Sunday Letters

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

PORKIN!

heather

Ha – gotchya! This post isn’t about what you thought it was about. You pervert.

One of the benefits and drawbacks of buying a whole hog is that you have tons of pork to eat.  I love pork, but we probably eat too much of it.  We need to widen our horizons as far as meat is concerned, but it’s hard to do when you have 100 pounds of pork chilling in the freezer.

I used a few pounds of it this week in a couple of new recipes:

1.  Beyond the Bite Hawaiian Pork Roast.  This recipe was very easy to make, and the flavor of the roast was delicious!  However, the cabbage got a little overcooked, so its texture and color were a little unappetizing; although, the actual taste of it was good.  Even though the recipe only calls for 3 T of ginger, the whole roast had a really nice ginger tone to it.

2. Easy Glazed Pork Chops.  This introduced me to a new way of cooking pork chops. We usually either grill them or fry them on the stove.  With this recipe, however, you cook them on the stove for 4 minutes on each side and then bake them for 6 minutes.   They end up cooked perfectly!  I would definitely make pork chops this way again, but I would not make the glaze.  Tim HATES vinegar, and this sauce was super vinegary and made the whole house smell like vinegar. I personally liked the flavor, but I won’t subject Tim to the vinegar scent again.

And today is Christmas.  Tim and I are going to head out for a run shortly, and then we’re going to play some cribbage, eat some homemade stew, draw, bake cookies, watch some Lord of the Rings, and crochet some slippers.  Sounds like a perfect Thursday in my opinion!

Oh!  And one more thing to note.  Some friends of mine and I decided to do another Primal Challenge in January. It’s kind of become a tradition at this point. I originally started the primal diet 3 years ago in January, and for the past 2 years, I have re-done the challenge to help myself get back on track and to help introduce some friends to the diet.  This year we are making it a little more official. I set up a Facebook Group here for us to communicate and encourage each other.  We are doing it 1/11 to 1/31.  If you are interested in joining up, hit me up on Facebook. I’m excited to see how it goes (and I’m excited to have a strong excuse to turn down delicious (but super unhealthy) treats at work!).

I hope you are enjoying your day off and can get outside and revel in the cold sunshine.  Thanks for reading!!

 

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Movies, Paleo, Product Reviews, Uncategorized

Swedish meatballs, yoga pants, and crocheted slippers.

heather

Chris Kresser links to the best recipes!  I found this recipe for Paleo Swedish Meatballs last weekend in one of his posts.  Holy cow.  These turned out sooooo delicious!  They were a lot of work for a weeknight meal, as you need to cook the meatballs in batches on the stove top until they are all done.  But they are so worth the effort.  Here are a couple of notes – I used a 2 inch scoop for the first batch of meatballs, and I had a really hard time turning them without them falling apart. I scaled down to a 1.5″ scoop after that, and those meatballs were much easier to handle, and they cooked much more evenly.  Also, I was 85% sure that the “gravy” would not turn into gravy.  It was super runny all the way up until I added the 3rd tablespoon of tapioca starch. Then, magically, it started to firm up to gravy consistency.  So rich and tasty.

For a side dish I made roasted brussel sprouts because I found some local ones at The Food Hub for 2.99/lb.  I used this recipe as a guide; however, instead of making the glaze, we poured the gravy over the cooked sprouts.  I have to say, we were not super happy with how these turned out.  They were very dry (maybe I didn’t add enough oil?).  So, when we stored the leftovers, we mixed the sprouts and the meatballs and gravy together. The sprouts marinated in that rich gravy overnight and were super moist and tasty when re-heated.

I also tried this recipe last week: Crockpot Ropa Viega with Cuban Style Rice.  This turned out OK.  Tim and I both thought the dish was a little over-spiced, and the meat didn’t turn out as tender as I hoped.  Tim ate the leftovers with white rice, however, which cut down the spice level a bit, and he said that was really good. However, this recipe did provide us with supper and enough leftovers for two more meals.

So on to my next piece of news.  For our anniversary Tim got me an amazing pair of yoga capri leggings from Onzie.  I wore them to an hour and 15 minute yoga class, and they kept me very cool (the fabric is really thin). I also wore them running, and they were very comfortable.  He got me the Prizm print.  It a cacophony of patterns, and it gives you something really interesting to look at while in downward dog. I don’t know if yoga pants are the proper dristi for yoga, but looking at them made me happy, so I think Yoga would approve.

I start my yoga teacher training class on 1/9, and I feel as if I really need at least one more pair of yoga pants for the class. Unfortunately the prints I really love at Onzie are all sold out of my size.  I’m going to keep my eye on it though.

And finally, the last topic of my post.  Ever since we were little, my mom has made us awesome crocheted slippers (the slippers are courtesy of Mom – the hair is courtesy of Lucent):

IMG_7421

Mom has shown me a couple of times how to make them, but once she is not next to me, I forget how.  So I found this YouTube video on granny squares (the slippers are basically 3 small granny squares stitched into one big granny square).  With his help and a few texts back and forth to Mom, I was able to successfully make all the pieces for a pair of slippers:

IMG_7422

And this is currently where I am stuck. Over the phone, Mom walked me through how to stitch the pieces together, but my first attempt ended very poorly. I was distracted by David Bowie’s hair and other things in The Labyrinth and didn’t have the pieces lined up well enough, so they didn’t connect where they should connect.  I’m going to try it one more time, and if that doesn’t work, make Mammacita sew them together for me. 🙂

So that’s my week in a nutshell.  Hope you are having a great Sunday and can get out and enjoy this 40 degree day.  Take some Vitamin D and eat some salmon, and you won’t even miss the sun!

 

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

How to get fat on the Paleo Diet

heather

I’ve been paleo/primal for 3 years now. I initially lost 18 lbs when I started the paleo diet, and I’ve kept it off for the past 3 years.  I’ll gain a pound or two when I start to loosen up the diet too much, but as soon as I tighten it up, my weight goes back down to my “equilibrium” weight, which is right around 131 pounds.

What are the culprits of the subtle pound creepage?  For me, it’s beer (1 beer = 1 lb), cheese, paleo snacks (Nut Thin crackers and sweet potato chips) and too many paleo baked goods.  The beer and cheese obviously will cause issues, but I think the paleo snacks and baked goods are more insidious. It’s easy to fall into the mindset that since they are “paleo-ish” they are OK to eat.  Well, and I honestly think they are OK in moderation.  It’s just that for me, I have problems with self control.  If I buy a bag of Terra sweet potato chips. I will eat them all over a couple of days – not happy until they are gone.  Same thing with paleo baked goods – when you make a batch of them, you have at least 12 treats hanging around.  12/2 = 6 treats for Tim and 6 treats for me that just HAVE to be eaten over  the course of 2-3 days.  DANGEROUS.

But we had company yesterday, so I used that as an excuse to make these Paleo Pumpkin and Carrot Muffins.  They are kind of a lot of work – the recipe prints out on 3 pages!  However, they are definitely worth it.  They taste like delicious pumpkin pie.  Two notes, however – I had to cook mine 10 minutes longer than the recipe said. I had so much batter that I had to fill the muffin cups 100% instead of 3/4, so I’m sure that’s why they took longer to cook.  Also, I could not find Five Spice Powder anywhere here in Davenport.  So I used a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice and added some turmeric and cayenne pepper. I didn’t even taste the turmeric (but we got all those anitoxidants), but you can taste the cayenne at the back of your throat as the bite goes down the gullet. It adds some interesting dimension to the muffins.

I made another Nomnompaleo recipe yesterday:  Oven-Braised Beef Stew with Carrot, Parsnip, and Lacinato Kale.  This recipe is a tremendous amount of work – you have to cut tons of veggies and then you have to sauté everything separately before adding it to the dutch oven for roasting.  The stew turned out super delicious, however, so it’s totally worth it.

And lastly, to the detriment of my waistline, I tried out this Paleo Pancakes recipe this morning.  I’ve never had great success with paleo pancakes. They are always too thick to cook properly.  Making them is an exercise is frustration.  But sometimes you just want a pancake with lots of butter and maple syrup.  So you keep trying and hoping.  Well, Chris Kresser linked to this recipe a few weeks ago, and I’m so glad he did.  These are by far the best paleo pancakes I’ve ever had. Tim even said you can’t tell they are paleo!  They are just good pancakes – not just good “paleo” pancakes.  This was my first attempt at using plantains, and based on these pancakes, I look forward to adding more of this safe starch to my diet.

I’m excited to have found some new recipes to add to my repertoire, but now I have a fridge full of honey-sweetened muffins and delicious pancakes.  It’s dangerous.  I better do some heavy aerobic exercise to burn off all these carbs today.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Uncategorized

Querulous Tummies

heather

This has been an interesting, odd week.  First of all, Tim came down with the flu on Tuesday, which was an inauspicious start to a holiday week.  Fortunately, it was a pretty short-lived flu.  Well, I should say the really bad part of the flu (throwing up and body aches) was pretty short-lived.  Today is Saturday, and Tim still is not feeling like a normal Timmy Tee.

I was convinced that my robust primal meatbag would be immune to such a silly, niggling thing as a flu.  In other words, I was convinced I would not get sick.  However (yep, there’s a however) on Thursday morning I woke up early, and my brother and I did the 23 degree Turkey Trot in downtown Davenport.  It was actually a really great 5 mile run.  There were some windy sections, but overall the weather was great, as was the crowd.  There were even some blessed souls who bundled up and stood on street corners to cheer us on and to encourage folks by handing out Krispy Kremes!

After the race (which Nate and I did in a comfortable 52 minutes or so), we walked to Macs and joined the sweaty throng for a couple of tasty Blood Marys. Since Tim was still not feeling 100%, he dropped us off and picked us up, which really helped us stay as warm as possible. It was awesome!

We got home, and I started prepping this slow cooker turkey breast recipe.  I made myself an aeropress coffee, added a celebratory shot of Templetons and proceeded to play a rousing game of Tick with Mom, Dad, Tim, and Nate.  I started to notice that my belly was feeling uncomfortably tight, but I attributed it to being too busy to take off my leggings and running pants. I finally took a break and changed into comfy yoga pants, but my tummy didn’t improve.  I put a ham in the oven and then went back to wholloping my family at cards.  However, the longer I stood playing the cards, the more I realized that I wasn’t feeling quite right.

When the game got over, I sat on the couch and finally admitted to myself that I was sick.  I felt super foolish for not realizing it sooner and probably exposing all of my family to my germs while playing cards. I went straight to bed and just laid there staring at the ceiling, with my legs pulled up (stretching them out hurt my stomach).  My head hurt. My back hurt. My muscles that haven’t ran 5 miles in 6 months hurt.  I got sick.  I slept on and off from about 2PM until the next morning.  I woke up and felt remarkably better – good enough to go out for breakfast and to spend the entire day away from home, checking out the Figge, Bucktown, and LeClaire.  I still wasn’t feeling normal – still chasing a bit of a headache and dealing with a touchy tummy, but overall, I was pretty good.

So, while my diet didn’t wholly protect me from getting sick, I think it helped me get a very mild case of it and recover pretty quickly. Nate and I even did a yoga class this morning! I was afraid that all that twisting and core work would cause some issues, but I actually ended up feeling BETTER after the class than before it.  Although, SOMEONE farted during the class. I was convinced it was my brother who was right next to me, but he denies it.  And I’m pretty sure he would own up.  So, it’s possible it was me. I mean, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me, but who knows?  A fluish tummy is an unpredictable thing.  But, man, was it ever a smelly fart!!

And back to that recipe I made.  It got very mixed reviews.  Dad & Nate really liked it. Nate said the veggies were done perfectly.  Tim and Mom, on the other hand, did not like it at all.  Tim said he didn’t like the shallots with it.  I couldn’t be the tie breaker  because I didn’t try it.  Maybe because I had it in the Nesco while I was succumbing to the flu, the smell of it was no good to me.  Fortunately Nate liked it so well that he ate all the leftovers.  The ham turned out very tasty, and I had no problems eating it.

I also ate quite a few coconut chocolate bars before I got sick and one yesterday during the recovery stage.  And now they do not sound appetizing to me at all.  I should have made myself eat everything I crave (chocolate & sun-butter, Whitey’s ice cream, Panera scones, etc.) on Thursday  so that I could cure myself of the cravings.

And that brings us to today.  I was feeling pretty great, but now I’m getting a headache.  Writing a blog post while riding in the car seems to have instigated some motion sickness.  Blurg.  Wow. And now I’m pissed at my MacBook because I had to type Blurg 3 times before it stopped auto correcting it to Blur.

I hope you had a healthier Thanksgiving than we did!

Health & Fitness

Finding Time for the Things We Love

heather

So, obviously I really enjoy doing yoga.  I would not have signed up for Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) if I didn’t.  However, I’ve found that despite my best intentions, it’s almost impossible for me to make it to a yoga class more than 2 times per week. You see, when I signed up for YTT, I received 104 free yoga classes at my studio, but I have to use them within a year.  That means I need to go at least twice a week to use up all the classes.  Plus, I WANT to go at least twice a week.  But, despite the fact that I want to go and the classes are essentially free, it seems as if something unexpected always comes up – car troubles, late meetings at work, invitations to get a drink – you know IMPORTANT stuff!

Anyway, to make sure that I get as much practice in as I should and as I want to, I asked my YTT teacher for some online suggestions.  He sent me to www.yogaglo.com.  For $18 a month you can take as many classes you want. And you can search for classes by how long they are, the teacher, the style, your skill level, etc.  It’s awesome.  I’ve taken 5 classes online so far and encountered one teacher I absolutely love (and one I really, really do not like!).  Browsing through the site has also helped reinforce how much I have to learn about yoga!  It’s this huge body of knowledge that would take several lifetimes to learn.  It’s a great site, and it’s really helped me to become more regular in my practice.

I still prefer to attend a live-person class if possible, however.  I find the cues and subtle adjustments to be really helpful.  Plus I think it’s good to be around other people who are also trying to learn new skills.  I learn a lot not only from the teacher, but from watching the other people in class.   Some are amazing and make you want to try harder to reach that level. Others can barely do a downward dog, yet they are there persevering, which is also encouraging.

While I still don’t do yoga as much as I want to, I am super jazzed to note the progress I have been making.  Little things that used to be very difficult for me are almost doable now. I can get up into crow pose for about 2 seconds – weeeeeoooo!  And my balance is improving.  The first time I tried to do half-moon was a disaster.  Now, as long as no one within my eye sight is wobbling, I can stay up fairly well.  I know I have a very long way to go, but the progress has been really encouraging.

So that’s the update on yoga.  I don’t have any recipes to share this week. I made food, but nothing new or exciting.  Hope you are having a great day and escaped any disaster on the horrible roads today.  Adios!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Jeans for curvy girls, bracelets for skinny wrists, and paleo pasta (to maintain the skinny wrists)

heather

Today’s post is going to be a lot like my brain – all over the place but full of little interesting tidbits of information.  I’m assuming you are OK with this because you keep reading my blog. 🙂

I’ve been wanting a pair of skinny black jeans for awhile now.  I actually ordered these from Madewell, but they were insanely tight. I know jeans are too tight when Tim’s eyes almost pop out of his head when he sees them on me. I sent them back and kept my eyes out for another suitable pair.  Well, Old Navy’s harassing, non-stop emails finally paid off for them. I was threatened with losing my bonus cash or cash bucks or whatever the heck they are, so I ordered a pair of their Rock Star Skinny Jeans in the Curvy fit.  Holy Cow. These could very well be the best pair of jeans I’ve ever bought – even better than my James Jeans, which were my previous favorite.  They are snug, but not too snug.  They don’t hit me in an awkward part of my belly. They are flattering.  They are the right length.  The black is a nice, true black.  At 1/5 the cost of the James Jeans, the Old Navy jeans are a steal.  I’m considering buying like 5 pairs just in case Old Navy decides to discontinue them.  I LOVE them.

Man, this is going to be a pretty materialistic post. The next thing I’m going to talk about is another recently discovered love – Pura Vida bracelets.  I first ran across them at the yoga studio I go to.  They had this bracelet made of salmon colored thread with silver balls woven through it.  Here it is.  It caught my eye immediately because I thought it was soo beautiful.  It was $15 though, which seemed like a lot for what it was. So I checked out the website – you can get a ton of bracelets very cheaply on the website! I signed up for their emails and immediately got a 50% off coupon.  I ordered one of the multi-packs, and I couldn’t be happier.  They were way to large for me, so I had to trim down the ends (and then re-melt them), but now they fit great.  I’m hooked.  If you want to try them out, let me know. I can send you an email, and you’ll get 50% off your first order too.

I was hoping that devoting more time to yoga, meditation, and reflection would make me less want-y. However, so  far all I have noticed is an obsession with yoga pants and hippie bracelets.  Maybe I should just give it more time?

AND….. I tried one new recipe this week (between all of my online shopping).  I made paleo spaghetti, and it was so good that I’m making it again this week.  I roasted a spaghetti squash (cut it in half, took out the seeds, rubbed the inside with olive oil and salt, and cooked it cut-side down for 30-45 minutes in a 375 degree oven).  Then for the sauce, I followed this recipe.  I was short on butter, so I used 3 T of butter and 2 T of olive oil.  For the meat, I turned some of our ground pork into sausage using this recipe.  When we mixed it all together – wow!  It was super delicious and very easy.

And there’s my update for the week.  Hope you are having a productive Sunday!

Uncategorized

Doing what everyone else does (aka working on our laptops at a coffee shop)

heather

Today is Veteran’s Day.  That means, among other things of course, that Tim and I both have this Tuesday off.  It feels like a free day – no weekend chores to run, no places to be, no obligations.  So what are we doing?  Sitting at Panera, working on our laptops, drinking coffee, and eating cinnamon scones.

I know it may sound silly, but “taking our laptops to the coffee shop to work” has always sounded like fun to me.  I mean, when I was getting my MBA and had tons of annoying group work, occasionally we would meet in coffee shops to work on projects.  It was so frustrating – trying to find room for books, notes, coffee, and laptops.  I thought it would be fun to go to a coffee shop and just work on my own personal stuff.  Yet, for some reason I’ve never done it!  But today is the day.

I have to say, like most things in life, it sounds much more romantic than it really is.  First of all, we drove to 2 Starbucks and one Dunn Brothers looking for a place that actually had room for Tim and me to sit down.  I don’t know if it’s because it’s Veteran’s Day and a lot of people are off of work, but every place was packed!!  I mean Starbucks has pretty good coffee, but it’s not THAT good.  It was super frustrating.  Thus, we ended up at Panera which has just OK coffee but amazing scones and more places to put cheeks in the seats.

And that brings me to this moment.  We finally made it.  What do I think?  Well, while it’s nice to get out of the house, I think I prefer my homemade aeropress coffee, our beautiful, homemade stand up kitchen table, and my cozy slippers.  Plus I don’t have to overhear annoying conversations about pivot tables and junk.  Bleh.

But maybe I am just testy today because I used a new hair gel, and my hair is annoyingly flat and gross today.  It’s my day off!  It should be gorgeous and full.  Damn hair.

So there you go.  This was a post about writing a post.  I do have interesting things to say, I swear!  Just not today. 🙂

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

Adventures with Harrissa and Reiki

heather

This has been an exciting week! I tried 2 new recipes AND a new alternative health therapy.  Recipes first.

1.  I made Wild Salmon with Avocado Salsa.  I found this recipe in a free magazine, Simply Recipes. I can’t find the recipe online anywhere, which is unfortunate because it’s delicious.  Basically you put a spice rub consisting of olive oil, salt, coriander, cumin, paprika, onion powder and pepper on the salmon, grill the salmon, and then serve it with avocado salsa made of avocado (of course), onion, tomato, hot peppers, cilantro, lime, and olive oil.  I never would have thought that cumin would taste good on salmon, but it was DELICIOUS!!

2. I also made Slow Cooker Harissa Stew.  This was my first time using harissa, and I was hoping I would like it because a little jar of it is $4.99.  But, I was in luck because like it I did!  I was expecting the meat to be balls-out spicy, but it just had a pretty mild, spicy, exotic flavor.  We had it over rice one night and over butternut squash the next day.  The recipe was very easy to make. If I can get my hands on some lamb chops without spending a fortune, I want to try this recipe next.

Besides that I made some old favorites this week – Primal Ham Bone Soup with a smoked ham hock (amazing!) and Instant Banana Bread.

On to the other big news this week, after months of saying, “Reiki sounds really interesting. I’m really curious about it. I should really try it.”  I finally tried it this morning.  For those you are unfamiliar with Reiki, check out this link.

Despite the fact that I’ve talked to a few other people who have had a Reiki treatment, I was still very unsure of what to expect.  Well, here is a brief run-down of my experience.  I chatted with the practitioner for a few minutes, explaining how I heard about Reiki and how I heard about the facility at which she works.  Then we got started.  I laid down on a massage table with a blanket over me.  The practitioner started at the my head, very lightly laying her hands on my head.  She worked her way down the front of my body, very lightly touching me.  At certain points I felt a very strong heat come from her hands. It was super bizarre!  At one point when she was working around my stomach, I saw a dark purple light behind my eyes that faded quickly.  She said purple represents the crown chakra.

When she finished with my front side, she mentioned that my knees absorbed a lot of energy, as did my right ankle and foot.  She said she could tell that I’m a runner and have evidently battered my joints a bit.  Then I rolled over, and she touched a few spots on my back, legs, and feet, and then it was over.

Do I feel any different?  I don’t think so. My hips and quads feel really tired, but I went to a pretty intense vinyasa class last night, and I’m thinkings that’s probably the cause of that.  It was a very interesting experience. I went into the experience with cautious open-mindedness. I’m not sure if I’m a believer in the efficacy of the treatment YET, but she did make several comments that belied a knowledge of things I’ve been thinking about and contemplating – things I did not talk to her about at all.  So, that is definitely mysterious!

My take-away from the experience is that there is a lot more to this world and our existence than we are generally led to believe.

So that’s my update for the week! As always, thank you for reading!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Sitting

heather

I was just looking at my computer at my stand up desk.  I was full of ideas about things to write about, but then I turned around, spied the futon and thought to myself, “Why don’t I sit down on that futon there and do some writing?”  So sit down I did, and bam!  all inspiration was gone.  I opened a new tab, opened WordPress, and just sat there for like 3 minutes.  Couldn’t think of a thing to say.  So I thought I would start writing about not having anything to say.  This is going to be one interesting blog post, can’t you tell??  Anyway, my point is that sitting shuts down your brain.  Once I sit down for the night, it’s all over. All I can bring myself to do is watch Mindy Project.

I did want to write about our weekend. I took 2 yoga classes.  The teacher on Saturday did not have the physique one would normally associate with a yoga teacher.  However, I really enjoyed the class because, while she couldn’t do some of the poses she guided us into, she set up a good, challenging sequence of moves and was very encouraging and helpful.  She generated really good vibes, if that sounds yoga-y enough for you. I find it really encouraging that you do not have to be able to contort your body in all sorts of crazy ways to be a good yoga teacher.

I went to another class on Sunday. This was a class sponsored by Tippi Yogis. They hold a class at a local bar. For a $10 donation you get a free yoga class and a free drink after the class is done. This class was very different than Saturday’s class.  The teacher was tiny and limber and really funny.  And the drink afterward was pretty fun too.  Tim and I actually biked to the class and back, which was really invigorating. The weather was slightly chilly, but we dressed in layers, and after  couple of hills, we ditched those.

Lesson learned from the week and weekend – all sorts of yoga teachers can be successful!  I think different teachers resonate with different students. Maybe I’ll find my clan if/when I decide to actually teach (aka work up the courage to teach).

There’s my yoga update.  I don’t have any good recipe updates.  I think I cooked at home a few nights, but I must not have tried anything new.  My memory fails me! Last week was oh so long ago! This week I have 2-3 new recipes, one of which I’m making tonight (salmon with avocado salsa). I’ll let you know how they turned out.

Hope you had a chance to get outside today. It was an absolutely perfect October day.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

The Perfect Fall

heather

Like most Sundays, today rather got away from me.  We intended to go for a long bike ride, but we were both whooped. Yesterday we got a couples massage at Indigo Wellness, which was super awesome, but also kind of exhausting somehow.  We also ran yesterday.  And this is our first weekend sans guests in a month, so we felt like taking it easy today.

So we made breakfast at home, talked to both my brothers, bought some grasses and plants for the front beds, ate lunch and froze to death outside at Governors (the mischievous sun disappeared about 3 minutes after we sat down), hit Menards for some more gardening supplies, and then headed home.

Once we got home we planted the grasses in the front bed.  They were 75% off at Home Depot, so we got 4 grasses, 4 sage plants, and 2 perennial flowers for $36!  We figure if they don’t come back next year, we aren’t out much.  If they do come back, I think it’s going to look great out there.  We also pulled out all our plants from our square foot gardens and tilled in a bunch of compost from our bin.  Tim’s going to plant some kale and see how it does over the winter.

It’s been such a pleasant afternoon working the yard, being outside, and spending time with Tim.  It was exactly what I needed.  I’ve been feeling a little high strung lately – I’m sure it’s due to eating too much bad food, drinking too often, and getting out of my exercise routine.  I’m constantly amazed by how big of an impact diet and exercise have on my mental wellbeing.

Speaking of exercise, I also did this yoga video. I love Rebecca Pachecho.  Her pacing and instruction is great, and she’s just really, well, pretty. 🙂  I enjoyed the video, but what I did not enjoy was pulling up my new Beyond Yoga capris constantly.  I ordered them online, and they seemed to fit well initially, but when I do yoga in them they seem to have difficulties containing my arse.  I’m afraid now I have $50 pajama bottoms. 🙁 I need to learn to suck it up and go shopping in real physical stores instead of just shopping online.  Now my only option is to strategically lose 3 lbs off my butt.  On a happy note, I really love the fabric of the pants. It’s super soft.

Tim and I didn’t make it to the grocery store today, but since we hit up the farmers market yesterday, we should be OK. Last night I made Heavenly Paleo Meatloaf (the blog where this recipe was initially posted seems to be out of commission now, but if you want the recipe, let me know) with acorn squash.  The recipe makes 2 huge loafs, so we have leftovers for tonight. I’m going to cook up some brussel sprouts with onions in bacon grease for a side dish.  The brussel sprouts are from our garden. They took allllll summer to grow, and I can’t wait to see how they taste.  We found a random carrot while planting the grasses today, and it was the sweetest, earthiest thing you’ve ever eaten.  Sometimes living in Iowa is allllllright.

So that’s my update, as I’m sitting here in our backyard, mostly super content except for the screaming hellion next door.  Yin and yang, man.