I am coining the phrase “Monday morning clarity” to be the moment on a Monday morning that you remember all of the chores that you had to accomplish over the previous weekend but did not.
Yes, I possessed “Monday morning clarity” this morning.
Today’s Daily Challenge
Promote better sleep: Eat one magnesium-rich food, like bananas, almonds, or spinach, this evening.
Magnesium can make for sweeter dreams! This sleep-promoting nutrient can help improve the quality of your sleep – and it comes in so many tasty packages that it’s easy to get your fill before bed. Bonus: Foods that are rich in magnesium contain other healthy vitamins and minerals, too.
Would a banana split covered with almonds suffice? No? Dangen!
Shut In — Except For About An Hour
I spent the entirety of Saturday and almost all of Sunday inside my house. Seriously though, it’s not as if the weather encouraged me to do otherwise.
I do need to find ways to exercise, including days like these, in order to fight the decline that comes with aging, never mind the genetic pool with which I am working.
Ham Enchanted Evening
I caught the (good) bug at ITP-Reader Barb’s house and it continued over Christmas. Which bug? The spiral-cut ham bug.
After being indoors all day Saturday I wanted to cook a nice dinner yesterday, specifically a spiral-cut ham with roasted vegetables. Of course this meant that I’d have to leave the house for groceries (a good thing) and that I’d probably have a shitload of leftovers because most spiral-cut hams are huge.
I returned home with plenty of time to start watching football and cooking. In the past I’ve roasted many vegetables, normally on high heat, so I was vexed slightly when I read that the ham was to be cooked at 275°F (um, I may have been a bit drunk when I cooked the Christmas Eve ham, so I had forgotten this detail). Undaunted I forged ahead, preparing a pan of vegetables to be roasted and the ham to be warmed to a USDA-approved internal temperature.
While sitting around cooking my boss sent me a text message asking me about my plans for the 49ers v. Packers game (sorry about the outcome ITP-reading Packers fans) and when I told him I was cooking I invited him over. It was good to have the company (even if it was a dude) as well as someone to help me eat some of the food that I prepared.
ITP Flickr Pic
“Dinner For One?”
This was part of last night’s dinner. In this pan you see Brussels sprouts, carrots, potatoes (“red” and “white”), and sweet potatoes (cut into cubes). I wanted to add cauliflower but the ones at Kroger didn’t measure up and were expensive. I nearly 86’ed the Brussels sprouts for the same reason.
The entire batch was seasoned with cooking spray (instead of oil, which may have worked better), salt, and pepper.
(and I found the way to generate Flickr’s old HTML code)
ERD Man!
I’ve given Edgewood Retail District some grief in the past. However, if you are in the need to go to a lot of different types of (chain) stores it is a great place to shop.
Knowing that it’d be my final destination I parked the Jackmobile near Kroger. I extracted the two dead CFLs from the trunk and walked to Lowe’s to recycle them; had I been in more of a house fixer-upper mood I’m sure I could have killed an hour and a hundred dollars there as well. I briefly considered walking from Lowe’s to Best Buy, but I knew that I’d easily drop over $1k there (I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t need a new tv) so I abstained from visiting.
Next stop on the walking tour of ERD was Target, where I shockingly did not find anything I wanted to purchase (I did find a few lovely ladies I’d like to date; I managed to keep myself out of the electronics area for the same reason I skipped Best Buy). Target didn’t have the household items I wanted (I left a couple of silicone pot holders at my bosses house on Christmas and keep forgetting to ask him about them, so I’m thinking of just buying new ones) so I gave Bed, Bath, and Beyond a visit, unfortunately to no avail. I have too many books already, so I skipped popping into Barnes & Nobel and made my way on foot to Kroger.
I purchased many staples and the makings of last night’s dinner at Kroger. To say that I was disappointed in the quality of produce at Kroger (keeping in mind the last two meals I helped prepare were sourced by the Buford Highway Farmers Market and Your Dekalb Farmers Market) and the prices seemed higher as well. I think I need to make a concerted effort to shop at the “farmers markets” in the future.
This just in! My boss arrived with my pot holders.
Today’s Personal Project
Get an hour’s worth of exercise today.
Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – fighting an annoying cough, wondering if I’ll ever be 100% again
Current Music – silence at the moment
Website Of The Day – Say you are looking to learn a new skill this year. Work with me on this, will ya? Check out Howcast to see if they can help.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – Oops, I failed to check. Let’s say 215 pounds.
Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~0.0 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Gym Visits – 0 (0 cardio)
Marta Rides To Work – 0
Bike Rides To Work – 0
January Goals
– clean my basement to the point where I could have people over
– hire a plumber to fix all of the sinks at the ITP Estate
– walk no fewer than 75 miles
– have European trip plans in place, if not carved in stone
2014 Goals: Measurable
– Get my weight down to 190 pounds so that I can wear a 36″ waist pants comfortably
– Completely read ten books, audio books permissible
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Completely run at least one 10k
– Fix all (or at least most) of the things which are wrong with the ITP Estate
– Sell the ITP Estate (tentative)
2014 Goals: Unmeasurable
– Continue to Simplify, simplify, simplify
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
– Eat smaller portions
– Start, and continue, to make my own bread using my bread machine as well as using the technique outlined in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
– Read and discard magazines during the month in which they arrive (even digitally)
Books I’ve Read/Heard In 2013
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
We are having a ham, broccoli, rice (& cheese) casserole tonight, made with that leftover ham. I took it out of the freezer.
I really wanted to cook up something yesterday for dinner options this week, but just didn’t have the motivation to go to the store yesterday.
I actually have a grocery list. That rarely happens.
Kroger wasn’t as packed as I feared it would be yesterday. I bet the same could not be said for either of the farmers markets, however. Of course I was there around noon, so maybe that had something to do with it?
DANGEN! I just realized that I didn’t include a “Top 3” for this week. Apparently I’ll never remember to do this on Mondays.
At Kroger I also purchased rice and two different bags of flour. I probably should be staying away from these sorts of things, but they make for such good fillers.
Let’s see.. kinda a cruddy weekend, although I should have been able to get on the road Saturday, I rode the trainer instead. Saturday evening, we attended a “Twelfth Night” party (not Shakespear, think 12 days of Christmas) in Decatur, where I was slightly surprised by a red velvet cake declaring Happy Birthday Steve!! My sneaky wife managed to arrange this without my knowledge but used my credit card!! Sneaky indeed.
My birthday (yesterday) was filled with chores, errands and one incident between the dogs and deer. Apparently, the dogs startled a group of deer and they went over the fence- all but one that is, who must have hit it headlong and we figure broke his neck. Isabella and Maggie were quite interested, and Izzie managed to de-tail the poor thing (and managed to hurl most of it back up through the night). We summonded armed friends to dispatch the poor thing, but it was already done for. When we offered them the meat, they replied it would be “tainted” due to the adrenaline and would be a bit off. We then dropped the victim off on the side of a dirt road so the locals could take care of him. Sad.
Birthday dinner was salmon and new potatoes and left over RVC!
The diet begins today.
-FP
Sonnabitch, since I don’t do the Facebooks I was going to wish you a belated happy birthday in the blog post and forgot.
Happy Belated Birthday!
Back at work from a 2 week vacation and what happens? Server decides to take a crap, so much for catching up on email (although I make time for ITP updates :-))
Did race #1 of the Snake Creek time trial on Saturday. It kicked my ass, I was in the saddle for over 5 hours. I’m currently in 11th place out of 28 riders, I will pick up the training this month and hopefully do better on Feb. 1st.
I’m also going to give the cross fit cult a chance, my first class is tonight. We will see how that goes.
I should also add a “happy birthday” to my alma mater, the University of Florida, which celebrates #161 today. You don’t look a day older than 120, old friend.
And finally (for this morning) I am hoping that my body stops providing my mind with concern. I have fears that I need to stop having before I do something drastic. My dad had all sorts of heart issues, so I get worried every time I feel pain in that area when I’ve done no exercise to warrant it.
Stay tuned….
oh no…. Bob is joining the CrossFit cult…… everyone get ready for him to go Paleo next.
Bob… step away from the kettle bells!!! Glad you had a “good” time. 11th is a good place to be. Now you know what to expect- is the course the same next time?
And Paulie, your heart should be stronger because of exercise, not hurting.
Heart region, not necessarily heart proper. Of course I’ve worked myself up with other concerns (past issues) as well…
Wow, I have a banana and spinach protein smoothie with almond butter almost every day…wonder why I just had to go back to the sleep doctor??
I spent all day outside yesterday, voluntering at FA 50K…it was a good time. I spent the whole day calling out race numbers, my Standard American English accent was well received by the guys in the timing tent. 🙂
I was up bright and early today to go back to the sleep doctor, they’ve up my meds (so now I get to take more stimulants, so I’ll be more of a spaz than usuall)…we will see what happens.
We went by the house Saturday, it’s really starting to take shape, they have all the interior framing finished, you can now ‘see’ the rooms, they should get the roof up and windows and doors installed by the end of the week!
so, totally off topic, this made me laugh (because it isn’t me having all the troubles)
my friend Felicia is trying to get here from St. Croix. she got to San Juan yesterday & couldn’t get a flight to Atlanta, so thought she’d get one to Orlando & figure it out from there. She paid for a flight & everything (she usually flies non-revenue). Well, that was cancelled. So, now she has bought a ticket on Southwest for later today. She said all this flight juggling, she felt like she was on Amazing Race. We will see if she even gets here tonight.
Martha – progress on the house, that is awesome! hope the guys can work in this cold weather.
Ham for lunch was delicious.
That is all for now.
Sweet, Bob! Welcome to the Crossfit fold! You’ll love it.