Posted on

A Very Nice Weekend

We packed this weekend to the limits!

Thursday night: Took the kids swimming at the rec center. They both went down the slide about eleventy million times. Ben got water up his nose and decided snuggling was more his style.

Friday morning: Went to a killer workout with H. Triceps still a little sore.

Friday afternoon: Visited the Denver Botanic Gardens with my parents and my aunt and uncle, in town from AZ. Beautiful day. Kids played forever in the little river. Tabby asked a million questions about plants. Ben ran amuck.

Friday evening: Went out to dinner with everyone. Behaved myself admiarably and shunned such treats as margaritas and enchiladas. Had excellent shrimp tacos.

Saturday morning: Ran errands. There is a great shopping center with my two most oft-visited stores right next to each other (instead of 10-15 min apart like near me), too bad this area is more than 25 minutes away. Boo. Had Chick-Fil-A for lunch. 8 nuggets is actually fewer calories than 1 chargrilled chicken sandwich. Who knew?

Saturday afternoon: Manic mode as we prepped for two parties in the evening. I was baking a very complicated cake (and spilling batter all over myself) and then hopping on the treadmill for a run while it baked. Matt was running errands, wrapping presents.

Saturday evening: Went to our sitter’s daughter’s graduation party. Kids had a great time playing in the back yard. We chatted it up with mostly strangers. Then we high-tailed it back to the house to pick up the cake and then to my parents’ to celebrate my mom’s birthday. Dad fixed amazing dinner (salmon) and kids got to ride their plasma cars all around Dad’s newly re-floored garage.

Sunday morning: Loaded the kids in the stroller (way too early) and went for a run/walk with H. Beautiful day.

Sunday afternoon: Had INDIAN food with H and her boys and then checked out pieces of land Matt has been scoping out. Followed by NAPS.

Sunday evening: Had dinner outside. Kids had a bath (I supervised) while Matt worked in the garden. We skyped with all of the Nashvillians for Grandpa Sandy’s birthday. Kids passed out, I did photo management, mourned the end of the weekend.

Posted on

Oh the Places You’ll Go!

One of our many babysitters (our full-time sitter’s daughter in this case) is graduating from high school. Actually, come to think of it, she’s probably already graduated … but her party is this weekend. We are giving her the graduate standard … money. But I never like doing JUST money. So I decided a nice framed quote from another graduation standard, Oh the Places You’ll Go, by Dr. Suess.

I just typed it out in Photoshop, and using some excellent ding fonts and a couple of graphics decorated it. Praise be to our awesome color printer at work, it came out very nicely. Knowing her style, I think she’ll like it and at very least, she gets a nice 8″x10″ frame to put something else in!

Posted on

Running Around

I’ve been going through my back posts trying to get some WordPress problems worked out and I just read the post where I made resolutions for the new year. Remember that? Yea, me neither apparently.

One of those resolutions, which I’d COMPLETELY forgotten about, incidentally, was to run a half marathon in under 2:15. I know when I made it I really thought it was pie-in-the-sky, but now, just 5.5 months into the year, it’s DONE. I ran the Colfax Half at 2:12. I’m still a bit in shock. I guess it’s good to be able to surprise yourself.

The really good thing about running is that there is always a new goal. You can always shave more time off your personal best, especially when you’re relatively slow like me. So now, of course, I want to run a sub 2:00 half marathon, which is right around 9 minute miles. I’m doing better sustaining that sort of speed, but I am guessing it will be a while yet.

Posted on

Memorial Day Weekend Wrap-Up

It is super-greedy, but even when I have a nice long weekend, I always want more. Such was the case of this weekend.

I left for Vail with the girlfriends on Friday afternoon. We had a nice evening on Friday with much wine and conversation. Saturday we slept in, had breakfast and then rented bikes! We rode all over Vail, checking out houses and other sights. After a light lunch and some naps and general chilling, we went to dinner at Sweet Basil (one of our all-time favorites), where we netted an excellent off-season deal. We got to walk around town afterward and then of course there was more wine and conversation. Everyone enjoyed the break of being away from husbands and kids and (though I did not plan it this way) it was extra nice because when we went home on Sunday morning, we had the better part of two days of weekend still left.

I was very glad to see my little family when I got back. Matt and the kids had kept very busy with this and that and the house wasn’t even too wrecked. We rested and made a trip to Costco and then had a little Memorial Day BBQ on the patio with my parents, sister and GiGi.

Monday was my lost day. Matt went over to our friends’ house to work on their basement and I was at home with the kiddos. We did a whole lot of nothing … breakfast, breakfast cleanup, playtime, playtime cleanup, lunch time, lunchtime cleanup, naps. I even took a nap. When Matt got home, we ran some errands and then magically, it was time for dinner, followed by bedtime.

The house isn’t terrible, but it sure isn’t CLEAN. The menu for this week consists of whatever’s in the fridge. I haven’t exercised in three days. But I’m very very rested and that counts for quite a bit.

Posted on

Weekend Away

Can you believe it’s almost memorial day? It feels like Christmas was just last week. Maybe I’m confused because we got snow recently and the kids and I still have coughs. Who could blame me.

But Memorial Day Weekend is almost here and I am heading with some of my best girls to the mountains for a much-needed long-anticipated girls’ weekend. There will be 7 of us hanging out, drinking wine and doing practically NOTHING. I don’t think the weather’s supposed to be stellar, but that is beside the point. Just doing nothing is such a treat when you wrangle kiddos all day.

I am looking forward to it and I know I’ll have fun, but a part of me is very sad to say goodbye to my family for a few days. I always miss them and I don’t get to see my kids a TON during the week, and part of me hates to give up any weekend time with them. Matt is making plans with other solo dads and my parents to keep them entertained and busy. And best of all, since it’s a long weekend, we still get plenty of time together when we come back early Sunday afternoon.

Posted on

The Garden is In

Procrastination/schedule/good luck prevented us from putting any of our plants in the ground until this past weekend. The upside of this is that we missed out on some of the more … fun … weather Mo Nature has thrown at us lately. But the downside is that our garden starts in particular were looking pretty crappy. They needed more sunshine and room to grow and they needed it … well weeks ago!

We finally got a break from rainy/cloudy this weekend and struck while the sun was hot. We planted our front beds with a mixture of sad-looking strawflower seedlings we grew in the basement and a few more bedding plants from Wal*Mart (I figure if they can survive Wal*Mart, my garden should be like Eden for them).  The kids hung out with us while we worked out front. Ben was a pretty big fan of digging in the dirt. Go figure.

Continue reading “The Garden is In”

Posted on

Pork Ragu with Creamy Polenta (GRITS!)

So one of my favorite food blogs, Dinner a Love Story posted a recipe for Pork Ragu sometime back late this winter. The minute I saw it I marked it in Google Reader and vowed to make it as soon as possible. The recipe is ridiculously simple as far as prep goes and the only time consuming thing about it is that it cooks for 4-5 hours … but all you have to do is turn it once in a while. It’s the perfect thing to make on a Sunday afternoon while the kids are napping and you’re doing laundry and getting read for the week and darn if it isn’t super tasty. I will say that I have rarely if ever cooked pork before this (except bacon) because I don’t like it much, but this blew me away.

We have always served it with noodles (no yolk – healthier and just as tasty!) and everyone loves it that way. But after a meal I had a couple of weeks ago at Black Cat in Boulder (oh what a meal!) where I was served some tasty tasty pork on top of polenta/grits, I knew that this pork ragu would go AWESOME on some creamy polenta (GRITS) …. and it does. They are just the right offset to the richness of the pork and so so tasty together.

Ingredients

for the pork ragu

  • 3.5-4.5 lb lean boneless pork shoulder
  • salt and pepper
  • pat of butter
  • olive oil (2 T or so)
  • 1 large can diced tomatoes
  • 1 cup wine
  • 1 tsp hot sauce for smokiness
  • handful of fennel seeds
  • a few sprigs each fresh thyme and oregano (or a tsp or 2 each dried)
  • parmesan for serving

for the grits/polenta

  • 1 C stone ground grits/polenta
  • 4 C milk
  • 1 T butter
  • salt and pepper

Directions

Heat your oven to 325. Salt and pepper the heck out of the pork. Heat your olive oil and butter in a dutch oven and brown the pork on all sides … about 2 minutes per side. Add the tomatoes, wine, herbs, spices and hot sauce and bring to a boil. Then transfer to the oven and braise for 3-4 hours. If the liquid does not come 1/3 of the way up the roast, add a bit more (water or wine) to the mix to keep it going. The meat is done when it’s falling apart. Remove from the oven and shred with a couple of forks.

When the roast is almost done, make the polenta. Heat the milk to a low boil and whisk in the grits/polenta. Lower the heat slightly and stir frequently to make sure it doesn’t burn. Continue cooking until desired consistency, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and butter. Serve pork over top of a bed of polenta and top with parmesan if desired.  Dilly green beans were excellent with this! Make it soon before it gets too darn hot to turn the oven on.

Posted on

The Adventures of Lobster Girl

Thursday was a very nice day in most respects. I went to work. I came home. I worked on dinner. Our friends came over and we had dinner. The kids played. It was a nice evening. Then, since I hadn’t had time to workout all day, I hopped on the treadmill. My training plan had me do about 5 miles, most of it at a “pushing it” sort of speed. It took me about 45 minutes and I was feeling pretty good about my abilities … then just as I was getting off the treadmill, my palms started getting itchy. Like REALLY itchy. So itchy I wanted to scratch my skin off.

I figured maybe it was a sweat thing and I started doing my post-run activities (slamming water, downloading my Garmin data, etc.) A few minutes later Matt came up to our room to chat and hang out and I showed him my hands, which had been itching like crazy the whole time. About then my feet started doing the same trick. This was not my first allergy attack rodeo and I quick-like downed a Benedryl and hopped in the shower just in case it was an environmental trigger. In the shower my face started feeling weird … tight. Continue reading “The Adventures of Lobster Girl”

Posted on

Crazy Ass Weather

Remember last week when we had snow? That was fun, right? Yes, so much fun that Mo Nature upped the ante and gave us HAIL this week. We had a good 20 minutes of pea-sized hail rain down on us. It was, happily, not enough to do any damage to my car, but it got the plants around  here pretty good.

Thankfully, we’ve been total slackers about the garden and were lucky to have very minimal damage since we have next to nothing out!

All this generally lovely weather (temps maxing out under 60 degrees all week) is making me a bit grinchy. Our cook-out with friends to night will be a cook-out/eat-in. Ah well … I’m sure I will get to complain about the heat soon enough. Might as well enjoy the rain while we’ve got it!

Posted on

Mango, Black Bean and Quinoa Salad

Summer is a hard time for me cooking wise. I don’t want the heavier comfort foods I am crazy about in the winter. It’s too hot. And we also take advantage of the longer days and get up to all kinds of things and have later, more casual dinners. So I’m up for anything that’s cool and light and super easy to make and have around. This recipe (well a recipe similar to this) was in my Google Reader for a while before I tried it but when I did I was an instant fan. I traded out vinegar for lime juice (I love anything with lime in it) and nixed the cilantro, but of course you can put these back in for a slightly different flavor.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cooked quinoa
  • 1 cup finely diced red pepper
  • 1-2 mangoes finely diced
  • 1 can black beans rinsed and drained
  • 2 T lightly flavored oil (sunflower oil was what we had)
  • juice of two limes
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • salt and pepper
  • cilantro, chopped (optional)
  • scallions, chopped (optional)

Directions

Combine lime juice, oil, cumin and S&P in a small bowl. Whisk until well combined. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a medium sized bowl and toss with dressing. I think this is best served chilled. We first ate it with Garlic Lime Chicken and I imagine it would be a great thing to take to any picnic or to have with burgers as well. Tomorrow I’m having it with Tortilla Encrusted Tilapia from Costco. mmmmm

Nutritional Info (1 cup)

Calories 150; Sodium 59 mg; Total Fat 6g; Potassium 31 mg; Saturated 0g; Total Carbs 35g; Protein 6g