Sunday Letters

Cooking/Recipes

Artichoke Walnut Hummus

heather

I just made the most delicious hummus.  In the food processor, I combined an almost full can of rinsed garbanzo beans that had been chilling in the fridge for a couple of days, 1/3 cup tahini, 1 full fresh squeezed lemon + enough water from some canned artichokes to make up 1/4 cup, 1/2 teaspoon of Real Salt, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 or 4 canned artichoke hearts, a swirl of olive oil, a hefty pinch of cayenne pepper and about 6 walnut halves.  I blended the crap out of it for a few minutes.

We have no tortilla chips, so I spread some of the hummus on brown rice cakes.  DEEEELICIOUS.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Uncategorized

Super tasty breakfast

heather

Yesterday Tim and I ran (well, I walked/jogged to be precise) the Race for the Cure.  The weather was perfect for running – cool and slightly overcast.  Tim did excellently – ran the whole way.  I, on the other hand, ran the first mile and then walked/jogged the rest of the way.  I also got confused as to where, exactly, the finish line was located.  I assumed it was under the huge balloon arch that designated the starting line. After crossing under the arch, I wandered around for a bit, looking for Tim.  When I couldn’t find him anywhere, I realized that beyond the arch was the huge number 3, designating the third mile mark.  And… people were still running.  I flowed back into line and ran the 1 or 2 minutes to the real finish line, just up and around the corner.  I was super frustrated with myself for not catching on immediately and adding 5 minutes to my time, but it was a still a great experience.  The Race for the Cure is a very happy/sad experience.  It’s amazing to see 9,000 gathered together in a stand against a disease, exercising together and supporting each other.  It’s also super sad to see the long lists of loved ones who have died from cancer pinned to the backs of people’s shirts.

To cap off our 5K, Tim and I decided to take a bike ride.  We mapped out our route, from Rapids City, IL to a certain jog in the road that we biked to last time.  According to Googlemaps, the round trip route was about 22 miles:


We loaded up the bikes on the Civic and headed out.  Again, it was a perfect day for biking – cool, overcast.  As long as we didn’t stop in one place for too long, the bugs were not too annoying.  We started off in Rapids City and biked through Port Byron, past Cordova, and to the jog in the road.  It sure seemed much longer than any other 22 mile ride we had taken, but we chalked it up to being tired from the run.

We finally returned to our car, never so happy to see it before.  Our shoulders, necks, taints – anything that was in constant contact with the bikes was throbbing.  Once we arrived home, we looked at the map more closely and realized that we originally mapped the wrong jog!  We actually biked 13 miles further than we intended:


No wonder we were so exhausted!!  It really was a great ride, though, and a good training experience for RAGBRAI. We learned the importance of bringing snacks (dry-roasted peanuts), lubricating delicate body areas that you DO NOT want chafed, and taking breaks to give your shoulders and arms a rest from the unforgiving road bike tires.

To reward ourselves for all the exercise, we had a delicious supper of fried mushrooms and pork-T at Filling Station.  We continued the healthy eating spree with a super delicious, cooked-by-Tim-with-love breakfast this morning.  He cooked up some spicy chorizo and combined it with scrambled eggs, cheese, avocado, fresh green onions, and Salsa Brava and rolled it all up in a chewy, toasted tortilla.  It very well could have been the tastiest burrito I have ever eaten.

So that was Saturday.  Today is Sunday, and I have a list of like 30 things I would like to get done today.  We’ll see how long the coffee buzz lasts…

Product Reviews

Frye Oxford Oxen Shoe. Wait, that doesn’t sound right…

heather

I bought this super awesome pair of shoes in November, Frye Carson Oxford Shoe.  As I was mink oiling them up tonight, I thought to myself, “You know what, Heather, kudos to you for making such a wise purchase.  These shoes are awesome.”  Why are they awesome, you ask.  Well, let me tell you.

See, in the past I have always bought fairly inexpensive shoes – whatever was black, mid-heel, and could be found at TJ Maxx/Dilliards.  My older brother is always trying to convince me of the benefits of buying a few high quality items instead of several mediocre items.  I have to say, in this instance, his advice paid off.

The Frye’s are on the expensive side – $178 (however, I bought mine from Urban Outfitters, where I was able to use a 20% off coupon I found online).  But, they are worth it.  Unlike my $40 Kenneth Cole Reaction Mary Janes, the blackness of the leather doesn’t wear off with the first scuff.  The straps don’t break.  The shoes doesn’t settle into deep bendy creases.  They hold up remarkably well.  A point I will prove to you in pictures.

My coworker and I often escape the confines of our cubes for an ultra-fast jaunt around the block.  As a result, these shoes have miles on them, but they look as good as the day I purchased them.  The leather stays the blackest black – mink oil takes care of the superficial smudges created by me banging my feet together as I walk.

I love the heel height, too – 1.75 inches.  It’s perfect – not so tall that I feel unstable, yet tall enough that I get a little height on everyone and feel slightly superior.  ‘Cause I’m tall.

I also appreciate the fact that they are lace-ups (leather laces!).  I wear them with SmartWool hiking liners in black.  Due to genetic issues, I have super sweaty feet.  These socks soak it all up without a complaint, and I no longer knock Tim out when I take off my shoes at the end of the day. Foot comfort is so priceless.  Husband comfort is pretty valuable too.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a great pair of dress shoes and you appreciate quality, style, and foot comfort, check these babies out.  They are awesome.

And, no, this was not a paid post.  I just really love these shoes.  I recently made another purchase that I hope I love as much.  A Lamy Safari fountain pen.  The pen, in a discussion of Frye shoes, is not expensive.  In a discussion of pens, however, it’s a little on the pricey side – $35.  I anticipate that this pen is going to revolutionize my life though.  With this awesome pen (and the turquoise and voilet ink refills I bought to use with it), I will be inspired to write copious amounts of super funny, insightful prose daily.  I will write the next “Eat, Pray, Love” with this pen, but my EPL book will actually be good and interesting, and I won’t hate it.  The first thing I will do with the proceeds is buy the Frye Carson Oxford in every color.

Uncategorized

The beauty of seven

heather

I’ve started writing a couple of posts lately and have ended up deleting them.  I recently changed jobs – actually, more to the point, I recently changed life styles.  It’s been a huge change for me, and I’m still trying to figure out what I think about it and how I feel about it.  Normally, I would write about this sort of experience, but it’s very personal, and I don’t want to entangle my work life with my personal life.  Plus, I’m afraid that in writing about my feelings, in the exploration of those feelings, I will end up writing something that I don’t truly believe or feel, but I won’t realize it immediately.  But, yet, it will be out there, said indefinitely for anyone in the world to read, including the HR personnel of any and all companies.  So, I best wait until I figure out exactly how I feel about this, which will probably only be at my deathbed because my feelings about anything constantly flux until the end is known.

But, since this pathway of public mental exploration is closed to me, I’ve been struggling to write anything on this blog.  I can’t think of anything to write about, which is unfortunate as part of the reason I made this lifestyle change is to give myself more time to write.  So I’ve resorted to taking suggestions from WordPress itself.  WordPress writes a blog about things to blog about.  I found this topic interesting.

My favorite number.  Hmm.  I really love the number 7.  Maybe it’s because I was born in 1977.  Maybe because 7 means completeness.  It’s a holy number.  Maybe it’s because George Costanza wanted to name his child Seven.  I think that’s an awesome idea.

Wikipedia has lots of interesting things to say about the number 7.  The number 7 is so awesome, in point of fact, that I think everyone’s favorite number should be 7.

SEVEN.

Cooking/Recipes, Uncategorized

Celebration of food

heather

Tim and I are having an all-around lovely weekend, and like all lovely weekends, it was capped from start to end with deeelicious food.

Ben and Leah visited us for the weekend.  It’s been months since we’ve seen them – I last saw them before I became an accountant and now I am already almost not an accountant – more on that later, maybe.

Anyway, they arrived Friday night, and we were all starving.  We’ve been hearing good things about La Rancherita in Rock Island, so we headed off.  It was a cool, brightly lit Mexican restaurant with tasty pico de gallo and delicious tacos.  The crowd was very eclectic – a mix of races and styles and party sizes.  We saw everything from hipsters to gangstas.  For dessert we introduced Ben and Leah to the joys of Checkers apple pies.  We got 4 for $2.12, and they were perfectly delicious.

For breakfast on Saturday, Tim made his ultra-tasty egg, cheese, Canadian bacon, and  English muffin sandwiches.  He fries the egg perfectly, so that the yolk is the perfect state of gelatinous.  After doing a little shopping at Greatest Grains and the mall, we returned back to the house for a snack lunch of $7.00 Tillamook cheddar cheese, braunschweiger, saltines and cans of Great River Pale Ale.  While the boys played video games and Leah busted through advanced Soduko puzzles, I made guaucamole using this excellent Allrecipes.com recipe.  The freeze-squeezed lime juice gives it a tasty, fresh snap.  After contaminating all of my dishrags and utensils with tiny bits of chopped cilantro, I made chocolate chip cookies, using the recipe from the Nestle Tollhouse bag.  The trick is to get the butter at the perfect level of softness.  About 2 bursts of 10 seconds in the microwave gets it to the stage where it creates tall, fluffy, chewy cookies.

For supper Tim made amazing tortilla soup from an America’s Test Kitchen recipe.  The soup, paired with the gaucamole, made for an excellent supper and uncomfortably fitting trousers.

While we digested our Mexican feast, Leah and I soundly beat Tim and Ben at euchre and then retired to watch Despicable Me.  About 30 minutes into the movie, Tim and Ben were both sound asleep.

Tim treated us with another delicious meal this morning by making buckwheat pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Ben and Leah are cast iron snobs.  Ben, unheeding my warnings, convinced Tim to cook the pancakes on our fairly unseasoned cast iron griddle (which weighs about 30 pounds).  Ben convinced Tim and that a little butter and oil would cause the pancakes to not stick.  He was wrong – stick they did.  But they were still delicious.  I am right now re-seasoning the griddle and our cast iron pan.  I have already set off the fire detector.  We have several windows wide open, but the whole house is still quite smoky.  It better be worth it.

Besides eating, we spent the rest of the weekend playing video games, drinking excellent beers (Hopalicious!), doing lots of dishes, and just all around enjoying each other company.  Hanging out with family is so awesome.  It really makes me wish that we lived closer to Ben and Leah, and/or my brothers.  Someday…

Health & Fitness

Slipping out of the saddle (the power of an annoying chihuahua)

heather

So…um…yeah, I didn’t go to the gym this morning.  It’s all Lucent’s fault, I swear!  That damn dog woke up at 3AM and started roaming around the bed, coughing a little for extra effect.  He is a little on the elderly side and during the night he cannot see the doggy steps we have set up for him, so he just roams around, sticking his cold, wet nose into our faces until one of us caves and gets out of bed, picks him up, and then sets him on the floor, so he can go do whatever it is that 14-year-old chihuahuas must do at 3AM.  Of course, he is too scared to climb the stairs when he is ready to come back to bed, so all we hear are teeny tiny puppy paws clicking around and around the bed.  One of us has to get up, chase Lucent down (because he runs away for some reason when we try to retrieve him.  I think he thinks it’s a game), and put him back on the bed, where he can burrow under the covers and sleep for 8 more hours.

Since I was awake at 3, you would think that I would just get out of bed at 4:20 and go to the gym, as my alarm clock told me to.  But, I was pissed at life due to being woken up an hour earlier than I should have been, so I stubbornly stayed in bed until 5:45.  It’s all Lucent’s fault and has nothing to do with my lack of willpower.

I really need to go tomorrow morning.  As leader of our Live Healthy team at work (Team “We’re Losin’ It!” – my idea, which I think is horribly clever.  I love double entendres!), I am setting a very bad example.  I think I have actually gained weight since the challenge began.  I’m sure this is due to my Mexican food addiction and Spring fever getting into my blood and making me hungry.  I’m super snacky, which is a bad, bad thing when all I do for work is use my brain. I guess I use my fingers too, for typing, but I doubt that really melts away the calories.

Tomorrow is another day and another opportunity to listen to my head instead of my sluggardly body.  But, it is supposed to snow tonight…

Uncategorized

Back in the Saddle (the power of positive thinking)

heather

I finally made it back to the gym this morning.  I haven’t been to the gym in the morning for several weeks – before Tim and I got wicked bad colds and I lost all motivation to do anything besides watch television in a NyQuil stupor.  But, I made it back this morning.  I’ve been reading a ton lately about the power of your mind to affect the abilities of your body.  So, even though I’ve only been to the gym in the morning once so far this week, I’m telling myself that it’s just what I do now.  I’ll be back there tomorrow without question.  By saying it, I’m making it so.

 

Uncategorized

The Frozen Marsh

heather

I read an article in the QC Times last week about a local woman, Julie Malake, who is producing a book of photographs taken in Nahant Marsh, a reclaimed wetland on the outskirts of southwest Davenport.  Even though Tim has lived here his whole life, and I have lived here for a third of mine, we have never scouted the Marsh.   On Sunday we decided to change that. After bundling up in long johns, hats, neck gaiters and good socks, we grabbed the binoculars and camera and headed out.

If you are one of the people who, like me, enjoy the subtle variety of colors that be found in a primarily brown and white landscape, I highly recommend a walk through Nahant in the winter time.  If you look closely, you’ll see all sorts of beautiful shades of lavender, brown, blue, golden.

Here is a little photo tour of our excursion (if you click on the picture, it will open up to a larger size).

This is a the entrance to the park.  The visitors center does not have extensive hours, but during daylight, you can park the car at the entrance and walk the trails to your heart’s content.


This is a viewing shed perched on the edge of the wetlands.

After exploring the marsh, we drove to the mighty Mississippi and used the binoculars to spy on the pack of Eagles chillin’ in the trees across the river.  They were too far away to see clearly; when we looked through the binoculars we just saw dozens and dozens of splashes of white, popping out from the trees.

Next we headed to the lock and dam in Downtown Davenport, which is evidently a very popular eagle-watching hangout.  They feed on the fish below the dam.  It was wicked cold by this point, so we didn’t linger long.  I caught a picture of these ducks.  I love ducks, ever since we had a pet duck when we were kids.  Her name was Mildred, and she was best friends with our dog, Kanute.  She laid unfertilized eggs everywhere, so we had a nice supply of rotten eggs, which is a useful thing to have as children.  Ducks are so awesome.  Look as these two – they are so in love!  Quack Quack.

Uncategorized

My pretty letter S

heather

I forgot to upload one of my letters last week.  This one is just a little guy.  I painted him on an ATC (artist trading card).  I tried to paint a border around the letter, but the line was very messy, so instead I colored in the background with a purple wash and then used my PITT artist pen to draw on the border.  I really like how it turned out.

I must say, though, that painting on 2.5″ by 3.5″ pieces of paper is tough.  I need to drink like 50 cups of chamomile tea to steady my hands first.

We’re taking a trip to Dick Blick in Galesburg today to pick up the supplies for our Mark Polomchak class next month.  I am super excited.  I am sure to buy more than I need, but I have a huge soft spot for art supplies – there is just so much potential there!