2017 Goals, weeks 12 & 13

1. Exercise: as of Saturday 4/1/17 

Running: 300 miles: To date: 62.9 miles  So, six weeks till the 1/2 marathon. And I'm only up to 6 miles.  Hm.
Biking: 500 miles: To date: 48.44 miles 
Swimming: 50 miles: To date: 7.96 miles (only once in two weeks).
Walking: 150 miles: To date: 51.99 miles
Weights/ yoga: 30 minutes a week (1560 this year): 368 minutes - nothing in 2 weeks eek!

Starting to stress about the half marathon.  Especially since they've changed it since I last did it. Now they are "nickel and diming you".  Like, you have to drive up (45 min or so) to pick up your race packet the day before.  If you want to pick it up here in my own town, it's $10.  (used to be free).  If you want to pick it up the morning of the race, it's $15.

So, just to kind of screw them, I was going to go with the "free" option. Except it will cost $10 in gas ($9.60 actually), even in my tiny car.  However, if I carpooled, or got several other people's packets at the same time, it would pay for itself.  Anyway.  I have time to decide.  But I won't be doing this race again.

2. Grocery bill: Keep it under $7000 ($134.62/wk): $96.77 & $83.69.  My produce box was missing something this week too.  Hopefully I'll get a  credit.  $1735.95 so far, or $133.53/ week.  This was a BIG week post vacation.  And party.

3.  Weight: I have no idea.

4.  Family:
Go on 12 family hikes: Well, we went on 3 family hikes on our trip last week.  They were very short. About 3/4 mile each, took an hour (you know, 4 year old pace, with snowball fights).
Do game night once a week: Not much of this.

5.  Crafts:
- Crochet a blanket - less than 30 days to go

- crochet a purse: nothing
- participate in my quilting group's exchange: I cut a bunch of blocks.  We are all making 20 half square triangle blocks for each other.
- make 12 snowflakes: nothing
- attempt to make socks: I've pinned a bunch of instructions?  I did make two pink "pussy cat hats".  One to donate to the Yarn Bomber.  One for a friend.

6.  Sleep: Been a pretty good week, though vacation - not so much.  Got kicked out of bed by the 4 year old.

7.  Food: eat vegan 2 days a week. I'm not sure when or if I'm going to jump back on this train.

8.  Cookbooks: Try 1 recipe from every cookbook I own.  Ditto.  See #7. I'm making a lot of things over and over again.

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.  REALLY need to.
     b. Personal:  Don't engage.  Really.  

10.  Home: Contact contractor/ architect on adding a second bathroom.Nothing. But we did talk to the plumber about (finally) replacing the sewer line.  Nothing like $8k bill!  Haven't gotten the written estimate.  But he did just come by this weekend (again) because our neighbor's backed up (again).  Yuck.

11.  Garden: need to plant stuff.  And more stuff.

12.  Spouse: we did manage March date!

13.  Beverages:
- Drink less coffee and more tea (one cup coffee per day): Uh, lots of coffee this week.
- Do not buy any wine aside from my two wine club memberships.  Been hitting the wine more the last few weeks.

- Drink two 24-oz bottles of water a day, minimum.  I managed this on my running days.

14.  Mom's nights/ dad's night once a month: Jan, check.  Feb, fail. March, fail.

15.  Host friends.  Jan, check.  Feb, fail.  March, fail.  April, success on day 1!!  It was a no-baseball weekend.

Vacation Post

This is just going to be a short compilation of our quick spring break (quick, because the kids were sick so much this weekend we had to only go for 1/2 week.  Not enough vacation time left.)

What did we do: Went to the snow

How did we save money:

- Winter gear - we have some from forever ago.  Bought the kids new boots ($20/each).  Which will probably never be worn again.  Will donate.

- Lodging - got sticker shock looking at Mammoth Mountain ($1280/ four nights, 1 BR condo, cheapest I could find.)  Googled, opted to go a little north to sleepy town of June Lake.  ($672/ four nights, 2 bedroom cabin duplex.)  Reverse Creek Lodge.  We really enjoyed this place.

- Food - took food and grocery shopped.  By far, the cheapest food was what we brought with us - mac and cheese, raw veggies, bagels, cheese & salami.  Next cheapest was shopping at the Vons in Mammoth (do NOT go at 6 pm on a Saturday!!)  But most of my shopping is NOT done in large stores, because they don't have the best deals.  Finally, when really out of something - the June Lake general store.  $5.49 for a loaf of bread, whee!!  But we needed to eat.  And they were really nice.

Approximate cost for food for the four days: $90.  Seems like a lot, but less than eating out for sure.  Plus way less pain and suffering than eating out with a four year old.

- Entertainment.  June Lake has a ski spot, which is much less populated and much smaller, and more family friendly than the southern neighbor, Mammoth.  It was also < 1 mile from the cabin.  It's also quite a bit cheaper - kids 12 and under ski for free.  And...we saved even MORE money by...not skiing at all.  People who ski regularly probably: 1. have their own gear.  2. Know how to get cheaper lift tickets on-line, or at Costco.  People like us, not so much.

We priced out skiing for 1 day at June Lake, and it looked like it would be approximately $600.  That's rental and lift ticket for hubby (who actually knows how to ski), rentals and lessons for the kids, and a lesson for me, who last went skiing in  1998.  The cost to do the same at Mammoth would have been quite a bit more expensive, at least $200.  We thought about it, but the June Lake website went down the night we were thinking about booking, so that sealed it.  

I realize that I'm not too old to learn a new skill. But...do I want to?  I mean, in the best of times, skiing is like golf - expensive.  And I live at the beach.  If I want to learn a new skill, shouldn't it be something like stand up paddle boarding, or rock climbing?  Something that doesn't require a 5 hour drive to accomplish?  Maybe if we go some day where we would ski for more than one day, it would be more worth it.  Cheaper cost per day.

In any event, the area is surrounded by the Inyo National Forest.  Our cabins had sleds that you could borrow.  The owners of the lodge directed us to a nice little spot with lots of places to sled.  And no snowmobilers!  So, our days went like this:

1.  Wake up.  For me, that usually meant "wake up on the couch".  Because the upstairs was HOT.  I would wake up at midnight sweating, and move downstairs where it was cooler.  I usually woke at 5:45 or 6.  Kid #1 woke up at the same time.  Kid #2 always ended up moving from his twin bed in the kid room to the king bed in the parent room.  So daddy and Kid #2 woke up at 7, and not always well rested.

2.  Drink coffee (instant, because we had it).  

3.  Make and eat breakfast - bagels, eggs, toast with nutella, toast with almond butter and bananas.

4.  Go for a hike.  There was a snow-filled hill behind the cabin area.  We climbed it, including some rock climbing.  At the top, we wandered through another cabin's yard (more than 50% of the homes here are second homes, usually only inhabited in the summer).  This got us to a road, and we wandered down some streets back to the cabin.  The hike usually took an hour, was about 0.75 miles (you know, hiking with a 4 year old) - and involved a LOT of snowball fights.

5.  Watch TV, make and eat lunch - sandwiches and raw veggies, or grilled cheese and soup.

6.  Do the dishes.  Go sledding (which involved a drive).  We sledded for an hour in the afternoon - more snowball fights, made a snowman one day.

7.  Go back to the cabin.  Warm up, have cocoa, make and eat dinner, watch more TV, maybe play a game, read.  Bed at 9.

Pics below!

2017 Goals Week 10 & 11

Whoops, I guess I missed a week?  How did that happen?

1. Exercise: as of Saturday 3/18/17 

Running: 300 miles: To date: 54.19 miles  Whoo boy this went up a lot!  
Biking: 500 miles: To date: 38.84 miles (this week we had a birthday and sleep issues)
Swimming: 50 miles: To date: 7.31 miles (very sad.  Last week the pool was closed one day and the lifeguard didn't show one day.  This week I made it once).
Walking: 150 miles: To date: 44.14 miles
Weights/ yoga: 30 minutes a week (1560 this year): 368 minutes 

So, yesterday I ran a 10k race.  I finished in 1:12:19, a 11:39 pace.  Which is about 50 secs per mile faster than my training.  And I am PAYING for it today (ow).  I hit the carbs REALLY hard yesterday too.  I was pretty tired.

This was 3 minutes faster than the 10k that I did in September.  And it goes to show how they are all different.  I really enjoyed the course...along the ocean for a lot of it, quite a bit of it in dirt.  I run/ walk, so I played leap frog with 5 people for 4 miles until I could no longer leap them.  The old guy?  Turns out he's 73.

September was big, and I finished 47/87 in the 45-49 age group.

Yesterday was small, and I finished 10/10 in the same age group.  My coach was 3rd.

2. Grocery bill: Keep it under $7000 ($134.62/wk): $96.77 & $83.69.  My produce box was missing something this week too.  Hopefully I'll get a  credit.  $1323.51 so far, or $120.32/ week.  Not bad.  Hm.  I wonder if I'm missing some receipts.

3.  Weight: I have no idea.

4.  Family:
Go on 12 family hikes: fail. fail. fail.
Do game night once a week: More like daytime games on weekends.

I am enjoying the hikes with my friends on weekends with the run group, but have to get the kids out!  There's water in the creek!

5.  Crafts:
- Crochet a blanket - working on it.  It's looking good!

- crochet a purse: nothing
- participate in my quilting group's exchange: I cut a bunch of blocks.  We are all making 20 half square triangle blocks for each other.
- make 12 snowflakes: nothing
- attempt to make socks: I've pinned a bunch of instructions?  Right now we are cleaning out closets - never did dig through stuff after Christmas. Donating stuff to the elementary school rummage sale.  Not our school, but a different one.

6.  Sleep: Um.  So little guy had a cold.  Monday night, he woke up crying every hour.  So little sleep.  Tuesday night I slept like the dead.  Turns out it's because hubby slept with him.  Weds night was worse than Monday, because he just wouldn't let me leave his room.  I was awake for hours.  Friday night I couldn't sleep because of race nervousness and last night was awful because big kid had a sleepover.  Please don't ask me how last week was - I don't remember!

7.  Food: eat vegan 2 days a week. I'm not sure when or if I'm going to jump back on this train.

8.  Cookbooks: Try 1 recipe from every cookbook I own.  Ditto.  See #7. I'm making a lot of things over and over again.

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.  REALLY need to.
     b. Personal:  Don't engage.  Really.  

10.  Home: Contact contractor/ architect on adding a second bathroom.Nothing. But we did talk to the plumber about (finally) replacing the sewer line.  Nothing like $8k bill!  Haven't gotten the written estimate.  

Honda is going to be fine, still driving the rental.  It's an SUV and pretty sweet, but kinda big.

11.  Garden: actually plant tomatoes this year.  Baby steps. Nothing
Ooh, need to add: put some ground cover in the back dirt patch.  Now we are discussing hiring a landscaper to do the work.  Friend in the neighborhood.

12.  Spouse: once a month lunch date.  We went to the school fundraiser last weekend and had a great time.  Wasn't much of a date - we tend to socialize with others!

13.  Beverages:
- Drink less coffee and more tea (one cup coffee per day): Uh, lots of coffee this week.
- Do not buy any wine aside from my two wine club memberships.  I don't even drink that much anymore, but I did open a bottle Friday night. Bought two bottles at the school fundraiser.

- Drink two 24-oz bottles of water a day, minimum.  I managed this on my running days.

14.  Mom's nights/ dad's night once a month: Jan, check.  Feb, fail.

15.  Host friends.  Jan, check.  Feb, fail.  We did make it to the neighborhood potluck today.

2017 Goals Week 3

1. Exercise: as of Saturday 1/21/17
Running: 300 miles: To date: 14.45 miles  (no change)
Biking: 500 miles: To date: 0 miles (rain)
Swimming: 50 miles: To date: 3.34 miles (no change)
Walking: 150 miles: To date: 13.61 miles
Weights/ yoga: 30 minutes a week (1560 this year): 166 minutes (2 short workouts this week)

2. Grocery bill: Keep it under $7000 ($134.62/wk): $480.97 (uhhh...my 10 year old is in a growth spurt. ~160/wk so far)

3.  Weight: maintain or lose up to 5 lb: scale said 138.  My preferred range is <141 lb.="" nbsp="" span="" weet="">

4.  Family:
Go on 12 family hikes: Zippo. Nada.  Little guy has a cold. Gave it to daddy, oy.
Do game night once a week: Uno and Candyland this week.

5.  Crafts:
- Crochet a blanket (a "thermometer" granny square blanket, based on the temperature each day): More yellow!  And solid blank.  I'll let you noodle that one.  Today was so cold (under 40) I get to use purple.  I am running out of blue-green (51-60F).  I had to buy a slightly different blue-green because Michael's was out.  Oh well, it's going to be scrappy!

- 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: Not great sleep this week because I was sleeping on the couch (see sick husband).

7.  Food: eat vegan 2 days a week: Monday and Weds.  I did okay but dinner had some cream / cheese because it was an ingredient in the prepared food.  Progress not perfection.  Salads, stews, beans and rice, vegan muffins.

8.  Cookbooks: Try 1 recipe from every cookbook I own:
This week: Hm.  I think I made a new recipe?  But I don't remember?  My husband made lasagna from The Betty Crocker Cookbook though.  I really should start the blog update as I go each week.

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.  Did okay here.

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.  He was sick and I was doing triple duty (work/ kid/ household)

13.  Beverages:
- Drink less coffee and more tea (one cup coffee per day): This was a rough week.
- 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.  I need to take my 24 oz water bottle to work with me.

14.  Mom's nights/ dad's night once a month: Saturday, mom's night whee!

15.  Host friends.  We hosted last Sunday before everyone got sick.

Two NEW goals - Social

1. Host friends for dinner or something once/ month
2. Mom's night/ girl's night/ dad's night once/month - we each should get a night out.  And yes, for my husband, this can be going to a movie with a friend.

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.

Another successful camping trip in Joshua Tree

So this was our 5th camping trip in Joshua tree.  This year, we went with our neighbors and celebrated her birthday.  She booked a group site at Indian Cove Campground. Usually we just drive in and wing it (sometimes unsuccessfully).

Wow, this time it was awesome.  First of all, the group sites were $25 a night.  The individual sites in the park are $10 a night, PLUS the $15 fee to get into the park.  The individual sites allow 6-8 people (we are 9 with just the two familes), and the group site we had allowed 5 cars and 25 people.  We had 6 cars and 25 people.  It was amazing.  The site was HUGE - 6 picnic tables plus one in the middle for sharing.  Plenty of space for 7+ tents.  Rocks for climbing.  Very close by toilets (still no water here). Closer to town for ice runs.

It was so awesome that my neighbor said "I'm going to book this for next year!"  Well, I got home and looked - all weekends in the "not hot" months are already booked for 2015 spring (you can book a year in advance).  I'm toying with booking a site for spring break - there is ONE site with TWO days available that week.  Maybe.  It's $50 for two nights.

We got lucky with the weather.  It's the desert.  It's hot.  But the high was about 93 and the low about 65, and it could have been a LOT worse.  They'd had a "cool week" so the first night was cool.  It was already 82 the second morning when we left at 9 am.  And we all hit our cars for some exploring in the one afternoon (AC), and hit up the store for ice cream.

The hard part about the desert is the constant need for ice.  The thermoelectric cooler wasn't much of a help. We ended up buying a second small cooler.  The other hard part is the toddler.  Where we'd branched out to eggs and bacon last time, this time we were back to oatmeal for breakfast (just add water), turkey sandwiches for lunch (kept it on ice), and chili or quesadillas for dinner with raw veggies and hummus (of course I forgot the tortillas!)  The other parents (who did not have to dedicate one parent at all times to chase the toddler, who wanted to climb everything) were more pros - they had gin and tonics, burgers, eggs, bacon, pancakes.  Of course, almost every other kid had helmets for climbing except ours, and Nick's legs are totally beat up.

Still, the trip was fairly cheap.  About $90 for gas, plus same amount for lunch on the road, ice cream, ice, and water.  Not a bad price for two days of fun.

My first "Sabbath"

So this was the weekend where I tried to institute a "Sabbath".  A day (mostly) off from chores, and a day for fun.

On one hand, this means all chores end up squished into one day.  On the other hand, I just did fewer chores.

On Saturday, I baked bread.  This is huge people!!  I don't have time to bake bread when I have a baby/ toddler.  Until age 3, cooking is dicey.  I made Moroccan lentil soup to go with it, and it's a pressure cooker recipe (you can find it on my "favorite recipes" tab).  I was going to have salad too, but didn't feel like it, so the lettuce is still unwashed in the fridge.  (Maybe for dinner tonight??)

This bread is sage-apple bread based on a yeast bread recipe by Mark Bittman.  A friend brought it to a housewarming party last weekend and I demanded the recipe.


On Sunday, I consider cooking to be a chore (well, cooking with kids around), so we had Teriyaki chicken in the crockpot, rice in the rice  cooker, and steamed broccoli in the microwave.

Teriyaki chicken dinner:
~3 lbs chicken breast: $5.71
80% of a jar of teriyaki marinade: $1.60
2 cloves garlic: $0.10
grated fresh ginger: $0.10
Total for chicken: $7.51
This is about 9 servings, give or take. $0.84 per serving

1 cup uncooked rice (cooked): $0.19 (6 servings) = $0.03 per serving.

12 oz broccoli: $1.50 (5 servings): $0.30 per serving

We celebrated our "Sabbath" by going on a 6 mile/ 3 hour hike with the kiddos.  It was fun but at one point we lost the trail (well, you cross a creekbed many times.  This time of year, it's dry.  So you get lost for a little bit trying to find the trail).  Anyway, I stepped off a rock onto what looked like solid ground.  Eh, not so much, it was quicksand.  Here are a few photos from the hike.

And...there may have been McDonald's for lunch after, and I may have split a hot fudge sundae with the boys.