Fitness Update. Or: I Hate Biomechanics

Faithful readers will remember that I'd gotten all re-energized about running... then my knees started to hurt, so I stopped. Then I figured out that my knee pain was caused by bursitis, so I went to a physical therapist. On learning that the underlying source of the issue is likely the low arches in my feet, I dutifully bought new running shoes, new regular shoes, and new sandals that cost more than the running and regular shoes combined, and I've relegated all my old, lacking-in-arch-support footwear to the deepest recesses of my closet. Well, to the non-eye-level compartments in my shoe organizer, anyway.

My knees are mostly better. A little stiff sometimes, but manageable, just in time to get ready to run a respectable time in a 5k later this month, and gear up for a 10k at the end of the summer. I'd mapped out a training schedule and everything.

You know where this is going, right? A new issue. Of course. If you guessed "arch pain," you win! My interwebs self-diagnosis indicates either plantar fascitis or a sprained ligament. Either way, the best course of action seems to involve a lot less running than I'd planned.

I'm filling in the gaps with arm workouts courtesy of our Wii system (and a resistance band that's more effective than I'd expected), the 30 Day Shred (though I'm not doing 30 days in a row, no sirree), and occasional attempts at Zumba classes. I think I might also incorporate turning-on-the-stereo-and-dancing-around-the-living-room more often, too.

Harvest, future and present

Our strawberry plants are doing really well this year.  See all those flowers and teeny yellow berries?  If they can survive the hungry woodland creatures (they're not fenced in) I suspect we'll have a lot more edible strawberries than we did last year. 

We've already harvested some edible veggies.  There's been enough baby spinach for a couple salads, leaving behind plenty to keep growing.  And the radishes -- oh, the radishes.  I plant rows of them every year because they grow quickly and gardening is more fun when things grow quickly.  I'm not a huge fan, though, especially when they've matured enough to be quite spicy.  For now, we've been putting them in salads, but we've barely made a dent in the crop.  Must research other ways to use them up, or start giving them away to friends and family, as we did last year with cucumbers.

I really wish I had a knitting "harvest" to share as well, but alas, I do not.  Super-secret Gift Knitting project is about 80% done, so I feel like I'm almost, *almost* in the home stretch.  When that's behind me, I can knit something new and different!  Rejoice!  I predict a twirly happy dance of celebration... followed by complete and utter indecision.

Open Letter to This Week

Dear Week,

You can hurry up and end now. Seriously. Move along.

Annoyedly yours,
-craftosaurus

Hidden option C strikes again.

I know I've talked a bunch about the pendulum of social engagements, and how it feels like we're (I'm) always either overwhelmed with (admittedly, very fun) plans, or feeling bored and disconnected from our friends and families when our calendar isn't awash with ink.

I'm here to report that there's also a third option: feeling disconnected from friends and family, but decidedly not bored. There's been plenty to do, what with getting the gardens up and running, prioritizing fitness and activity every day, tackling plumbing repairs, and -- oh yeah -- planning a wedding. I swore up and down that I wouldn't become one of *those people* who eat, sleep, and breathe nuptial topics, and I think so far I've been steering clear of that territory, but I will say we've had to devote more time and attention to the process than I'd expected.

This week ahead of us includes four fun social events. I'm looking forward to each of them, but oh man, I'm also looking forward to the three day holiday weekend coming up, in large part to cross a whole slew of items off our various to do lists.

Does that count as balance?

Scenic? Not so much.

But at least it'll be protected from the groundhogs.  We hope.

In the first, closest bed, we've got peas, lettuce, leeks, and string beans (not yet germinated).  In the middle bed, there's spinach, radishes, beets, and more peas.  The last bed has tomatoes, basil (not yet germinated), and cucumbers (again, as yet invisible). 

The greenery in front of Fred (everyone, meet Fred, our shed... yes, we're ridiculous dorks around here, but you knew that, right?) is a small patch of raspberries.  It actually pales in comparison to the wild raspberries we found at the edge of our property *after* we planted these guys. 

... and a sixth!

Grateful for blooming irises (and for figuring out how to post photos from my phone that don't appear in miniature).

Cop-out in list form

When all else fails and one has nothing interesting to say, one can never go wrong with a second-string gratitude list.

1. Cinnamon-hazelnut coffee from a french press.

2. Watching Meet the Press every Sunday morning with a mug of said coffee and an intelligent, interested, and interesting SuperFiance. (Wait, that's approaching first-string gratitude. Ok, let's just say Meet the Press.)

3. Getting the lawn mowed before 8:00am, when the street is still quiet and the sun is still low.

4. Having gutters set up and ready for the rain barrel we're getting next week.

5. Finding a place to plant some asparagus, once and for all.

It was a good weekend, y'all.

Tiding us over in the meantime...

Have I mentioned that we have a few types of veggies in the garden? Lettuce leeks and spinach and beets and peas and radishes. Everything has germinated but nothing's ready to eat yet.

Luckily, I know my impatient self pretty well and suspected I'd be jonesing for home grown sustenance once we were back in the swing of preparing for it. Thinking ahead, I planted some lettuce seeds indoors to use as microgreens, so we were able to enjoy a microsalad last week.

(We did not, however, grow the tomatoes and artichokes. Or the olives.)

Ambitious or foolhardy? Perhaps both.

The SuperFiance and I ran a 5k over the weekend. Considering that I was sidelined by knee problems all fall and winter and I hadn't run more than a mile in one go since last summer, I was pretty pleased that I only switched to walking once, for about .1 miles. I can't say I was overly pleased with my time, but it does leave lots of room for improvement, so there's that to look forward to.

We're signed up for another 5k in June, which gives me several weeks to a) get faster and b) convince the SuperFiance that he can run ahead of me at his own pace rather than doing the slow-motion, chariots-of-fire thing just so we can run together.

That's all well and good. A faster 5k is totally doable. You know what might prove to be a bad decision, though? Signing up for the Trail to Ale 10k. Yes, that's a TEN before the k. I'll also point out that it takes place shortly after our wedding. I mean, yes, exercise should always be a priority and should never be put on the back burner because of scheduling conflicts or major life events or any number of other things, but man did I paint myself into a corner in terms of enforcing that policy.

If any local peeps are planning to run this one, let me know. We can meet up at the end, once I've shuffled across the finish line and you, presumably, will have finished, recovered, and had time for an ale or two.

Easily Impressed

Senor Stupendous and I went to dinner here over the weekend. Yum and a half. My maple-glazed pork chop and his perfectly cooked lamb were both amazing. The pear sorbet they brought us between courses was unexpected and lovely. And don't get me started on the organic hefeweizen from Germany.

The flavor and texture combination that continues to haunt me, though, is the bread and butter: springy, delicate, herbed focaccia with chive butter I can only assume contained additional mystery ingredients as well (garlic, lemon juice, and highly addictive narcotics are all strong contenders).

Filling up on the contents of our twice-filled bread basket meant I was too full to contemplate even splitting one of the available confections (though the Meyer lemon tart did its best to tempt me). On the other hand, though, I was also too engrossed in the carb-and-butter goodness to give more than a passing thought to the alarmingly close proximity of our table to our fellow diners and the path of server traffic. The chive butter (and the conversation!) was more than good enough to distract me from the close quarters.

Our neighbors like us again

To be fair, I don't think our next-door neighbors have ever actually disliked us. I don't think they can always hear us very well (remember, they're octegenarians), and I suspect they liked us *more* last summer when I was unemployed and available to mow their lawn when they asked at a moment's notice (you think I'm kidding, don't you?), but all kidding aside, no, the folks next door probably don't and have never hated us. In fact, I think they find us fairly amusing, with our ever-expanding vegetable garden, and our early morning bike ride last Saturday (I'd bet you anything that they noticed when we got home about 10 minutes after we left, all dolled up in our helmets and neon-ware), and our sensible approach to our household (see, e.g. use of clothesline, compost bin).

But if any thing could have created some resentment among the senior set one house over, it would have been this:



Granted, this photo was taken after all the old, loose paint no longer adhered to the wood was scraped off. Even when the lion's share of the surface appeared to be covered in paint still, we got a hint or two that oh, by the way, the fence is yours, and doesn't it look like it should be painted? Now, maybe it's really our fence, maybe it's really theirs -- I think that's pretty much beside the point. Mr. Terrific and I are infinitely more capable of prepping and painting (and man, it took longer than I thought it would) than any two eighty-somethings. Particularly the eighty-somethings in question.

And so, we painted. It took a couple nights after work and a solid weekend day, and now it looks like this:



Oh how they gushed when they saw the results a few days ago. It brightens up the whole place! I love the color! (Thanks, it's.... white.)

The best, though, was the comment received this evening.

Looks great... You gonna do a second coat?

Exhausted

The SuperFiance and I had a wonderful, productive, but very tiring weekend. Here's what we managed to tackle:

- a trip to the farmers market (note to self: do NOT buy a tub of chevre with sundried tomatoes and kalamata olives every week)
- 3 mile run/walk wherein I realized just how not-pretty next week's 5k is going to be
- repair of leaking pipes in the basement
- changing of automotive oil in one of our cars
- small cookout to thank some folks who helped with the plumbing and the oil change
- fencing placement around our vegetable garden, as we're determined to feed ourselves this year, not the woodland creatures
- planting of peas, lettuce, and leeks
- transplanting of a pack of annuals gifted to us weeks ago and miraculously not killed by neglect in the interim
- lawn mowing (also, edging. old school, with clippers.)
- painting of the fence between our yard and our neighbors' yard (it may or may not be our fence, per se, but we certainly have the ability to get this done more easily than the octegenarians next door)
- progress made on super secret gift knitting project
- laundry X 4
- yummy meal cooked from scratch X 2
- unexpected bonus item of productivity (which we really could have done without): defending the bathroom from an ant invasion of alarming proportions

We didn't even try to get to the hanging of gutters or the painting of our backyard shed.

I'm almost relieved to be back into work-week pace. Almost. Tell me again when nap time is...