Category: Health & Fitness

Health & Fitness

Turmeric Terror

heather

I read somewhere, I don’t quite recall where, that you can make a refreshing face mask out of yogurt mixed with the spice turmeric.  Well, I was cleaning out the fridge today and found an expired container of Fage.  I scrounged around and found some turmeric from who knows when, mixed the two of them together, and presto!  Cheapo face mask.

I slathered my face in the orange paste and let it harden into the consistency of sunbaked clay over the course of 20 minutes. Then I washed my face.  Or attempted to wash my face.  The mask was pasted on.  After a lot of scrubbing, I brought my face up to the mirror, hoping, nay expecting, to see baby-soft, glowing skin.

Instead I saw screaming, angry red blotches all over my face.  In fact, there was a clear line of demarcation on my forehead where the mask stopped and the unassaulted flesh began.

My face, everywhere the mask had been, was bright, sensitive red.  Oh my god, what had I done?!

I rubbed lotion all over my face to no avail.  The heat, my God the heat!

I doused a washcloth with milk and rested it over my skin, dabbing at the injured flesh.  The milk cooled it down, but the redness was only slightly reduced.

I started thinking of reasons to call in sick to work tomorrow.  I can’t very well tell my boss, “I seared my flesh with a witch’s brew of yogurt and decades old turmeric.”

Eventually, however, the tightness and redness started to simmer down.  And now, 5 hours later, the only traces of my brush with a Phantom of the Opera-like visage, is baby soft, glowing skin.  It just took awhile.

So, lessons learned?

1.  Maybe don’t experiment with home remedies on the most obvious part of  your body.

2.  Maybe don’t leave a mask on your face to the point where you almost need a jackhammer to get it off.

3.  Eat yogurt.  Don’t put it on your face.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Back in Bidness

heather

As is my custom, I have gotten out of the custom of writing in my blog.  Again.  I’m not sure why.  We’ve had quite a bit of “action” lately.  The Beentz was here for a visit, Tim’s mom was here for a visit, I took a watercolor class at the Figge, I agonized over getting a smart phone and finally broke down and got one and then traded it in for the iPhone 4s, my mom bought me an awesome $15 standup desk from Salvation Army, we ran a 5K.  What else?  Hmm…  I found another school program I am interested in – Human Computer Interaction at Iowa State University.  Maybe I’ll do it?  That’s about the past month or two real quick-like.

On to the present, today we are cooking!  This morning I tried a roasted chickpea recipe from Fitness Magazine.  They probably would have turned out deliciously if I hadn’t over cooked them by at least 5 minutes.  The chickpeas that were not reduced to ash were actually pretty tasty.  I’ll have to try that recipe again.

Right now we are cooking up some delicious minestrone and acorn squash.  I made the absolute best chocolate chip cookies on Thursday, and I froze half the dough, so I might bake up some of those up tonight too.  Once the cold, windy weather sets in, I’m all for keeping the oven on all day.

Tim and I played a game of Carcassone, ate some Buffalo Wild Wings, and listened to some great music this afternoon.  Did some laundry, kissed Lucent on the head lots, dyed my hair dark brown.  Overall, it’s been a pretty excellent Sunday.  Here’s to me getting back on track with blogging and with healthy eating & exercise habits (which have been absolutely disgusting lately).

Take care, and don’t forget to the watch the Simpsons Halloween special tonight!!

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…

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…

Books, Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Beauty and reconnection on the weekends

heather

Work has been really busy lately.  I know that millions around the world work 50+ hours every week without a second thought, but I’m not used to it.  Not used to it yet.  I feel as if I wake up, drive to work, work, drive home, eat supper, read for 15 minutes and fall asleep.  That is my week-day life.  So, like everyone, I really look forward to the weekend.  I get to see my husband again.  I get to see what my house looks like in the daylight.  I get to spend time thinking about things that don’t involve numbers.  It’s quite pleasant.

On Saturday Tim and I finally made it back to the gym.  I don’t think I’ve mentioned this in the blog, but Tim came down with an “acute viral infection” a couple of weeks ago that landed him in the ER for 6 hours (his family practicioner was worried Tim had menningitis).  It took several days before Tim felt well enough to go back to the gym.  I was off my normal schedule due to the NY trip and the long work-days, so I didn’t go all last week.

It felt great to go back to the gym.  I did my leg weights and the Precor.  I could tell I was out-of-practice because I was sooo tired afterwards.  I have reverted back to the fitness level where working out exhausts you instead of giving you energy.  But I know it’ll get better.

After the gym we headed to 11th Street Precinct for some grilled pork T’s, which were delicious as always.  It was a beautiful, weird fall warm day, so we took a walk along the bike path after lunch, admiring the river, the geese, the lily-pads, and the mansions overlooking River Drive.  We crossed River Drive, so that we could get a better look at the houses on the way back.  They are so huge and beautiful.  One even has an English telephone booth (it looks like the Tartis) on the front patio.

The rich and privileged even get better moths on their grounds than do us lowly peons.  Tim and I saw the most beautiful moth.  Its wings had blue ovals on them that looked as if they had sunsets hidden in them.  This is the closest picture I can find on Google.  It was the most beautiful thing I have seen in weeks.  I don’t know how people can truly believe there is no God, when beauty like that exists in the world.

Today Tim and I have been warding off the back-to-work blues.  So we are making the ultimate comfort food – autumn harvest soup and double corn corn bread.  Cutting up vegetables while listening to a Tim-engineered mix of Modeselektor, Radiohead, and Nightmare Revisited is my  idea of a perfect Sunday.

For desert we bought some Banquet fruit pies.  They were only $ 0.60, so even if they are extremely terrible, it won’t be devastating.  The ingredients actually look fairly good – fruit, wheat flour, brown sugar – heck, these might even be good for us!  Tim and I figure these are the perfect pies for us.  We can never eat a whole pie, nor should we.  These should be perfect for one piece each.

While it’s back to work tomorrow, at least we have next Saturday and Sunday to look forward to.  We have no plans yet.  Maybe I’ll finish my Mom painting.  Maybe we’ll start on our novels.  November is National Novel Writing Month. I’ve read that one should write about what one knows.  Since I know very little and lead a quite, unassuming life, I’ve always believed that my life provides little fodder for writing.  However, I’ve been listening to Romancing Miss Bronte on my way to work, and it’s helped me realize that having an active imagination and un-lazy mind is more important than living an adventurous life.  Emily and Charlotte Bronte grew up in a parsonage and traveled very little, yet they wrote two amazing books that shattered the literary world of their time.  If they could write books out of minds that were raised on fecal-laced water and rotten rice pudding, I should be able to write something worth reading on a mind raised on Iowa goodness and autumn harvest soup.  Unfortunately, I lack inspiration.  I enjoy the actual physical act of writing – of scratching a pen across paper, of filling up pages and pages in cool notebooks.  I just need a good idea…  I have 7 days to think of something.

Health & Fitness

Ugh

heather

So, how did I do?  I got, what, two posts into the 30 posts in 30 days thing?  I started out with good intentions; I really did.  As usual, life and laziness got in the way.

I am making myself post tonight, though, because I need to get myself back on track before I get to out-of-control.  And by “out-of-control” I mean coming home from work, sitting on the couch and watching 2 hours of television while eating supper chased with some Doritos.  Not good.

Life has been extra busy lately.  I started a new job today, but I’m still doing my old job too, at least until they hire a replacement.  I’ve been working on a couple of projects and also trying to update all of my notes/standard work instructions and trying to train my 2 coworkers in a few weeks what has taken me 3 years to learn thoroughly.  We’ll get there; it’ll just be a busy October.

And when I’m busy at work, I tend to let other parts of life slide.  I don’t exercise as much.  I eat worse food and more of it, and I watch more TV.  I feel as if I’ve “earned” it, even though “earning” a tasty, unhealthy meal won’t lessen its bad effects on the body at all.

I need to get back to where I was last winter, before our Spring break trip – working out 3-5 days per week, doing yoga every Saturday, and eating healthy food in proper portions.  I felt so much better, I had more energy, and my skin was so much better. I actually had some ab definition!

So, tomorrow morning I am going to get up and go to the gym.  Unlike today, I’m not going to eat 2 cups (was it really 2 cups?  eesh) of Tim’s delicious home-made mac & cheese for lunch.  Perhaps I’ll have a PB&J on whole wheat bread with a Honeycrisp.  Whatever I do, I need to get back on the healthy wagon.

I absolutely have to exercise Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week.  Thursday afternoon Mom and I are flying out to NYC to visit my bros.  That is about 10 delicious meals that I need to prepare my body for with some preemptive exercise.

So, I better head to my tea and my bed, so I can get to sleep and get up at 4:30AM.  Good luck to everyone else out there who is trying to maintain a healthy life style.  Laura – I saw you’re doing Zumba tonight.  I hope you had fun.  You’re looking great!

Books, Health & Fitness, Uncategorized

Catsup? No, Catch Up

heather

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything.  Not sure why, precisely – probably a combo of being busy at work, not doing anything super exciting, and just generally being lazy.  I talked to my dad today on my way home from work.  He is 60-some years old yet somehow still finds the energy to actually get stuff done on the weekends.  I am proud of myself if, on a Saturday, I make it to the gym and read a chapter of a book not written on a 10th grade reading level.  He spends his Saturday mowing and fertilizing the yard, insulating barns, replacing basement windows, and chopping up 15-foot stacks of hardwood.  He’s fueled by copious amounts of sugar, though.  Maybe that’s his secret.  Anyway, his activity really accentuates my lack of it.

But over the past couple of weeks, however, I have started taking some strides in the right direction.  First of all, I read a book that required some mental effort, Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty.  It’s not a deep book, really.  Or maybe it is, and I just wasn’t getting it.  But the style of writing takes a lot of focus to slog through.  Maybe the book is written in a Southern style, and what with me being born and bred inIowa and all, I just cannot comprehend  the winding, obtuse prose.  I’ve never lived on a bayou or with folks named Bluet and Pinchy and women named Jim Allen.  I just don’t get it.  I prefer precision in my language.  I get annoyed when I have to figure out what is being said.  But, I finished it!  I persevered and didn’t give up.

After finishing Delta Wedding, I jumped in on The Singularity is Near, right where I left off.  This book I also find hard to understand, but only because I’m not a futurist, not because I’m an Iowan.  The book is super interesting – all about the combined evolution of man and machine.  I can’t wait to see where that takes us.

I also did a little art last weekend – nothing fancy, just a little somethingto get back on the saddle again.  I used my favorite drawing subject again, Mr. Lucent Longoria:

I was just playing around, so it’s pretty quick and dirty, but it was also fun, which is really what counts.

While Tim was making delicious burritos for supper, I also worked on my Mom sketch:

I’m going to paint it with watercolors.  I think it will look smashing when it’s done.  I need to work on my spacing, though.  I ran out of room for Mom’s hair, but oh well.  These are really practice pieces anyway.

At least I’ve been a little productive lately.  I haven’t holed myself up to re-watch all of the Firefly episodes again or anything.  It’s been tempting to do that, too, with all this annoying rain we’ve been having.  Tim and I couldn’t bike at all weekend before last, and we only made it out on Sunday last weekend, and then only for a super quick ride to Emeis Park and back.  I was trying to show off for Tim and burnt up all my energy in one little, fast burst.  I need to start training on my own, sans Tim, so that I can keep up with him when we ride together.

Hope you all had a pleasant, fruitful weekend!

Health & Fitness

Chocolate brownies and milk

heather

Wow, another weekend has come and gone.  It was a great, relaxing weekend  at least.  Today I finally ran again.  I’ve been averaging once a week – not good, but better than nothing.  I actually ran for 2 miles today, which is double what I ran last Saturday.  I think Tim and I are going to do the Quad City Marathon 5k on 9/26, so I need to start logging some more miles.  I should run 3.1 miles at least once before the big day.

Hopefully work won’t be too crazy over the next couple of weeks, so I can get home at a decent hour and run after work.  I suppose I could run on the treadmill in the morning, but that is just so B O R I N G.  Ugh.

I rewarded myself for running today by indulging in a brownie and big glass of milk after supper.  I must say, I make some delicious brownies.  Tim agrees.

Health & Fitness

Yesterday, All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away

heather

That’s because it was Sunday, and I didn’t have to work!  Instead, Tim and I hooked up the bikes and drove out to Rapid City, IL and hit the Illinois side of the bike bath.  We braved a ferocious southern wind and biked up to Cordova and back.  It was a great bike ride.  We were wiped afterwards, but it was super fun.  Some day maybe we can ride all the way to Savannah and back…

We capped off the evening with supper (philly cheese steak and buffalo blue cheese brats) and pool with some good friends.  The only downfall to the Sunday was that it went by way too fast.  I didn’t get laundry done or grocery shopping done or anything.

Health & Fitness, Uncategorized

Exploration on Two Wheels

heather

On Saturday Tim and I braved the 90 degree weather and went for a monster bike ride.  We took Grand to Kirkwood, Kirkwood to Iowa, and then Iowa to downtown.  We crossed the Mississippi using the Government bridge.  That is one unsettling bridge to bike over, what with the the platform of the bridge being a GRATE and all!  You can look down and see the river flowing beneath your feet.  From there we hit the bike bath and rode east all the way to I-74.  On the way, we saw things we’ve never seen before, even though I’ve lived here for over a decade, and Tim has lived here is whole life.

We discovered Sylvan Island.  It’s this island park between Moline and the Arsenal.  It’s laced with gravel bike-paths and the ruins of a steel mill.  I found this great article on the history of the island and the people who convinced the City to turn it into a park.  Road bikes are not the best bikes to use on those paths, however, so we didn’t ride around much.  We want to go back and hike and take the camera, however.

We also discovered that along the bike path in Moline, there are more industrial ruins – perhaps of John Deere facilities?  It looked as if there were walking paths and signage around the ruins, so we need to go back there with the camera too.

Once we hit the 74 bridge, we turned around and headed back to Rock Island.  We biked through the new Schweibert Park (where the gross casino used to be).  It’s a beautiful park now, and it was packed!

From there we biked downtown and onto the Centennial Bridge.  That bridge is even scarier to bike over than the Government Bridge, as the path is partially blocked at intervals by the beams holding up the arch.  We took it slow, though, and didn’t end up scraping any hands off on the beams.

We biked across downtown Davenport, and then headed up Main Street.  That hill is a KILLER, especially after you have already biked 20 miles in 90 degree heat.  Tim, of course, totally out paced me on the ride up the hill.  As I was slowly cranking my way up the hill, I ran across some people directing traffic (must have been some event at Palmer).  One of the guys was kind enough to give me a push, and, man, it made all the difference.  It gave me a great boost, both physically and mentally.  I love nice people.

Tim and I recuperated for a bit at the top of  hill, drank the rest of the water in our water bottles (which, even though our bottles are insulated was nice and lukewarm), and then headed home through VanderVeer.

By the time we got home, we were drenched with sweat and completely wiped out.  But, it was super fun.  I am so excited that I can see progress.  I am getting stronger and can bike longer and harder.  I’ve been wary of changing my left gear ever since I got my bike. The first time I tried to do it, the chain fell off.  But, since I’m getting stronger, I’ve felt the need to use the hardest gear on the left, and I’ve finally have figured out how to change it without jacking up the chain.  I just have to make sure that I’m in the correct gear on the right side first.  If I’m in the correct gear, the bike shifts seamlessly, amazingly well.

Our plan today is to get the bike rack hooked up to our new hitch, so we can drive over I-80 and catch the bike path there on the Illinois side.  Tim tried to hook the rack up yesterday, but we discovered we received a bum bolt.  It’s threads are off, so when Tim tried to tighten it on the bolt, it became fused to the bolt.  Tim and I together had to muscle it off, amidst a bunch of cussing and hand cramping.  Hopefully we can find a nut at Home Depot that will work until we can get a replacement nut from Swagman.

Hope you are enjoying this beautiful day!