A List.

1. I baked one gluten-free loaf of bread today. And? It tastes delicious. Who knew?

2. I baked one batch of triple chocolate chip cookies today. EFFING TORTURE. Today is day 14 of the sugar hiatus. I didn't lick a spoon, taste any dough, or enjoy the fruits of my labor. But, Dr Boy will have a nice fat batch to take to work tomorrow, making up for the fact that we didn't have a contribution to the potluck last week due to an untimely power outage.

3. I roasted a tri-tip. Lots of beef for Dr Boy to eat through the week... I'm thinking on top of a salad, steak sandwich, and BBQ style. Good times.

4. I made turkey meatballs. Four servings of easy Dr Boy dinner, coming right up.

5. The theme of today was: I'm too lazy ass to do big cooking during the week, so I'm going to get it out of my system today.

6. I made fried zucchini cakes for ME. And they were delicious.

7. We folded six loads of laundry.

8. I am now going to go to sleep. Feeling productive. And tired. And a little cranky, but I think that's the BCP talking :)

9. INJECTION TRAINING TOMORROW. 'Nuff said.

10. Good night!

How does your garden grow?

I haven't posted photos of the garden that I started in a while, so I thought I'd share. Nothing else is going on right now ;) 

Most of the plants went in on April 22th. If you've haven't been following, that day I planted 6 tomatoes, 2 bell peppers, 1 Anaheim pepper, 1 jalepeno, 2 cantaloupes, 1 watermelon, 1 zucchini, and two basil (purple and sweet). So far, I've only managed to kill one of the cantaloupes, and one tomato. The cantaloupe I am calling more of a "failure to thrive" than my black thumb. It helps me sleep at night. The tomato was one of the two purple tomatoes I got for free from the horticulture dept at the local university. It was pretty tiny and delicate so I'm not too surprised. Again, no lost sleep. 

There's also a strawberry plant in a hanging basket that I planted from a tiny cutting. It's doing pretty well too! I may actually get one or to off of it by the end of the summer. Especially considering there's flowers on it!

I replaced the cantaloupe with a green zebra tomato. I think they're one of my favorite heirlooms. I didn't replace the other purple tomato because I realized I still had 6 tomato plants and only one person in the house who will eat them :) I also added two more basil plants, lemon this time. I am so excited to make mass quantities of pesto this fall, and delicious pasta dishes, and whatever else I can think of. 

I finally put in the tomato cages last week, when the plants actually started to grow. Stupid cool and rainy May.

And now, for your viewing pleasure:

Sorry for the crappy lihting in the pics. I had to catch a flight!

Getting my hands dirty

Quite literally.

I am so very excited to get work going on our new vegetable garden! Yesterday my father-in-law came over to help me scope out the land. Basically, to decide how the heck to do this with the craptastic clay soil we have here. There were two options, as we saw it.

1. Rent a rototiller and till the hell out of the soil, adding a bunch of good stuff into it so things will grow.

2. Build a raised bed and fill it up with good stuff so things will grow.

We ended up going with option two, since I found relatively inexpensive soil and boards to build the planter. I had gone back and forth over the raised bed issue for a couple of weeks, annoyed by the amount of soil needed, but encouraged by the better rooting that could take place. We found some boards in the scrap pile at the hardware store today and the decision was made.

Plus a rototiller won't fit in my car.

So now I have an ambitious garden planned... Did I mention it's 8 feet by 8 feet? I'm frickin' crazy. On the menu this summer:

1 zucchini *

1 jalepeno

1 anaheim pepper

2 bell peppers **

2 purple tomatoes of some sort (in a clay pot ~ 2 ft tall) **

2 heirloom beefsteak tomatoes of some sort **

2 cherry tomatoes **

1 sweet basil

1 purple basil

2 cantelope

1 watermelon

Here's where it's going to go:

I'm ridiculous excited about the possibility of making purple bruscetta if the purple tomatoes and purple basil survive.

Ummmmmm holy crap I'm in over my head. And to think, I wanted to start off with a SMALL garden....


* free from a friend who accidentally bought a 4-pack
** free from the horticulture dept at the local university. i live in an awesome college town.

Mah Glutes Are Gahn

Not in an "I have no ass" kind of way, but more in an "I used muscles I'm not used to and now they don't work so I might as well have none" kind of way. I helped a friend put in her summer garden yesterday, and we successfully planted ~20 different plants (of course the true test of success will be in a couple of months). I also ran/walked 3.5 miles in the morning, when I otherwise would have been asleep and dead to the world. Both felt great at the time*, but have left my rump feeling roasted, and my thighs tenderized. Since I wasn't alone for either, they felt more like socializing than exercise.

On a side note, I absolutely LOVE gardening. When we lived in a townhouse (before we moved up here), I planted a topsy turvy and a clay pot with tomatoes. Year one produced mild success.

Look at the size of that thing! Not bad for a porch!


Mmmmmmm delicious!


Topsy-tastic! Some sort of yellow cherry heirloom variety that was delicious.

Note that there are no photos of my 2010 fiasco of a porch garden. A combination of April travel and a newly-diagnosed diabetic cat had that year bound to fail before it even got root. Ha. I'm funny.


But enough about my love of dirt. And things that come out of it. Though I'm a little obsessed with vine-ripened tomatoes. I think I may plant about a billion of them this week. Nomnomnomnom....

OK for real enough now. Moral of the story is that I got off my sorry dead arse and MOVED and ENJOYED it. That's the point. I also did pretty well food-wise. I avoided all things super delicious at a festival in town (including cotton candy, a slushy, bag of chips, and mmmmmm frozen lemonade). I walked a lot. I did have a few drinks at a bar Friday night but ordered rum and diet coke :) Yes that counts a diet-conscious choice. Let me live in denial.

So things are going slowly but surely in the right direction. I feel good, and am starting to go down, down, down. Slowly. But slowly that'll speed up too :) Just like my 5K time.



* Just kidding the run felt like crap. It was hotter than the last time I ran, and humid, and I felt like my entire body was going UP and DOWN with each step I took on the run part of the intervals. Thank god for the awesome coach I was running or I would never have gone as far. It did feel good after though.


Today I weigh: 181.0 lbs
Today my BMI is: 27.1
Weight loss/gained this week: didn't weigh last week
Goal: 165 lbs (wedding weight!!!!)
Goal BMI: 24.7 (according to this calculator)
By When? April 24th (Ha! I'm funny.)