Have you noticed how many people are jogging now? Mornings, afternoons, evenings...pretty much all the time and wherever I am. I know, the weather is cooling off, so it's typical to see more people outside, but since I can't run, it seems like all I see are people running.
I started running, really running, about 14 years ago. I've completed nine marathons, and have all kinds of goals for future races, like trail ultras, running a marathon a month, running a marathon in different countries, running with my daughter (might have to give that one up...she hates to run). And even though I stopped getting faster, and started slowing down a few years ago, I came to terms with that, and still love doing it. I love to run TO something, like to H's basketball games, track meets, soccer games, etc. I love to explore new cities with a run. I love to run. It's almost the perfect exercise. You only need a good pair of shoes, you can do it anywhere, it burns the most calories per minute, and you can do it in the shortest time of any other exercise that I do. It releases all kinds of endorphins, helps me work through problems in my head, relieves stress, and gives me a natural high. There's only one problem. I CAN'T FRIGGIN DO IT NOW!!!!
I've got some kind of heel pain. I think it's plantar fasciitis. I had it a few years ago, and had to miss a marathon that I trained for, but it hasn't given me problems in many years. Plantar Fasciitis is an inflammation of the plantar fasciia, the tissue on the bottom of the foot that connects to the heel bone. The weird thing about this is that usually, the pain is on the bottom of the heel, close to the arch. But my pain is on the outside of my heel. It's weird, I went to the podiatrist, who has helped me in the past, and he tried to palpate the pain by squeezing and pressing on my heel and couldn't do it. So he said it's just a really mild case, no need for any drastic measurements, and sent me on my way with instructions to stretch, take anti-inflammatories, and not to run. NOT TO RUN, even when it starts to feel better. But I'm a bad patient. I haven't run in a couple of weeks (but I bike 150 miles a week and do the stair machine and elliptical with no pain), so Sunday I got on my treadmill to see how it felt. Started running slowly, 10 minute mile pace, and it felt fine. So I ran a mile, then walked a mile, then ran 2 miles at 9:30 pace. Still fine. Walked another mile, then ran 1 1/2 miles at 9:00 pace. It felt really good. I was so excited! Until I woke up the next day and could hardly walk. I barely made it on the mile walk around the block with the dog.
So I'm not going to run. Even though every person in the bloody neighborhood is running. I think they're running past my house, just to make me feel bad.
I'm going to stretch, sleep in the night brace, take advil, ice, and just TRY to be patient. If anyone has any other suggestions, feel free to pass it on. For now I'm just going to live vicariously through some of the running blogs I've found, like Make it a Masterpiece.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Being the New Mom in Daughter's new school
So I decided to attend the Parent's Association lunch (or "luncheon" as they call it) last week, to try to meet some of the moms at H's new school. She goes and decides to change schools in 9th grade, something she didn't have to do, since her first school was K-12, and now I have to be the "new mom". Did my daughter think about my feelings? Nooooooo. Never mind that it's a great school, that she loves it, has made lots of new friends, feels challenged, made the basketball team, and has already had lots of new experiences that she wouldn't have had otherwise. I feel like I just moved into town and don't know a soul...
So I walk in, check out the kiosk with "school approved" merchandise: sweatshirts, tote bags, scarves, t-shirts and golf shirts, look around at the huge turnout and watch everyone greeting each other with hugs and "how was your summer" chit-chat, and try to look like I belong. Luckily, I found ONE mom that I knew from H's old school, who was kind enough to introduce me to a few people. So we grap our plates, and fill them with little sandwiches, pasta salad, and cookies, grap a bottled water, and walk into this shiny big room, auditorium-style, with chairs attached to long tables, and filling up the entire room was a sea of blonde haired soccer moms. Uber volunteer-types. I can't believe that even though I was born in this town, and have lived here for most of my 48 years...I don't recognize anyone.
So we hear from all the various committee heads, with glowing descriptions of the work they've already done, even though school has been in session for a whopping three weeks, and I try to figure out which committee I want to join, so that I can meet some people. The main event sounds like a good choice: Lots of sub-committees, and it takes place in the spring so it sounds like a long-term commitment. After the meeting was over, I get introduced to one of the chairs of the event, and volunteer my services.
"Oh, thank you SO much, but this year we have 272 volunteers! So we really don't need anyone until maybe the day of the event. We'll probably need some manual labor to help us set up and things."
Great. So I'm on the manual labor committee and the baking cookies committee. On one hand, I guess it's great that they have lots of volunteers. But the primo slots seem to go to the "popular kids". Wonder if I should color my hair blonde?
So I walk in, check out the kiosk with "school approved" merchandise: sweatshirts, tote bags, scarves, t-shirts and golf shirts, look around at the huge turnout and watch everyone greeting each other with hugs and "how was your summer" chit-chat, and try to look like I belong. Luckily, I found ONE mom that I knew from H's old school, who was kind enough to introduce me to a few people. So we grap our plates, and fill them with little sandwiches, pasta salad, and cookies, grap a bottled water, and walk into this shiny big room, auditorium-style, with chairs attached to long tables, and filling up the entire room was a sea of blonde haired soccer moms. Uber volunteer-types. I can't believe that even though I was born in this town, and have lived here for most of my 48 years...I don't recognize anyone.
So we hear from all the various committee heads, with glowing descriptions of the work they've already done, even though school has been in session for a whopping three weeks, and I try to figure out which committee I want to join, so that I can meet some people. The main event sounds like a good choice: Lots of sub-committees, and it takes place in the spring so it sounds like a long-term commitment. After the meeting was over, I get introduced to one of the chairs of the event, and volunteer my services.
"Oh, thank you SO much, but this year we have 272 volunteers! So we really don't need anyone until maybe the day of the event. We'll probably need some manual labor to help us set up and things."
Great. So I'm on the manual labor committee and the baking cookies committee. On one hand, I guess it's great that they have lots of volunteers. But the primo slots seem to go to the "popular kids". Wonder if I should color my hair blonde?
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
15th Birthday Trip
I just realized it's been two weeks without a post. Last weekend we took H and two of her friends to Florida to my in-law's for Labor Day weekend. It's actually a repeat of last year, when H decided she'd rather do this than have a big party. She had so much fun she decided to do it again. Makes it much easier on the parental units. All we have to do is cough up the money for plane tickets and a couple of dinners. They pretty much entertain themselves. Well, it doesn't hurt that Grandma and Papa live in a community with golf, tennis, swimming, beach club, and most important (when you're 14 and 15) GOLF CARTS. Combine two golf carts with three teenagers and a closed golf course, and it's like their own private amusement park. The only thing missing...boys. At least in this community, there were no boys under retirement age, so it was very relaxing for J and I. Something tells me when these girls start driving real cars and want more social interaction, this trip might not hold as much interest for them. But for now, we enjoyed the weekend.
Since I don't have permission to post the beautiful faces of these girls, here's a non-identifying photo of them taking a golf lesson.
And here's the image I see in my head when I look at H's face:
And here's the image I see in my head when I look at H's face:
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
One word, so little time...
Just stumbling around a little bit this morning, and I found a really fun site that I wanted to share.
One word.
You click on "go", then you have sixty seconds to write about whatever word they give you. Pretty cool. Kind of like word association, except you get to write. Then you enter your name and email address and they post it under results. It's fun to see what others wrote, too. Check it out.
One word.
You click on "go", then you have sixty seconds to write about whatever word they give you. Pretty cool. Kind of like word association, except you get to write. Then you enter your name and email address and they post it under results. It's fun to see what others wrote, too. Check it out.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Political Debates Between Friends
My dear husband is a history and current events fanatic. He devours news of world events and absolutely LOVES to talk about them. He also loves to debate. He's actually pretty good at it, enough so that I avoid disagreeing with him at all costs. Not that I don't sometimes disagree with him, I've just learned not to talk about it with him, especially when he's feeling argumentative. Luckily for him, he has a couple of friends (with completely opposite political viewpoints) who will gladly spend hours discussing (arguing) the fine points of whatever issue du jour he decides to bring up. They get into quite heated debates, and I shrink into my chair, feeling like at any moment they will start throwing things. But it never happens. They usually conclude their little discussion with an agreement to disagree and hug each other and drink each other's wine. No harm, no foul.
The bad thing about it is that if you're one of the people at the table, or the bar, or whatever, who doesn't participate in the arguments, it becomes very uncomfortable. I really hate it when we have new people over, people who don't know my dear hubby, who think his protestations are really serious. They don't understand that he just likes to prove a point, or at least feel like he's proven HIS point. Now that we're in election time, and the economy is suffering, there are a myriad of things that will capture his attention and give him fodder for discussion.
This weekend we had another couple over to have takeout, drink wine, and play cards. It started out great. This couple are two of our oldest friends, and we laughed all night. Until an innocent comment became a point of debate. I felt it coming, that moment...when the banter became just a little too much. And suddenly, the evening was over. They got up, and left so quickly we almost didn't believe they were gone. What a disappointing ending to a fun night.
J. felt bad. He didn't sleep well that night, and decided that he's going to stop talking politics, because he doesn't like when it ends up like that, but he can't seem to stop it while it's happening. I love that he has such strong feelings, and most of the time we can have very informative and beneficial discussions about issues, but I dread the discussions that conclude with someone's feelings getting hurt.
I've always wondered how Mary Matalin and James Carver do it.
The bad thing about it is that if you're one of the people at the table, or the bar, or whatever, who doesn't participate in the arguments, it becomes very uncomfortable. I really hate it when we have new people over, people who don't know my dear hubby, who think his protestations are really serious. They don't understand that he just likes to prove a point, or at least feel like he's proven HIS point. Now that we're in election time, and the economy is suffering, there are a myriad of things that will capture his attention and give him fodder for discussion.
This weekend we had another couple over to have takeout, drink wine, and play cards. It started out great. This couple are two of our oldest friends, and we laughed all night. Until an innocent comment became a point of debate. I felt it coming, that moment...when the banter became just a little too much. And suddenly, the evening was over. They got up, and left so quickly we almost didn't believe they were gone. What a disappointing ending to a fun night.
J. felt bad. He didn't sleep well that night, and decided that he's going to stop talking politics, because he doesn't like when it ends up like that, but he can't seem to stop it while it's happening. I love that he has such strong feelings, and most of the time we can have very informative and beneficial discussions about issues, but I dread the discussions that conclude with someone's feelings getting hurt.
I've always wondered how Mary Matalin and James Carver do it.
Monday, August 25, 2008
The search for THICK, CHEWY Chocolate Chip Cookies
At Neiman Marcus in Chicago, you can buy huge, thick, chewy, delicious chocolate chip cookies. They also have white chocolate/macademia nut, snickerdoodles, oatmeal cranberry, toffee, and several different types of chocolate chip. I LOVE them! I had always thought these were the famous Neiman Marcus cookies that are the source of the recipe urban myth. You know, where someone asked for the recipe and unknowingly signed a charge for some huge sum for it. But after failing to find them at Neiman's in other cities, I asked the Chicago sales clerk this summer about them. She said they're made by a local baker, and are only available in Chicago.
For the last few years I have tried to find a good, gourmet-type recipe for thick, chewy, flaky, chocolate chip cookies like the ones in Chicago. I say "chewy", but they're not really chewy, per se, but they're not crispy or cakey. They just kind of break off and melt in your mouth, and they're not too sweet, or too hard. I've researched how to keep cookies from spreading so much when they bake. You have to have the right ratio of butter/shortening to flour and the temperature must be JUST right...to bake them quickly before they spread. I've baked up recipes that I thought were going to be perfect, but they were all disappointing-they'd spread out too much, and taste good, but they weren't the thick, delicious cookies I was striving for.
This weekend I took a couple of interesting recipes that I had not tried before, and another one that I have tried, and looked at them side by side. I took some things from each recipe and kind of put them together into one batch of cookies. And you know what? They didn't spread too much, and they were delicious! They just weren't as thick as the ones from Neiman Marcus.
If you've ever had them, they are like 4 large cookies put together, they're so big. I was thinking about that, and decided to use the last part of the dough for an experiment. Instead of 12 regular sized cookies, I made 4 really large ones, abut 1/3 cup of dough for each.
And it worked! They baked up nice and thick, light brown, soft, flaky, and delicious.
Now I've got to go run a marathon or something to work off the calories. But they were so worth it.
Here's the recipe:
THICK, CHEWY, CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Preheat convection oven to 375 degrees.
2/3 cup butter flavored shortening (chilled, cut into slices)
2/3 cup unsalted butter (cut in chunks)
1 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cup PACKED brown sugar
2 large eggs, ROOM TEMPERATURE
2 tsp. real vanilla extract
2 cups bread flour (spooned into cups and leveled off)
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (spooned into cups and leveled off)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 cup toffee chips (or butterscotch chips)
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
In stand mixer, cream the shortening, butter and both sugars until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then add vanilla.
Combine the flours, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture. Stir in chips and nuts. Use a large tablespoon to round dough into balls. Don't roll the balls, just make them rounded. Place onto parchment paper on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake 10-12 minutes in preheated oven. (I use convection oven and bake two pans at one time). Don't overbake. Slide parchment paper with cookies off of pan, and let pan cool before scooping out next batch.
For the last few years I have tried to find a good, gourmet-type recipe for thick, chewy, flaky, chocolate chip cookies like the ones in Chicago. I say "chewy", but they're not really chewy, per se, but they're not crispy or cakey. They just kind of break off and melt in your mouth, and they're not too sweet, or too hard. I've researched how to keep cookies from spreading so much when they bake. You have to have the right ratio of butter/shortening to flour and the temperature must be JUST right...to bake them quickly before they spread. I've baked up recipes that I thought were going to be perfect, but they were all disappointing-they'd spread out too much, and taste good, but they weren't the thick, delicious cookies I was striving for.
This weekend I took a couple of interesting recipes that I had not tried before, and another one that I have tried, and looked at them side by side. I took some things from each recipe and kind of put them together into one batch of cookies. And you know what? They didn't spread too much, and they were delicious! They just weren't as thick as the ones from Neiman Marcus.
If you've ever had them, they are like 4 large cookies put together, they're so big. I was thinking about that, and decided to use the last part of the dough for an experiment. Instead of 12 regular sized cookies, I made 4 really large ones, abut 1/3 cup of dough for each.
And it worked! They baked up nice and thick, light brown, soft, flaky, and delicious.
Now I've got to go run a marathon or something to work off the calories. But they were so worth it.
Here's the recipe:
THICK, CHEWY, CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Preheat convection oven to 375 degrees.
2/3 cup butter flavored shortening (chilled, cut into slices)
2/3 cup unsalted butter (cut in chunks)
1 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cup PACKED brown sugar
2 large eggs, ROOM TEMPERATURE
2 tsp. real vanilla extract
2 cups bread flour (spooned into cups and leveled off)
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (spooned into cups and leveled off)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 cup toffee chips (or butterscotch chips)
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
In stand mixer, cream the shortening, butter and both sugars until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then add vanilla.
Combine the flours, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture. Stir in chips and nuts. Use a large tablespoon to round dough into balls. Don't roll the balls, just make them rounded. Place onto parchment paper on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake 10-12 minutes in preheated oven. (I use convection oven and bake two pans at one time). Don't overbake. Slide parchment paper with cookies off of pan, and let pan cool before scooping out next batch.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Wearing uniforms to school
My daughter loves to put together outfits. For several years now, she has spent a huge amount of time picking out clothes to wear, or planning which outfits look cute enough for whatever occasion is on the horizon. Bedtime always included time for "picking out" the clothes for school the next day. She says she wants to major in fashion, and even takes her sketch pad on trips with us to draw the ideas she has for cute clothes.
So she decides that she wants to change schools...to a school that has a very strict uniform. Go figure.
Today was the first day of school. Last night I went up to say good night and she had her clothes all lined up. Skirt, oxford cloth shirt, knee socks (they had to be the exact right length), shoes, and headband. The shoes and headband are pretty much the only way she can "individualize" her look. She can wear either Wallabees (she won't even touch those, so that's not an option for her), or white athletic shoes. Not a lot of options there, either. But, when we were in Paris this summer we walked by a sports store on the Champs Elysees, and she found the cutest pair of white patent leather Nikes.
So this morning we took pictures of her in her uniform, all cute and everything, and drove her to school (5 minutes instead of 30...yeah!). She didn't tuck in her shirt, because she thought someone had told her that was O.K. But just to make sure she texted about 6 friends this morning, but no one got back to her. We drove up to the drop-off, and all the girls were walking to class with shirts tucked in. So now, instead of making an "entrance", she walked in with her backpack, her computer case, and both hands frantically tucking her skirt in. Hopefully they'll give her a break on the demerits since it's her first day.
Good luck, my sweet girl!
So she decides that she wants to change schools...to a school that has a very strict uniform. Go figure.
Today was the first day of school. Last night I went up to say good night and she had her clothes all lined up. Skirt, oxford cloth shirt, knee socks (they had to be the exact right length), shoes, and headband. The shoes and headband are pretty much the only way she can "individualize" her look. She can wear either Wallabees (she won't even touch those, so that's not an option for her), or white athletic shoes. Not a lot of options there, either. But, when we were in Paris this summer we walked by a sports store on the Champs Elysees, and she found the cutest pair of white patent leather Nikes.
So this morning we took pictures of her in her uniform, all cute and everything, and drove her to school (5 minutes instead of 30...yeah!). She didn't tuck in her shirt, because she thought someone had told her that was O.K. But just to make sure she texted about 6 friends this morning, but no one got back to her. We drove up to the drop-off, and all the girls were walking to class with shirts tucked in. So now, instead of making an "entrance", she walked in with her backpack, her computer case, and both hands frantically tucking her skirt in. Hopefully they'll give her a break on the demerits since it's her first day.
Good luck, my sweet girl!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Is this the way it's going to be?
"Do you want me to proofread for you?"What? Not that reading over her assignments is something I enjoy, or particularly want to do, but she always asks me to do it.
"No, Mom, I've got it."
She finished up her business, loaded up her laptop, and left.
Then, as soon as I sat down, she was back.
"Mom, close all those files for me, O.K.?"
And she stood there while I closed them all.
Later, she brought down the "project" to show me, with her fancy cover sheets and plastic report cover. I reached for it. She pulled it back.
"Let me read it!"(I had read two of her books so I wanted to see her take on them).
"No, that's o.k..."
"Please, I just want to read it."
She looked at me in the eyes, stuttered a little, and said,
"I don't want you to read it. I'm happy with it, and I don't want you to suggest any changes."
I guess my baby's growing up. Welcome to High School.
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