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Step It Up

Ok, let’s face it, walking really is that good for you.  It’s easy, you don’t need any special equipment, and it is super effective.

Some of the benefits of walking (according to me):

  • Slimming for your thighs
  • Toning for your calves
  • Strengthening for your back/core
  • Good for your posture
  • Easy on your joints
  • Fat-burning cardio – moderately elevated heartrate
  • Fresh air is good for your mood
  • If you can find a walking buddy, it’s a great time to catch up

It’s a no brainer, right? But somehow, I manage to not get enough steps in anyway.  What is enough step and how do I know?  Well, I use an app on my phone of course!  My app tells me that my target should be 6,000 steps or 60 minutes per day.  That is way less than that 10k number that everyone tries to hit so it shouldn’t be that hard, right?  And yet, I still manage to not make my target most days.

Caveat: I don’t count my gym workouts as part of my step goal.

Plus-or-minus a few minutes depending on how fast/slow I’m going 6,000 steps is right around one hour of walking.  How hard would it be for me to just get up and go for a one-hour walk?  Just bang it all out at once and not have to worry about trying to count trips out back to the laundry room or whatever other puttering around the house I’m doing.  The answer is not very hard.  But somehow it can turn into a mental hurdle really easily.

I’ve tried breaking my walking up into quick 10-minute laps around the block.  I don’t bother with sneakers, I just head out in my flip flops. It becomes a little treat – finish one hour of writing and then I get a break. I can sometimes swing two or three mini walks.  This tactic is not going to get me to 6,000 steps on its own.

Some days I walk to the gym which is right around 20 minutes each way.  It’s a good warm-up for Mondays with Adam and the walk home helps everything from tightening up.  Even on those days I still can manage to not hit my target if I don’t pay attention.

Sure, I could invest in a Fitbit (the new Versa is pretty cute) or some other wearable that would track ALL my steps without my having to worry about carrying my phone around everywhere.  If I did that, I feel like I would have no excuse not to set a 10k target. Since I know that I’m not getting enough steps as it is, counting all the little bits of walking (back and forth from the couch to the refrigerator) doesn’t seem like a real solution.  I need to create some sort of gimmick for myself to make my step target a natural part of my day.  I’m not sure what that is…

Last week I managed to hit my step goal on four days (I missed one day by under 100 steps!).  This week I will shoot for five days and see if I can’t work my way up to seven days and maintain it until the end of the year.  Its probably do-able, don’t you think?

So, my questions for you are:

  • What is your daily step goal?
  • What tricks or tips do you use to help you get your steps in every day?
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The Green Monster

My friend had the day off work and we decided to take ourselves on an adventure.  We headed off to an estate sale that I had seen advertised on the internet.  I love estate sales probably a little too much and really try to avoid them because always wind up finding some treasure that I didn’t know I needed.  But this time, I was sure that I didn’t need anything, and we would find something for my friend’s redecorating project.  Sigh.

In one of the upstairs bedrooms were some very 1960’s hutches.  One caught my eye because it was fairly narrow.  I have this wall in the dining room that I would love to have a hutch of some sort on, but the wall is only 32” wide.  I asked my friend, “does this look like it’s under 30” wide to you?” Of course, she is the most prepared person ever and proceeded to pull a measuring tape out of her purse.  Yup, 30” exactly.  Oh man, should I get it?  $100 later, we had removed the top from the base and shoved both pieces into the back of my car.

top beforebottom being prepped to paint  

Mr. Man was NOT happy when I got home.  “Where is that going!?!”  I explained, first it is going into the garage, then after I paint it, it will go where that bookcase is in the dining room.  “And where is the bookcase going?” I will find it a new home, somewhere else, not in our house.  Hasn’t he learned to trust me by now?

My dream for this monstrosity was glossy, kelly green with gold accents.  Bright colors, shiny finishes, and Chinoiserie are not really part of my decorating scheme.  It’s not something that would necessarily go with anything else in our house.  But that is what it told me that it wanted to be.  A statement piece.

I decided to use spray paint because I figured it would be the easiest (if messiest) way to get the result that I wanted.  I am not a great spray painter. I wish I had gotten a more even finish, but I am still happy with the results.

            

hardware before

The hardware was brass painted white.  I was expecting to have to paint the hardware gold (and ultimately replace it), but after a little soaking in warm, soapy water and a little scrubbing  with a scotch brite pad, the white paint came off and I had exactly the look I wanted.

it fits!

I want to do something else with the backboard accent paper.  This gold leopard print didn’t quite do what I was looking for, but it’ll do for now.  Getting this guy painted and moved in the house was enough of an undertaking that I’m giving myself a little break before I dive back into finding the perfect pattern for the backboard.

I love having these drawers for placemats, napkins, tablecloths, trivets, etc.  There is plenty of space to keep lots of my entertaining things handy yet out of sight and that just makes me so happy.  I love the green color and the bamboo details.  Even though it totally doesn’t “go” with anything else in our house, it works in my crazy lady, eclectic mess decorating aesthetic.  Success!

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The Incredible Shrinking Chair

Apparently my dining room chairs are shrinking!  Well, maybe not all of them, but the one that the kittens like to hang out on is definitely getting smaller.

Here is a picture from July 22:

look at how much space the kittens have to sprawl out

This was on August 19:

still plenty of room to stretch out

September 28:

all piled up but only taking up half the seat

And this is today:

running out of seat

Its crazy how this chair just keeps getting smaller, don’t you agree?

Anabel and Sally are not amused

 

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Eucalyptus Oil is Magic

So, I’ve been a bit more sniffly than usual these past few months.  No!  I am NOT allergic to my kittens no matter what Mr. Man says.  Anyway, I’m a little out of practice with my allergy abatement protocol and was suffering more than I needed to be.  One night when I was determined to do better about my bed-time routine, I noticed a forgotten bottle on my nightstand – Eucalyptus Essential Oil.  Oh yeah!  That will help.  So, I grab a cotton ball, place it on that pretty seashell that Mr. Man brought home from one of his Baja trips, and hit it with three drops of eucalyptus oil.  Ah, that smells nice.

When I wake up the next morning, my sinuses are clear!  Like I could breath through my nose!  First thing in the morning!  Eucalyptus oil, I love you.  I’m so sorry that I forgot about your magical properties.

According to Wikipedia, Eucalyptus oil contains a chemical called cineole which among other things may have antibacterial effects on the respiratory tract.  So it may have more than just a placebo effect on my sinuses.  Another chemical component, eucalyptol, gives the oil its cooling properties.

Eucalyptus oil can applied topically, but I would recommend diluting in a carrier oil if you want to use it on your skin just to be extra safe.  If you wanted to play with blending your own essential oils, you could make a sore muscle soothing blend with four drops of eucalyptus oil, two drops of ginger essential oil, and four drops of rosemary essential oil in a base of four teaspoons of a carrier oil like almond or grapeseed oil.

Eucalyptus oil is used in as a flavoring component in things like gum or cough drops.  However, it can be toxic and I would suggest that you DO NOT want to ingest it.  It can be dangerous for children.  It can also be dangerous for cats (I think that most essential oils are not good for cats) so be careful about how you use it around your furry friends.  My kittens haven’t had a bad reaction to my nighttime routine, but I am careful to keep essential oils away from anything that they could get on them and/or ingest.

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Spooky Dinner Party

I’ve made progress on my endeavor to entertain more!  The other weekend I had a few ladies over for a little dinner party.  A journey of a thousand miles and all that.

Since its October, I wanted to make the table setting festive for the season.  Since I don’t trust the kittens to not get into everything, I didn’t want to do any big centerpiece or ANY candles (it hurt my heart to have a dinner party without candles, but it would hurt my heart more if one of my kittens set themselves on fire).  Even though it wasn’t much of an elaborate table, it was still festive.

For the menu, I kept it pretty simple.  I have come up with a sort of formula that I like for dinner parties: protein, salad, crusty bread and then something nice for dessert. I like to make or at least prep everything that I can ahead of time so that I can relax, drink wine and enjoy visiting with my guests rather than being tied up in the kitchen.

This night we had lemon butter blue fin tuna, autumn salad with shallot vinaigrette and Martha Stewart’s pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. I was able to have everything prepped ahead of time, so when my guests arrived, I just put the tuna in the oven and threw the salad together and we were good to go.

Tuna in the oven, how could you!? Well, while I love to eat raw and seared tuna, I just don’t feel comfortable serving undercooked fish to guests.

Here are my tips for making delicious cooked tuna in the over: 1) coat the fish with olive oil or butter; 2) cook at very high heat (450 degrees) for not very long (these steaks were pretty thick, so I cooked them for 10 minutes).

The salad was a big hit and my friend asked that I share the recipe. I made the whole thing using the eyeball method, so here is the best that I can do for you as far as measurements go:

Autumn Salad with Shallot Vinaigrette

Shallot Vinaigrette:

  • one small shallot, minced very finely
  • some (1/3 cup?) apple cider vinegar
  • some (1 tbsp?) prepared mustard
  • few pinches of salt
  • few grinds of pepper
  • splash or so of olive oil

Combine all ingredients in a small mason jar (something with a trustworthy lid). Shake well to combine (it will emulsify thanks to the mustard, no need to drizzle and whisk). Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

For the Salad:

  • ½ bag of arugula
  • ½ cups of prepared spaghetti squash (can be roasted and “spaghettied” ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator)
  • Pomegranate seeds from one medium pomegranate (can be prepared ahead of time and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator)
  • ½ cup(ish) pistachio nutmeat (I prefer unsalted)

To assemble the salad: Throw squash and arugula in a bowl, toss until combined(ish). Dump dressing on it, toss again. Throw pomegranate and pistachio in, one last light toss.  Serve immediately.

I had the coffee maker ready to make a pot of decaf, so once we were done with dinner, all I had to do was press the button (we still make coffee by the pot) and retrieve dessert from the refrigerator.  I totally reccommend Martha Stewart’s recipe for pumpkin cheesecake.  It was easy to throw together, and it came out great.  If you think you want to try it, make it at least one day before you want to serve it (I made mine two days before) because the baking and cooling takes a while and you’re going to want to let it sit in the refrigerator so that the flavors can blend.

After we were suitably wined and dined, I sent everyone home with a nice, big piece of cheesecake so that I wouldn’t eat it all.  Time to plan another get-together!

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Costa Mesa Speedway

Mr. Man has been a huge Speedway fan for years.  He likes to tell me about back in the day when there was a speedway race any night of the week around Southern California.  These days it’s a once or twice a year occasion for us to make it down to the Costa Mesa Speedway for some hot racing action.

See all that dirt on the boards? It wasn’t there when we started.

A speedway motorbike is a little methanol-fueled missile.  These bikes are f-a-s-t.  And, no breaks!  So, when they go around this little, oval dirt track, they have to skid out the back tire of the bike while holding the front wheel pointing in the direction they are trying to go to make the turn.  Boy does the dirt fly!  If you’re sitting in one of the turns, be sure to cover your beer. As soon as they get straightened out, they’re at the other end, throwing it sideways into the other turn.

 

The other week when we went they were running sidecars among other things.  There was a lot of drama in the sidecar class with the #1 bike. It broke down in pretty much every heat and kept causing the races to be red-flagged.  They somehow made it to the final round.  Where they broke down again.  At some point you’ve got to just get out of everyone else’s way, come on!

You can see the #31 sidecar trapped behind #1. Oops!

It was also “Knobby Night” where dirt bike riders race the speedway on their dirt bikes with grippy, off-road tires (hence the “knobby” designation).  These races are pretty hilarious to watch because the bikes are not built to make those turns. They put out a “limiting” cone that the leader must pass to the outside of which means that the leader changes pretty much every lap.  Everyone has a great time during these races, you can tell that the riders all laughing the whole time too.

The actual speedway class included some OGs of speedway racing: Bobby “Boogaloo” Schwartz and Sean “Mad Dog” McConnell.  These guys are classic.  Boogaloo’s leathers are all old and worn looking and Mad Dog has this matchy-matchy red-and-white checkerboard racing suit and bike and floppy dog ears attached to his helmet.  They both are amazing racers.  I can’t explain what it is, but they are so obviously better at what they do than their competition.  It’s one of those things that is beautiful to watch.

This night, the final was something else.  In the first turn, Mad Dog came up a little tight under Chris “The Kid” Manchester and the dude got flicked off.  He flipped over the high side of the bike and landed flat on his back.  His bike squirmed away from under him and crashed into the wall.  I don’t remember ever seeing something like that before.  It was a bummer to see him laying there on the track, fortunately, he was ok and once he caught his breath, he got up and walked off.  In the time that it took to restart the race, he borrowed someone else’s bike, came out and won the whole thing!

Heading for the finish line.

Don’t you love a happy ending?

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Sally and the Baby

My friend who is responsible for Anabel and Sally coming to live with us came to visit.  I love getting together with her and getting to show the kittens off to her.  This time she brought her sweet 15-month-old daughter with her.  This precious little girl is walking and went to work exploring our little house.  Even though she has pets at her house, she was very interested in the kitten’s equipment (especially their litter boxes).  Her mom and I were doing our best to keep up with her (and find something as entertaining for her as the litter boxes) and the kittens wanted to help.

Our previous cat Emma would disappear every time anyone came over.  And Clementine, who loved to show off her fluffy tail, would make herself scarce anytime there were small humans around.  She didn’t even like when the neighbor kids would play outside.  Anabel and Sally are so much friendlier than our other cats were, but they really surprised us with these visitors.  They are so friendly! SO friendly!  As in, they got up from their naps to greet our guests.  And they didn’t run away when they saw the small person.  They both hung out during the whole visit.

Anabel hanging out. Sally looking for belly rubs.

Sally in particular really blew my mind.  He wasn’t just hanging out in a stand-offish cat way, Sally was very interested in the baby.  He would follow her around the house and walk right next to her.  He does the same thing to Mr. Man, standing and walking next to his legs to encourage him to go where Sally wants him to (this usually involves dinner or belly rubs).  I’m sure that he is probably some sort of herding cat.

But like I said, I have not had experience with cats who are interested in, much less not afraid of small people. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. I mean, she is a beautiful little cabbage patch doll of a person, but still. It was something else.  I hope that they will come visit again soon and that this time I remember to take photos.

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Indoor Cycling, part 1

I love to watch the Tour de France on TV every July.  The drama!  The metaphor for the human condition! The scenery!  I totally get why folks like to spandex up and ride bicycles for miles and miles outside in the fresh air, but cycling as a sport is something that I prefer to participate in as a spectator.

I do like ride my beach cruiser around the neighborhood.  Sometimes I’m going somewhere that is just a little too far to walk, or the parking situation is too much trouble.  But serious outdoor bike riding is not for me.  The two big reasons why are: 1) the ground is hard; and 2) cars.

I do like to ride bicycles inside.

I first tried indoor cycling about 16 years ago.  I have never been a cardio person and cycling is super challenging for me. The great part back in those days was that there really wasn’t anyway for anyone to know if you weren’t keeping up.  I could just dial the resistance down or slow my pace or both when I started to feel like my lungs were on fire and my heart was going to explode.  I still got stronger as time went along and could maintain an increasingly greater levels of effort but I certainly wasn’t ever keeping up with the class.

I credit indoor cycling classes for helping me discover the beauty of morning workouts.  I think that it’s a great way to start a morning workout habit because you don’t necessarily need to be fully awake to do it.  I mean, there’s not a lot of coordination or balance involved.  And usually the room is pretty dark.  You can get half-way through your workout before you realize what’s happening.

My current cycling routine is Wednesday mornings at 5:45am and Saturday mornings at 8am with Rachel.  There is a great camaraderie in her class and once I had started showing up regularly, I was warmly welcomed into the tribe.  Which is great and all except it’s not like the old days when no one really knew what you were doing.  These bikes light up!  Blue = easy, green = moderate, yellow = hard and red = breathless.  So everyone can tell who is keeping up.   Fortunately, everyone is very supportive and we really just judge each other on whether or not you show up.

Rachel’s class is very different from other instructors.  She has us  grind it out at various moderate-to-hard (green and yellow) intensities for long stretches with occasional bursts of red sprinkled in (last Saturday was 28 minutes straight through before any recovery, then repeat).  It’s a different kind of mind game to hold pace for those long stretches.  I’ll tell you, I still remember the first time I kept up on a six minute hard hill.  Something clicked over somewhere around the four minute mark. I don’t know how to describe it, but all of a sudden I wasn’t just surviving anymore.  I’ve been a Rachel groupie ever since.

I will tell you all about Rachel’s Great Cycle Challenge of 2018 in a future post.

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The Pumpkin Report

Remember when I said that I would tell you how my pumpkin patch turned out?  Oh, I was so full of hope then. I was sure that we would be drowning in pumpkins, that I would have given as many as I could to my neighbors and explored many pumpkin recipes.

Well, I don’t have any of those problems.

I don’t know what happened!  Guys, it all started off so well.  Mr. Man plopped the seeds in the garden. We had sprouts before we knew it!

They were growing and growing.

So many plants, with so many potential pumpkins.

Our future was looking like it would be FULL of pumpkins.

Then it all started heading south.  This guy committed suicide, he just dropped off the vine onto the driveway.

Inspector Sally examining the evidence, he determined that there was no foul play

The one, respectable-looking pumpkin got this icky spot, yuck!

And then all the plants suddenly pooped out. It was a gardening massacre.

So, now that it’s too late to do anything about it, I decided to do some research. The top Google result, The Old Farmer’s Almanac (https://www.almanac.com/plant/pumpkins), sure had everything that I needed to know about growing pumpkins.  Too bad that I didn’t read up before we started!  Here are my top take-aways:

  • Pumpkins like hot soil, which explains why they took off so well in our raised planter bed. You’re supposed to build little “hills” for your pumpkins to grow on to help keep the roots stay warm.
  • You also need to keep the soil moist – mulch, mulch, mulch.
  • And feed, feed, feed – manure or compost plus high nitrogen fertilizer (during early plant growth) and high phosphorus fertilizer (once blooming begins).
  • You need to be careful about getting the plants wet. I think this is the biggest booboo that we made since Mr. Man likes to water the garden from across the lawn.  Once the leaves got powdery, it was over.
  • If/when you start to get fruit, place something (ex: cardboard) under the fruit to keep them from getting icky spots from sitting in damp mulch.
  • If/when you pick them, keep 3-4” of stem to help them last longer and cure them in the sun for a week before storing.

Now that I’ve armed myself with some knowledge, I think we can attempt pumpkins again next year with the potential for better results.  As far as this year goes, I see a trip to Trader Joes for pumpkins in my near future.

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A Fun Night at the Theatre

Guys, I saw a really fun play the other night!  We were laughing out loud.  I didn’t look at my watch once, I didn’t start squirming in my seat hoping for intermission, none of that.  The play, by Christopher Durang, is called Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.

It’s about a middle-aged brother and his adopted sister who still live in their dead parents’ home. Then the other sister, who is a successful actress, comes home with her twenty-something boy toy and hijinks ensues.  I went in completely cold, I didn’t look at the program before the show started or anything.  Sometimes that is the best way to enjoy a performance because you don’t bother to develop any expectations about what you think you are going to see.

For me, the play starts off maybe sort-of melancholy, there is a lot of talking about missed opportunities and dissatisfaction with how their lives have turned out by Sonia and Vanya.   Fortunately, all the bellyaching is broken up by shots of wackiness which gives all the brooding a funny air.  And then there is this underlying, irrepressible optimism that is manifested in the character of Irina, the young ingénue from next door.

The highlight of the show by far is the character of Cassandra the housekeeper.  In this production, the role is played by Svetlana Efremova who is just delightful.  She plays this wacky character with effervescence and a graceful physicality.  She’s like a lovely, playful kitten romping in and out of everyone’s drama.  And her Russian accent just makes it so much better.  She steals the show.

I think there are other Chekhov references beyond the names of the brother and sisters, but I’m not enough of a theatre buff to know what they were.  I guess that is a testament to how good the play is because I totally enjoyed it without getting the inside jokes.  If you know Chekhov, you may appreciate the play on a deeper level.

Toward the end of the play, Vanya has this eight-minute monologue about the world that he grew up in.  It was wistful and sweet, and it went on long enough to make everyone a little uncomfortable.  To me it sounded exactly like when Mr. Man goes on one of his “back in the day” rants, which made me laugh.  I guess that everyone has heard someone’s version of that same thing at least a few million times.

If you are looking for a culture fix in the next couple weeks, this would be a fun show to catch.  It was funny.  The acting was great. I really enjoyed it.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at South Coast Repertory through October 21, 2018

https://www.scr.org/calendar/view?id=10010