Ahh, but for me, not all chocolates are created equal. When Ritter Sport emailed to ask if I wanted to review some chocolate for free, I said, heck yea, send some over. But, what Ritter Sport didn’t know…I don’t really like chocolate. I like hot chocolate, I like brownies, but normal old chocolate, I can do without.

Unfortunately after testing (and oh I was diligent) 30 different chocolate bars, I now know that not only do I really like chocolate, it’s just that I only like really good, really high end german Ritter Sport chocolate. The taste is not overly sweet, but it’s clearly chocolaty. The chocolate taste stands out above a sugary taste. It also goes down very smooth.

Ritter Sport is square, as in the package is square and the little chunks are square. I thought that was cool and it’s very easy to break off just one or two chunks, rather than devouring the entire thing (i tried both ways). Ritter Sport was founded in 1912 in Germany by Alfred and Clara Ritter, and the company is currently run by Alfred’s grandson.

In 1996 Ritter Sport became the first company in the confectionary industry to organize environmental protection systems at the company level. They promote sustainable cacao agroforestry through their “Commitment Nicaragua” project, they have their own heating and power station, and the packaging is totally recyclable.

Lastly, my favorite thing about Ritter Sport, other than the fact that it turned a chocolate abstainer into a chocolate lover, is the way you open the package. You sort of snap off the outer squares and the packaging pops open. It’s handy, and smart.

My favorite flavors thus far (and I have gobbled up 11 of the 19 flavors) are:
- Cornflakes (the bright yellow one)
- White Whole Hazelnuts (the off white one)
- Whole Almonds (the green one)
- Yogurt (the bold white)

I thought that Ritter Sport would be like $7 chocolate, but I just grabbed three packages (for teachers gifts) at Walmart and they were under $2 (another fact I should probably forget).

I put Ritter Sport through some pretty evil testing. It went along with team “Bunnies for Boobies” for 44,000 vertical feet this weekend. We had chocolate in between most of our ski runs, and none of us bonked. The nuts in the almond chocolate we were eating kept us groovin’ down the slopes. With the nifty packaging it was easy to stick an open package in our pocket. You could eat it with gloves on.

Over the last several weeks I have been taking a minibar (4 little cute squares per package) for after swim practice. I find that a little treat helps me recover from an especially grueling workout before I can get home and eat my next meal.

You all want some don’t you? Ritter Sport has been kind enough to let me give away a box of mini chocolate to 4 of my blog readers. This is what a box of minis looks like (there is 84 in one box…I know this because they sent me one, and I ate them all…okay, not all, but I’m working on it).

How do you enter?

Since my theme this year is to inspire others to do a little more than they thought possible, to enter to win a box of 84 mini Ritter Sport chocolates, leave a comment on my blog giving me an example on something you plan to do this year to push your own personal boundaries. That’s the rules.

Wanna be entered to win some chocolate? Commit to something that challenges you.

Want a second entry? Mention this contest on your own blog, then comment with the link, and I’ll enter you twice (as long as you commit to something that pushes your boundaries as well).

On December 22 after AM swimming I will assign everyone a number and then will use Random to pull 4 random numbers and those will be the winners.

Excited to win some chocolate??

Ready…Go!!!

FTC Disclaimer: Ritter Sport provided me with oodles of free chocolate. If you have been to my house lately, you know this because I have made you eat some. Ritter Sport is also providing free chocolate to the contest winners.

So, we hit up the matching treadmills at my apartment complex gym. It was awesome, we brought some tunes, cranked up the music, and off we went. I found out for the first time that my treadmill maxed out at 10mph. I ran 3 of the 4 0.5 mile efforts that we did with the treadmill maxed at 10. I think it’s easier to run this fast on the treadmill, you just spend a little more air-time and let the treadmill go zooming under you. PIC rocked it as well, she was uber close to maxing out, but the girls’ gotta save something for another day.

When we got back to my apartment there was a package waiting on the door step. Humm? What could it be. I opened it up and it’s CHOCOLATE. Lots and lots of CHOCOLATE! Oh my! PIC and I immediately start digging in. Ritter Sport emailed me a few days ago to ask if I would review their chocolate. Humm, I thought long and hard, I had a family meeting with Troy, and after much deliberation, we finally decided that we could accept some chocolate into the house. NOT!!! I was responding to the Ritter Sport email within pico-seconds. SEND ME CHOCOLATE!!!

The thing is, I’m an endurance athlete, so I’m gonna put the Ritter Sport chocolate through the ringer. This weekend, the Ritter Sport will experience extreme skiing as I compete in the Pink Chase at Keystone. We’ll see if it can handle it.

Ritter Sport also offered some chocolate for my blog readers. I’m a sharer! So, there will be a massive chocolate giveaway at some point soon. Only the best for my bloggy peeps!

His idea was to have a magnet for each common meal that we make. When we plan for the week we could just fill in a sheet that is taped on the fridge with magnets for what we want to eat. Then if we had a binder that had a sheet for each meal, even if it’s for something simple like “salmon with rice and veg” that explained how to make that meal to back up each of the magnets.

This would enable us to:
- Easily plan a weeks meal: scan magnets, pick what looks good, and stick on sheet.
- Easily create a grocery list: flip to page in binder and write down what we don’t already have
- Cooking is easy: with each meals directions written out, Troy can make a meal while I am training (cooking is usually my deal, which means when I’m training Troy ends up with hamburgers, pizza, and fried rice, but he’s good with directions)

Tonight I implemented the plan.

I found these great magnet sheets at Office Depot. They were under $4 for a pack of 4 and even though I bought two packs, one would have sufficed.

You peel the sticky sheet off the back of the magnet, then stick a piece of paper on it.

Then cut the paper to fit the magnet.

Then start thinking of recipes and write them down on the paper. I got tons of recipes on one sheet by just being space conscious. I made several “leftovers” magnets, and made multiples of breakfast items since we don’t have a different breakfast every day, usually just 1-2 different ones a week. Same with lunches, I made some magnets that said “same” so I could put one lunch in the lunch area on Monday, and then put “same” for the other days.

Cut them out and stick them on the fridge. I kept them to the top half, so that Annie doesn’t get “curious”.

I also made a few magnets to remind us of events that seem to happen weekly, like track club, Sonja racing, Troy racing. You could get creative here. I may add some that say “Troy cooks” or “Sonja cooks”, something to that effect.

Then you can “meal plan”. I printed out this sheet, which is the template I use to meal plan on a regular basis.

Lastly I pulled all the recipes I have for meals on the magnets, I labeled the end of the paper with the exact name on the magnet, and stuck them in a huge binder alphabetically. Now Troy can find the meal easily.

I also made a list of meals that I made magnets for but don’t have recipes for (the ones that live in my head) and plan to work through those this week to create a sheet on each of them.

Troy loved seeing Type A Sonja attack his idea with a vengeance and we did the meal plan for next week in about 2 minutes. I made the grocery list in about 5 minutes. It was so much easier!

I love to try new recipes and I think this system will be easy to incorporate new recipes into. I put lots of blank sheet protectors in the binder so I can just slide a new recipe into, and I put spare magnets on the side of the fridge, ready for a new meal to be written on them.

Not totally triathlon related, but I hope it can help some of you out there!

More Resources:
- This Week for Dinner: Jane outlines some meal planning tips
- Definitely not Martha: Leslie outlines her meal planning process with a nice excerpt on how to organize your grocery list (step #5)
- Meal Planning 101: I like the idea of making a pre-made grocery list where you just have to check what you need, I would add a “quantity” section next to each ingredient.
- Simple Mom: this is a great link for A-Z menu planning.

Originally I was afraid to ask Steve if I could race two 1/2 iron distance races on back to back weekends. It’s just seemed like an obviously stupid endeavor. But as the winter training progressed and wacky-nuts seemed to be the name of the game I approached the subject. Steve said yes and we toyed around with which race would really be the focus. We never really decided and the truth is it’s nearly impossible for me to give anything but everything when I step on a starting line.

Still, I wanted this race to be fun. When the race director sent a message stating that we could reserve a camp spot near transition for two nights for just $40, I got a little giddy. I asked Troy “Should we camp”? He said “Heck Yea!”. I’m 99.9% sure that every one of my teammates thought I was nuts. But ohhh-nooo they had it wrong. Camping was the best thing we could have done. I feel at home camping, I sleep better in my tent than in my bed, and I love cooking outdoors. I am more relaxed, and more settled when I’m camping, so this was a good choice for me.

We arrived in Lawrence KS at about 2pm on Friday and the camp spots were awesome. Lots of room. Unfortunately our site didn’t have any shade so we erected the Practical Coaching 10X10 tent over our tent and made a trip to the store for three 16lb bags of ice. I knew I needed to stay cool. I picked up my packet, witnessed the hugest M-dat tattoo (had to take a picture), and we had a very chill evening with some yummy fajitas. I also met Taryn who was camping across the way. She told me she reads my blog which made me a little bashful and then she told me that Sunday would be her first triathlon! You go girl! And if you are reading, make sure you make a comment, I’m so proud of you for finishing!!

Our camping spot

Can we say M-Dot?

Saturday morning Troy, Annie and I drove out of the park and attended the Lawrence farmers market. It’s the oldest farmers market in Kansas and it’s a producers only market so the person you buy from is the person who made/grew/raised what you are buying. Troy and I both agreed that is was one of the best markets we have ever been to, and being a farmers market junkie, I feel qualified to say that.

Lawrence Farmers Market

Some veggies, honey, and breakfast later we headed back to the race site to meet up with the Practical Coaching crew for a race recon mission. Everyone was so super giddy. We rode one loop of the run course and talked about the transitions and the swim and bike along the way. Very informative, and nice to spend some time together as a team.

Annie attempting the Navy Seal net in her pajamas.

Keith and Steve

We found some uh interesting things during race recon…who goes to a 70.3 for their Bachelor Party?

Race Recon with the crew

All lined up looking goofy

I then headed back to the tent for some lunch while everyone else waited in line to grab their packets. Heh Heh heh. I eventually headed over to drop my bike in T1. There were two transitions for this course and our camp site was smack dab in-between the two. I covered my seat and drive train with bags in case the rain that was called for overnight came to fruition. Then it was chilaxin time. Troy and I had a great dinner of pasta with veggies from the market and italian sausage. I even got the backpacking oven going and produced a beautiful batch of brownies for an evening snack. We read, and talked. It was so nice to have some quite time in the outdoors with Troy to reconnect and to laugh together.

Kids love tents

Troy loves outdoor cookin’

Everyone loves Brownies, Annie is OUT!

That evening when we stepped into the woods there were thousands of fireflies. I’ve only seen them once in my life, but this was so much better. It was like the stars were twinkling in the forrest, such a highlight of the entire trip. I also received a very inspirational email just before I went to sleep that made my sleep very peaceful that evening.

The next morning I slept in until 5:15! Transition opened at 4:45 and my wave went off at 6:58. Sleeping at the race site compares to NOTHING!! I got dressed, waved to my triathlete tent neighbors and headed over to T2 to set up. That took several minutes and I found Steve and Sara. We headed to T1 to set that up and I just loved the atmosphere. Steve and Sara were giddy and we had a nice time walking over to T1. Once at T1 I set up there, hemmed and hawed about whether I should leave my arm warmers on my bike, looked into the sky, told the sky gods to keep the temps manageable and put the arm warmers away. I quickly found Troy amongst the 2000 triathletes, he’s so tall and was wearing his red coat. Most of the Practical Coaching athletes found him and were handing off last minute items to him. We are so lucky to have Troy! He’s such a pillar for our team (and for me). I threw on my DeSoto and my yellow cap, kissed Troy and Annie goodbye, and lined up in the stall.

Steve, Sara and Doreen pre race.

Annie in front of a HUGE Gatorade bottle

THE SWIM
My wave was big. I lined myself up and I had on of the best starts ever. No jostling, I swam straight, I stayed calm…it was good. I tried to find feet to swim on but for some reason I had a lot of trouble staying on the feet. The water was very murky and it was a big challenge to see the feet even when I was tapping them on every stroke. So I didn’t have a lot of luck with that. I did however really try to push this swim. No regrets, give it a good go. My time may not reflect as much, but I was proud of my effort throughout this swim.

Swimming back to shore it looked like there were 50,000 spectators. All I could see was people, and as I ran into T1, all I could hear was Troy. He’s such a phenomenal cheerer, loud booming voice and he really puts some heart into it! I had a very quick, olympic style transition: put your helmet on, grab your bike, and go. The lanes were really tight and I did a lot of yelling “On your left” to get through other people in transition.

THE BIKE
I was really excited about this bike. I had no idea what to expect but I just knew in my heart that there was no way Kansas could deal out what Las Vegas and Middlebury dished on me. Kansas = flat, and honestly, after my last two 1/2’s, Kansas delivered. People afterwards complained about the hills on course but I wasn’t one of them. I loved this bike course. You could fly, and fly I tried. As always the first 5 miles is the warm up zone. I got passed twice by ladies in my age group. Rah Roh. When the second lady passed I said “enough” and went with her. This got me back past the first lady that passed me but this second lady was screaming fast. She ended up being the top amateur for the day, and her bike split was the same as Chrissie Wellington (But Chrissie got a “puncture” as she calls them and lost about 4 minutes). Still this chick was flying (Marisa Asplund)!

I had such a fun time on the course. There were a lot more cyclists on the course than I am used to. I got to battle with a lot of dudes and one in particular couldn’t take being chicked and tried to drive me over the double yellow into oncoming cyclists. I’m happy to say the bike racing paid off, I held my line (in aero) and used a nice amount of attitude in response. There were other guys out there that were just treating me great. One (who had wings tattooed on his legs) told me I was flying and asked me if I ran 7 min pace so that I could pace him on the run. Was he hitting on me? If he was, I’m flattered. I couldn’t believe how the miles were ticking by, the course was marked in 5 mile increments and they were flying by.

Now, I don’t wear a heart rate monitor, I don’t have a power tap, or a fancy GPS thingee. I don’t know how fast I’m going, but I do wear a watch. You know just a pain old “keeps time” watch and I like to have a little fun with it. Since in my last two 1/2s I have gone 1:41-1:43 range for my run time I was hoping to break 1:40 on a flat course. I also was secretly hoping to break 5 hours, since I did a 5:07 and a 5:11 previously. Now, I can talk times all day, but when the rubber meets the road I just want to throw my effort on the wall, and whatever sticks, I’m happy with. So I was playing a little game with my watch, trying to guess what time I would get into transition, all the while creaming myslef on the bike. Harder, faster, smile. I just kept surprising myself as the miles went by. I was estimating that I would get into T1 at 3hrs 20 min.

I roll into T2 and I look for a teal towel with shoes covered in a plastic bag. I find it, rack my bike, throw my helmet on the ground, pull off the plastic bag…uh…not my shoes. I look at the number on the rack. Not my number. So I grab my bike find my number, rack my bike, put on my shoes, go back to the old spot, retrieve my helmet, put it back in the proper spot, grab my hat and number and run off. I drop the hat and number, pick it up and say to myself “CALM DOWN”. I run out of T2, look at my watch and it says that to break 5 hours I need to run a 1:47. Holy cow, that I can do!

THE RUN
Not two seconds after thinking that a lady in my age group goes flying by me. She is the same lady that flew by me on the bike and that I passed back. She is flying and I don’t want to let her go. The lady in first I know is long gone (I timed the first lady in my age group on one of the turn around sections on the bike and she had 4.5 minutes on me). I was gunning for a second place age group but didn’t exactly know where I was in the race. this lady was running super strong and her first mile was under 6:35. I just didn’t go with it. I sat back. The dude with the wings on his legs was with me and I told him she was in my age group. He said we were running super fast. I never know how fast I am running until mile two because I always forget to hit the lap button at the start of the run, so I usually never get the first mile split. Mile two was a 6:33 and I wasn’t making any ground on the lady in front of me. I thought to myself, well if she can run the entire half marathon at 6:30 pace, then she probably has me. But I didn’t think that was likely either. There were lots of cheering fans around and I figured it was more likely that she was excited.

How can you not be excited when you get to run by Chrissy Wellington!

At mile three we had one of the two hills on the course. It’s a short and kinda steep little bugger and for some reason I just said enough is enough. I ran hard up that hill, passed the lady in my age group and then I ran for my life the next mile and a half. I ran by Troy and I gave him the “I’m scared and I’m running fast look”. He cheered so loud! Mile three up the hill was 7:12 and mile 4 was 6:55. I felt like she was breathing down my neck, but I convinced myself that I had opened up a gap. I settled into the race, there were so many people on the course it kept things very lively. Mile 5 and 6 were a combined 14:07 and 7/8 were 14:11. I had hit my stride and it was just over 7 min pace. I was a little shocked, but it felt smooth, so I just kept running.

At mile 9 I ran by Troy and he said that “one was 2.5 up”. I knew the super fast lady was 7+ minutes up on me, but I had apparently missed another lady in my age group. I put a little fire in my engine and miles 9/10 were a combined 13:07. I was stoked that it felt oh so good to be running that fast. I caught the lady in my age group and at that point I felt confident that I was second age group and that first was outta sight. I took a gel that the course had provided and it had 2X caffeine. I suffered several miles of stomach cramping and learned a hard lesson that 2X caffeine is too much for my tummy. Don’t just grab and eat without looking. Mile 11 was 7:13 and mile 12 was 7:30. The last mile plus extra was 9:06. For the last few miles I hung onto a guy that everyone called “muffin”. That cracked me up and somebody had drawn chalk muffins all over the asphalt. I felt like I was running with a celebrity, that was fun!

Coming into the line and looking at my watch and seeing 4:45:32 left me in utter shock. I walked through the shoot and I started crying. It was really emotional for me. I had hoped to break 5 and to do so in this way was exciting and unexpected. I was instantly happy with the manner that I executed my race. I just stopped crying when I turned around to see my PIC Michelle finish, and low and behold she was crying just like me. She had scored second in her age group as well. Very emotional.

Swim: 35:39
T1: 1:39
Bike: 2:34:10 (21.79mph)
T2:1:23
Run: 1:32:41 (7:04 pace)
Total: 4:45:32
12th overall
6th amateur
2nd F30-34

The best part of the day for me was watching the other Practical Coaching athletes complete their races. Seeing Andrea break 6 hours and have a huge smile on her face. I can’t describe the joy I had in watching my friends succeed at this distance. Beth took a 4th age group slot, and I was so hoping a Clearwater slot would come her direction, but it got snatched up. Sandy took two and a half hours off her time at Rage, she went 5:27 versus a tough 8 hour day at Rage. Taryn, my camping neighbor finished her first triathlon, and it was a half!

Everyone is happy with a race well done!

We have such a great crew!

Chrissy Wellington is a total class act. She hung out and took pics with just about every single participant. What a class act world Champion!

So, before the race I talked a little with Anthony, my 17hourtrainingday.com teammate about whether he would take a Clearwater slot if one came his direction. After some chatting I was convinced that I wouldn’t take the slot, and he said he wasn’t going to either. But when all was said and done and I saw that I got a slot (there were two in my age group) I was asking Troy “did we bring a checkbook”? It was so exciting. Michelle was taking her slot and I figured GIRL TRIP. Then while attending awards I watch a slot make it down to Anthony, they call his name…and he says “I’ll take it”. I had such a huge grin on my face.

Anthony and I, he is such a great guy and talented athlete!

BUT then, We had Steve, our fantastic coach. Would he get a slot? There was one of four slots left. They start calling names, and sure enough, they call his, and I hear “I’ll take it”. I was so happy for him!

Okay, here is the last bit, and it’s a little funny. They take your $$ on the spot and they give you a piece of paper that has directions on how to sign up for the race. It has a password and it has dates that you can sign up within. The lady tells you “Don’t loose this paper or your money is gone and you can’t sign up”. So I turn and give the paper straight to Troy.

Last night when we got home Troy takes the paper and sets in on my desk in front of the computer. We go to bed. Annie wakes up at 6am and Troy pops her in a DVD and goes back to bed. When I get up we clean up from the trip, take out the trash, vacuum, etc. Then we realize the paper isn’t there. We searched the house for TWO hours. Troy even went and got out the trash from the dumpster. Then the trash truck came. The paper is GONE. We have a call and an email into the race director. But my precious Clearwater slot is hanging in limbo. I figure if they won’t let me in I will inundate them with this photo. I have also sent this photo (taken on my iPhone) to every tech-savy person I know to try to deduce the password off of the sheet.

All in all this race…and this month, and this season has been just an awesome experience. I can’t thank my coach enough…Steve Pye is his name and I can’t believe how much he has changed my life. My husband Troy is a total saint, always there for me with a hug and relentless support of my passion. Annie, my darling little girl that keeps me laughing at life and helps me to maintain balance in my life. Also, my mom and dad who have really gone above and beyond to help out their GROWN CHILD with getting to all these races, and for tweeting and texting their love and support. I love you guys!

Lastly I can’t forget Core Concepts, who treats me so kind with yummy clothes, and Trakkers, who you all will love when they get their awesome little triathlon trakking devise on the market!

The first frost is rummored to be headed our way tomorrow night, if not tonight. Yesterday was our last veggie pickup at Delaney farm for our CSA (although our fruit share continues for a few more weeks). Today they opened the farm to shareholdes to come pick whatever they wanted for winter storage, or immediate use. There is still so much left on the vine.
Hillary and I headed over there today, on this balmy 44 degree day that we are having and harvested veggies until we couldn’t feel our hands any more.

It got me thinking about how this season, this harvest, all this progress and growth is now winding down. It’s time to put the gardening away for some time, to clean house, and to get ready for the winter. Freezing, canning, cooking ahead, storage, these are the things we should be craving right now. I plan to store much of this food, mostly in the name of some of my favorite soups and stew recipes.

This giant harvest also reminded me that change is good. Seasons are good. Sometimes turning a page and doing different things is needed. Triathlon season is over, and I’m sad yes, BUT, now is the time to hunker down for winter. What? No? Did I just type that? No, now it’s time for snowshoeing, for skiing, for cute hats and scarves! Now is the time to get strong, to stay fit, to run run run, and swim swim swim. Just as I am excited to get into the kitchen and start cooking, I’m excited to dust off the snowshoes and all the cute winter clothes.

Change is good. Embrace it!
Pictured above from bottom to top: 8-ball zucchini, red and yellow onions, 5 different varieties of potatoes, 3 kinds of eggplant including those cute little orange tomato looking ones, patty-pan squash, yellow crook-neck, green zucchini, bell peppers, poblano peppers, banana peppers, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, basil, and a SLEW of tomatoes.

So I pulled out a recipe for “The Easiest 100% Whole Wheat Bread Ever” from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Book and got that going early this afternoon. This recipe is like a quick bread, so you mix up the dough and throw it in the baking pan, let it rise and pop it in the oven.

Humm, now for the meal. Well, I checked out the pantry and noticed I had a can of garbanzo beans and a can of black beans. I also had a can of some crushed tomatoes. I looked in the fridge and pulled out some random stuff. So I got ready and just went with it.

Scrounging soup: I Sautéed a diced onion and some garlic. When it was nice and sauteed, I added some wine and let it sizzle and cook down (we keep a box of cooking wine in the fridge, I bought it a year ago and it just sits there). I added some oregano and sage that I picked last week at Delaney Farm (our CSA). More sizzle. Then I threw in the two cans of beans plus a half can of kidney beans I had in the fridge. In goes the tomatoes and a box of chicken broth. I tasted it and it was boring so I added several spoonfuls of crushed sun dried tomatoes (packed in oil kind, sits in fridge), and salt and pepper. Yummier. Still lacking. Oooh, I found a bag of spinach that I got from the CSA last week and hadn’t used, in that went, along with some handfuls of frozen corn from the freezer. Ummm, just right.

In the end I couldn’t believe what I came up with at the end of the pay period. Troy walked in the door and the house smelled like fresh baked bread. There was a sizable pot of soup ready for a post work snack, with some nice whole grain bread.

Crafty Scrounging!

So the gooey bag is essentially a yeast starter. Each of the first five days you mush the bag. Then on the fifth day (today for me) you add one cup of flour, sugar, and milk. Then you mush for 4 more days. On the 10th day you add more flour, milk and sugar and put four cups of starter into four separate bags (so one cup per bag). With the rest of the starter you make the bread. It makes two loaves of bread so you can eat one and pass one along. The COOLEST part is that you now have 4 bags of starter. So keep one for yourself and pass along the other three to friends. Hence CHAIN LETTER. Except…it’s just bread starter, and nobody dies or has bad luck if you don’t use it.

Although Francis grew up in Amish country I don’t think that Amish Friendship Bread is actually Amish (especially after reading up on Wikipedia about it). It calls for a package of instant Vanilla Pudding, and well, I don’t think the Amish folks are into Jello-O brand products. They are a sort-of “do-it-yourself” kind of people! I found a website that has lots of variations on the recipe, and different ways to use the starter for things like brownies and muffins. Yum!

So, I’m thinking Laura and Hillary? Are you ladies game? Anyone else game? I can overnight it in the mail to you. I’m thinking that we need to come up with some super low calorie, whole grain variations! Something along the lines of Hillary’s Cinnamon Swirl bread, using what I am now calling “Friendship Starter”.

Swim like a rock star at Masters in the morning, hitting your 100’s in 1:35 in the meter pool. Mix with a trip to the plant sale at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Top with a loaf of Cinnamon Swirl Whole Wheat Bread gifted from a wonderful Friend. Bake for an afternoon. Funk Gone.

Ahhh, I can feel the release of the the funk. The tight shoulders are relaxing. The smile is coming back. The funk is on an outbound train, headed somewhere else. Today’s events (thus far) really helped the funk exodus.

The morning started off with a solid swim workout. 15X100M all under 1:40, lots around 1:35. Then 500 kick set followed by 10X50 and 8X25 all out.

Then it was off to the annual plant sale at the Denver Botanic Gardens with my friend Hillary. It was members day and we were there at 8:15 waiting in line with the 500 other members that JUST HAD TO BE THERE FIRST. What a hoot. Hil brought the wagon and we both had the kids in backpacks for easy maneuvering. We had so much fun. At first there was a total run on the herb tent and it was a madhouse, then we got word that the veggie tent was selling out, so we ran over there and grabbed what we needed. Ahh Crazy Gardeners, you would think it was a rock concert! After we procured our plants we walked around the gardens, all of which we are totally familiar with now and were amazed at how much has changed in a short couple of weeks. Everything is green and in bloom and it just sucked the funk right out of me.

I ended up purchasing a rosemary plant that I am going to plant in it’s own pot, two new basil plants, a cucumber (the little yellow ball ones), a patio zucchini plant (who knew…so uber excited about this one), and an impulse purchase of ANOTHER tomato plant (a sun gold that they were only allowing people to buy one of…this one’s a gift though because three tomato plants in ENOUGH for one patio).

Upon walking back to the car Miss Hil presented me with the most yummy, tasty looking loaf of bread. I am calling it Funk Be Gone Bread beacuse after I got home and had one slice of it, I felt compelled to write this post. Thank you Hillary. You guys don’t understand, this bread is to die for! Troy is going to flip a lid when he gets home and has some (he’s taking his EXAM today). Here’s a photo for your drooling pleasure.

Buy bye funk. Uh yea, Bye bye.

I decided to start growing some alfalfa sprouts. I love sprouts in salads and on sandwiches so I gave it a go. I picked up some sprouting seeds at Vitamin Cottage, along with a jar (any jar would do) that had a lid with a screen. I have seen these screens sold separately before to fit a canning jar (like these ones). The fist day I put my seeds in the jar, rinsed and washed the seeds about 10 times, then I turned the jar on it’s side, set it on the countertop and covered it with a towel (seeds don’t like sun). On days 2-5 I rinsed out the seeds (which became sprouts) two times a day. I just poured water into the jar and dumped it back out. The screen kept everything i n the jar. Make sure your jar is well drained. Drenched seeds keep them from sprouting. Again, I always kept the jar on it’s side and always kept a towel over it. On day five I did one last rinse and dry and then I took the towel off and set them in the windowsill for several hours. They greened right up. I then used a ton and put the rest in the fridge. Don’t put wet sprouts in the fridge, make sure they dry first. That’s it, super easy.

Now, onto my herb garden update. Houston, we have a problem.

This just in: My basil plants have Aphids.

My first round of defense was to spray with watered down dish soap. I use the Mrs. Meyers Lemon Verbena Dish Soap. That didn’t seem to help much. Although I might have been too gentle with my soaping, I didn’t douse them or anything. So my second line of defense has been to add more soap in the squirt bottle and to really give them a soaking. The aphids are hitting the underside of the leaves and are attacking with vigor the standard basil plant and are shying away from the “Windowsill Basil” variety that I have in there as well. My third line of defense has been to put the plants outside today. I hear (from the internet) that Aphids don’t like cold weather and it’s quite chilly today (plus I just gave them a dousing).

The other plants are doing divine. My sage is SUPER happy and I have harvested parsley, rosemary and oregano. All the plants have bounced back from harvest wonderfully. Now if I could just get my basil on board I would be happy. I know why basil is tricky…it’s because it’s so tasty .

I made them this week and they are TO DIE FOR. I made a half batch b/c the full batch calls for 8 avocados and I knew if I made the whole batch they would be gone in 24 hours and I would have to live down that fact that I ate at least 4 avocados in a day. This way, I only ate two…between dinner and breakfast the next morning they were gone!

The homemade sauce is really easy, so I suggest going that route. Also, I forgot to dip the fried tortillas in the sauce before filling and rolling, and it was fine. I just poured all the sauce over the top of them before they went into the oven, (oh and topped with cheese). If you are worried about the amount of cheese in the recipe, you can cut it back, less would have been just fine.

Here is another link to her recipe. Enjoy, and if you make them, Troy and I would love to come over for dinner! Ha!