actual number of footfalls. Eureka! For some reason, this really, really worked for me. I sprinted for forty steps at a time; thirty, where I started, was too short, and fifty required a slightly longer recovery interval than I wanted to do today. I’ll expand over time, but for now, I love this! Thanks, RW!

Olympic ceremonies tonight! Break out the popcorn and tiny flags!

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Just so you know. (Recipe here. Our oatmeal was cooked with raisins, so those are in there, too.)

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I asked the guy selling the golden beets whether the greens tasted different from the greens of red beets. “I dunno,” he said. “I don’t eat the greens.” I gasped in mock horror at him, and he grinned and said, “Hey, I eat the good part!” I’d go so far as to say that there’s no bad part of the beet, or at least not when Eric’s cooking them; I’m a complete convert, and anybody who doesn’t like them should withhold their final judgment until sitting down and dining with us for an evening. Eric, when I told him, snorted that the guy was throwing away free vegetables by not eating the greens.

Trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the day now. Gabe’s “napping” (har-de-har-har) at present, and Sam, disappointed that no friends are currently outside playing, is reading a book. I’d thought about going down to the bike races I mentioned in the last entry; might do that when Gabe’s “nap” is over. Eric’s going out with coworkers to celebrate a birthday and a friend’s leaving the company tonight, so it’s just me and the boys.

Speaking of Sam and playing outside, I was musing on our walk back from the market, as Sam raced a half-mile ahead of us on his bike. I really, really wish that there was a park near us that didn’t require crossing a very busy street to get to it. In one direction, within very easy walking or riding distance, are three perfectly lovely parks that Sam could get to on his own – I mean, less than a mile away – if I trusted him to cross the one major street between our house and there. In the other direction is another park (much smaller) and an elementary school playground, but there’s yet another busy street in the way.

Realizing that not every kid Sam’s age could be trusted to go to a park by himself, I have faith that Sam would be fine to do so on occasion for short periods with just a little more prepping. It’s a moot point, though, because as fast as cars whip up and down those streets, paying little attention to pedestrians and cyclists as they do so, it’s not Sam’s abilities that I’d bet against. Very disappointing.

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Eric is an awesome, awesome husband, and he has done his best to make today’s prep better. He turned my white bread into nearly fat-free croutons, cooked my clear broth with vegetables (strained out) and seasonings to make it yummy, and baked me some flounder with spices so that it was delicious. My stomach still feels crazy-empty, but he worked mightily to save me from mouth boredom. It’s been a very long day, though; tomorrow will be longer. And I feel so much better than I did even a couple of days ago, so I know in my heart of hearts that this test is freaking pointless.

I added a run tracker to the sidebar. We’ll see if it’s user-friendly enough for me to maintain it or not. I’m not retroactively adding runs, that’s for darn sure.

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THIS IS A DANGEROUS SITUATION UNFOLDING. ALL PERSONS ACROSS SOUTHERN WISCONSIN NEED TO BE PREPARED FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS. HAVE AN ACTION PLAN READY FOR WHEN A SEVERE WEATHER WATCH IS ISSUED…AND BE PREPARED TO EXECUTE THE PLAN WHEN A WARNING IS ISSUED.

So apparently the National Weather Service would recommend not cooking the chicken outside this evening. I can’t tell for certain; it’s a bit vague, wouldn’t you say? Oh, and:

ANY THUNDERSTORM THAT DEVELOPS WILL HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO PRODUCE LARGE HAIL…DAMAGING WINDS…AND TORNADOES. STRONG TORNADOES CANNOT BE RULED OUT.

The ellipses are my favorite part. You can almost hear it being read by the movie preview guy. “In a world…where thunderstorms are developing…strong tornadoes cannot be ruled out…A special hero is needed…to execute a plan…and save all that he loves!”

So now what? I have no idea what to feed these kids. When it’s just me and two picky, picky eaters, I just feel like giving up entirely.

(...)
Read the rest of Well, I was going to grill… (219 words)

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Still feel like taking a nap, but I think that’s the weather. It’s all cloudy and wet and gray outside, though warm enough that I’m in shorts. I slept through last night’s storms, apparently, if we did get any. Going to be nice tomorrow, though, and Eric has promised to grill both lunch and dinner for us! Chicken tikka, probably, and I should figure out what else we have that can be grilled. Anybody want to come over?

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And Eric called to say he’d be home very late.

I don’t know how to carve a chicken.

(By the time anybody comments, it’ll be mutilated, but it’ll still taste good. )

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The hotel was lovely. REI? Not so much, since although the guy on the phone had technically been correct when he told me that they had BoB strollers in stock, by the time we got there, all of them had been spoken for. I could have ordered one, but then we’d have either had to pay shipping to have it delivered or made another trip up there, which irritated me. After all, the whole reason we’d gone up there, booked a hotel, and planned a weekend out of it began with the darn stroller! So I examined the strollers that I couldn’t have (grrrr…), tested them and made my choice, and then we hopped back in the car, drove down the road to USA Baby (which had just closed, but I must have looked fairly agitated by then, because they said, “…but if it’s just one thing…?”), which happened to have two Revolutions on hand. Hurray! Pictures later!

We ate out at Uno, where the kids actually did really well, making and devouring their own pizzas. I had baked stuffed chicken (since after the 10 miles that morning, my Garmin informed me that I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted); Eric had a buffalo salad. I couldn’t even finish my meal, so dessert didn’t happen, but we went back to the hotel and relaxed in the pool for a while before bed.

The next morning, we completely lucked out by discovering that the Cheesecake Factory was open an hour early for Mother’s Day! There was no wait! So we had a relaxing brunch, then drove home, where Gabe took a long nap, Eric and Sam watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I assembled the stroller. Then Eric cooked a fabulous dinner, with a tamarind curry pasta, masala-spiced roasted beets, and jalapeno pones. A couple of glasses of merlot, and my weekend of splurge ended…

…and saw me having to beat myself over the head to force myself up to run this morning. But I did my six miles, and I’m back in the saddle. Here we go again!

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My old college roommate had a boyfriend who did cleanses and fasts, and I always thought he was just a wee bit loony, but sometimes I wonder…I’m not about to make myself subsist on dandelion smoothies for a week, but perhaps the idea itself doesn’t have to be completely flawed at its core.

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And then he goes and takes them and turns them into this:

(...)
Read the rest of Reason #116,628,256 why I love my husband (9 words)

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“Can I have a snack?”
“Sure! An apple? A banana?”
“No…Can I have a peanut butter sandwich?”
“Okay. Let me make one.”
“Your bread is really brown.”
“I know. Sam doesn’t like bread with corn syrup in it. Ooh, and he used up almost all the natural peanut butter; what’s left is sort of oily.”
“Do you have any jelly?”
“No, I don’t think so. My boys think it’s ‘goopy.’ Oh, wait! We have this homemade blackberry jam someone gave us as a gift! It looks wonderful!”

I guess the jam made the sandwich better, since he asked for a second one. Humorously, Gabe also ate one, and he normally won’t touch jelly or plain peanut butter (as in by itself, not as part of a mixture) for love or money.

Gabe keeps calling the older boy “Sam.” I think it’s bugging the boy a little, but he’s coping.

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More for me!

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1 c. peanut butter, 1/2 c. honey, and enough powdered milk to make it doughy.

Yummy fun, and a good way to have kids occupy themselves on a day when Mama feels under the weather.

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Second: what spices do your kids actually like? If you were going to marinade or spice chicken for the kids, what would go over well (not just be something you maybe could coerce them into eating without too much trouble)?

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Anyway, the African restaurant. Here’s the full menu. Warning: it’s not in the least low-fat or low-carb; I gave myself a freebie night because I’ve been doing so well and because it was my first time eating that cuisine and I didn’t want to spoil it by fretting over the ingredients or preparations.

(...)
Read the rest of Okay, back (442 words)

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If you picked something like red meat or fish, go ahead and comment as to whether it’s the whole genre or only specific culprits that turn you off.

POSTSCRIPT: This is funny. Tonight’s dinner, for a treat, is “diner’s choice,” and all three of us (Eric being out for the evening) are grossed out by what the others are eating. (Well, not me, so much, but they wouldn’t have been my choices for dinner.) Gabe: Frozen chicken nuggets, pretzels, juice (V8 Fusion, with the “hidden” veggies). Sam: Instant oatmeal, juice. Me: Leftover bison meatloaf, done jelly-roll style with spinach and cheese, and water.

(The boys will be hungry again in a while, I predict, at which time I may try to cajole them into eating vegetable soup. )

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(...)
Read the rest of What is it? (7 words)

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(...)
Read the rest of The status of us (now with recipes!) (476 words)

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(...)
Read the rest of Therapy (476 words)

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And because the cupboards are pretty bare of things with which to make sweet baked goods, and because I’m too lazy to want to brave a grocery store, we’re going here. Geesh, look at that list! Which ones should we get?

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Car going into the shop in an hour for a transmission check. Why is my husband able to feel and hear odd noises and sensations that I can’t sense at all? Is it a testosterone thing? I’m pretty sure my ears are in perfect working order.

I’m running the Hank Aaron State Trail Run/Walk tomorrow morning. I hope it goes better than today’s run did (feeling like a “natural woman” might be a good thing for jeans advertisements, but it doesn’t work so well for exercising one week out of every four), and I’m optimistic that it will; I seem to be on a rotating pattern of “good run, bad run, good run, bad.”

Last night, I was thinking that I might make a book out of my race bib numbers. I’m not a scrapbooker, but just putting them together and writing out race summaries on the back of each one feels like it might make a rewarding thing to have. I’m envious of people who have huge running logs that list hundreds of races that they’ve run. Someday, maybe…

Trying to decide whether the kids and I will join Eric on an upcoming trip for work. He’s going again next week, and we’re staying home, but then he’ll go for two weeks, and it’s possible that it might make a nice diversion before the start of the school year. We’ll see.

Bison steak is yummy and lean. Mustard-crusted bison steak is a thing of beauty.

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Tonight I made Mini Greek Meatballs, Stuffed Tomatoes, and Baked Sweet Potato Fries, all from the Quick and Easy South Beach Cookbook. I knew better than to try to offer stuffed tomatoes to the kids, but I really thought I had a shot with the meatballs. Gabe refuses to try them – my little carnivore! – and Sam took a teensy bite, made a face, and nearly spit it out.

I just offered the sweet potato fries, last out of the oven. Gabe thinks they’re carrots and won’t try them. Sam took a bite, made an odd face, and declared, “They’re both good and bad at the same time.”

Whatever. I give up. I found it all delicious, so I guess it’s more leftovers for me.

Eric’s in Missouri for another week. I’m already having a blast.

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I debated putting in some artificial sweetener, but I decided to embrace the recipe for what it is rather than try (probably unsuccessfully) to make it something it isn’t. That’s usually good advice, when I manage to follow it. Eric will cast the deciding vote when he gets home, though; if he doesn’t like it, we won’t be making it again.

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One odd thing, though: I was pressing out the excess moisture from the thawed spinach, using paper towels, and when the liquid got on my hands, it stung and itched like wildfire. I mean, I have dyshidrotic eczema on my palms, and it itches ordinarily, but the spinach liquid really seemed to aggravate it. I went off spinach, along with lots of other favorite foods, back when the quack-dermatologist suggested a nickel-free diet, and it didn’t seem to make a lick of difference to my eczema. This is weird, though.

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GABE: “Want scrambled egg pizza!”
ERIC: “Scrambled eggs?”
GABE: “Scrambled egg pizza!”
ERIC: “You mean you want an omelet, like Mommy’s having?”
GABE: “Yeah! How you make it?”
ERIC: “Well, you use a little butter here first…”
GABE: “Want lettuce in it!”
ERIC: “Lettuce?”
ME (chiming in): “He ate mine with the arugula last time.”
ERIC: “Well, okay then.”
GABE: “Yay! Scrambled egg pizza with lettuce!”

Now he’s chowing down happily on an asparagus and arugula omelet with mushrooms and onions. Never let it be said that all toddlers are picky eaters. (Of course, Sam wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole, so there you go.)

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I get what you guys are saying about South Beach. To be fair to the plan, though, I don’t think I’m the poster child for South Beach. The book, the experts – they all talk about healthy eating and not going overboard, but here I was, skipping meals and picking at mixed nuts all day. A+ for following the rules, no? The first two weeks are the only really “restricted” part of the plan, but they do include plenty of food of a great enough variety to suit most people, if not everybody. And then there’s me, Miss Poor Choices. I think the primary goal of the first two phases of South Beach is to just break your mental and physical addictions to things that you probably shouldn’t be eating much of in the first place. Eventually you do add them back in, but by that point, they’re not a large part of your eating habits anymore.\

I’m not wedded to South Beach, but I do feel I ought to at least give it until Phase Two, to see if things suit me better when I add back in more starches.

Last night, we had lean braised pork chops, roasted asparagus, and green beans. Gabe, amusingly, adored the asparagus (which, along the same lines as the cauliflower, he called “tall broccoli”), and he gobbled the beans, too. Sam wrinkled his nose at all of it, but he ate some of each food under pressure and did admit later to enjoying the pork.

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Monday’s run was bad, but I didn’t put 2 and 2 together and get “need more fuel.” Last night’s run was my punishment. I took a few running steps and immediately felt strained. Not just in my legs and lungs, either; my entire body – arms, stomach, neck – felt like I was pushing really hard. I got a mile in, and I thought I was going to pass out or vomit or both. I decided that nothing good could come from forcing past that point, so I walked back, all light-headed and ill. Got home and sat for a while with my eyes closed, unable to do more than take tiny sips of water. An hour later, I could barely eat a few shrimp and pieces of broccoli without thinking it was coming back up.

So. Lesson learned. Choke down the freaking salad, girl, and drink the low-fat milk, whether you’d prefer juice or not. Eat some breakfast (I’m having scrambled eggs with fat-free cheese at the moment, and, um, yuck); coffee alone won’t do it.

Sheesh.

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I’m down 6 or 7 pounds. Last night’s meal I dubbed “healthy-licious,” and that’s about all that could be said for it: grilled catfish, cauliflower, and lima beans. Mmmm, mmm, that’s some…food. Yep. Gabe had never tried cauliflower before, and he called it “snow broccoli.” He loved it and demanded more and more until suddenly yelling that his belly hurt, and indeed it was tautly full. I think that’s the first time, in all his life, that he’s ever eaten to that point, and we’re talking about a kid who’ll chow down four adult-sized slices of pizza without blinking.

Gabe’s neck is better this morning. The doctor said he probably just twisted it funny and pulled a muscle; after the Tylenol stopped his crying, he spent the rest of the day with his head tipped to one side like a confused cocker spaniel.

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