Food Experiments

This weekend I did a few "new" things.

First - I did a session at Dream Dinners. It is one of those places that you go and assemble meals then take them home and freeze them. There is a minimum amount you have to purchase but I ended up with 11 "meals". Most of mine were in 3 servings, but you can pick 3 or 6 serving meals. Ultimately my choices worked out to be about $5/serving.



There was a pretty wide selection and most of them used relatively healthy ingredients like olive oil, low fat or fat free ingredients (i.e. light mayo, egg beaters, etc). Most look to be pretty good and you can thaw them and they take around 20-30 minutes to cook them. Really it is just the main course - most do not have a side or veggie included. And if you are vegetarian this is not for you - not too many veggie only options. The negatives - excessive use of plastic bags, needing a lot of freezer space for storage. The positives - the convenience factor, and hopefully they taste good..... I still haven't actually tried one yet. So I will have to report back on the taste later this week.

The second new thing - a little experiment with marshmellows and oreos. The idea started the other day when someone mentioned a variation of rice krispy treats with fruit loops. Someone else suggested that maybe ones made from oreos would be yummy. I thought Zach would want to experiment with me, but no, he wanted to make spritz cookies (he likes to use the cookie shooter). I had to do it on my own, but here is the finished product.....



I had a hard time crushing the oreos up - should have used a rolling pin and a ziplock but I didn't have any big ziplocks. So I tried to do it by hand - not so easy. But I think they ended up OK. I used 2 rows of the 3 rows in one pack of oreos and about 1/2 of what a batch of rice krispy treats calls for - so 1.5 tbsp butter and about 5 oz mini marshmellows). The overall ratio of marshmellow mixture to cookies seemed to be about right. So, how did they taste.... haven't tried them yet either. I plan to take them to work tomorrow - so I'll have to see what the consensus is - thumbs up or thumbs down.....

Zach has been excited to ride on his track ever since we moved. Daddy finally got it ready and today was the first ride.

It started out a little rough. The track was a bit loose and dusty so it was pretty slippery. Zach was crashing all over the place and was getting really frustrated. Also, since our property is on a hill, the track had a few ups and downs. I think eventually he will be OK with the hills, but today they were a little too intimidating.




Daddy ended up taking the tractor out and smoothing it and making a few "short cuts" so that Zach didn't have to go over the hills. So, after that he was up to his normal riding self, going and going like the energizer bunny. If we didn't have a birthday party a Chuck E Cheese to go to, I don't know if we could have gotten him off the track. As it was, as soon as we got home he was begging to go out again. I'm sure that will be the first thing he wants to do in the morning too.....

Jake wasn't ready to ride - but liked the dirt.




and does anyone know - is this poison oak??



if so we these 2 huge "bushes" on either side of the track are really poison oak....




more weekend updates to come.....

Personal accountability

So, they always say to tell people what your goals are to help you be accountable for them. Of course in theory you would tell people who would offer support to meeting that goal. I guess that even though I have been telling people that I want to do these triathalon races, it hasn't helped motivate me to actually put a training plan in place and follow it. Not because of lack of support it is more my own lack of focus. I find that I often am flip flopping between "goal" races, so it makes it harder to figure out and stick to a reasonable training plan. I need races to help get me to train because as much as I do want to keep up my conditioning, I need to have something bigger than just training to work towards. Having a goal or event in mind keeps my interest in my training. Well that is when I am really mentally committed to said goal/event. It is very clear that when I am not very committed I let my training slip. Once my training slips then I usually will let myself off the hook for doing the event. My last half marathon was probably the first race that I did that I didn't go into it thinking I could PR. Really the only reason that I didn't just not do it was that it was a local race. If I had to drive an hour to get to the race, I'm sure I would not have even bothered. My training doesn't just fall apart out of pure laziness, more because I don't make it a priority. I have to admit that the past few months have been more busy between moving and going back to work full time. Not that I couldn't make time to do it, I just didn't make it a priority. I need a new plan and maybe I need to figure out a better way to stick to it. I don't forsee life getting less busy, so it is up to me to figure out how to make it happen. So I guess stay tuned and I can once again tell you what my goal is.....

Nose die

Most of the time I listen to NPR in the car, so Zach sometimes picks up on little phrases or things that they are saying. Today the announcer was talking about how the Dow Jones took a nose dive today.

Z: Mommy why did the people's nose die?
Me: No honey, they said nose DIVE
Z: but how did that happen
Me: (try to explain it is just an expression - try to explain how a plane nose dives and that if something falls really fast they call it a nose dive)
Zach: but how did their nose die
me (trying to again explain) - this went on for a few minutes and I still don't know if he got it, but I ran out of ways to explain it.

anyway - the point is - I wonder what he was really thinking when he thought that someone's nose died? or did he really get what I meant by saying it was an expression? sometimes they seem like such little people, that you don't get that they don't really know things that seem like normal expressions and it is really hard to try to explain something that to an adult seems simple, but who knows what a 4 yr old is thinking. Of course, Zach may surprise me and a few days from now will see something that falls fast and call it a nose dive.....

On another note - tomorrow is my half marathon that I have been training for the past 3 months. Although my training hasn't been the best lately. I originally thought this would be a "goal" race, but now I am trying to figure out what my expectations should be for the race. I haven't ever really just done a race as more of a training run than a real race. I guess if nothing else this can show me how not to prepare for a race.

Blog giveaways!

So not sure how to become a blogger worthy of doing a giveaway - but I have a couple of giveaways to pass along....

First check out Trailmomma who is giving away some ThinkThin protein bars - I have never had them, but checked out their webpage to see what yummy flavors they offer (dark chocolate anyone?).

And also Shut up and run has a giveaway going on for a pretty cool package of stuff.

I'm sure that the only person who reads my blog who wouldn't already know about the above giveaway's is my husband, but I am just trying to up my chances of winning something.

And hope that someday I have enough readers that I can get people to give me free stuff to give away on my blog....

No escape from the mommy guilt

Some days it seems you just can't win. If it isn't feeling guilty because you have to go to work early and your kid just really wants to snuggle, then it is feeling guilty because the precious few hours between work and their bedtime, they are being so bratty that you don't enjoy that time. or worse, you spend that time repeatedly time-outing and just being generally frustrated with their behavior. I don't want my kids to grow up thinking or wishing they had a parent who could stay at home wih them, or remembering only how grumpy mommy always was at night. I know that it isn't always quantity over quality, but as a parent you want both.

What goes down must come up.....

When you live at the top of a hill - there is no choice but starting bike rides or runs going down hill. Not such a big deal - but that means that you always end going up. And I guess it may sound like I am whining (which maybe I am a little), but when I say down hill, it is a good mile down. This Sunday, J and I finally got out for a tandem ride and not only did we of course have to start down hill, but we chose to then climb over one of the local hills that serious riders use for training. I was surprised that we managed so well on the tandem - and without even getting in the granny gear, even a the steepest part. The very last bit of the climb gets a little steeper than the rest and I have needed my triple for or even walked this section a bit a few times. Climbing on a tandem can be rough if you aren't in sync and really working together. Actually about 1/2 way up I realized that going down the other side may be more scary than thinking of the monster climb. Let's just say that I get a little nervous going over 30ish downhill, and with the tandem I am not in control at all. The ride ended up being a great workout (oh, didn't mention the 9+ miles I ran in the am too...) I am working on changing my mindset on climbing. I know it will make me stronger I am just not promising I will fall in love with those hills.....