Now Norma Knits

It Was A Social Media Vacation

I took a couple days off and withdrew from the world, from social media, even from Mr. Jefferies. He was not amused. He was pretty damn glad when I got home, I'll tell you that. 

While I was gone, some carpenters were working on replacing and repairing and releveling parts of the deck. Ahhhhhh, it's all clean and straight and white and beautiful.

Mind you, they are not finished all the work yet. But at least this part is finally done. I've been waiting for this for a lonnnnnng time. I just can't stop gazing at it. 

I also came home to find that the beautiful Stella D'Oro daylilies are open and there are pints of blueberries to be picked and broccoli to be harvested, among other things.

(The netting keeps the birds away.)

A lot of beautiful things can happen in a couple of days.

All this helps me to find a little bit of zen and keeps my mind off the fact that I also came home to find that the Japanese beetles are having a convention an orgy on the asparagus ferns. 

Fuckers.

Remind Me To Have This Drink For Breakfast More Often

[Apparently This Is A] RUNNING SUPER-POWER DRINK

1 1/2 cups So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk

1 ounce raw cacao nibs

1 T. chia seeds

1 1/2 t. raw honey

1 overflowing, packed cup raw spinach

1 scoop Garden of Life Raw Protein powder 

ice

Blend for a couple minutes in the Vitamix (or however long it takes in another blender to make this smooth).

334 Calories, 20.3 grams fat, 18.6 grams carbs, 24.8 grams protein, 15.4 grams dietary fiber (!)

I'm calling this a super-power running drink, because this is what I had for breakfast at 8:30 a.m. yesterday, then I did not have anything else to eat before I went for a run at 1 p.m. And I felt so fabulous I can hardly stand it.

Since returning to running (under my doctor's orders, I might add -- she said she strongly disagreed with the orthopedic P.A. who advised against it) after the mysterious ankle injury, I have been stuck on Week 4 of the Couch to 5K running plan, seemingly unable or unwilling to move beyond that point. But yesterday when it came time to run, I felt so great that I decided to give Week 5, Run 1, a go. I also changed my running location to a sort of rustic (a packed small-stone surface), mostly flat recreation trail that is not far from my house. It's much more scenic than going around and around in circles like a hamster on a wheel.

The temperature was just perfect for me yesterday -- about 68 or 70 degrees, and mostly cloudy, but with some blue sky peeking through. I think the humidity was rather low (for Vermont) also. I'm sure that wonderful temperature had something to do with how well I performed, but I do think that breakfast drink had a lot to do with it too. 

I started the run as per the instructions on the podcast, which begins with a five-minute brisk walk as a warmup, then moves into a five-minute run for Week 5. When the guy's voice came on for the first time after I started running, I assumed he was going to say, "You're half way through your first run." Boy was I surprised when he said, "OK, you're now done your first five-minute run."  

Huh?!

Dayum. I was the loony on the Rail Trail yesterday afternoon going, "No way! No way! Really? Wow! What? No way was that five minutes! No way! Really?" 

Week 5 in this program (I've done this already before, back before the ankle thing) is that wonky week where all three runs of the week are different from each other. I almost kept on going because I really wasn't ready to slow down and walk for three minutes after that first run (or the 2nd one, OR the 3rd one, for that matter), but especially since I was running on a new surface, I did not want to push it. So I did as I was told, because the point of this running exercise is to ramp up my running fitness, and to NOT.GET.INJURED. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.

I'm now using a different Couch to 5K podcast from the one I started with. I switched to the ones by this guy (I got mine on iTunes). I like his simple techno beat music -- I really go zen with it. 

As you might have noticed about that drink recipe, it is quite high in fat. I don't have anything to say about that, really, because I'm no expert, and the information on fats (and other nutritional factors) keeps changing faster than even I can type. I am choosing to believe that the fats in these ingredients are good fats, though some of them (from the cacao nibs, for example) are labeled "saturated" fats. Whatever. All I know is, that drink provided me with the most amazing fuel I've ever experienced, and I'm choosing to believe that it's all not only good for me -- but excellent for me. 

 

 

 

 

Hell Yeah

My Long-Weekend Sunday went like this:

Breakfast.  

Knitting. Yes, knitting! I'm working on the raisin brown Iceling baby sweater. Love it. I ordered a whole bunch of buttons to try with it -- a variety of wooden, bone, and antler ones. I'll be sure to show them to you when they get here.

Running. Yes, running! I went to the track with the idea that I would go back to square one on the Couch to 5K program, which would be mostly walking, with spurts of a minute running here and there. I hemmed and hawed over whether to stick with my favorite Nike Free Run+ shoes or to use the Gel Cumulus. I decided to stick with the Nikes because I love them so much, but I put in the Superfeet inserts that that orthopedic guy recommended I get. I figured that was a sensible compromise, and when I put them on my feet like that, it felt good and seemed like The Right Thing To Do.

When I got to the track, it was in use by a group, so I couldn't use it. I had to use the trail. Though it's not rubberized and is a hard paved surface with some imperfections, it is mostly flat, with some gentle slopes and only a couple little hills, so I thought I'd be fine. But also when I got there, I just could not bring myself to go back to literally square one. I thought I might die of boredom, and I also felt that I could handle more of a challenge than that. When I left off with the program and hurt my ankle, I was repeating Week 7 of the program, so I don't really know why I chose Week 4 yesterday, but I did. Another compromise that seemed like The Right Thing To Do.

And it was! 

I ran the course with ease, did not feel any pain whatsoever, and ended up with no swelling -- no new swelling, at least. I felt great. GREAT, I tell you!

Lunch. Healthy and delicious. Grilled salmon burgers and see below.

Gardening. Oh yes, four more hours in the garden doing the heavy lifting and moving of bags of composted manure and cleaning out the compost bins, digging and dividing of perennials, planting, turning soil, and etcetera and so forth. 

I harvested this, which served as the focal point for lunch.

Dinner. With friends.

More Knitting while

Watching South Riding.

It was a verra good day. Mr. Jefferies says so, too. 

The Weatherman Was Wrong Again, But This Time The Doctor Seems To Have Been Right

It wasn't supposed to rain yesterday. Well, I guess you could technically say that was correct, since it POURED BUCKETS. But at least it waited till the late afternoon, and I was able to put in a good six hours in the garden before it hit.

You see, I was doing it under doctor's orders. The mysterious ankle- or foot- or who-knows-what injury was not resolving, and so on Friday I ended up back at my primary care doc. I won't get into the whole thing, but in the end she and I decided that I should stop being inactive. It probably wasn't helping anything, and I have also wondered if just being active might help push those fluids out of their sluggishness. So she told me to walk a lot this weekend. I did intend to go and do some true "exercise" walking, and maybe even a teeny bit of running -- perhaps starting from square one of the Couch to 5K program again, because I am very eager to get back to that if at all possible.

I never made it to do that, but I did spend almost a full day in the garden, wearing my hiking boots and my SmartWool socks, and doing a LOT of climbing up and down our steep backyard hill, as well as carrying things. I came out of it with certainly no deleterious effects, and probably considerable positive effects. It was a deliciously sweaty day and a beautiful day. At the end of the day as I'm writing this, I definitely feel miles better physically and psychologically.

The water, though. OMG, the rain, it just won't stop. I put my seedlings in the wheelbarrow while I turned my back for a couple of hours to go to an appointment, and came back to them sitting in 4 inches of water.

I am very lucky that I live on a hill. My gardens are not soggy like the cornfields and hayfields and athletic fields and parks and basements (not ours, thank the goddess) around here. Everything I've planted is doing well. I stuck a few of the plants I bought recently into the ground without a whole lot of fanfare yesterday. If we don't get some sunshine, and it keeps pouring like this, many things won't amount to much anyway. Siiiiigh. 

Here is my best accidental discovery (is that redundant?) of this year:

Onions do incredibly well when mulched with shredded leaves. So now I'm doing it on purpose, and wow! I've never grown such lovely onions before!

My first planting of radishes is getting close to harvest-ready:

Those are baby Romaine lettuces in the foreground, and they are thriving.

I love baby bok choi, and so do the slugs. The bok choi are planted in a rather large bed of various types of lettuce and plants from the cruciferous family. They are the clear favorite of the slugs, which makes them sort of the sacrificial lambs of my garden at the moment. I did manage to get a few unchomped-on leaves to put in my salad yesterday. 

And the state of the compost bins is pretty sad:

Soggy and anaerobic. There are four of them that need to be emptied, aerated and relayered. 

I have no work scheduled for the next week, so now that it seems that I have a usable foot again, I will be able to peck away at some things that really need to get done around here, which will give my muscles a pretty good workout, too...

...in between torrential rainstorms, lightning storms and tornado watches. 

Friday Morning: Rushed Thoughts

I got up super-early this morning to blog, because I knew I had unintentionally left it dark for a few days. But I got involved in some much-needed stretching and that took a lot of time, so now I'm already starting to run a little late. I still wanted to drop in and say hi, so this might be a little frenetic.

As I was (am still) sitting here drinking my vegetables, in the form of a morning smoothie (I'm still having my morning veggie/fruit/nut smoothies 90% of the time) containing: unsweetened coconut milk (I like So Delicious brand), dandelion greens, plantago major greens, blueberries, green grapes, raw honey, a little egg white powder, and a scoop of Garden of Life Raw Protein powder, I saw this great video that I had to share with you:

 

More scattered thoughts: Foot and ankle are still bothering me. Going today to buy some Superfeet, as was recommended by the orthopedic P.A. that I saw two weeks ago. 

My activity has been severely limited by the foot and ankle problems. And the weather has been absolute shite -- the suddenly arriving heat, and the humidity and constant raining, have made seasonal allergies flare and headaches descend.

I have been deliriously busy with work. It's been a very good period, and I hope the trend continues. Too bad I am not feeling my best, so that I could feel fully on top of things and fully engaged. This is graduation weekend at UVM, so I'm super-busy with preparations for that, and then the weekend will be kind of a nutso black hole (and not because I think the world is coming to an end just yet, either -- though if it does, hey, it's been nice to know ya!). But there will be no rest for the wicked[ly happy], because Monday brings an all-day conference, and Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday will be back at med school remotely. 

I love it when it's like this! But as I say, it sure would be nice not to have to wrap my foot or try to keep it elevated (not really possible, let's be honest). It sure would be nice, too, to be able to go for a run or a hike, or even get some amount of gardening done in between the deluges.

I've used up (and then some) my allotted time already. Must go get ready and take off for my morning meeting. There is a major bright spot in the day, though: I have a deep-tissue/hot stone massage scheduled for later. Hallelujah. 

 

 

 

 

Wherein The Ankle Says HEY, STOP THAT

The sexy new ankle brace is miles better than the old getup I had, and it served me very well on my away job this week. It's not too bad looking, and I'm not limping much at all anymore. If I wear a lot of black, or some styling bootcut jeans, most people don't even notice I'm wearing a brace.

I was feeling so chipper, in fact, that when I got home yesterday afternoon, I changed into some gardening clothes. While I was waiting for Mr. Jefferies to get home from his sleepover (He also became [one of the] Office Dog[s] at Burton Snowboards for three days, where he gained all sorts of new fans, I'm told. Dude.), I went out to survey what was happening in the garden. 

Given how well the ankle was doing over the past three days, and how well I was feeling overall, I thought that I might even be able to get some serious gardening done this weekend. Or if not serious, then at least semi-serious.

I did a few things -- I had quite a lot of asparagus that was ready to be cut, and quite a bit of lettuce and fresh mint -- which I gave to Mr. Jefferies' babysitter as a thank-you gift. I watered some things. I have new baby beets, spinach, carrots, onions, lettuces, and Swiss chard, and the plum trees are covered with blossoms. I have everbearing strawberry blossoms, and some pear blossoms. 

I removed the very lightweight coldframe from over the top of the lettuces and kales and cabbages, which can all now fend for themselves quite nicely, and moved it to a different bed where I put in some zucchini seeds. This is very early for those heat-loving zukes, but I'm betting that the cold frame will keep it warm like a hothouse and they'll be fine -- maybe even better than usual. And I sowed some broccoli seeds all over a 3X3 bed. I'll eat the babies, thinning them out to the six full-size plants that a bed that size can handle. 

And that was pretty much it. My ankle was letting me know then that, "Thank you, Norma, that is quite enough now."

Sigh. It's gonna be a while before I'm 100%. 

I had a picnic on my way home from my business trip: Oh-so-delicious leftover Biryani from the Bollywood Grill, where I had a wonderful dinner with Claudia and Sandy the night before last. The food was fabulous, the company was wonderful, and the waiter was flirty. What more could one wish for? Well, leftovers, of course! I took the leftovers with me and ate them outside, in the beautiful sunny and warm day, when I hit West Lebanon, NH. There was also a little bit of shopping at LLBean.

 

 

Mother's Day Asparagus

It was a beautiful day, but my Mother's Day was sort of a nonstarter because of my ankle injury which I'm now calling a leg/shin/calf (or what, I don't really know for sure) injury instead. It is quite clear to me, now that the swelling has gone down, that it is not a ligament or tendon injury, but seems like it almost certainly must be a hairline fracture, though none showed up on the x-rays. At least the radiologist's report didn't report one. But given the caliber of the rest of the hospital experience I had, I honestly don't put a whole lot of confidence in that report. To be fair, I am told that hairline fractures often don't show up until later, when they begin to heal. Or perhaps because I was so "sure" it was the ankle, and told them that, they did not x-ray up high enough on the shaft of the fib and tib. Who knows.

All I know is, it still really hurts to walk, but it doesn't hurt just sitting. And it still is prone to inflammation when it's not elevated. I simply can't wait to see my physical therapist Monday afternoon.

I'm quite sidelined by the whole thing, and I'm not a happy camper. There are only so many TV shows and movies one can watch in a 48-hour period without becoming quite despondent and nearly brain dead, even though I loved them all. (Answer: two entire seasons of Dexter; Salt, Gosford Park,... and my brain simply refuses to recall if there were any more.)

But this made it somewhat better:

I made my first asparagus harvest of the season. (Except one spear I cut last week.)

I sauteed it in a little bit of butter and served it on Ezekiel toast, for my very simple and light Mother's Day supper. It was fabulous.

 

My Left Foot

Never a dull moment, always looking for blog fodder even when I'm in hibernation mode -- that's me.

So I finally got in to see Cindy the Wonder Therapist yesterday, and after doing her evaluation, she was not convinced that it was a sprain, but instead perhaps a hairline fracture. So since it was after hours, and she wanted me to get x-rayed ASAP (and wished I had had the x-ray even sooner in the week), she suggested I go to the E.R. for it.

As I write this, I am still waiting for the radiologist's report to come in to my primary care doc -- since the E.R. doc's impressive diagnosis was "I don't see anything big." 

Well.

If we are looking to rule out a hairline or stress fracture, you wouldn't see something big, now, wouldja? 

That, combined with the nurse who twice told me I should be taking Tylenol for the inflammation and me telling her twice that Tylenol is not an anti-inflammatory, and her saying, "Well, it IS..." and walking out of the room, (Is not. Is too. Is not.) and I just want to shoot somebody. (More than usual, even.)

I'm currently debating whether I should be making a formal complaint to the hospital or her supervisor -- not because she wasn't perfectly sweet and nice and all, but one does think that basic pharmacological knowledge about a very common medicine would be in order in one's E.R. nurses, wouldn't one? 

Sigh.

Many of my friends have said before that I am a weird magnet, and that could be true, or it could just be that I'm more observant than others. One way or the other, I .... well, yeah, I do think I am a weird magnet. 

But anyway, I did call today and ask the hospital whether a RADIOLOGIST has looked at the x-rays, and they told me yes -- that they would fax the report to my primary care doc. So I'm waiting to see if there was ANYTHING SMALL that could be seen on the shot, or if we are just in the business of looking for SOMETHING BIG. Guh. Not that I am cynical or sarcastic or anything. Oh, and if I had not made that call, they would be sitting over there growing moldy and whatever, apparently. Sigh again.

So glad it's not something important or life-threatening. Sigh again.

The good news is, as Margene pointed out quite by accident: It's my left foot. And I no longer drive standard shift, so I can drive. And this is important, because I have a very good work-related drive to make next week as a direct result of my new business website which really just went live last week. Yay! 

More good news is that I am not in pain with it at all, except when I walk. It could be soooo much worse. It really would be nice to get it all healed up though -- I won't lie. 

I'm supposed to keep it elevated and non-weight-bearing as much as possible. The beginning of gardening season, as well as the fact that I was truly just hitting my stride and getting in the groove with running -- make this not a good time to have to sit with my foot in the air. Not that there is any good time, mind. And it would be ten times worse if this were the dead of snowy winter and I had to somehow shove this wrapped and air-casted foot into a boot. Shudder.

And Mr. Jefferies is not happy about the no-recreational-walking rule, either. 

Oh, and P.S.:  Hi! I'm back! (Thanks to all the wonderful notes and comments. It means the world to me.)

P.P.S. In honor of this fateful event, I've put the movie at the top of my Netflix list. If it were streaming, I'd be watching it now, but sadly it's not.

My Nike Frees Against The First Blue Sky In A Week

I am a big fan of these shoes*, in spite of the pink.

Hell, since the shoes work so well for me, and have even almost got me close to saying I LOVE RUNNING, pink might even be growing on me. 

Did I mention, I completed Week 6 Run 1 yesterday?

Did I also mention, I sprinted the last 60 seconds, and then I did 30 pushups, 50 jumping jacks, and a bunch of other strength-building moves and stretches, and felt absolutely fabulous afterwards?

Who hates running now?! Hm?!

------------

*I guess we have to say this now, because blogland has become nothing but a big mess:  I have no affiliation with Nike, and they have not given me anything, not even a discount on the shoes that I paid for out of my own pocket, to say this.

They don't even know who I am (I see this phrase works for The Pioneer Woman all the time, so I figure if it's good for her, it's good for me.) However, if they wanted to send me another pair of these shoes (Nike Free Run +, Size 7.5), I would not refuse them. Not Free Run 2+s, though -- they don't fit me right. It has to be the originals. Why is it that everything good gets discontinued? I've got the same issue going with two (Nike again) workout tops that I own. They are the best for me, and they don't make them any longer. Wouldn't you just know.

 

Long-Term Relationships

Terry has been encouraging herself to use her blog more by doing a cost-per-use analysis each time she writes. I love this! In terms of my blog, I don't have any worries there. I use it! I'll never lose it! 

Well, of course, who knows what the future will bring in terms of this medium and whether I will want to keep on with it until the end of my days. But I have certainly gotten my money's worth out of this hobby. I pay $149.50 per year for this space. I write just about every single day -- and have done so for several years now. Pretty darn cheap hobby. Added benefits: relationships with all of you, trying to keep my powers of observation sharp, thinking of things to write, daily practice in writing, and who knows how many other intangible benefits, or benefits I'm just not remembering at the moment.

But I got to thinking this morning: what about cost-per-use analysis of other things? Like, for example, the rather expensive Vitamix I bought in January, during use of the Clean program, which I still feel was one of the best things I ever did for myself. 

OK, then! Another fun thing to do for the blog!

Here is this morning's breakfast drink, which I am drinking as I write this post. It is made of unsweetened almond milk, 2 scoops of Garden of Life Raw Meal powder, a cup of frozen (from my own garden) broccoli, 1/2 banana, a touch of honey, and a packet of Starbucks VIA instant coffee powder, and ice cubes -- delicious and powerful and healthy fuel for my body. I can't tell you how much better I feel on this regimen, though you will notice that I am back to indulging in coffee once a day. If I don't have it in my morning breakfast drink, I have it later in the day.

So back to the cost-per-use analysis of the Vitamix. I received the machine in my home on January 20th, 2011 (thanks to the blog, I was able to pin that down exactly), and have used it at least once per day since that time, minus the three days I traveled to New York, and then adding back in two, because I know that at least twice I have used it more than once per day. So that makes 80 uses. The cost of the (refurbished) machine was $379. (I had a coupon for free shipping, so there was no cost there.) So far, then, cost per use = $4.74. 

Pricey! But so very worth it, in my opinion. Several people have asked me if "just any good food processor or blender will work."  Well, I don't know about what's out there right now, but I highly doubt it. I certainly know that my older Osterizer just could not cut the mustard (literally). It struggled and the motor would strain and start to smell smoky, and I'd have chunks in my drinks, which makes for a very unpleasant experience. Hiding broccoli or kale in a breakfast drink is lovely -- drinking chunks of broccoli in a breakfast drink, not so much.

There is so much to be said for having the right tool for the job. I don't have the latest iPhone or an iPad or an XBox or a Mac. I have two cheap PC laptops that I need for my work, my car has 105,000 miles on it, and we don't have a flat-screen TV. Many people would choose those things over a Vitamix, and I can (or maybe I can't) completely understand people's choices. I chose to spend my money on something that I hoped would contribute to my health. Everyone's priorities are different. As they say in the chat boards that I stay away from, YMMV (your mileage may vary).

By the end of the year, though, if I keep on using it at the same level I have been -- and I see no reason why I won't, since I am having such great success with the breakfast drinks and how they make me feel -- it'll be down to close to a dollar per use. If I keep that up during the life of this machine (it has a seven-year warranty), it will have paid for itself many times over. There is no way to quantify the benefits it is providing to my health, except for me to say that I feel much better.  

What more is there to say, really?

Except that I'm going to use the Vitamix to make this Tuscan Chick Pea and Tomato Soup for dinner tonight. Cost per use of the Vitamix by the end of this day:  down to $4.60.