2017 Goals week 1:

1. Exercise:
Running: 300 miles: To date: 9.26 miles 
Biking: 500 miles: To date: 0 miles (rain)
Swimming: 50 miles: To date: 1.64 miles
Walking: 150 miles: To date: 1.58 miles
Weights/ yoga: 30 minutes a week (1560 this year): 110 minutes (yoga stretch, Cize crazy 8's, physical therapy for my back, Chisel strength ISO)

2. Grocery bill: Keep it under $7000 ($134.62/wk): $172.62 (uhhh...my 10 year old is in a growth spurt)

3.  Weight: maintain or lose up to 5 lb: scale had me under 140, so I'm good.

4.  Family:
Go on 12 family hikes: Zippo. Nada
Do game night once a week: Kid #1 was 3 for 3 in Clue today

5.  Crafts:
- Crochet a blanket (a "thermometer" granny square blanket, based on the temperature each day): 7 blocks down, pretty boring so far, temps have been 49 to 62.

- crochet a purse: nothing
- finish a quilting baby blanket: done

- participate in my quilting group's exchange: nothing
- make 12 snowflakes: nothing
- attempt to make socks: I've pinned a bunch of instructions?

6.  Sleep: keep track of it and see if the low dose estrogen helps: Haven't started.  Had one bad night sleep (4 year old 2 am wakeup)

7.  Food: eat vegan 2 days a week: Almost on Weds and Saturday.  This was a last minute whim of a goal, and I had no non-dairy option for my coffee.  So 
Weds had milk in my 1 cup coffee, and my (pre purchased frozen) veggie burger had cheese in it.
Sat had milk in my first cup coffee.  My lunch was fab!

8.  Cookbooks: Try 1 recipe from every cookbook I own:
This week: Roasted tomato and white bean soup from Bikini Bootcamp by Melissa Perlman and Erica Gragg.
Roasted brussels sprouts with rosemary from The Oh She Glows Cookbook by Angela Liddon (recipe included potatoes, which I left out because I didn't have them)
I also tried a new Mexican rice recipe in the Instant Pot.  It was not as good as my Spanish rice.

9.  Work:
     a. Skills: Learn enough programming to automate the data pulls for problem lots (which requires pulling data from 2 different databases).  Haven't worked on this yet.
     b. Personal:  Don't engage.  Really.  Found a 4th person that I need to "not engage" with.  Oops.

10.  Home: Contact contractor/ architect on adding a second bathroom. Nothing

11.  Garden: actually plant tomatoes this year.  Baby steps. Nothing
Ooh, need to add: put some ground cover in the back dirt patch

12.  Spouse: once a month lunch date: nothing

13.  Beverages:
- Drink less coffee and more tea (one cup coffee per day): Yes, Monday to Friday.
- Do not buy any wine aside from my two wine club memberships: Nothing
- Drink two 24-oz bottles of water a day, minimum.  My doc thinks that my occasional light-headedness when exercising is a combo between low blood pressure + slight dehydration.
Mmm...probably did okay for half the week.

This week's new recipes

See the "Goal" tab.  Last week I made a new carrot salad (a lot like some prior salads that I've made), and I also made a brown rice and broccoli casserole with a cashew/ parmesan topping.

The carrot salad was from Still  Life with Menu by Mollie Katzen

The casserole was from The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies by  Meri Raffetto, RD.

Women's Wellness Retreat #2 and an Inspiration

I have been notably absent lately.  It's the reality of life with a full time job and two kids (one of them 18 months old) - no time to myself and a computer that has been crashing for months.  (Luckily we bought a new one yesterday, not yet hooked up).  Mr. D (toddler) has been waking up in the night off and on, and that makes for bad sleep.  Mostly I really have a  hard time getting back to sleep.

Last fall when I was seriously at my wit's end with my job and family life I attended the first Winter Wellness Retreat at a beach house in Oxnard, run by an awesome running coach and personal trainer and a VERY good chef.  This is her book.  If you live anywhere near Santa Barbara/ Ventura/ Oxnard/ Thousand Oaks - she does classes up and down the coast.  (I'm talking to you Kalli!)  Alas, I was coming down with a cold that weekend (that turned into 3 weeks of bronchitis).  What I took from that, besides the need to take care of myself, was the need to take care of one thing.  So I focused on my mental state.  Sure, I wanted to exercise more and eat right, but small steps...

The view from the patio of the beach house.

Once I recovered from the bronchitis, I started taking more time off work.  I have PTO - so if I felt like taking a long lunch or going home early, I did.  In reality, that rarely happened.  What I did do is take a lot of time off for sick time - my sick time, the kids' sick time, doctor's appointments, dentist's appointments, school holidays, company holidays.  All in all I took 152 hours of PTO in 4 months.  And I'm almost out of PTO.  While this is not great for any future holiday plans, it really did help me relax - in past times, I would have tried to "make up" missed time at nights or on weekends.  I seriously have not worked a full 80 hour pay period since September.  (I really never should have gone back to full time work in July.  I regret it mightily - so in reality, I'm not working full time anymore.  I earn 10 hours of PTO a pay period, and seem to be taking an average of 5-10 each pay period).

The other thing I decided to do to relax is more meditative things right before bed.  I started knitting and crocheting (which has meditative benefits).  I started ending the day with a cup of hot herbal tea several days a week.  I make it a point to try and read 10 minutes before bed.  I am asleep most days by 9 pm.

Finally, I stopped setting the alarm to go to the gym at 5 am.  My husband thinks we should start going again.  I am really leery of it in cold and flu time.  Because, I'm recovering from another cold.  The advantage here is simply extra sleep. I wake up at 6:10 am when the baby wakes up.

A week and a half ago, I got an email that there were two cancellations for the next weekend retreat.  I asked my  husband, and he said, "it's a good time, work is normal, go".  What a great guy.  So, I went.  Of course I had a cold again (but not bronchitis, so it was much better).  And I ended up sharing a room, with a woman named Marsha.  It was funny - on our door they misspelled my name so that it said "Marsha B" and "Marsha M" and I was a bit confused (because B is my maiden initial and M is my married initial).  As a little funny story - M is her maiden initial and B is her married initial.

This time, I was happy that I had made so much progress on my mental state and was starting decluttering the house.  I then had to decide "what next" - food or fitness.  I still haven't figured out "what next" because I'm doing a little bit of both. I have started walking 30 minutes on my lunch break every day.  I have also started eating more fruit for breakfast - smoothies mostly.  These two things plus a bout with the stomach flu in mid-January (yes, a second bout) have helped me drop 10 pounds.  So let's keep it going, shall we?

The wonderful thing about the women's retreat is the women - you get delicious meals, beach walks, beach yoga, meditation, massages - but the best part is connecting with other women at various stages in their lives and journeys and getting inspired by them.  We spent an evening doing a "story board" of what we want in life this year, what is important to us (I did three of them).  I need to find a place to hang them.

I think it's very important to find inspiration from many things and people.  Last summer my sister told me that her daughter, my niece, had lost 30 pounds.  I thought that was GREAT.  She didn't really say anything about it.  This week, my niece posts a link to her blog on her FB page.  I was very impressed.  Much of her experience matches my own.  I am inspired.  As she says "everyone has the same 24 hours".  Now, of course this is true, but then everyone has different requirements for their 24 hours. So while it's good to get inspiration, it's also not good to do a direct comparison.  I cannot work out 2x a day - I can barely get any exercise in because my kids are awake when I am, with the exception of about 15 minutes a day.  (It's really Mr. D who is the problem - but you know, he won't ALWAYS be.  He will soon be able to work out with me or just watch - not crawl under me when I do downward dog and reach up and poke my stomach.)

You can read her blog here.  This is my favorite post so far.  She goes a lot into nutrition, so it's very nice that she posted her blog right after my healthy living retreat.  Here is an example of the food we had on the retreat weekend:

homemade granola, yogurt, berries
passionate breakfast cookies (from her book) - delish!
quiche
Baked parmesan tofu (this was really good)
Mediterranean quinoa salad (I have a version in the fridge right now)
Chicken piccata
Lentil soup
Egg and avocado salad
Kale and pumpkin seed salad
Arugula and baby spinach salad
Vegetables and hummus

Many of the recipes are in her book.  She has a large forward on nutrition and how it saved her family's health.

Peanut Lime Dragon Dressing

Recipe #2 from Appetite for Reduction. Another winner. In the back of the book, Isa brings up the suggestion of a "bowl". A grain, a sauce/ protein, and a vegetable. One of the "bowls" mentioned was quinoa, steamed broccoli, sauteed tempeh, and peanut lime dragon dressing. I boiled the tempeh in water and vegetable broth, then sauteed it in a bit of canola oil. I steamed the broccoli and carrots. I made the dressing, though I decreased the spice/ sriracha in half (concerned about my 5 year old), but it wasn't spicy, so I shouldn't have worried too much. I also subbed maple syrup for the agave and red onion for the shallot. And I didn't use quinoa. No grain at all. My son LOVED it and actually begged for leftovers. There are some for tomorrow's dinner!

Red Velvet Mole

So, I know I made it a goal to make at least one recipe from every cookbook I have for the year. Hmm...how am I doing? Not great. Especially since I went out and bought Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. You see, I am a member of a Yahoo group called Healthy Cheap Cooking. And the leader, Pat, never steers me wrong on a cookbook. We have similar eating styles. She highly recommended this book (and Martha Rose Shulman's book, which I have yet to purchase). In any event, Isa's books have never been a disappointment, though I have to admit that Veganomicon is intimidating. I have cooked a couple of things from it however!

This is recipe # 1 from this book, and it was delicious. I decreased the cocoa (hubby hates chocolate). He said it tasted good, but when he first walked in the door after work said "what smells like chocolate?" And I decreased the spice (chili powder) by half. I am a bit leery of the spice in vegan cooking, because my son can't handle it. I needn't have worried. Cutting the spice in half meant it wasn't spicy at all. Next time, I'll try 3/4. I used pinto beans instead of black beans, and I served it over brown rice. Isa recommends sweet potatoes, steamed plantains...something sweet. Though it was fine over brown rice, I agree that a bit of sweetness would have helped (that and the extra spice).

I'm not posting the recipe here. Probably illegal, certainly unethical, since the only thing I did is decrease 2 ingredients and sub sugar for agave syrup. I recommend buying/ checking out the book from the library though! I'll let you know how other recipes come out.

Cookbooks

I have a cookbook problem. I have a lot of them. And I love reading new ones. So when I read a review of a good cookbook, I will often put it on my Amazon wish list, as a reminder to look for it, or check it out from the library, or something.

But then Christmas comes along, and between my family and my husband's, I find myself with 7 new cookbooks for christmas. Which is overwhelming, to say the least. Yikes. I put them all on the shelf because I just went a little nuts.

But this year, I have a goal. I've decided I want to try and make at least one recipe from each cookbook this year. Now, I'm not going to promise to cook the recipes exactly as written. that's just crazy talk. And I'm totally taking credit if my spouse makes something.

Thus far, here's how I've done:
Better Homes and Gardens: buttermilk pancakes
Best 30 minute recipe: posole
Vegan With a Vengeance: falafel
Perfect Vegatables: Sauteed chard with bacon and onion
Fresh Food Fast (Martha Stewart): Pasta with asparagus and goat cheese