100 pushup challenge: update 1

As you recall, along with zillions of J.D.-fearing minions, I recently challenged myself to doing 100 pushups in 6 weeks, which would be somewhere at the end of July for me. In my original post I didn't go so far as to scoff at the challenge, because I knew it would be tough! But I did suggest that the comparison between doing 100 pushups and running a marathon was not quite the right comparison, because while 100 pushups will be hard, running a marathon is freaking harder, OK? Even seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong said that running the New York Marathon in 2006 "was without a doubt the hardest physical thing I have ever done". (Of course Lance finished in under 3 hours, while my marathon took me 4:28. But I ride my bike only ~600 miles a year.) So all I was saying was, pushups and marathons aren't the same.

But I must say, I'm having a hard time. First off, my biggest problem is my ab muscles. I went into this challenge with both my pushup muscles and my core muscles being way out of condition. I am not familiar with a way to do pushups without tightening my core muscles, and so the result of my very first day of pushups was several days of sore abs.

Week 1 recap:
So the first day of the challenge I performed according to schedule, and did 5 sets of the following numbers of pushups: 2-2-2-2-3. The next two days of the pushup challenge I could not do a single regular pushup due to ab pain, so instead I modified my schedule and performed increased repetitions of modified (knee) pushups. So instead of performing 4-3-2-2-4 and 5-4-4-3-5 on days 2 and 3, I performed more like 12-12-12-12-12 and 15-15-15-15-15 modified pushups. In the past, completing huge messes of knee pushups really helped my regular pushups improve, so I'm going with that theory this time, as well.

Week 2 recap:
A similar thing happened during the second week. I performed according to schedule on day 1 (4-4-3-3-5) and day 2 (6-5-3-3-6), but on day 3 my abs were holding me back from performing my pushups in acceptable form so instead I did something like 5 regular pushups followed by 15-20-20-15 knee pushups.

I really think I can hit the goal of 100 pushups, but I'm not sure I can do so according to the schedule at one hundred pushups. When I previously reached 50 pushups within 4 weeks I was doing pushups 5 days per week, and more repetitions. So, will I be "cheating" if I do extra? Can I say I'm participating in the same challenge if I modify my schedule? I think the challenge is just to complete 100 pushups, and not necessarily do so according to any particular plan, right?

That's what I'm going to go with. Because we're already 1/3 finished with the challenge and I can't even do 10 regular pushups. I need to pick up the pace.

Americans, go camping tomorrow night...

Go camping in your back yard!

Tomorrow night, June 28, 2008, is the day that has been chosen for the 4th annual Great American Backyard Campout. The idea is for thousands of our countrymen (countryfamilies!) to come together in spirit and enjoy the great outdoors. Even if you can't get away to a proper campsite any time soon, I think this is a great opportunity to drag out your tents, sleeping bag, lanterns, and s'mores fixins, and do something different. I especially think this is a great opportunity for people with kids who have never gone camping. It can introduce them to the experience in a non-threatening way. (That applies to introducing your spouse, girlfriend, etc, to camping for the first time ... it's not as much of a wilderness- or away-from-home-experience, but it can get non-campers used to sleeping out of doors, in a tent, in the vicinity of mosquitoes, etc.)

So if the weather cooperates as much as my local weather forecast suggests it will, I think I'll pitch my tent in the yard, spread out some blankets in the grass for the dogs, and give it a go tomorrow night.

Veggie garden inventory

This vegetable garden of mine, previous blog entries on which I am going to refrain from mercilessly back-linking to today, is a completely new experience for me. I've never grown an edible substance before. And historically I haven't even been that into vegetables.

So deciding what to plant was difficult for me. In the end, I treated it as one big experiment. What kind of tomato will I like best? What kind will grow the best in my climate and soil? Who knows? So when choosing what varieties of tomato, eggplant, bell pepper, and hot pepper to plant, I decided to choose several.

And I found my chart under the piles of crap in my dining room, so here, without further ado, is my vegetable garden inventory:

Flat-leaf parsley (1 4' row)
Curly-leaf parsley (1 4' row)
Yellow onions (11 plants)
Habanero peppers (2 plants)
Squash (1 plant)
Early girl tomatoes (2 plants)
Ildi tomatoes (2 plants)
Golden boy tomatoes (1 plant)
Better boy tomatoes (1 plant)
Whopper tomatoes (1 plant)
Beefy boy tomatoes (1 plant)
Also, patio tomatoes, on my porch (Ha! You thought I was going to say "patio", didn't you?) (2 plants)
Strawberries (3 plants)
Super chili peppers (2 plants)
Super banana peppers (3 plants)
Better belle peppers (1 plant)
Lilac peppers (1 plant)
California wonder peppers (1 plant)
Jalapeno peppers (11 plants)
Whopper bell peppers (6 plants)
Collards (1 4' row)
Kale (1 4' row)
Whopper eggplant (1 plant)
Ichiban eggplant (1 plant)
Fairy tale eggplant (1 plant)

I wish I had planted one or two corn stalks. I have one little unplanted section left in the garden (well, it was planted originally, but the habanero peppers died) that I think I'll fill with more greens. I'm not buying any more seeds or plants of any kind this year, though. I still have leftover seeds and will continue to use what I have.

I hope something in this garden becomes edible one of these days!

I can has overkill?

Don't get me wrong, I love I Can Has Cheezburger? as much as the next guy. More than most of the next guys, actually.

But today — June 26, 2008 — what's the deal?

Mark's Daily Apple has it.
Marketing Pilgrim has it.

Me likey, but me a little weirded out. I wonder what other blogs are LOLcatting it today. Seen any?

Moments of hilarity: finding old to-do lists

I keep a spiral bound notebook that I write everything in. I take notes for work, I sketch out my vegetable garden, I keep track of hours I work on projects (though I do most of that at Toggl.com), and I write my to-do lists.

I used to keep a "master" to-do list in its own notebook. Basically, the entire book was devoted to this list, and I'd write all my to-do items on the first page, cross them out as I completed them, and just keep adding items to the bottom of the list as they came up. When the first page was filled, I'd move to the second page. If ever an entire page's items were crossed off, I'd rip out the page, and the next page would become page 1.

That was actually a little depressing, because I sometimes have quite lofty to-do items. Things like "Landscape Yard" tend to appear on my lists. Items that can take literally years. So the book would always have several pages of items that were crossed out at the beginning, save for a few stragglers such as: "Paint House", "New Garage", "Antarctica". At some point my to-do notebook mysteriously vanished (eyeing the shredder) and I started making micro to-do lists in my regular note-taking notebook. Just like grocery lists. A list of things to do today, this evening, or this weekend. After the time period ends, the list loses its relevancy and is discarded.

So rather than view my incomplete to-do items as depressing, I now find them funny. Whenever I happen to come across a to-do list from a few weeks or months ago, it amuses me, as life should, to see what I accomplished and what I did not.

Here's one I've just come across. You need not understand what all the items mean to get the picture.

Clean cage
Dad - mulch?
Igs Outside Igs In
Feed Petunia
Raina Cage
Mutual - plants
Hosta
Run
Mow
Sun
DGF
JRS
Buoscio
Lungate
Run
Sun
Blood
Raina Cage
Basement
Container Store Shelves

The problem with this list was that I tried to keep it going like I used to, rather than use my new method of keeping micro-lists that are discarded quickly after use. Hence the same items appearing multiple times. (Too bad Raina's Cage was neglected not once, but twice. Thank goodness Raina was already dead.)

And thank goodness I can now cross off the following:

Basement
Container Store Shelves

The men from US Waterproofing are in my basement right now, and from my second floor office I can feel them working their jackhammers on the basement floor. Dust is flying all over my new Container Store shelves, but that's something I can live with. On my next micro-list I'm betting there'll be an entry that says:

Dust Container Store Shelves

Veggie report

Look what I spy...


Tomatoes are coming!


Peppers are coming!

But I think my garden legend is under a pile of crap in my dining room, so I can't tell you what kinds.

I also just discovered that I have at least two living clematis plants in my front yard garden bed! I planted about six of them a couple years ago, but they were tiny babies, we had no rain, and I couldn't keep up with keeping them alive. But with all the rain we've had this year so far (and thankfully most of it has been overnight ... I'm loving this summer in Chicagoland with warm days and cool nights) my garden is thriving (read: overgrown) and plants are growing which have no business being alive. This weekend I'll do some pruning and get a new lattice so I can show off those beautiful clematis flowers. They're a gorgeous deep red, too.

And it's not even squalor

I don't understand how people can live in squalor.

I can say I've had friends and relatives who have had hoarding tendencies. They buy too many things in bulk, or they begin new hobbies or projects that they never finish, and because they don't make room to store all the stuff, it collects in every corner in the house. And along the walls. And on the furniture.

That was the topic of one of the first blog posts I wrote (but never got around to publishing): the problem of buying things with good intentions, even frugal intentions (such as buying in bulk) but having the cost far outweigh the benefit when the stuff accumulates all over the house.

If I lived like that, it would be like hearing a million voices inside my head all day long that I would be powerless to quiet down. I'd look around at all the stuff constantly, compulsively, thinking of ways to dispense of it, organize it, use it, or sell it. It would consume me.

I know this, because back in college when I used to rent older apartments that needed work, I could sit in any room and be powerless against thinking, "If I owned the place, I'd replace that molding. And take down that peeling wallpaper. And replace those old blinds. And get new doors. And refinish the floors. And replace that faucet." There is always an imperfection that I yearn to perfect. So I know that if I were surrounded by piles of junk, I would drown in it.

So this past weekend when I had to temporarily move the contents of my basement into my dining room and den so that some waterproofing construction could be done this week, well, it sent me into a deep depression. By the end of the weekend, I was beginning to question what it was all for. And I'm not simply referring to the stuff in the basement, or the waterproofing job.

This is my idea of comfortable living. My living room at Christmastime:


Ahhhhh. See that? Small, but livable. Pretty minimal furnishings. Clean. No "stuff". (Actually, that bin of wrapping paper on the chair at left was bugging the hell out of me at the time. But my wrapping wasn't finished yet.)

Now look at that what that chair looks like today:


Now let's turn the corner and look into the dining room, and through the dining room and the den, all the way to the back of the house:


That little available opening in each doorway? Can you imagine a tall woman and two greyhounds making safe passage through there, several times a day? It's a wonder that my sensitive girl Dazzle isn't peeing all over the house. She does not enjoy big "stuff" and close quarters.

It is very, very hard for me to live like this. My dad questioned why I put this job off until the last minute like I did (I spent the weekend moving all this stuff, plus tearing down some walls in the basement, so the contractors could work this week), and my answer was that if I could do it all again, I'd do it exactly the same way. Because if I started the work any earlier, I'd have to live like this for even longer.

I'm not even a neat freak. I like keeping things clutter-free, but "stuff" builds up in my house, too. I certainly don't keep the bathrooms as clean as anybody would like. And I'm not claustrophobic, either, yet I feel the weight of life itself suffocating me when I walk through those rooms.

So what's the solution? Well, when the work is finished in the basement and the new concrete is dry, I can move it all back down. But I plan to do some organizing first. I do have too much stuff. (The first 12 bins behind the chair in the photos contain nothing but Christmas decorations. But that's stuff I plan to keep.)

But I am embarrassed to admit that two of the largest bins I own, the kind that are about 2' x 2' x 4' (roughly, without measuring), are full of stuffed animals. There is an additional tall kitchen bag full of them, too. Some of these stuffed toys are 36 years old. How does a compulsive never-hoarder let something like this happen, you ask? I think it must be sentiment. When I haven't seen them in a while I fantasize about dumping them all on my curb without looking back. But then I open a bin, and I remember their stories. And the innocence of childhood, long gone. Holding on to them helps me hang on to nice memories, and maybe hang on to a little bit of that innocence.

But it also drives me stark raving mad.

So then I think about just donating them to the same charitable organization that picks up the rest of my junk (they take anything) and delude myself into thinking that they'll actually be loved by another child. But they'll probably throw them straight into the trash. I think my particular charitable organization mainly sells the donations they receive. Stuffed animals aren't worth a thing, except the memories that come with them. And memories can't be traded for cash money.

There are a couple other boxes of stuff that should probably be discarded straight away. And there are some clothes and old magazines I can give away. In the end, there really isn't much I can discard out of hand. I do have many hobbies that I engage in often enough that supply storage is warranted.

One good thing is that this episode has already forced me to start getting organized. I ripped out some old, rickety shelving, purchased over $700 worth of new shelving, and have already filled most of it neatly. I've decided to discard a huge, heavy old workbench that came with the house (which I never use; I do that kind of work outdoors) which will free up an entire corner that I can use for more organized storage. I may have felt utter despair on Sunday night, but now that I've gotten out of the house a bit and my head is clear, I can see that all of this pain will be for good in the end.

I just hope all that crap doesn't fall over on any of us before the job is finished.

Intentions fall to the floor: goodbye, Peepers

Last week, a friend rescued a baby sparrow that was too young to care for itself. She brought it home, set it up in a box, and chose an appropriately gender-neutral moniker for it: "Peepers".

She talked to wildlife rehabilitators and read what she could find on the internet, and went to work feeding the little bird every hour. I was able to set her up with a loaner bird cage so Peepers could sit in the back yard and watch and listen to the other birds. On days when my friend had to take her husband to the hospital for tests, she left the cage in her car and returned to it every hour to stick to the feeding schedule.

She took the bird into the grass and tossed him up in the air sometimes, so that Peepers would flap his wings to strengthen them. One day, a pair of sparrows came down to sit on top of Peepers' cage, and they talked to him for a while. Everything seemed to be moving in the direction that everybody hoped.

And then yesterday, in a freak accident mixed with a little bit of canine mischief, my friend's dog ate Peepers for lunch. It wasn't the dog's fault, as she was just following her instincts. It wasn't my friend's fault, as she thought the caged bird was safe where it was and had taken what seemed to be appropriate precautions. But we're all left sick to our stomachs. Helpless, and guilty.

I can't imagine the feeling my friend must have had when she discovered the scene. The dread, panic, sadness and fury must have been overwhelming, and I know the feelings haven't subsided. But we know it will pass in time.

I hope it was quick. I hope you didn't suffer, little Peepers.

Veggie garden: it's growing!

I stopped writing updates about the vegetable garden for a while because, well, there wasn't one. It was a very painful experience there for a while, and I'll give you a brief rundown why.

As you may recall, I planted seeds indoors on St. Patrick's Day. As it turned out, I planted too early. I was excited when green onions poked their way out of the soil, but the green onions were also one of the first sprouts to die off. Later, the parsley died, which was not unexpected. I've always been bad with parsley.

By the time the weather in Chicagoland was suitable for planting outdoors, I had barely anything left alive to plant. Meanwhile, J.D. at Get Rich Slowly (again with the GRS/GFS plug ... I swear I'm not stalking J.D.!) has been blogging about his GRS Garden Project, and at some point he mentioned how their tomato plants had reached three feet tall indoors before planting outside. Three feet tall! I didn't have any seedlings that survived to be three inches tall. Nearly all my seedlings were dying or dead, and I had already built the garden bed outside, so there was no going back and I had to figure out what to do.

For a moment, let's look at the garden bed. Here are two photos of the area before I finished ripping out all the grass, bushes and plants that previously resided there:


And here it is cleaned out, before building the fence:

We have loads of bunnies in these parts, and deer wander my neighborhood as well. I had to put up a fence to keep the varmints out. I also spread a circumference of slug killer, because they get my hosta every year and I'll not have them eating my food plants, too.

I am missing any additional in-between photos, because really, who wants to keep too many memories of the dead seedling carnage? But there I was, planting 1.5", wilting seedlings, barely able to distinguish them from the weeds that popped up around them. A couple weeks after I planted outdoors, I was having the best luck with the seeds I planted directly into the ground. (Collards, kale, yellow onion sets, and, believe it or not, parsley.) Also, my dad had given me a couple strawberry plants and they seemed to be growing.

I made many mistakes with this garden, but this is my learning year so I'm not beating myself up about it. Here is a short list of mistakes I can think of:

1) When growing seeds indoors, make sure to label them on the bottom part of the container that holds them. If you label the clear lid, you will get all the lids mixed up when you remove them to water the seedlings. Hilarity will not describe what ensues.

2) Seed indoors, if I choose to do so, later next year. I could have started the second week in April, rather than March 17, and I would have been fine.

3) Plant fewer seeds in bigger pots. I don't know what I was thinking when I planted 25 tomato seeds (and 25 of several other plants as well), as my garden bed is only about 20' x 5'. And the bigger pots will better accommodate more growth. I was horrified to realize that if my seedlings kept growing, up to 3' like J.D.'s, I'd have to repot all those suckers.

4) Use plant lights indoors. It turns out that my house just does not get enough natural light.

About 4 weeks ago (I've lost track of time, it's been such a horrible experience) I had a garden that seemed to be growing the collards, kale, onions, strawberries, and even parsley that I planted directly into the ground. There was also a tiny squash plant and a tiny cantaloupe plant remaining, but I didn't have high hopes for them. Everything else was dead, dying, or stunted ... everything just stopped growing at about 1.5". So my dad e-mailed me one day, noting that the local Ace had a myriad of veggie plants for $2.99 each. Buying plants for $2.99 each was not even remotely part of my initial plan. There were many ideas behind the vegetable garden, one being self sustainability, and another being frugality. A packet of 50 seeds for $1 is my idea of frugal, not one plant for $2.99.

But here I had a nearly-empty bed, and I kept reminding myself that this is my learning year, so I sucked it up and went and spent $100 on 31 plants. A few varieties of tomato, bell peppers, sweet peppers, hot peppers, and eggplant. Add that to one surviving cantaloupe plant, one surviving squash plant, the rows of collards, kale, both flat- and curly-leaf parsley, and yellow onions, and I figured this could end up becoming a decent enough veggie garden. It later turned out that my original jalapeno peppers would return from the grave and start growing again, so it looks like I might be nice and flush with jalapenos for freezing. Fingers are crossed!

So here are two photos of my veggie garden, as of a couple days ago. It's hard to see what's going on because the photos also illustrate another problem I'm having: afternoon shade. I'm bringing in some tree guys to thin out the offending tree to see if that helps. Luckily the garden has sun all morning long, and doesn't start getting shady until about 2pm. Then a couple hours later, the sun emerges from the other side of the tree. But the onions are exhibiting signs of UV deficiency, so I'm a little nervous again. Well, the best I can do is the best I can do.


I'll take more pictures another day when the garden is enjoying full sun, and when the plants have grown more (or died, whichever the case may be).

Meanwhile, I'm so looking forward to some veggies!

Personal fitness challenge: 100 pushups

Inspired by J.D. at Get Fit Slowly and a whole mess of other people who were also inspired by J.D., today I embark on a challenge to be able to do 100 pushups -- yes, all at one time -- within six weeks.

We are following the guide at one hundred pushups. The program is on the side of less-intense in that we only need to practice three days per week. An initial test establishes the number of pushups we do during each session and at what rate we progress. For my initial test I could do 5 pushups, so for my first session -- today's session -- I completed a total of 11 pushups. It wasn't easy; despite using free weights a few times a week, these particular muscles are out of shape. And my initial test placed me in the remedial pushup group.

So this particular group of internet pusher-uppers started today, and will train on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Get Fit Slowly will post a reminder on each of those days, which will certainly help me stay motivated. I imagine I'll report here once a week or so, to keep you apprised of my progress.

In his initial post, J.D. compares this challenge with completing a marathon. I've run a marathon, and I predict that a marathon, plus all the training that goes along with it, is tougher. I've never done 100 pushups but once I did go from 0 to 50 in 4 weeks, and those 4 weeks were nothing even remotely like 4 weeks of marathon training. And the marathon itself, well, that's a lot of hours on one's feet. The 50 pushups were over in a few minutes. The training was less intense and the feat itself was less intense. I really do not mean to dismiss this challenge at all, and I won't even bet that I will accomplish it in the end. I'm just telling you my prediction, my opinion, at the outset. We'll see how wrong or right I am ... in 4 weeks!

Dead frog day

After I shifted my car into park this morning, turned off the engine and stepped out into the parking lot of the agency where I've been working lately, I looked down and noticed a frog. A dead frog.

It was clearly dead, though not flattened, as you might expect a frog to be in a parking lot. It was newly dead, as the heat of recent days hadn't done it any harm. I reenacted the route my car must have traveled to park in its spot, and decided that my car couldn't have done the deed.

But after the split second it took me to perform those calculations, I wondered: is this an omen? What might a dead frog mean? What might this day hold?

And then, just as quickly, I thought: There are frogs here! I must go on a frog hunt one of these days!

After work the frog was still there, worse for the wear but still not flattened. I hope he is scaveneged this weekend so he doesn't sit there and rot forever on the asphalt.

Salad #2: Hodge Podge d'Jen

Oh. Ma. Gawd. I just discovered two things that will forever help me with salads:

1) Cut everything up really small
2) Use only a small amount of greens

And of course, the ingredients are a very big deal, and I seem to have found a pretty good combination. I really didn't know what proportions to use when I started so I made a general rule of 2/3 cup of each item. Some items I added a little more, some I used a little less. Here's the rundown:

Baby arugula (1 cup)
Cherry tomatoes, halved (2/3 cup)
Red seedless grapes, halved (2/3 cup)
Hard boiled egg, chopped (1)
Avocado, chopped (1)
Cucumber, chopped (2/3 cup)
Carrot, shredded (2/3 cup)
Red onion, diced (1/3 cup)
Red bell pepper, diced (1/3 cup)
Maple Grove Farms All Natural Strawberry Balsamic dressing (4 tbsp)

This dressing is amazing: it's 25 calories per 2 tablespoons. I had planned to make my own, but since I have this entire bottle (purchased for a New Year's Eve event and never opened) I think it'll be my dressing darling for a while.

This whole mixture comes in at about 625 calories. More than half of that is from the avocado, and of course, the egg is a big part as well. So if I go back for the rest of it right now (which is a certainty), that'll be a 625 calorie lunch for me, which is more calories than I'm used to. Next time I'll use less avocado (I almost used only half an avocado, but the other half looked soooo good) and get all these good veggies without loading up on the calories.

So, next time: less avocado, more grapes, possibly more red bell pepper. (I can't taste it at all, but I used only 1/3 cup because I'm not its biggest fan. I love roasted red peppers on a sandwich, but raw peppers aren't usually for me.)

YUM! This one is a winner. Salad #1, the Russian Beet Salad was OK too, but this one easily took the lead for me.

Salad idea...

I know, I know, I've only been doing this daily-salad thing for one day. (And that was yesterday; today I exempted myself because Friday is free pizza day at work, so that's basically all I eat.) But I know the salads are going to be a problem for me. Eating a pile of plants just isn't satisfying to me. As I blogged yesterday, it can be filling, but still plain unsatisfying.

At the beginning of this I thought I'd stick to veggies only in my salads, since that's the ingredient missing from my diet. But now I'm thinking that I can add a little bit of something else. The salads should still be mostly-veggie, but I can use accent ingredients, such as a little pasta. I love pasta salad, so I'm thinking that I could have a pasta salad that's super-heavy on the vegetables.

And this morning an e-mail landed in my inbox with a link to this recipe for a Crab, Corn, and Tomato Salad. Now that sounds super-yummy. Once I get through the produce currently in my kitchen (which, I again bemoan, cost thirty-four dollars and eighty-two cents) I think I'll get some crab and corn salad fixins.

SideStep rocks.

I just need to plug a web site here that saved me over $150 on airfare the other day: SideStep.com. This is the travel search site that searches all the other travel search sites (Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire, etc.) and it gets Southwest Airlines, too.

I had been putting off buying my ticket to visit Las Vegas in September (an annual excursion for me), thinking that fares would come down. I'd been waiting. And waiting. The other day, I almost bit the bullet and purchased a seat for $337 on Delta. Because with fuel costs these days, $337 isn't that bad. "Gone," I thought, "are the days when you could be patient and get a $125 fare."

Well, the $125 fares might be gone (except via Spirit Airlines, where you can get $9 fares routinely, they'll have you believe), but I am living proof that it is still possible to get $175 airfare.

Sign up for a membership on SideStep.com and set up an e-mail alert. You can have them sent daily, and they arrive in a timely fashion. Two days ago I was alerted to this $175 airfare, I visited the site, the fare was still available, and I successfully booked two tickets. Voila! Just the way it should work.

And yesterday, the fare was back up to $337. Today: $351. The window was narrow, but with SideStep, I was able to hit it.

Salad #1: Russian Beet Salad

I chose my first salad recipe from Mollie Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. I've had this cookbook for much longer than I've tolerated vegetables, but these days it's one of my two favorites.

This salad involves beets, vinegar, onions, cucumbers, eggs and dill. Luckily the recipe is already available online so I don't have to type it in (and am concerned about the legality/morality of doing so anyway):

Russian Beet Salad

I opted to not use yogurt. Also, I accidentally left my grocery list in the car so I shopped from memory, and forgot to purchase honey. So I used a little sugar instead. I halved the recipe, so we're only talking about lacking 1/2 - 1 tsp honey.

Also because I forgot my list, I accidentally purchased fennel. Now I need to figure out what to do with it.

Anyway, here's what I thought of Russian beet salad:

Good flavor! This is pretty much my first experience with beets. At least, with a dish focused on beets. It's so beety that the whole salad turned red. Onions, eggs, cukes and all. I was going to take a picture of each salad I make for blogging purposes, but this pretty much looks like a bowl-o'-red.

The proportion of ingredients is perfect. I can taste the onions and cucumbers, a little dill here and there (I was wary of the amount of dill required), and it all has a slight tang of vinegar. Oh yes, and there's taste of egg right there. Really, it's amazing that I can taste all of these things.

So today's lunch is entirely made up of this salad (half the halved recipe, to be precice), and I'm about half finished with it now. The thing about salads is that they can feel pretty filling. Even this one, which must be about 150 calories. But for me, getting full on salad is kind of like pushing a magic "get full" button: my hunger has been wiped out, but it was accomplished without experiencing the pleasure of really eating something. You know, something hot, bready, meaty, savory. I'm left full, but wanting a sandwich. I hope I can learn to truly savor salads.

Dissection of my grocery bill

Now, hold on a second. This only looks like it's going to be straight out of the "of interest only to Jen S." files. But I promise, I have a point.

I just spent nearly $100 at the grocery store for what was supposed to be a quick trip for salad ingredients. Of course, I needed a few other items, since my kitchen is nearly empty. Some yogurt for the dogs (they get a dollop at meal time), food for the reptiles (iguanas and leopard tortoises are vegetarian), and some miscellany like milk, nutrition bars, tissue and fruit.

So here's where all that money went:

Miscellaneous grocery: $36.10
Dog food: $5.98
Reptile food: $18.58
Salad ingredients: $34.82

That last item there? Did you see it -- the thirty-four dollars and eighty-two cents I spent on salad fixins? That is another reason why I shy away from making foods involving a lot of fresh produce. Gah. I just don't know what else to say.

I look forward to learning just how many days of salads that $34.82 bought me. Salad days indeed.

I was even charitable, and kept the minced garlic on the "miscellaneous" tab because even though I bought it for salad (in particular, the dressing I'll make), I will be able to use it for some time. The other stuff, not so much.

I should add that $5.05 of that miscellany was for a plate of sushi that I decided to reward myself with for taking this step into salad-land. So, today I haven't yet had any salad, but I sure did have some yummy salmon rolls for dinner.

Some gas-saving ideas

Switching gears for a moment, I'd like to go back to talking about auto fuel consumption. I've followed a couple links lately that mentioned some tips for saving gas that many of us probably don't think about. Here are links to the articles, and I've bulleted out what I consider the most interesting points.

9 Ways to Save on Gas This Summer

Reduce rapid acceleration and hard braking

Pack light and remove roof racks/cargo when not in use

Top 10 Tips for Saving Gas

Go ahead and use your A/C when you're on the highway on those hot days; opening windows just adds drag (but turn off the A/C when stopped or in slow traffic)

Don't keep your gas tank full; less gas = less weight

Mistrial!

So, that's the end of that, then. I'm still on call for the rest of this week, so there may yet be more to this story.

I am a juror!

And that is all I can say about that until the trial is over.

Live from the jury assembly room

Your Sins are Revealed, Your Fate is Sealed

Your sin has been measured. You have committed many sins, but Lust is the mortal sin that has done you in. Just below, discover your full sinful breakdown and learn what it is about you that codemns you to hell.

Greed:	Low
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Very Low
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	Very High
Pride:	Medium

Discover Your Sins - Click Here

I wonder if these results would be adjusted at all if they knew I was taking the quiz while waiting to perform my civic duty?

Jury duty update

For those closely following my suspenseful jury duty drama, I'm off the hook for today, but am to report tomorrow at 9am.

Which means you may not hear from me again for a while, or I may utilize a lot of blogging time. :)

My week in court

Today, I might be asked to serve on a jury for the first time in my life. Well, I've already been asked to serve jury duty this week, but apparently that doesn't mean I'll ever actually get on a jury. The one person I've spoken to who has had to serve jury duty in my county said he sat around in the court house the entire week reading, and was never even interviewed. (The instructions I received made it clear that we can bring reading materials, laptops, phones, etc, as there are "quiet working areas" and we are likely to have a lot of waiting around time.)

I just hope to avoid the situation you sometimes see on Law & Order, when a group of potential jurors is sitting in the jury box, lawyers bombarding them with questions, and the scene ends with, "Juror #5, you are excused." If that happens to me, I'll feel so rejected. Yet, I'd really rather not make it on to a jury, either. It's expensive for me, since I bill by the hour. The best case scenario that I can think of is that I'll sit in the court house all week, working on my laptop and reading.