food curiosity, and the Amazing Grass Winner

Thanks to everyone who entered the Amazing Grass Energy Bar giveaway. I used random.org to pick the winner, and it is number 100, Kelsey @carrothead! So Kelsey, send me your deets!

I'm the type of person who, while eating a meal, is already planning the next one. I have to, so that I can even everything out. My friend S was over for dinner the other night, salmon burgers with grilled asparagus and salad, and she commented on how healthy we eat. She wasn't here yesterday when we had family over for cheeseburgers with avocado and bacon as condiments. As I've said before, my mantra is everything in moderation....sometimes including moderation.

I'm so curious about how other people eat. When I'm on the checkout line at the grocery store, I look over what I have on the conveyor belt thing to see the ratio of good to bad foods. Then I get nosy, and look at what the people in front of me, as well as behind me have in their carts. If only I could go into their homes and see their fridges and cabinets, I would have a field day with that. If you're a fan of the Real Housewives of the O.C. there was an episode when Vicki and Jeana had a personal trainer go through their kitchens and toss all the crap......loved it.

What do you always have in your fridge? I always have fruit, veggies, cheese, butter, yogurt, yogurt smoothies for L&E, eggs, Amazing Grass and condiments such as salsa, real and light mayo, mustard, and salad dressings. Turkey and tuna for lunches, white wine for me, and Labatt's Blue for Mike. Milk and Italian Sweet Cream Coffee-Mate (I know it's bad, but I only use a bit in my one cup of coffee). The freezer always has black bean burgers, ice cream (for the kids, seriously), sandwich thins, Ezekiel bread, ribeyes, chicken/feta/spinach sausage, chicken nuggets, butternut squash ravioli, some kind of frozen pizza and frozen fruit and veggies.

I won't go into a full blown description of the cabinets, but my fridge speaks for itself, I eat everything, just not all at once. My kids eat fruits and veggies, and I let them have sweets because I want them to learn how to incorporate those foods into their life if they choose to do so, I hope they never have an internal battle over "forbidden foods" like I do.

So tell me, what do you always have in your fridge? Better yet, take a photo of your fridge and email it to me! Just kidding. Well.....maybe not.

In case you need a kick in the pants

I wanted to share a quick story about my friend B.W., and the running of his 18th marathon, this past Monday in Boston.

B wasn't sure if he was going to be running it until four weeks ago, and at that point he had only done moderate long runs to train for a half marathon in March. Three weeks before Boston, he managed a 22 mile training run.

B ended up with a Boston PR of 6 minutes after 5 attempts, and it was his 2nd fastest marathon of his 18 marathons.

B finished with a 5:55 as his fastest mile of the day! His time was 2:43:10.

I mean, seriously. Wow.

B ran in memory of his father who passed away nearly 14 years ago to the day of the Boston Marathon. I haven't seen B in a long time, but I am so impressed with what he has accomplished with his running, and I'm proud of him.

Go B.W.!!!!

I'm not the only one who likes the foam roller

I had a running nightmare last night. I dreamt I was on the treadmill for an eight mile run, and no matter what I did, I couldn't get the numbers to go past two miles. I woke up after I jammed my toe into the foot board of my bed, which kind of hurt.

I know the dream is the result of a minor freak out I had yesterday, over my 10 mile race scheduled for a week from Sunday. I started worrying that I haven't been getting the right amount of training in. After thinking about it, and looking over my miles these past couple of months, I realize I'm okay. I run 3 or 4 times a week, at least five miles at a time, and I've been running hills basically every Saturday morning since early January. So I have my head on straight again, and for the moment, I feel okay.

Luke has Spring Break this week, and he and Eliza were really good about letting me run 8 miles on the treadmill today. I put a movie on for them, and aside for the time I had to stop to help Eliza out in the bathroom, they occupied themselves with an elaborate game of Bakugan, a Sleeping Beauty doll, and Legos. My run was great, I tried out some Lemon Lime Nuun that I won in Allie's giveaway. Aside from a slight Alka Seltzer taste, it did a great job at keeping me hydrated.

I've been using my foam roller every day since I bought it, and I love it. After my six mile run to the beach, I had a weird cramp/ache in my hamstring. I rolled it a few times that night, and the next day I was back to normal. When I'm not using it, Luke puts it on his arm as some kind of Star Wars/Transformer Armor. So we're getting our money's worth.

Don't forget my Amazing Grass Energy Bar Giveaway...it ends this Sunday, April 25th.......

The Ghost came through......and his name is Edward

Excuse me while I loosen my pants so I can sit down and type. A long weekend around family, friends and food is just asking for trouble. Thankfully I was able to run while we were away, it got to the point where I was just trying to break even calorie wise. And, we had quite the reading with a medium, which I'll get to in a minute.

Confession time. I'll say right off the bat, I was bad about keeping my food journal, but I was good about not picking at what the kids had leftover on their plates. I just sucked it up and tossed their plates into the garbage. But the food kept showing up, like when we stopped at a bakery with my Mom on the way home from a museum (ate a bit of a cookie). When my sister and brother were over with their families, the easiest choice for dinner for the large group was pizza (I ate a veggie slice....AND a Sicilian slice....AND half a regular slice). We went to brunch after one of my BFF's had her baby baptized.....all I can say it's a good thing I was able to go on a six mile run down to the beach after (I thought of taking my camera, because it was a beautiful day, but didn't have anywhere to carry it. So I'll make due with this photo of Luke at the same beach last spring). We also paid a visit to my sister A's cute new apartment in my old neighborhood in Astoria.

After freezing in windy Astoria Park flying kites, playing in the playground, and walking past the track where I used to run, we had lunch. Where we discovered Eliza loves lamb gyros, and the spinach pie is as kick ass as I remember. Wine was a staple throughout the weekend, and on a sunny Sunday afternoon, Mike mixed up some Margaritas. It was that kind of an afternoon.

While we were there my Mom gave me her 33 year old Le Creuset pot.

Now onto our reading. As I've written before, I grew up in a house with ghosts. As soon as M the medium came in and sat down with us, she said the house has a very good energy, that there is nothing dark about it. She saw a man who was pacing the floor next to her, she described him the same way we have all seen him, with a long dark coat, and a hat. His name is Edward, and he was showing her candles, which made us laugh, because he has made himself known by blowing out candles in the backyard (when there is no wind to speak of). M thinks he died in the house after falling down the stairs, and asked if we hear him pacing in the hallway, which we have. She also talked about the woman who hangs out in the house, and asked if we ever smelled lilacs, because that is her. At first she mentioned a little girl spirit, but it's actually a little boy (the one Luke spoke to). M thought he was a girl at first, because he's a very sensitive spirit. M then pointed towards the back of our house, and asked if we see him in a bedroom upstairs.......Bingo.

I don't blame you if you think I'm completely full of it, and so is M, but I believed her. It was crazy. A few people who have passed over came through to talk to us, and she said things that I don't know how she would know unless we told her. L&E were both asleep before she got there, and she described the two of them to a T.

My sister in law has been calling me every day to talk about it, because she can't get over it.

All I can say that I came away from the reading with an immense feeling of calm.

And of peace.

Weekend and the Winner

This week had it's moments. On Saturday I went out to get some lunch, and I backed into a parked car in a lot, because I was so excited to go home to eat the burrito I bought. Another day Eliza opened an umbrella in the car while I was driving, but I managed not to hit anyone else.

Another night something in the oven caught on fire while I was making the kids dinner, but we managed to avoid using the fire extinguisher. After that, Mike turned on the house fan to air the place out, without my realizing it. I was chatting with a lawn care sales guy who stopped by on a sales call, when we were finished I shut the front door. Started cleaning the kitchen, until the kids said, "lookit that smoke!" My whole family room was full of ash, that kept pumping out from the grates of the fireplace. The room, was covered in ash. All because the house fan was sucking air in to clear the place out.

On the plus side I've been good with my runs this week, hit the treadmill a few times and ran inclines. Today Mike had a rare morning home, so I managed to get outside for a beautiful 8 mile run. I even got a bit crafty with the kids this week. We took all the broken nasty crayons, and melted them into big chunks of crayon. This was a great time filler since we had to sort them out, and take the wrappers off. We used a muffin tin to form the shape, and they came out cool because as L&E drew, the color would change shades depending on which color melted where.

We're heading down to LI to visit family and friends for a few days, which I am reeeaallly looking forward to. While we're at my mom's house, a friend who is a medium is going to come over and do a reading. If you haven't read my posts about the haunted house where I grew up, you can check 'em out here and here. And here is a new story, which happened to my Mom recently. She bought a bottle of wine, uncorked it, poured a glass, put the cork back in, then sat down. Heard a pop, went to the kitchen, cork was out of the bottle. She put it back in, went and sat down, heard the pop again. Cork was out.

Do do DO do do do DO do..............

Do you like how I made you wait to see who won the Vita Top giveaway? Thanks to everyone who entered. I used random.org to find the winner, and it's.......Blue Violet at Nut in a Nutshell!

And good luck to everyone running Boston on Monday......including my cousin C, my friend C!

Crafty Challenges

After igniting the spicy green beans on the grill last week, I decided to make them in the oven Monday night, and they came out much better! I had a request for the recipe, it's not exact measurements, but here it is:

1.Fresh green beans, enough to fill a cookie sheet, in one layer.

2.Wash and trim the ends off the beans.

3.Toss in a mixture of olive oil, three cloves of garlic (chopped), ground pepper, a bit of kosher salt, and a tablespoon of Huy Fong garlic chili sauce.

4.Roast in the oven at 350 degrees, about 20 minutes, stir halfway through cooking time.

Amanda at Run to the Finish has a 30 day challenge going on at her blog, you have to commit to doing 3 things for the next 30 days. I've been feeling like I'm in a food rut, so this is what I decided to do:

1. keep a food journal. I've never done this, but being home all day, I pick at whatever is in the fridge, or on leftovers. I'm always starving by 4:30 so I need to do something about it.

2. stop munching on whatever is leftover on the kid's plates.

3. cut back on the sugar. I've actually been good about this already, I threw out a ton of Easter candy that none of us need to be eating.

And don't forget my Chocolate Vita Top giveaway, it ends tomorrow at midnight, and the Amazing Grass energy bar giveaway, which ends on April 25.........

Gisele I'm not, but I can try

I'm not a big Vogue magazine reader, but I buy their April issue every year, because it's the "Shape" month, where they focus on body, and diet, etc. I also had to buy it since Gisele was on the cover (who, if I have a favorite supermodel, it would be her), with an article talking about having her baby, and life with Tom Brady (who I really can't stand because he plays for New England, and his dumping of Bridget Moynahan, but he's hot).

So we're making dinner the other night, and I showed Mike this picture of Gisele doing yoga, and thinking I'm all hot stuff, I decide to demonstrate it for Mike. It went something like this:

Me: look, I can do her pose.

Mike: whatever, I can do it too (proceeds to do the pose)

Me: no you can't. Her arm and leg creates a perfect square, you're making a triangle.

Mike: lets see you do it again.

Me: posing

Mike: You can't do it either! You're making a triangle too.

Well I tried.

I went out to Fleet Feet today and got myself a foam roller. I've been wanting to get one for a while, and they just mailed me a $25 rewards coupon, which gave me a perfect excuse to buy it. I've been thinking lately how running isn't as cheap of a sport as people would have you believe. You have to have the right shoes, good sunglasses, sunscreen, comfy running clothes. I could have easily dropped some major cash today, looking at water bottles, GU, and fanny pack type things (which I am seriously thinking of wearing for the Mountain Goat, to hold all my crap because I'm so high maintenance). But its funny, I never feel guilty about buying something fitness related, but I do when I buy something like a pair of jeans. Unless they're cute jeans........that make my butt look good.