Did I mention, I'm a runner? and my new fave drink

Three miles every other day! Woot.
I've completed the couch to 5K and now I'm just running every other day. Next month, I plan to add 5 minutes to my daily 30 minute run. I want it to get up to 45 minutes of running.

Lost a few pounds. Lost a few inches.
Feel stronger, better :).

Also, if you have never blended coconut water with some frozen berries, than you have never truly had a refreshing drink.

Mmmmm....

Seriously. Try it.

11 oz. of coconut water
2-3 frozen pineapple chunks
2-3 frozen berries
Straw

Blend.
Drink.
Bliss.

Careful you don't make it too thick.
It is more refreshing than ice cream. Than frozen yogurt. Than heavy milk or soy-based smoothies.

Quick update and Battle of the Content management systems

I've got WordPress.
I've got Blogger.
Now, I've got a Google Site.

I just can't make up my mind!

I think I'll be spending the next month working this out.

Quick update: still here, still carrying on.

June accomplishments: Finished the Couch to 5K, can now run 3 miles in 30 minutes, and do so about every other day. Garden is blooming like crazy. Still missing: job. Will find, now that I can run three miles and have become quite the proficient gardener, the only thing left undone is the job, which is still in progress... waiting, waiting...

Vegebaconarism, Day 3

Still going in there!

We made it through Day 2, despite a late-night crisis revolving around Husbear's belief that there is an actual, super-secret special Healthy Man Food that doesn't involve brown rice, celery, veggies or other normal healthy food.

This resulted in a trip to the grocery store at quarter to nine at night to discover that, no, health food is health food, and there's no secret, yummy tasting man health food.

We left with ingredients amazingly similar to the ones we already have in the refrigerator: celery, lettuce, cucumbers...

Yesterday was a yummy bagel breakfast, a Greek luncheon platter of cheese, olives and tomatoes with an olive dressing and crusty bread, and dinner was tuna skewers. Yep, Tuna. It isn't bacon, but I made an allowance.

Today, we did have bacon, lunch was a BLT sandwhich, and Hungry Husbear only had one sandwhich today, since two is ridiculously fattening and defeats the entire purpose of trying to lose weight/eat healthy, and so filled up on a salad with veggies.

Dinner is a treat for tonight: Taco Pizza, ala The Pioneer Woman. Wednesday is mid-week, and so it's really important that everyone go to bed happy tonight, because tomorrow's dinner is Risotto... just sayin'!

Vegebaconarian week

Have I mentioned this yet?

The whole family is going meatless for a week, with the exception of bacon.

Left the bacon in to reinforce the 'I promise I'm not trying to make everyone vegetarian' notions.

The idea is to learn to enjoy other flavors besides meat, and to discover recipes we can eat so that not every night is a meat night.

I'll let you know how it goes, with pictures!

Cool weather crops ripe for picking, and I totally rock the Couch to 5K

This is going to be mostly about my garden. Just warning you. If you're not really interested in gardens, could care less about turnip greens, and don't like long-winded explanations about how a garden grows, then just click away :).

Although, I am starting Week 7 of Couch to 5K on Monday, yep, WEEK 7! And I still don't have a job, which kinda sucks, but I got some good advice, made some changes to my res and CV and got a couple of leads, nothing hot to trot, but leads lead somewhere... which is why they call them leads... and it goes with my motto, if you follow a path, you'll get somewhere. And it's true.. for instance, if my garden is a path, look where it's led me, not only to a bountiful spring harvest of cool lettuces, radishes and other greens, but to a new appreciation of fresh greens... I've been devouring chard, turnip greens and spinach all month for lunches. And if the Couch to 5K is a path, it's gotten me from not running at all since I first moved here, to running for 25 minutes straight without a break (that's Week 7!!) and to 3 miles in Week 9. So the job path, it's a bit longer, but I've already learned tons of stuff about me, about what I want to do, and about how perseverance is essential. Not all paths are short, or easy, but it's not about the end of the path, it's about what you do while you're on the path.

And now, it's the beginning of summer, my spring crops are in, my summer crops are mostly planted and ready to fill the bare spots when the spring crops are done, and I can run a goodly distance!  

All my spring weather crops are in and mostly being happily harvested. See those tall shoots reaching for the sky? Garlic! Can't wait! I love fresh garlic. When I prepare the garden for winter, I'll plant more along the sides. I want enough garlic to braid next year.

This photo isn't that great. I discovered after I took all the photos, I had them on the super close up setting. That's why the cilantro is so in focus.

I have a mini-field of cilantro. We eat it THAT much. When my tomatillos and peppers come in, I will be making my homemade salsa verde with the cilantro, tomatillos and peppers, and lime. I need to figure out how to grow a lime tree in Colorado. Maybe I could winter it indoors. Hmm. Guess what I'm going to google after! I already googled Kholabri. 

This is one of my tomato plants. It's in a bit of a sad state, so I'm concerned. But so far it's holding up. The problem is after I planted it, we had a cold front come in. We didn't get below freezing, but I think the cold weather may have stunted its growth.

I love chard.

I planted bright lights. I love the variety of colors that particular chard has. I also planted green chard, and out back on my patio, ruby red. See this chard? See how cute it is? I've already been harvesting baby leaves. I can't help it. Fresh chard is one of my favorite greens.

Field of Romaine. I planted some spicy salad mix on my patio, too, but this is for the non-adventurous eaters in my family, mainly everyone except me and Turbo. Turbo is my mini-soul mate. He's my running partner, my gardening cohort -- he's growing his own eggplant out back -- my yoga-buddy and my mini-BFF. He eats radishes with me. His brother, Bear, is adorable, and my baby, but he hates gardening, can't stand running and gets bored with yoga... so we bond in other ways. He's an artist, so as long as he's got art supplies he's happy. Turbo, though, genuinely shares the same interests as me. Right now Bear is leaning against me cuddling and fiddling with his skeleton ring that he picked out of the 25 cent toy machines at the Safeway. I told him it would turn his finger green, and after, his finger would fall off, but he is still wearing it.  

See all those blurry carrot tops? Can't wait to harvest these! I got bunches of multi-color carrots... white, purple, orange... I thought it'd be fun for the kids to help pick them when they are ready. Last time I did carrots, nothing happened, so this time I made hills. See, what happened last time is I planted them, forgot where I planted them, then all these crazy tops appeared way late, and around November i pulled one and found all my carrots, too large to eat. Oops.

This is my strawberry plant, from last year, at least. Aren't those some crazy large leaves?

I can't wait til these babies ripen. I only have two strawberry plants.  One of the peeps in my hood has a bed which is half strawberries. I suspect it's an abandoned garden bed, so will probably snag some of those strawberries. I refuse to have more than two strawberry plants though. They spread like crazy! If I had a third bed, I'd probably do strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. But three beds is a bit excessive. I'd feel like I was hogging a chunk of the community garden...

I love our community garden. I love that I look out my window, and see the garden. I love they are making a better fence to help the garden look better -- right now it's surrounded by chicken wire. I love that most of the beds are taken, and being used. I love that empty ones eventually get cleaned out and suddenly, used by people who have a spare plant or three they can't fit in their garden.

Not that I'm keeping an eye on any of the abandoned plots. No sirreeee. I wouldn't want to be greedy.

My green beans are probably done for, but these sugar snap peas are happy sugar snap peas.  I didn't thin them out, but they are still doing fine, so I'm excited. I love fresh snap peas, but never buy them at the grocery store. This was this year's garden treat. 

This is the treasure of my garden. Turnips! I love turnips. I really do. I love them mashed. I love them roasted. I love them lots. And, after reading some stuff about how you should eat turnip greens, I love turnip greens. I love turnip greens so much, I planted a variety of turnip grown specifically for the greens. I haven't harvested any of the actual turnips yet, but I'm so excited. I am sure they will be ready soon, maybe another two weeks, at most. Most of the seeds took, and I was really bummed about having to thin them out, but I ate the greens so it wasn't all a loss!

Turnip greens are packed with nutrients. You should eat them. This one has holes in them. Aphids. I've got a pocketful of ladybugs that'll solve that problem... well, I will... soon.

This is the other end of the garden. Radishes and carrot tops galore. There are some onions in the middle, and my poor ridiculous green beans. Next year, I won't transplant them, and next year I'll buy those nitrate packs they sell at the garden shop to help green beans. I've got some squashes sprouting up, which is exciting, because I love squashes. Mostly, I love how they start out ridiculously teeny and you think, I've totally got room for like, six, and then realize your garden can only fit three because my August they have overtaken everything. See those radishes and carrots? They will be harvested just in time for the squashes to overtake everything. Oh, and those leafy things? Celery. I'm a bit nervous about the celery, but Bear wanted to grow celery and I was so excited that he showed an interest, I got him some celery. He has not been in the garden to see how the celery is doing, but I'm sure when we harvest it he'll claim it's all his.

So that's the spring garden. It's just totally rocking. Along with my running. And the best thing about the garden is now most of my lunches are ridiculously healthy. And my breakfast. Nothing beats an egg with greens and radishes for breakfast.