Friday Coffee Date
Good morning! Time to grab a delicious hot beverage- I’m back to my regular Earl Grey tea- and have a little chat. The first thing I would ask you, if we were having coffee (tea) together, is, how was the eclipse for you? I saw several people posting about their experiences. I have to admit it was a non-event for me. We were only at 50% totality, and I had to work. BUT! My son had a great time. On Sunday afternoon he went to a concert by the Waco Symphony, where they played all space-themed pieces, like Star Wars, Star Trek and Theme from ET. Then at night he went to an “eclipse party” which I suspect was just a regular college party, pretending to be eclipse-related. On Monday, it started our cloudy in Waco, but luckily the clouds cleared by afternoon, and they experienced almost four minutes of totality. He said it was very cool but hard to get good pictures. I realized I’m 58 years old and I’ve NEVER experienced a total eclipse! Apparently I’ll have to wait until 2045, and the good news is that Florida will be in the path of totality! The bad news is, we would like to be living elsewhere by then. Sigh. Always in the wrong place, wrong time. Speaking of Waco! This August will be my fourth, and final, road trip to Texas with my son. We started his freshman year at Baylor, and it’s become a tradition for us to drive to school every August. I’m calling this “The Ultimate Waco Adventure.” It won’t be my very last trip- we’ll be going for his graduation of course, but that will probably be a quick flight there and back, because it will be a very busy time of year. That won’t be a trip for sightseeing. I have many thoughts and feelings on this subject (HOW is it possible that he will be graduating in a year???) but I’ll save that for another post. For now, I’m planning my Ultimate Adventure. I took Elisabeth’s advice from this post, and googled “hidden gems in Waco.” Some pretty interesting things came up! My favorite is the Beer Spa: “Pivovar’s unique beer spa experience consists of soaking in a bubbly bath of beer and an herbal beer mixture. The spa takes place in tubs made from copper and is based on bathing in natural extracts that are used in the brewing of Czech Beer- hops, brewers yeast, and malted barley. You are invited to pair your experience with a Pivovar beer flight, Czech wine flight, or a cheese board from our restaurant. Drinking beer during the spa experience will promote mental relaxation.” I actually had to check to make sure this wasn’t a joke. I mean- what?…why?… While simultaneously sipping beer and taking a bath in it sounds intriguing, I’ll probably skip this experience. Mainly because the beers are all Lagers- now, if I could bathe in an IPA, that would be a different story! Have you experienced a total solar eclipse? Have you ever heard of a beer spa???
Reading and Eating
Hello there! I’ve been on a roll with some great books lately! The latest one was this: Birchwood Pie recommended this author, and his books are unique. His writing style is a little dry, kind of technical, and just when you’re thinking “I’m not interested in all these details about boats and guns!” you realize the story is somehow very compelling. This one takes place before, during and after WWII and give a glimpse into the role women played in the lead-up to D-Day. And, there’s a love story intertwined there. I loved this book. Now, for my Q2 reading project. Are you ready? Here it is… Let me explain! Years ago, I had a client who, for some strange reason, loved to talk about quantum physics while he was getting his massage (Um. I know.) He probably thought he was dumbing it down to my level, but I could never understand what he was talking about. I actually dreaded seeing him, because I was always struggling to hold up my end of the conversation while also giving a massage, which was pretty difficult. Anyway, he doesn’t come in anymore (probably because he realized he was getting a sub-par massage) but he left me with the idea that a) there is such a thing as quantum physics, and b) it actually sounds like an interesting subject, if I could only understand it a little better. When I was trying to think of a reading project, I thought “Why not quantum physics?” We’ll just see how “easy” this book is though! I have no idea what the video training is- some kind of bonus. I’ll find out soon enough. Moving on to food. Last week was a new low in food prep. I made a peanut sauce and stretched that for a couple meals, pouring it over rice and vegetables. And I made a stir fry- I have now made the same stir fry so often that every time I heat up my cast iron skillet, it immediately smells like Chinese five spice. However, there was one highlight. My daughter asked if she could make Fettuccini Alfredo, WHAT??? She even looked up the recipe from Nora Cooks. Well… okay! Now, my daughter is an absolute beginner in the kitchen, so I had to help her a lot. But she really wanted to learn, and did as much as she possibly could by herself. The finished product was pretty good! There was one minor problem… this is a cashew-based sauce, and she didn’t blend it up long enough. Alfredo sauce should not be crunchy. But oh well- it still tasted good. The most important this is that SHE liked it, and is talking about making it again on her own. This is an exciting development in our household! Oh- and yes, that IS my Easter tablecloth still on the table. I guess it’s time to put that away! Have you ever read Nevil Shute? – This was the second book of his that I read- the first was A Town Like Alice. If you have kids, do they do any cooking? – My son didn’t, until he went to college. Now he cooks all the time.
Q2 Plans and Goals
In last week’s post I wrote about summer plans. I know how the last quarter of the school year- after spring break- just flies by, and the summer will be here before we know it. Then I realized… I was treating Q2 as if it were just a couple months to get through before I could start my summer. Wait a minute! EVERY DAY COUNTS! In this post, Sarah talks about Q2- she divides the year into quintiles instead of quarters, and now I can see why. Quintile 2 is the time between spring break and the end of the school year. If you have kids, or work in the school system, that is a very distinct period of time- once summer starts, you’re into a whole new schedule (Quintile 3.). But Quintile 2 deserves some attention, too! I realized I don’t have to wait until summer to start a reading project. I ordered a book, which will arrive tomorrow, and am going to start a Q2 reading project right away (more on that in tomorrow’s post.) I was also waiting for summer to start a new strength program. Ugh- my strength workouts really aren’t getting me anywhere. I feel like I’m working just to not get any weaker, but not making any real progress other than that. I need a more organized program, but I thought I would wait to start one after my race, i.e. at the beginning of summer. THIS is why I don’t see real progress- there’s always a reason for not taking strength very seriously. Either I have a race coming up, or I’m recovering from one, or I don’t want to be too sore for my upcoming long run, or I just sprained my ankle (well, okay- that last one was a legitimate reason to back off the strength temporarily.) There’s NO REASON I can’t start a new strength program right now- there’s seven weeks until my race. Yes, in the last week before the race I’ll taper off the strength, but that’s still a while away. I’m going to try out a couple different strength training programs, and to start with I downloaded Sally McRae’s app. I have a free seven-day trial, and then I’ll decide if I want to continue with it or try a different program. Lastly, Q2 will be special and distinctive because, as I’ve mentioned just a few times, I AM training for a race! This race isn’t quite as important to me as Forgotten Florida was in February, but it’s still a big deal. I have to do long runs, I have to plan my fueling, I’ll be traveling and staying overnight, and it will be an adventure. The race is Memorial Day weekend, so will really close out Q2. My motto for the next two months- make Q2 count! Do you divide your year into quarters or quintiles? Or do you not think about it? Do you have any special plans for Q2?
Weekly Rundown- Forward Motion!
Welcome once again to the Weekly Rundown! It was a good week of workouts, and I got much more sleep than last week (phew.) Thanks as always to Kim and Deborah for hosting! Here’s how it all went down. Sunday Easter Sunday! It was a little complicated, but I was able to pop out for a 3 mile run mid-morning. All my runs this week incorporated intervals of 4 minutes running/1 minute walking. I actually don’t think my ankle needs this anymore, but I’m just being cautious- I don’t want anything ELSE to get injured, especially since I was limping around for a month. But everything feels good! Monday Oof, this morning had a lot of moving parts. My daughter had school, which meant a 5:30 wakeup. And my son was flying back to Texas. One of my husband’s best qualities is his willingness to drive to the airport, no matter what time of the day or night (seriously- this is what you want in a partner.) So he was driving my son, but I wanted to see them off, so it was an at-home workout day. I did the Caroline Girvan Deadbug Workout, Bulgarian split squats, and the Knees Over Toes exercises, which coincidentally involve ankle-strengthening as well. Tuesday Caroline’s Deadbug Workout again in the morning, and in the afternoon (gasp! I never run in the afternoon!) I ran 4 miles. Wednesday Gym day! I warmed up on the stairmaster, then did squats, deadlifts, and Knees Over Toes exercises. The one thing that’s still so hard for me on the injured side, is single leg heel lifts. Oof- it still hurts. I finished with the Cool Blogger’s Workout- 3o minutes on the treadmill, 12% incline, 3 mph. Thursday Up early for a 3 mile run, followed once again by Caroline’s Deadbug Workout. Friday I started at home with the deadbig workout, then went to the gym for benchpress, reverse fly, and overhead press with dumbbells. Saturday It’s come to my attention that I’m running a 50K at the end of May, so I better start increasing my distance. This run was 5 miles, and felt pretty good. Of course, 5 is a lot less than 30… but I’ll get there. The other thing is, my race is on a TRAIL, and right now I’m avoiding the trail for fear of hurting that ankle again. But I’ll get there as well! Sunday On tap for today…. OFF! Sleeping in, waffles… you know. The usual Sunday activities. How was your week? Did you have spring-like weather? – We actually had a little cooldown- so unusual for April- which is why Saturday’s photo shows me running in long sleeves! Top photo by Frederik Löwer on Unsplash