Busy week and SNOW

This week has seemed crazier and busier than others, and I have yet to figure out why.  My coach went "light" on me, my work days didn't change and hours of exercise was less than last week. However, Wednesday and today it was hard to get up out of bed at 4:50am (yes, AM, a mere twenty minutes after dairy farmers are awake to start gathering the cows for milking).  


What does Quirky's normal week look like? 


Saturday        Long Run
Sunday           20 to 60 minutes of lighter exercise, recovery from Saturday
Monday          Day off from running/biking, but up by 5am for Yoga at 5:30am, 
                                   Then up at job 1  (8:30 to 5) then at job 2 (5:15 to 9:15). 
Tuesday         Hour or so of running, work job 1 and then job 2, but only until 8pm
Wednesday   Up by 5 for Yoga, then home, work, then home and then hour of running or 
                          biking,  (I can't seem to get the exercise in after yoga in the morning)
Thursday        UP for exercise, work
Friday             Up for Yoga, exercise or not, depending on how Coach is for me., work


Rinse, repeat. 

Somewhere in there is cleaning, laundry, cooking, spending time with The Mike (hubby) and the cats.  


Last night Felix was in withdrawal of attention from me, and I for The Mike.  I slept in yesterday morning, so I ran last night, but then I had to dash off for a hair cut appointment, leaving The Mike and cats at home. [Shout out to my fabulous hair stylist, who has been through thick long hair and thick short hair with me. .. her arms appreciate the short hair!] 


Came back, baked the pizza (yep, easy out night of baking), ate, curled up on the couch next to The Mike, Felix on top of me getting attention and then I fell asleep. . .somewhere in the middle of Patrick Jayne: The Mentalist..  I have no idea how it ended. I remember being urged to bed, but then I couldn't fall asleep again and was up for a bit, then the dang alarm went off. UGH.  I am not sure what's different about this weekend than last, but I definitely feel like I'm more tired. . . maybe it's that the food hasn't been high priority this week? More convenient and grain foods than normal.  [The pizza was from Mama Mimi's, but they use Still Riding Pizza Gluten Free pizza crusts]


Highlight.  It snowed last night. I LOVE snow. Several years ago I figured I could lament about it for driving, or  embrace it and enjoy the beauty of the winter wonderland. . .okay, the first part's not true, I've never minded snow--it makes one a better driver!  Highlight: It was daylight when Yoga was over.  Highlight: I got some nice snow photos this morning.  County and city roads were cleaned off. . . the city must have saved a lot this winter with the October/November temps we've had in December, January and February.  The main road through our neighborhood was plowed this morning  when I headed to Yoga--normally it is not plowed until after I head to work in the morning! Got back from yoga, our road was plowed already!  WOOT.  Now, if only the neighbor-kids will have the initiative and shovel the drive before we get home ;-) 






The historic Little Red School House...the red building looked so great in the snow, I had to pull over to take the photo at the park.  














As I neared our house, I had this beautiful view. . . okay, it's not normally this great. There use to be a building here, but it was flooded in 2008 and the business moved to the south side of town. The city (read, FEMA/ our tax money) split the property, sold the half that "didn't flood" and there will (high anticipation, ha ha) a neighborhood park created here.  The snow hides a neighbors house.

runner, gluten free and now a springboard too!

The cat has decided that I am a springboard. . . perfect for "diving" onto the bed at about 2am.  LUCKY me!  He's done this the last two nights. early Friday morning it was annoying enough as I was already up at midnight, then at the 2ish time when he did a triangle, jump, land, run two feet, turn, run two feet, bounce off me, land repeat .   Then enter early Saturday morning, where it happened again, except instead of a triangle he just leapt off me, landed, trotted back to same spot, repeat.   Maybe we need to take away his catnip mice?

Saturday I drove to a Soroptimist International of the Americas meeting for Ames Heartland. We presented our award checks to a young woman (high schooler) who spends time reading to first graders to encourage them to read.  She was our Violet Richardson award winner.  We had two women apply for the Womens of Opportunity Award and we were lucky to have them both present as well.  One is a young woman who is starting over after an abusive relationship, the other escaped a violent relationship with her children and has found new love and a new place to live, though she still is worried that that evil man will find her.    I am grateful to be a part of this wonderful organization.  

I had a late lunch with my sister, then drove home. It was such a windy and cold day that it actually seemed liked winter might show itself again.  This is February and we've only had about three storms that gave us any snow. It was still raining in November and it well shouldn't be.  Last winter we had about 25" of snow. This winter, we've had about 8".  It's not right, especially since our farmers  (i.e. read: dad, uncles, friends) really could use this rain and also because I actually have an AWD vehicle now instead of the rear-wheel drive Dodge we had before! Bring on the snow! 

Anyway, with the meeting, it meant that I was going to run my 18 miles inside, on the new treadmill,  in the evening. Normally I'm a morning runner, so I wasn't all that jazzed about the run.  I got on, had to do some adjustments (you know how it is, right?) and started putting in the miles.  Hubby got on the rollers (bike) beside me and we watched Prince of Persia.  Forgot about that movie, but watching it brought back the videogame The Mike use to play, back when the xbox and playstation got attention from us.  Great movie and action packed that I was hoping I wouldn't even notice the miles my feet ran.  However, I did.  My feet, calves, thighs hurt along with my lower back. After a few breaks for refill of water and other things, I threw in the towel on the run.  13miles and some change done.  It was 8:30, we were going out to eat, and no, we didn't even bother to shower.  Bring on the food to the hungry people who did three plus hours of exercise.  Steaks and potatoes were on the menu and they were fabulous. No pics, we all know what steaks look like. . . and more importantly, an empty plate ;-) 

But, I still had to finish out my miles, which I did on Sunday morning.  Got up, got going and put the miles in.  Finished watching TombRaider. . .Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig.   Then made a fabulous brunch:  Jimmy Dean all natural sausage, french toast with UDI's whole grain bread and an orange. Yum!  Too hungry to hink about photos :-D

I lost my energy!

Where did my week and energy go?  


Monday night I went to a zumba class with a friend. By Wednesday evening we were both feeling drained, Thursday was tiring, Friday I had nasal congestion, which hasn't left the body yet!   AJ and I figured we touched some surface at the zumba meet place and we were contaminated there.     Wednesday was my first day of Bootless Yoga, as Monday I was sleeping off the Triple D snow half.  That was fun and exciting.  Lots of new stuff to learn. Friday's yoga was different, more stretches and things that made me say, 'oh yeah, I can do this' and then Friday evening/Saturday morning I was needing to stretch again :-D




I emailed my coach and said, 'hey, this is what's happening with my body this week'.  He suggested I pull back on Saturday and do 11 instead of 15.   Thanks to the blizzard we got on Friday (7 inches of snow), I decided to head into the gym, though that was more due to the low temps than anything.  I got 5 miles run, then walked 4 more at 7% incline and then called it a day. I was tired and wasn't going to push myself and just end up sicker!


On the other hand, since I wasn't doing as much exercising, my time for baking/cooking increased! 

My drive to work.  Winds, plus snow. We apparently received 7.5" of snow, a one day record. However, at our house, 5 miles from the measuring location, we received about 5 or 6 I would say.  Thankfully, we have eager neighbor kids who are wanting to earn a buck. I no sooner got out of the car, than I had an offer.  I said to come over when it stopped snowing; he showed up a couple of hours later









Cupcakes were on the agenda. I found some recipes at www.cupcakerecipes.com  I made the peanut butter and chocolate chip recipe, which, of course, demanded I make peanut butter and chocolate icing from scratch (Hershey cocoa can recipe with pb added).

YUM!

I won't say how many of these were devoured this weekend.

Next up was Chebe.  This is tapioca bread heaven. I've found using my food processor makes it much easier and a fluffier product.  I used two bags of the product this time, added in chuncks of cheese for something different.








































One ran off the pizza stone.

Saturday morning I made egg muffings. I got this recipe from Health-Bent I don't follow Paleo diet (obviously, since I make chebe!); however, I have cut down on the amount of  breads in my diet.  It just makes sense. . . the stuff just sits in your intestines and gains weight. Paleo makes sense, I just can't make myself eliminate so many things that I am able to eat (there are plenty of things I can't eat).

I made more of these tonight. . . I used Hormel ham slices, natural, on Saturday and liked that better since they contained the yoke. I used Hormel Canadian Bacon tonight. I was planning to use the leftover Beeler's bacon, but forgot. I still can't believe I made bacon and we didn't eat the whole package. I'm not sure the last time that occurred.


Tonight I also made a rice bar for hubby. He found the recipe around Christmas time and I just got around to making it tonight.   Sushi rice (2 cups rice to 1.5 cups water), crisp bacon, 4 scrambled eggs and a little soy sauce.  Mix together, press in pan, refrigerate and then cut into bars.  They looked really good. He wanted these for cycling food.


Dinner tonight was chicken soup: 2 smart chicken breasts, carrots, celery, onion, bay leaf, pepper, quinoa (and a little tiny GF pasta--Schar brand), and then chicken stock. YUM! 




[second posting, somehow managed to post earlier by mistake!]