Action vs In Action

I'm full of questions these days with not much content for blog writing. In November I hurt my shoulder when I switched to 3 days of strength training a week. The shoulder pain lasted for well over a month, and in that month plus I became workout lazy.

Well 8 months later, I'm kicking myself in the pants and getting back to it. All of that work before? Down the drain and my weight is just shy of where I was before. In all honesty I thought blogging about this aspect of life would help me maintain personal accountability. I don't really think it did, but I have had great conversations about health with readers, conversations that wouldn't have happened had I said nothing.

So here's the deal: I'm back on Weight Watchers and I'm going to the local Y. Here's the question: Is this content you're interested in or something that makes your eyes glaze over? If it's interesting, how much information is interesting and how much is too much?

Want to read recipes and talk about food? Would you rather laugh at my pain (I went to Zumba yesterday, there's a lot of fodder for laughing there) or should I just stick to gardening and art?

Do you feel my pain or feel painfully bored when this topic comes up? Want to join in the fun and make the process a group effort? Want the whole issue to just go away? Spill the beans, people!

Grower's Update: Watering

We have a group of teenage volunteers coming out to Little Sugar Creek today, so I've got the day off from the paying job to go boss 'em around for a couple hours.

On the home front, we've got summer toys all over the yard, so when M isn't interested in finding worms and helping me with garden projects she's got plenty of distractions so I can get my work done! Unfortunately Charlie isn't fully convinced the livestock tank is a good idea, so I bought him (read: actually for Mabel) a $30 inflatable pool that's pretty big. We fill it with water, play in the water a couple of days and then use a basement pump and garden hose to empty it, watering the gardens with the old pool water.

It's actually a kind of brilliant solution (I can call it that because it was Hi-C's idea) because it allows the water to de-gas before it goes to the veggie bed. I might be over-thinking it, but have been mulling over the complexity of bacteria in the soil and how it mimics the flora of our own gut. With the popularity of probiotics in food, we're all becoming more aware of replacing the beneficial bacteria in our gut, something depleted by what many suspect is the chlorine in water, used to treat stray bacteria from our drinking water. (See how this is all connected?) The chlorine is meant to kill off bacteria that can harm us, but it doesn't discriminate so it takes out all the bacteria...in our guts and in the soil. All of that blabbering is to say I'm interested in seeing if there's any difference in the garden with this new watering method.

Any hypothesis out there?

Pastariffic without the pasta

I'm still on the them of food, when I said our fridge was packed with freshness, I wasn't kidding. We currently have tomato salad, carrot salad and fruit salad at arm's length; tasty veggie packed goodness ready to grab whenever someone has the hankering for a snack.

Last year I posted some ideas for using up the summer rush of zucchini, and to this day zucchini "noodles" are my favorite. They hold the right texture of an al dente noodle, but no bloated gut from wheat overload. None of that crazy blood sugar roller coaster from carb overload either.

How do you make zucchini noodles? Find a baseball bat sized zucchini (or a bunch of reasonable sized ones) and wash and peel it. Run the vegetable peeler lengthwise down the zucchini, creating ribbons of the fleshy part. Stop when you get to the seedy core. Now you have a giant heaping of zucchini ready to lightly saute in olive oil. Do a bit at a time so you don't break or chop the ribbons into small pieces. You want them sturdy and as spaghetti-like as possible; only saute until the ribbons get just tender. Season as you go, I use salt and garlic but season according to your tastes.

Last night we used up a particularly large zucchini, topped it with tomato sauce and homemade meat balls. The meatballs did have a handful of oats in them, but generally the meal was veggie-heavy, meat-light, and very easy on the body.

Plentiful Food

This is the story of a Sunday afternoon baby shower. My brother and his wife are a month away from meeting their new baby Reagan. It doesn't feel like that long ago we were in the same anxious position. For the shower, I tried to think of a gift I would've enjoyed 8 months into carrying Mabel.

I should preclude the great gift unveil with this tidbit of information: the only thing filling our bank accounts right now are sounds, echoes of C and I asking where we spent so much money (bills, bills, bills). My first thought was to make a couple really simple, really fast frocks for little Reagan. I wasn't sure I'd get enough time at a sewing machine. Then it came to me, our fridge and freezer are filled to the brim of a delicious summer bounty (already!), so why not share the wealth?

An idea was born.

I made up a little menu of some of our favorite summer time meals, dressed up the wording, wrote it out in pretty font, printed it and voila! The beauty of this idea (for me) is that the work isn't any harder than fixing for 2 (and a small) hungry mouths.  

I wrote up a little explanation that went a little something like this:

As Reagan's arrival approaches, we thought a gift of a week's worth of dinners would be helpful. Perfect for those nights when all you can do is ask Lonzo [my brother] to stick dinner in the microwave, but satisfying enough to curb your hunger for two!

I want the dinners to be go-to meals, not simply good intentions  so I also let her know we'd tweak the meals to suit her own tastes and preferences. It seemed to be a hit! Wholesome, homegrown food, free range meats and affordability all rolled up into one caring gift.

What do you think? Would you have appreciated prepped meals during the last few weeks of pregnancy? Is it overreaching to meal plan?

Looking for an answer

Ever heard of reishi mushrooms? I hadn't until I started reading James Green's The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook. What's so wonderful about this particular family of fungi? Read about some of their healing potential.

In fact, I was so intrigued by the information I decided to try my hand at growing my own.  The kit sent up pins, and now I'm waiting for them to fan out at the top. In the meantime imagine my surprise when I saw some similar pins shoot up from an old oak stump!

Doesn't seem like they're one of the tough ones to ID, but I want to make sure. The coloring is much duller than when I picked them--there's a powdery finish now rather than the bright orange you can still see on the stems.

Anyone know if these are reishi?

**In full disclosure: I'm an affiliate of Mountain Rose Herbs. I chose to be one because I use and believe in the quality of their products. If you click the link to their reishi selection and buy something from the site I will get a small percentage credit from the sale.