Radio Silence

It has been over a week since my last post. Radio Silence. What a week it has been! I'm sure there was a week in my life that had more stress or more tasks or more emotion. There has to have been. Perhaps it was that week in 1996 when I had a benign lump removed from my breast 2 days before a hurricane blew through and we lost power while I was recovering. It could have been the week in 1999 when we moved to North Carolina from Texas. That was a long week with us loading up a moving truck and driving two different vehicles across half the country only to arrive at midnight to an empty house and a full week of rain. I don't know. The week I broke my leg and had surgery to repair it then had a party with 40 guests into my home was a bit crazy. Granted that was a pretty easy party all I did was direct traffic from my couch throne.

Last Saturday Kam was stung by a hornet. Her hand and arm swelled to twice the normal size and she ended up at the ER. She is fine now after a week on steroids to bring the swelling down. On The Fourth of July we started having car trouble. That same Saturday the mechanic said I needed to add Sea Foam (I'm sure it is spelled differently but in my mind all sea foam is greenish blue and blows down the beach when the wind is high) to the gas tank and drive it until the check engine light came on. I can tell you I was not interested in driving around aimlessly. I had knitting to do. Fortunately the engine was so unhappy the light came on with a few short errands. On Tuesday the car was fixed enough that we were told to drive it until the check engine light comes back on and then we can determine what might be happening now. Wednesday I went to Charlotte for a product training that was amazing and full of information on bone and joint health. Crazy sleep there though because the hotel room was noisy with the AC coming on and off. Not just my room but the AC from the room next door kept me up. Then the food was weird in the morning. I have learned over and over that I must bring breakfast for myself. I cannot count on finding "real" food. sigh  Thursday was a great day. Laughter and home and all was due to be perfect for the rest of the week. I planned a fun afternoon run for Friday and a relaxing weekend mixed with outdoor exercise and knitting. Friday morning it started raining. Then the battery light came on in the car. Weird thing was the charge dropped when the car was put in gear. Yeah. The car is down again. Waiting. Waiting for something. Not a new battery. That was replaced last winter when we experienced the insane cold. Apparently car batteries don't like being exposed to -10 windchill any more than humans. I resigned myself to the car not working and thought I'd catch up on some bookkeeping. I sat to the computer and the keyboard went out. Just the battery but very eerie when you think about what was going on with the car. When I replaced the batteries in the keyboard the whole computer shut itself down. Fortunately it came back on and posed no further trouble. Oh...I almost forgot...Tuesday Kam replaced the washer. She and our son Geoff went to pick up the new washer at 8 pm. They brought it home and hooked it up. It had a factory defect. Instead of putting water into the wash tub it put water onto the floor. They returned it and hooked up a new one on Wednesday. To get the magical new one though Kam had to spend over 30 minutes on the phone with customer service and speak to 5 different people.

Needless to say I was busy this past week. I was a bit stressed for creative thought. I was also in need of a break from interacting with the world. I knew I needed to get back to writing. I chose instead to continue my silence and extend it a bit. I unplugged myself completely from the internet. What a welcome relief. I'm not sure about my reentry. It is happening. It will have to be a slow one. I'm dipping my toe in, just bit by bit. I am ready to start sharing my meals again. I needed inspiration. I needed new display dishes. I want shopping! Who doesn't like a few new dishes to perk up the kitchen boredom?

My Sunday morning started a bit late. I slept in. With all the rain this weekend I found sleep just a bit too inviting and indulged in a Sunday morning rest. Breakfast wasn't easy in the house. No car for a few days meant no groceries. Fortunately (or not depending on how you view the situation) Kam had rented a car to attend her father's 86th birthday party on Saturday (Oh...did I forget to mention that detail?) and we still had use of it. We opted for breakfast out at Whole Foods before purchasing food for the week. I ate most of it before remembering to take a picture. What did I eat? A yummy frittata made with eggs, cheese, turkey bacon, bell peppers, and new potatoes on top of a bed of spinach. I had some fresh fruit on the side, just a few bites of pineapple and honeydew melon. Kam wanted me to share this picture.

Lunch was a bit of roast turkey. My master plan for protein this week was to roast a turkey so there was meat ready for every meal. By Sunday we were feeling the same way about turkey as you do in late November. We sauteed green beans in some garlic olive oil, steamed baby carrots, and made an oil and vinegar coleslaw from a baby cabbage to go along with the turkey. 

For my afternoon snack all I wanted was some fresh berries with nuts. Kam wasn't impressed. She made me eat more turkey first. I'll spare you the picture. It is about as uneventful as eating it was. 

Dinner was fabulous!! I roast a boneless lamb roast, sweet potato, and asparagus. We had more of the fresh coleslaw with it. The flavors were amazing!

Crafting in the week? Oh, YES! I have been quite productive! I finished 3 socks, have one just over an inch from complete, another ready for the heel gusset, and have spun up 3 ounces of wool and am working on plying it now. Productivity has been wonderful. I might really need to consider this as I move back into my internet world. 

The handspun merino is on the left. The cob web laceweight indie dye is on the right. The center is the two plied together or to be honest in process of being plied together. I should mention the spindle on the left broke today. I still have over an ounce of merino to spin. I dropped the silly thing. I've dropped them before. This one hasn't been used much. It bounced and the hook broke from the top. 

This pair was in process. I had one complete and was working on the next. I'm happy to say the pair is finished!

I started this sock on the Saturday when Kam was bit. It is a differently constructed sock. It starts at the toe and works sideways around the foot and up the leg. The pattern is Skew from Knitty.com. It fits perfectly. I understand there are plenty of knitters who have trouble with it though. I have smallish ankles. I think that is why it fist so well. When I have the two knit I'll share a photo of the pair actually on feet. The heel construction is amazing!

I have the second of these socks almost ready for the ribbing on the cuff. They have been so much fun to knit!

And finally I started this pair on Thursday. Another faster than anticipated knit. The yarn really makes the stitches pop!

Breakfast, Lunch, Where is dinner?

It is pretty safe to say my Friday this week was tinged with some Monday highlights. WOW! I thought I'd get in some simple tasks, a few big meals, and some nice craftitng. What I ended up with was plenty of simple tasks, a few larger tasks, and some unexpected add on bonus events. Meals were small and I missed one somehow. Crafting? There was some of that cardio-knitting stuff and some evening catch up knitting on a pair of socks. The cardio-knitting progress was small. Not enough to see a big difference. Just a few rounds walking back and forth to the gym. The second sock however is quite obvious. I was 2 inches from the heel turn yesterday morning. I finished up the gusset, turned the heel and made it through an inch of the leg.

Breakfast was fast. I had errands to run before heading out to the gym. Grilled pattypan squash and chicken sausage. 

Morning snack was 1/8 of a fresh cantaloupe and 1/2 ounce of cheese. Lunch was late. Remember I had a few added tasks. I sauteed pattypan squash, roasted a chicken breast and had arugula salad with it. I decided to have some gluten free blue cheese dressing with it because the meal was lacking in healthy fats. 

And this is where the day fell apart. I needed to move forward and plan dinner. I needed to get on with meal prep instead of get caught up in miscellaneous stuff that didn't progress my day. There was an apple and a few nuts. Then at 9:30 I realized I was hungry. Not the kind of hungry that is really thirsty. No I realized I forgot about dinner. YIKES!! I really wanted a salad and a bit of protein. Yes. I am one of the weird people in the world that craves salad and can be happy with one for breakfast or for a late night snack. I didn't have salad. There is another story explaining why I had not purchased groceries. I'll save that one for tomorrow. What did I do? I had purchased shrimp from the coast. I steamed it up with Old Bay seasoning. We ate peel and eat shrimp at 10 pm. It tasted wonderful. It was lacking the cold beer that came with late night peel and eat shrimp in my early 30s. 

The moral here? Plan meals and eat meals. Be flexible in your day so you have food available when last minute or forgotten appointments change your meal plan. 

How to Survive a National Holiday

Friday was Independence Day here in the United States. Traditionally this is not the healthiest food holiday. Hot dogs and hamburgers, chips and cupcakes are popular menu items. I think we can safely say I might now eat a hamburger on a green salad but the remainder are not on my list of consumable foods. With a large country family potluck in the plans for Friday Night Dinner I had to make some fast plans!

Breakfast was interesting. Turkey bacon for protein, roasted sweet potatoes for the veggie carb, fresh apple for the raw enzymes, and peanut butter for healthy fat. Covered all the bases but was a bit odd with the mixed tastes.

Lunch before we hit the road was fresh salad (baby kale), rotisserie chicken breast, grilled squash, and green olives. 

Then we hit the road for our close to 2 hour drive. I snapped a picture of the sock progress just before we left the driveway. 

We landed alongside a beautiful river. I sat and knit for hours. Here is a shot of the next sock. I finished the toe and started to surf left while riding. 

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My total progress on the new sock? Huge!

My afternoon snack was simple. Just an apple with a bit of goat cheese.

Dinner was classic picnic. If by classic picnic you mean chicken salad on baby kale, chickpea and roasted eggplant salad, dilled yellow and zucchini squash, cherry tomatoes and kalamata olives. 

On the drive home we were a bit snackish. We had to stop for gas. Silly car was a bit hungry too. It is hard to find snacks on the road when you are eating a clean diet. Fortunately we live in the southeast. Roasted and salted peanuts are always available. I was sure to portion out a serving size and stick with it. How much is a serving size? About 3/4 of a cup.

Saturday was a bright new day! I woke with a great idea! I have some de-cluttering to get done. There is too much stuff in the house. It has been bothering me for quite some time. I woke with the idea that I could "shop" through the stuff and "buy" only what I wanted. Everything else needed to leave the house and go to one of three locations, a local thrift shop, a friend's home, or the garbage bin. What a fabulous idea! I started the day with a good breakfast (brunch really because I was super tired and slept late). Remember I'm not a huge fan of the classic eggs for breakfast. We had grilled steak, kale green salad, sauteed squash, and the healthy fat was a nice clean dressing for the salad. I was all fueled up and ready to tackle the day.

I spent three hours shopping in my crafting area. I packed up two boxes to mail out. I collected items for a third box. Kam and I sorted through the miscellaneous kitchen stuff that has been collecting on the back porch. We eliminated 2 boxes of kitchen items and two more boxes of clothing. We dropped it all off at one of the thrift stores and headed to the grocery store. When we returned we made ourselves lunch. Turkey burgers with melted pepper Gouda on top of baby spinach with fresh guacamole and slices of jicama. It was perfect! We had fresh blueberries with walnuts and cream for desert. 

Kam fixed dinner. It made me smile! She reheated the remaining steak and made a fresh caprese salad. She was very sweet and thought I would like sliced cabbage with gluten free blue cheese dressing on it. I think it is better with Italian dressing. I ate it anyway though. When you are making this many meals for yourself you will eat what someone makes for you and be happy with it. 

While I was shopping I came up with a plan. I found this amazing amount of fiber. The white is a fleece I washed and started carding myself. The dark blue is a braid I was given but was partially felted during the dyeing process and couldn't spin as it was so I had already carded it once. The light green is alpaca I purchased at the fiber festival a few years ago. It is not long staple but very pretty. The turquoise blue is coltswold I found that same year at the fiber festival. The green and yellow braid is one I purchased from a friend who no longer has an online store. That one is not wool but faux cashmere, nylon! My idea? To card up batts out of this for spinning.

The batts are beautiful. I have over a pound of fiber to spin up. I was fascinated by it as I spun!

The resulting yarn has a nice art quality to it. This is only the first skein. It is 100 yards. I am hoping for 4-500 yards for the total basket. 

Midweek Crazies!

Thursday was busy. Many clients, my own workout, and the random business that is life. With all that I neglected to post my Wednesday meals. Sorry. Wednesday was just as busy as Thursday. I woke super hungry and by the time I remembered I needed a picture of my breakfast it was already in my stomach. Not to worry. It wasn't fancy or full of extensive complicated recipes. Just a basic turkey burger with a green salad. A rather large turkey burger because I was super hungry and needing the protein for recovery from my Tuesday workout.

I made a one pot lunch that covered lunch and an afternoon snack. I like one pot meals for the ease of clean up. This one was similar to chili. Kam wanted to know what I called it. It really isn't chili but close so I told her it was Whitish Chili. It stuck. How did I make it? Sliced scallion, jalapeno pepper and garlic sauteed in coconut oil. When they were almost cooked through I added 3/4 of a pound of ground turkey to it (remember I had that burger in the morning so there wasn't a full pound). After that was browned I added diced zucchini squash, fresh corn cut off the cob and cannellini beans. I used 2 tsp of chili powder, 1 tsp of oregano and 1 tsp of thyme. To give moisture I added in a cup of water then covered and cooked until the squash was done.

After work I sliced up squash, cabbage and Italian sausage. I drizzled it with olive oil and put it on jelly roll pan in a single layer. I roasted it at 430 for 20 minutes. Simple all one dish cooking and satisfied all my veggie and protein needs. I had a bit of a sweet tooth so after I had an apple with peanut butter. 

Thursday morning was my second kettle bell workout with Bengi. I started my day with an Awake shot and an ounce of walnuts. I'm doing my workout first thing in the morning but really need to eat before I workout. A full breakfast would make me sick so I'm opting for a simple snack like meal. 

After workout I tossed veggies and chicken into the oven while I showered. I had less than an hour between the end of my workout and my next client. I had to make every minute count. 

Lunch was 4 oz of steak under the broiler and 2 cups of fresh kale. 

My snack was a fresh pear and an ounce of Brazil nuts.

After work Kam and I enjoyed a late night meal. I made bison turkey bacon burgers. I chopped up the bacon, some scallions and parsley. I mixed this all in with the ground bison and fried them in a pan in coconut oil. I think they were the best tasting burgers I've had in forever.  

Knitting progress? Wednesday I went to the laundromat...long story there...and knit on the Stitch Surfer socks. Thursday I managed lots of cardio knitting. I walked to and from the gym quite a few times. I had a client do a no-show on me so I spent half an hour on the bike knitting. Then I spent a bit of time in the evening knitting. It all totaled up to almost a complete sock. Here is the sock "knit in the wild" while cardio knitting.

And here it is just before I picked it up again yesterday.

Kettle Bells Rock

I started my workouts with my son again. He is a fantastic trainer. We are doing what we refer to as a Power Half Hour Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Boy was yesterday morning a powerful workout! He is working out with me. Pretty fun to do a mother son workout. We used kettle bells for our cardio bursts. Body weight rows with the TRX got the back. Battling ropes hit the shoulders and arms while providing extra cardio. Finally he had us do some chest using the cable cross overs. After a half hour I was ready to quit! I pushed hard. I think I pushed extra hard because I don't want to seem weak. I what to be able to do whatever he says. It could be a bit crazy to compare my 49 year old body's abilities to his 30 year old abilities. I'm not really. Not the weights I'm moving just the endurance. Still crazy.

I needed more food for recovery than I ate. I struggle with getting enough meals and big enough meals. That is one reason I'm challenging myself to share it with the world. Or at least the portion of the world that is interested in reading. For those in the know you will notice I needed another cup of veggies with my breakfast. The gluten free chicken Italian sausage had 18 grams of protein. It was enough for the meal. I had baked the sweet potato while I was at the gym. They were perfectly soft and piping hot when I returned home. Yes, that is butter on the sweet potato. It is real butter and whipped so it looks like lots when it is indeed just a bit.

I repeated my lack of green veggies at lunch. Again not a good plan. Why did I do this? I'm claiming burn out. I was just not interested in cooking more food. Some how I reasoned with myself that chicken and sweet potato would be enough to see me through. Could be that snack I had late morning. There was an apple and peanut butter that somehow managed to get into my belly without having its portrait taken. 

Before going into the gym for my evening clients I had early dinner. Another chicken breast, roasted sliced cabbage and a roasted zucchini. It was yummy but not enough food to take me through the entire evening. I was done with clients at 8:30 pm and famished again. I'm blaming the kettle bells.

What did I do? I heated up gluten free chicken meat balls and sauteed some spinach. The radish garnish was tasty but not really much additional nutrition. 

I followed this with a pear and the last few table spoons of yogurt topped off with walnuts.

Knitting? I started another sock! This is the Stitch Surfer sock from Knitty.com. What a fun concept! Intarsia knit in the round that fades one direction and another. The appearance of surfing from side to side is intensified by the stripe contrasted with the tonal variegation. I think these socks are going to be a fast knit. I'm pretty happy about that.

Visitors!

Yesterday was one crazy day in the gym! Bengi (my son who is one of our trainers here at The Fire) arrived at 6:10 am to train his 6:30 group class. He was surprised by two raccoons! They had dropped into the gym through one of the office ceiling tiles. He tried to get them out. They were spooked of course. One hid in the bathroom and the other tried to climb the wall at the other end of the gym. They were finally trapped into the bathroom while someone was called to come catch them. Those clever things climbed out of the bathroom! They stood on the hot water heater and popped out through the ceiling tiles! There is a live trap set up where they entered. One was caught this morning and we hope the other will be trapped by tomorrow. It did make for a crazy stressful day though. That is my excuse for not posting my Sunday meals. I think it is good enough.

Sunday morning breakfast? I started with apple, yogurt and chopped nuts. Then I had steamed spinach (two cups but wow does it "melt" when it is steamed) and turkey bacon. Lots of protein here!

Lunch was roasted purple potatoes, wedge salad, raw sugar snap peas, and a bit of grass fed steak. I love potatoes. I rarely buy them. I know exactly why I don't bring them into the house! I had them 3 times in 48 hours! Talk about no self control!

Dinner was different. My younger son and his wife joined us for dinner. We chose to do take out from a local noodle shop. Not the best choice for me. Mari likes it though and I wanted to go with one of her favorites. I needed to make a better choice from the menu. I chose Thai Basil Noodles. They are rice noodles with chicken, veggies, and basil. It is spicy and yummy. It is not glycemically balanced. I was hungry soon after and very sleepy.

For a late night extra meal I had flash grilled salmon on a bed of spinach. Then half an apple with a spoon of yogurt and walnuts. This helped curb the incredible hunger.

Monday's meals were a bit more on track! Except of course for the excessive use of potatoes. sigh  Breakfast was chicken breast, roasted potatoes, spinach and fresh sliced tomato. It held me for a couple of hours in the gym then I needed a snack. 

Snack time? Apple and peanut butter fix! The dogs really wanted me to share. I didn't. I was hungry.

Lunch was a bit late since my snack was late. It is funny how those late meals keep getting later as the day goes by. Kam and I shared the last of her iceberg kick, a beautiful avocado, roasted broccoli, and a bison burger. 

We were at the gym until late. Dinner was very late. In a perfect world I'm done eating by 7:30. Yesterday I was sitting down to a meal at 8:30. Oh well. It was tasty. I roasted up the last of the potatoes. Thank goodness those potatoes are gone. They kept taunting me. I split a chicken breast butterfly style and coated it with basil and thyme then broiled it. I had fresh sliced tomatoes and organic radish slices as a salad. Then followed it up with an pear topped with yogurt and nutmeg.

And what about the knitting? On Sunday I reached the 75% mark on a big project. I started in April knitting 8 pair of socks. Sunday evening I completed the 12th sock! Now looking at the picture you will notice that the green striped socks are not in it. They are not part of this project. They are a bonus pair. All totaled I have actually knit 16 socks since April first. Only 12 of them count though. 

Monday I debated. I thought maybe I might just spin some yarn instead of knitting more socks. I finally went for the sock knitting adventure yet again. I cast on in the afternoon and had half the foot finished by bed time. It is the mate to one in the photo above.