fighting the urge!

Laura came by yesterday to ask me if I needed anything from the cafeteria, and I had to quash the urge to supplement the lunch I brought from home. the thing I miss the most about going to the cafeteria every day (sometimes twice a day), is checking out our 'library.' there's a bookshelf near the atm where people can drop reading materials off for others to pick up and enjoy. I love taking a look to see what's turned up.


I actually paid for this book, but since I'm on the subject of other people's cast off literature, I thought I'd share a choice photo from this awesome instruction manual.


or two - should I make this for my sweetie?


I think he could pull it off. ok, now back to business:


I microwaved an Amy's burrito for lunch yesterday. I inhaled it. yesterday's workout was a 3 mile jog/walk. this time it took 37 minutes - I tacked on a couple more minutes of running, and stepped the resting pace up to 3.3mph (yeah, a whopper of an increase!). my arse was dragging yesterday and I was tempted to flatten the incline to zero, but I made it through.

there's supposed to be a spin/tone class today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't get cancelled, and that I don't end up working late.


a little potato love to peace out on. o&o, e

look at our kitchen junk drawer -aaaagh!


I'll have to deal with this some day, I suppose.

on weekends, we try to get to our neighborhood diner at least once. it's one of those great places where breakfast prices are completely reasonable, and everyone knows each other. John and I live in the 'hood, but we're not OF the hood, so not everyone talks to us, but Henry was born into Fishtown and the regulars treat him as their own. Joe gives him advice, Ann takes him into the kitchen to see Daniel, Lucretia tries her hardest to make him smile... John and I love it because we get a chance to eat in peace! this weekend I was good and got a bowl of oatmeal.


I split it with John, then had one piece of dry rye toast and one egg, cooked over medium. mmmm.


by the way, this is what happened to that magnet! it cracks me up every day (you know I'm easy).


if you've been trying to figure out how to get more carrots into your diet (I know, a common, burning question), here's a great recipe from this month's Country Living magazine (courtesy of my mother-in-law). I made it yesterday, and it's yummy if you like limes, honey (I used local raw), and scallions. try not to over-cook the carrots like I did. if it's too hard to read the photo, I'll write it out later.

today's monster is pineapple again.

not looking forward to work today...end of year Rx data has been released, which means insanity for me...

o&o, e

refrigerator tetris

it's hard to tell from this photo, but most of our refrigerator is currently dedicated to beer (lord chesterfield), which means that it's getting difficult to find room for food.

today I walked/ran 50 minutes - 4 miles. I meant to do a strength workout, but the pull of cardio was too strong. if only I could do yoga & run every day. that would be the best!

o&o, e

of course he did

is anyone surprised about mark maguire (sp)?

I've finally made a greenie with raw, fresh spinach - soooo good! and it's a prettier shade of green than the cooked version. today's has 3/4 cup pineapple in addition to the regular recipe.


I've also been using blackberries (does make it seedy) and that's yummy too.


even though Mondays are crazy for me (and yesterday was no exception), I managed to go out to lunch and still get to the gym (after work). I tried to encourage my lunchmate to go healthy for the meal, but didn't argue too hard against the Indian buffet. she was treating, after all! it took every ounce of self-restraint in my body to resist the pull of the samosas. but resist I did, and I even avoided the rice, so I could have a piece of naan. luckily, the aloo gobi (cauliflower and potato) was delicious, so I loaded up on the gobi (cauliflower).

my workout was the treadmill - only a half-hour, since it was getting towards Henry's pick up time. I alternated jogging and walking at an incline of one. jogging = 6mph and walking = 3mph. in a half hour, this means 18 min jogging, and the balance walking (recovering!) = 2.4 miles in a half hour. not great, but getting there slowly is feeling satisfying these days. hey, I can't get any worse!

my goal today is to find out where I can score another recycling bin. ours (we had two) are gone (long story, I'll just say that it's due to user error - John being the user). John won't let me put the recycling in bags because he thinks it looks bad. so we put the recycling on shelves in our back mud room, as if they were still full of stuff. we wash cans and containers out so they look clean. crazy you say? not as crazy as what John does to "put the recycling out." he carries it by the armfull, and sprinkles it around in the neighbors' recycling bins!

o&o, e

wtf?

so, after sitting around for two days, I decided to go for a run this morning. outside? hell no, it's freezing! I drove to the LA Fitness in Bala Cynwood, only to find out that it's not open yet. OK, so I got here at 6:50am, and sure, it's Sunday, but it's supposed to be open from 5am seven days a week. right now it's me and another man waiting - separately in our cars - oh wait, it looks like he might be leaving...yup just drove away. I'll wait a few more minutes. I wonder what time the Acme opens. Gotta hand it to stip malls: they might looks like blights on the face of the Earth, but they sure can be convenient.

o&o, e

freaking cool

these images are from the magazine, Old House Journal. someone brings magazines into work and leaves them in the copier area near me. I love old houses, so I grabbed this one when it showed up.


this house took about a decade to build, so the architect and builder, Earl Young, built a playhouse (with a working fireplace) on the grounds for his children to play in while he worked on the big house. he must have been so cool.


check out the curvy roof on this character (called the half house).


and this fireplace? please!!!! I want that in my bedroom.

these inspirational houses are located in Charlevoix, Michigan.

I want to build a house.
o&o, e

pot roast!!!!!

I'm painfully used to getting up early, and every once in a while, I get up around 5:30am on a Saturday. since I was up, I decided to do some cooking.


first, I browned this giant roast. it was on sale - half price - the only one in the pile with a reduced price. should I be afraid of why? once it started smelling good, I put those nagging thoughts away.

as the meat browned, I chopped two large onions, 4 stalks of celery, one large (peeled) potato, and two carrots. I augmented the carrot volume by using those little, milled carrots that the veggie manufacturers try to pass off as babies.

once the vegetables were chopped, I realized that there was no way everything would fit into my crock pot, so I had to bust out my badass, off-name brand, enalmeled cast-iron pot. I heated the pot and 1Tbsp. olive oil and sweated everything in traditional order (onions first, and so on). in the end I threw in a handful of grape tomatoes (because I had them).

I didn't want to waste the pan juices that were left in the pan I used to brown the roast, so I used that pan to cook some of the onions (I reserved a cup of raw onions for this purpose). once these onions were cooked, I added one cup of red wine and scraped up all of the yummy meat stuff off the bottom of the pan. finally, I united the contents of both pans and nestled the meat on top.


I hope it ends up tasting as delicious as it looks.


I put the covered cast-iron pot into my oven at 375F. I'm going out at 10am, but it should get pretty far in three hours. I'm going to keep everything in the closed oven while I'm gone, but with the heat off - my hypothesis is: if I leave the oven door closed, it will retain its heat for some time and continue to cook the roast. I don't expect it to be cooked thoroughly, but I'll see where it is when I get back and continue the cooking in the fired up oven for however long it needs. is that a hare-brained scheme, or sound planning?


this is my stove/oven. it came with my house - isn't awesome? the roast is in there!
o&o, e