I am sitting on my couch watching the 102 minutes that Changed America. Reliving that day in amazement of what happened.
That morning I was a sophomore in high school and we were in class changes from first to second period, and I was sitting in my Advanced Grammar class waiting for the bell to ring. My friend Molly came busting in the class begging our teacher to turn on the television.
She had been in commute from the Career Center (all AP classes for the county were in one central HS and we all traveled) and had been listening to 102 Jams, the local hip hop radio station. Apparently they had been doing their news segment and were “live on location” with a guy reporting on some convention or something, standing outside in Jersey within view of the towers. All of a sudden he sees the first plane go into the tower, and is telling the radio what he sees.
We immediately became glued to the TV, and watch in horror as just moments after we turned it on the second tower gets hit with the second plane. The jumpers are what got to me more than anything, so upsetting to see those people who thought that was their only hope, or the better way than the hell that was inside. At class change we rushed to our next class, only to watch the towers collapse.
I remember having a discussion with a boy next to me about how “Today is 9-1-1, they know, why did they pick this day, why did they picked today to do this horrible thing?”
And then the news of the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania…the whole day was horrifying.
Praying for those souls.
—-
butternut squash for dinner and a massive headache I think from the lack of caffeine after many days of indulging. 12 miles in the AM, going to sleep, goodnight!
First things first… September 11th. Always remember.
And pray for the service men and women who are protecting our freedoms!
I started my relationship with lifting weights back in high school track. We had a decent gym, our school had a lot of money both because of the neighborhoods it served and because our basketball team was state champ 3 years in a row and started getting sponsorships from Nike and such. Everyone wanted to make sure the basketball team could do their best, and so the other teams in the school got to ride on their coat tails.
On the far wall of the gym there was a huge buliten board for the Demon Power group. Demons were our mascot, if you hit a certain max lifting or something like that your name got on the list on the wall of the gym. I was envious of the girls who were in the Demon Power group, but I never was focused enough to actually get up there.
In college I would lift off and on, a few weeks at a time I would be all about it and then it would get lost in the craziness. That is actually what it has been like since college as well, though the ‘on’ periods do seem to last a bit longer and be more frequent.
My husband has been my trainer since we started dating, so when I hit the gym I aim to lift hard and heavy. For about 8-10 weeks I was doing a Body for Life challenge and really liked that method of training. Christmas that year derailed me and I haven’t every really gone back and completed a challenge (note to self, 12 weeks isn’t that long…do it again!). Since then I have just been training on my own or with my husband or a friend, in and out of the gym when I find the time.
Today I was going to go to the gym down the street, however my snooze button addiction left me with just enough time to stay home and work with my 3, 5, and 10 lb dumbbells and body weight exercises.
workout: upper body
2 x 15 dumbell press (10 lb)
2 x 15 incline dumbell press (10 lb)
2 x 15 decline dumbell press (10 lb)
2 x circuit of 10 rear deltoids, 10 laterial raises, 10 upright dumbell rows, 10 front raises (5 lb)
3 x 15 back crunches
2 x 15 standing double curl (10 lb)
2 x 15 chair dips
Got the blood flowing and building up the habit again.
breakfast: a bright green Kermit smoothie of a quarter avocado, half a bunch of spinach, pint size baggie of frozen kiwi and pineapple, 1/2-3/4 c. coconut water; plus a nuked egg and egg white
packed lunch: whole wheat tortilla wrap of laughing cow lite wedge, turkey, mushrooms, cabbage, cucumber
plus I packed an apple for a snack.
Off to substitute at the high school for the first time! The middle school kids think I’m their age, so this ought to be interesting.
Coffee was my friend today. After busting my butt until 1AM getting all caught up on my housework, I ended up getting to chat with Handsome for 30 minutes or so, and needless to say my 530 wakeup call to go for 4miles was rejected. Between work, a quick nap, and then a 5 hour meeting, the run and gym time didn’t ever happen.
Did you know in a regular pack of M&Ms there are about 56-60 candies? (comes to about 4 cals a piece) I subbed the last half hour of a math class after my tutoring day was over, and the class was learning how to make line plots by charting the colors in M&M packages. Of course, after my pack was charted for the class, it randomly disappeared and I got a jittery headache about the same time. I don’t know what happened!
During my meeting the same thing happened to a Little Debbie chocolate cupcake and caramel apple dip! A oatmeal cream pie was staring me in the face HARD but I did manage to refuse that and come home to a real dinner of stuffed pepper. This one had ground beef sauteed in onions, garlic, oregano, and basil; quesadilla cheese, and a dollop of pesto.
Good thing I can just start over in the morning, cause today was a little crazy. Back to basics, I’m gonna follow Body For Life’s eating plan to retrain my mind and tummy to eat clean and simple, otherwise I can tell I’m headed down a road I don’t want to be on. Clean eats and a good lift in the morning, and life will be grand!
Cross your fingers that I my paycheck comes through tomorrow, I have been fighting the state to get my second job’s paycheck (from July!), and it has been a pain in the neck for weeks because somehow I got kicked out of the system randomly, after almost a year of no problems. I think everything is lined up and we will be back in action tomorrow. Thank goodness!
The Tops on the Agenda for tomorrow:
–lift upper body
–probably substituting
–get Rx refills for me and dogs
–drop clothes at base thrift store
–clean my truck (smells like rot and wet dog in there, it’s GOT to get shampooed! Mentioning this so I get shamed into doing it!)
–clean bathrooms
–zumba
–call mom back
It had been three weeks since I stepped foot in the backyard. It was time to face it. (this picture doesn’t do it justice, it was ankle high at the low spots.)
It must be very entertaining for the neighbors to watch me mow the yard. The mower is quite finicky, and frankly I’m just not very good at it. I kick the thing, I make crazy patterns, I get it clogged or out of oil or out of gas and sit there trying to figure out how to fix it, I am generally a mess. Very soon the grass will stop growing and I will be pretty darn excited!
This afternoon was clean up the backyard day. Not only did I mow, but I also tossed all the dying summer plants in anticipation of fall and winter favorites to come. I feel so much better not having to look at these dead petunias out my kitchen window! Soon pansies will be here…I did blue and yellow last year, this year I’m thinking white and purple?
Goodbye herb garden! I wish I had a dehydrator, I wouldn’t have let this basil plant come to this…
Dogs enjoying the completed project; thyme, oregano, rosemary and the biggest frog I’ve ever seen got to stay (he hid before I got a picture)
Afterwords we all enjoyed a rousing game of catch
To back up, this morning I was up at 5:30 to go for an 8 mile run with my running buddy Kara. We haven’t had our runs together for the past few weeks cause the girl decided to up and go to Ireland (lucky!) so it was great to catch up. We had a lot to talk about and the run felt effortless, even though we kept it around 9:40 pace.
After we got caught up, we talked mostly about what we are gonna train for after this marathon. We are gonna go with a half and a sprint tri in the spring….though I’m thinking I might continue on to an ultra next fall or the following spring…I am getting bit by this distance bug bad! Both she and my husband think I’m insane, but whatever, I’m liking the idea and I’ll stick with it for now.
My eats for the day were a lot better than the late usual. I didn’t eat myself into oblivion and it’s the end of the day and I am not uncomfortably full. Success over gluttony! (Seriously, it had gotten that bad the past few days) Not the healthiest choices, but one step at at time getting back on the train.
Some pictured highlights:
grapes on the drive to work
breakfast
you make Kraft mac for some kiddos and eat the bottom of the pan…it’s a rule….
pizza that my neighbor passed on to me last night (that’s two pieces)…
dinner of 1/2 a tub of Fage, kiwi, pineapple, honey, almond butter, Kashi Heart to Heart
Two Fig Newmans to fuel the mowing
Unpictured is my second “dinner” of coffee, cornbread, spinach dip and carrots, and an amazing dessert called smores cake at a neighbor’s house while we sat and chatted. Tomorrow’s goal is to get back on track with healthy meals and all will be well again!
Off to get things done before bed! Hope you had a great 09-09-09, Night!
Yeah, so I got sooo much done last night (FYI purple is now my designated sarcasm color). Me and Caesar Milan had a several hour teleconference meeting (read Dog Whisperer Marathon on NatGeo) that seemed to take over most of my to do list.
To Do list before bed:
-empty dishwasher
-pack lunch and snacks, prep breakfast, plan tomorrow’s dinner
-put away laundry that is done right now..hahaha
-continue washing loads of laundry…hahaha
-make bed….slept on dirty sheets again, whoops
-lay out clothes…nope
-finish cleaning bathroom…I did put the towel on the hanger…
-sketch out week’s exercise, meals, calendar…. nope
I did, however, make a huge batch of hummus. My favorite hummus of all time is Sabra’s hummus with roasted pine nuts. I made a batch based off of Angela’s 50 cent hummus, and while I like it, it just doesn’t have the taste that I want. I added more lemon, tahini, oil, toasted pine nuts, and water, but I can’t figure out what else is missing.
Mine: cooked chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, toasted pine nuts, water, paprika, lemon juice, garlic, salt, vinegar
Theirs: cooked chickpeas, tahini, soybean and/or canola oil, garlic, salt, citric acid, roasted pine nuts, red bell pepper [I know this is only in the top decoration part], seasoning and spices, natural flavors, potassium sorbate added to maintain freshness.
The texture is more gritty than Sabra’s which I understand because me and the stick blender can stand in the kitchen only so long before it doesn’t matter to me anymore. It’s the way the taste spreads across the tongue that I can’t pin down.
Mine has a rich, bean/meaty taste up in the front of the palate, and kinda thuds there. With Sabra’s it doesn’t have much taste up front till it has this sharp almost yogurty tang on the back of the tongue. Perhaps I should add more vinegar? Perhaps it is the use of soybean/canola oil instead of the olive I used. Perhaps it is the natural flavors, and citric acid and potassium sorbate that gives it a ‘manufactured’ taste I’ll never be able to recreate.
Oh well, I will enjoy my occasional tub, but it is soo much cheaper to make my own, and perhaps if I get used to my own, I’ll like the homemade taste better.
In other news, since I’ve been gone from this internet world, many things have happened,
a good friend of mine got married and an awesome time was to be had at that wedding, sorry for the fuzzy pic of the bride…
Patrick and I bought a boat! We should close on it this week, and I’ll put more details up once we are actually in possession of it (probably in a month or so) but we are so excited. It is a 32 foot Hatteras flybridge. It was a great deal and will be a lifetime project for the two of us, so I am looking forward to getting started putting our touch on it. Here are some sneak peaks of it’s current condition…
A proper name is the current project. Right now it is named “Happy Hooker” out of Wilmington, DE….and we are not to be mistaken for ladies of the evening and we are not in Delaware, so it needs a new one pronto.
My leanings right now are towards Dwell Time. I like the Jimmy Buffett reference of Banana Wind or Coconut Telegraph or (I am married to a HUUUUUGE Parrot Head), but apparently it is common so I don’t think he wants to go that route. We will take our time and get to know the boat before we settle on one.
Ok, I’ve got a date with 4 miles of pavement and a literal TON of laundry……
Last night at 3am, as I laid in a tent next to my snoring dogs, I watched the full moon disappear behind a cloud and it started to rain. I pulled the rain cover over my tent, and settled in for the storm. It’s 8pm and it never stopped raining. Today has been wet, to say the least.
A couple friends and I decided yesterday to go camping. We packed our coolers, put the dogs in the car, and drove out to the air station campground and set up our tents. You would think with 7 people and 6 dogs we would be a rowdy bunch, but really we just hung out around the campfire. It was a great evening, but I definitely missed Patrick, I was the only one without my other half.
Running is going well, on Saturday I did 16 miles. My shins are sore the first two miles on runs lately, as are my hips. My arches are sore and tend to charlie horse during the day. And I have become a chow hound, eating everything in sight and then some. I am trying to focus on healthy things, but have also succumbed to situations like people dumping their Ben and Jerry’s on me because “you run, you can eat it.” Yeah, right, thanks, appreciate the empty calories.
I am going to try to keep up with posting (and taking pictures) to get myself organized. Patrick is coming home in 2-3 weeks, I need to get cracking on my projects and getting everything ready for him! The other week I finally ordered our wedding album! 
It’ll be my Christmas present to him, or rather to us.
Now I’m just sitting here with my cup of tea getting ready to crank out the rest of my evening!
To Do list before bed:
-empty dishwasher
-pack lunch and snacks, prep breakfast, plan tomorrow’s dinner
-put away laundry that is done right now
-continue washing loads of laundry
-make bed
-lay out clothes
-finish cleaning bathroom
-sketch out week’s exercise, meals, calendar
I had better get busy!
Ok, so I am in mild (ok more than mild) panic mode about this marathon in October. While Patrick was home I was good the first few days and we ran and did some awesome weight training at the gym…but then we slacked off and didn’t work out.
Don’t let him fool you, he was quite content to sit on that couch with me.
I went to a friend’s batchelorette weekend this past weekend and there was a lot more alcohol and crap food consumed and I chatted/struggled through a 5K jog with a hangover in 35 minutes. I’m running a marathon 15 weeks from yesterday!
I’ve paid the $80 entrance fee for both myself and my husband, my mom and step dad have hotel rooms for them and us and I owe them $300 for our half. So I have $500 invested and parents and husband to impress (read: not die in front of) and I am currently headed towards crappy shape. AHHH! Get moving! Mom, I am going to bust this out, don’t worry, it is going to be awesome! 
SO…I am in crack down mode. I started that right off the bat by waking up promptly at 9am and hitting snooze thirty times. Good God, I need help.
No, tonight after work I am going to get in a workout and get busy. I decided to change up my marathon training schedule (since my current one had me running 14 miles yesterday…hahahaha) to Hal’s Novice training program. I have a friend who had good luck with it in the past. I am picking up with week 3 to stay on track since I have 15 weeks and this is an 18 week program.
So this week’s plan is:
Monday: “Today being Monday, it’s your rest day after two days of hard work over the weekend.” hard work. haha. I’m going to get a good chest/triceps lift in at the gym and finish it off with 30-60 min of yoga at home.
Tuesday: “Run 3 miles at your normal pace.” No problemo. Finish it off with 30 min of stretching and abs.
Wednesday: “Today is a 4-mile run, up from 3 the first two weeks. Your mileage on this midweek “hard” day will continue to build along with your weekend mileage.” Stretching, lift back and biceps at the gym after the run.
Thursday: “Run 3 miles. This should almost begin to seem like a short distance now.” Oh yeah, this always feels like a short distance, just whether or not it feels like a short time period. Finish off with extra stretching and abs.
Friday: “Your day of rest.” Might get in a good walk with the pups and a quick shoulder work out at the gym.
Saturday: “Run 5 miles. As mentioned above, we drop back in distance every third week on our long runs to offer you extra rest. Keep an invisible “8″ in your mind, since we jump ahead to 9 miles next week.” Ok, I can do that! Stretching and yoga after.
Sunday: “Cross-training for an hour. Aerobic exercises work best: walking, cycling, swimming.” Swim 20+ laps and lift lower body.
So this week total will be: yoga twice, abs twice, weightlift everything once, swim for an hour, walk for half hour, run 15 miles. I can do that!
Well, I have been absent for a very good reason. Patrick came home for 15 days of R&R and it was the best two weeks I’ve had in a long time. It was wonderful and most of the time it felt like he had never left. We took most of our pictures when we were on one of the boats. We went to the beach, we fished, we went scuba diving, he golfed a lot, we spent a lot of time just relaxing, and a lot of personal fun time too :*
It was hard to drop him off at the airport again the other day, but it is better knowing that I will see him soon, I appreciate every moment we had together. I love him so very much and am proud of all he is accomplishing. He is working so hard over there and is making personal and professional gains, I couldn’t be more proud of him.
Last night I had this dolphin we caught on Saturday for dinner (I can’t for the life of me get this to rotate..):
and it turned into this fabulous meal:
I topped the grilled mahi filet with chopped basil, parsley, rosemary from the garden and the zest and juice of a lemon. It was devine!
While we did go to the gym and bust out some great workouts (I love when my personal trainer is home) We got side tracked and after the first week we didn’t do any formal workouts or runs. Now I am left with a marathon in October and I haven’t been running in 13 days. Oh well. Today is planning day, I want to get my meals, my training, and my cleaning back on schedule.
I was in the best shape of my life right when he came home, and while I definately drank enough beer and ate enough resturant food to add padding, I am not worried. It will come back in a snap as soon as I get up off the couch.
I did realize that when he comes home for real I need to learn how to be around him, but not eat like him. I was keeping up exactly, beer for beer and splitting whole huge pizzas down the middle and getting burgers at restaurants and everything. Neither of us have eaten like that in 6 months, so I missed that food too, but I need to figure out how to occasionally indulge, but mostly stick to the way I have been eating on my own because it makes me happy.
So as I get things organized I’ll post today and try to build something I can hold myself accountable to as I look to make summer pass as (fun filled yet) quickly as possible!
Financially, we did amazing! We didn’t even dip into the savings we set aside for this vacation. We did spend the paycheck down to the wire and I spent less last month so that the bills could be paid off of the previous paycheck, but all in all I am extremely proud of us for being responsible with our money. I think Patrick thinks I am on the verge of being obsessive about our money and watching where it goes. I think as we spend more time together, and just talk about it more, and figure out together where we want our money to go it will work out well. Meeting in the middle will be the name of the game!
This afternoon has gone well. I haven’t been seen yet, but I did change some things that makes it more promising. I called my doctor’s office repeatedly all morning, and the ‘closed for the night’ voice mail kept picking up until way after 9am. They close at 4:30, they can’t answer the phone before 9:45?
Anyway, when I did get someone I told the receptionist I needed to schedule my annual exam sometime in the next couple months, but that I am also having problems with my asthma and my foot and was hoping I could be seen today if there was possibly an opening. She laughed at me for a good 20 seconds! I mean I know that it is a long shot, but geez how about some professionalism?
That was my last straw with that office, so I called my insurance and got my PCM changed. The new doctor is at the naval hospital, and even in making my appointment I could tell things would be a lot smoother this way. I have referrals out for my stuff, and should be seen in the next few days for the asthma and foot, and there is always the ER if things get bad before I can be seen. Things are uncomfortable, but not to that point yet.
So I took the afternoon easy and puttered around the house. A swim would have been awesome, but I don’t think I would have made it down the lane without coughing. A cup of tea and recipe browsing was a good substitute.
I love when I have a free afternoon and the urge to bake. I have had black bananas sitting in my fridge waiting for me to decide which banana bread to make. I looove banana bread and have about 10 recipes that I bounce between, but today I decided to make up my own.
When I took my neighbor to the airport, she gave me all her perishables from her fridge. Included in that bundle were a few oranges, and it got me thinking.
Orange scented banana bread….
Studded with my favorite, candied ginger….
And my experiment in making my own almond butter, almonds ground up with a touch of honey. It never turned into butter, but that doesn’t mean the crumbly mixture didn’t taste divine, and would make a perfect topping….
I based the bread loosely off of my favorite Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze, but I changed enough that I think I can say this is my own recipe.
So while I was swooning away to old school/new school R&B (I looove John Legend), I stirred up this bread. My only regret is that I used the 10″ pan and I should have put it in the 8.5″ one so that it could have a tall pretty crown. I mashed up 4 and a half bananas, one of which was a little bit less ripe and I barely mashed it, so that there would be chunks of banana through out the bread.
The end result was dense and moist, simply sweet and bursting with banana, orange and ginger. The perfect breakfast or dessert in my opinion.
Gingered Orange Banana Bread
2 cups of flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon grated orange rind (about 1 orange)
3 or 4 very ripe bananas (came out to about 1 3/4 cup)
1/4 cup chopped uncrystallized candied ginger (got mine from Trader Joes)
1/4 cup 2% Fage yogurt (or regular plain nonfat yogurt)
handful almonds
squeeze of honey
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine flour (lightly scooped into measuring cup and leveled), baking powder and salt in a bowl, stirring with a wisk to combine. In a separate bowl cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture, stirring well to combine. Stir in bananas, vanilla, orange zest, and ginger. Pour into a 10″ loaf pan coated with cooking spray. In a small food processer, grind almonds for 2-3 minutes untill they are finely ground. Add a touch of honey and continue to grind until desired consisitancy. Sprinkle desired amount of mixture onto the batter, and bake for about an hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Zen moment..
I want to be here…
with him…
But that can’t happen now. Not to be a complainer, (ok I really just need to complain for 5 minutes, bear with me)…
1) I can’t breathe. My asthma came back with full vengeance the other night and I am ODing on my emergency inhaler trying to get it under control…if I can’t get an appointment today with my PCM looks like I’ll be back in the ER. Last time I was there I miraculously healed the minute I stepped in the door, and was sick again when I left. Of course.
2) While I am there I will have them check out my foot, because I can’t walk either. I am starting to think more and more that I have a stress fracture in the mid foot of my left foot. I ran my normal run last Wednesday no pain no nothing, Thursday afternoon I was standing in my flip flops and casually leaned on the side of my foot and had a shot of pain, took a few days off no problem I’ll be fine…Saturday I couldn’t run my normal run. Few more days, some ice and elevation… couldn’t walk yesterday. Never swollen or anything though, only symptom is pain with weight bearing. So to the doctor I go. Oh, and we purchased the hotel rooms for the marathon in October this weekend, I had better be able to run!!
3) Since I am in the neighborhood, why don’t you take a look at my hand Dr.? I slammed it on my pantry while I was setting a snap trap for a mouse….and I think I have nerve damage… Though this does seem like it is going away on its own, it is annoying to have a tingly hand.
4) A mouse, you say? That bugger is still around? Oh yes, Jerry now has a last name, Houdini. He can eat off snap traps without setting them off, he can wiggle off of sticky traps, He can poop on top of ever single can of beans you have, and won’t do it again until the night immediately following you washing each one. Jerry is fast becoming my new bestest friend. And I think might be the culprit for problem number 1. Definitely is for number 3.
So sorry for the Debbie Downer -ness. It feels better to get it off my chest. It would be nice if doing that would let me breathe…but that would be too much to ask.
