Creating Color in a Rock Garden

I would like to begin this post by bragging on my family's ability to garden.  My great-grandmother grew fresh vegetables until she was ninety.  My Grandfather was a farmer.  Both of my grandmother's have beautiful flower gardens.  And, despite what she may say, my mother has a beautiful yard full of beautiful gardens.  I like flowers.  I love herbs.  I am grateful to my beautiful, hearty knock-out roses that have beaten the odds and thrived in my backyard.  That being said, we recently grew tired of our crazy out-of-control yard, so we overhauled our front garden area.  When we bought the house, it was a lovely manicured area full of high-maintenance shrubs and things.  (I know they have names, but I am a little plant-ignorant.) We ripped out all but a few plants and "planted" rocks in their place.  We love it!  After a week, we decided it needed some color.  Remembering that we have neither the time nor the talent for gardening, we decided on mums, marigolds, and potted herbs.  I turned wrought-iron center pieces used in our wedding reception into planters using cheese cloth to keep in the dirt.  I hope it doesn't all wash away after the first rain.  In the mean time, it has the potential to be just the pop of color we want.

 

Vegetable Stock

After prepping a good bit of vegetables, keep your vegetable scraps.  Vegetable stock is great for boiling pasta, adding to casseroles, or as a base for soups.  

Making stock is simple.  Get a big pot.  Throw all your veggie scraps into the pot.  Fill it with water.  The vegetables should be fully submerged.  Bring the water to a boil.  Let it cook at a gentle boil for a few hours.  Once it has turned a nice golden color, turn off the heat and let it cool.  Siphon out all the vegetable bits using a fine strainer.  

* If you are making stock from meat, let it sit over night in the refrigerator so that the excess fat floats to the top, then skim off the fat.

My suggestion for bagging stock (I learned it from my father-in-law):  Use ziploc freezer bags.  Measure out 1-2 cups of stock in each bag.  Seal it tight.  Line a cookie sheet with a paper towel.  This is to keep the bag from freezing to the cookie sheet and it helps in case of leaks.  Lay the bags of stock flat on the cookie sheet.   Once they are frozen, they can be stacked and easily stored. 

 

Learning to Love Vegetables

In an attempt to eat healthier, my family bought lots of vegetables.  The problem with fresh vegetables is that they go bad before we eat all of them.  Celery turns into a science experiment in my refrigerator.  Solution:  freeze them.
To save time and energy after a long day, we decided to chop the vegetables before freezing them.  My husband and I like to cook and are fairly handy in the kitchen.  We cleared off the table, got super organized and decided to pre-mix the veggies for various "staple meals" in our house.

Bag 1:  celery, bell pepper, onion
-This is a good base mix.  Most casserole-type recipes start with this "trinity."
Bag 2:  cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots

-My kids love when I saute these in a little butter or evoo, salt, and mild spices that match the rest of the meal.  These veggies cook well together because they need to be steamed.  When working with frozen vegetables, ice forms in the ziploc bag.  This creates a good amount of steam for the vegetables.  Saute, cover, and steam.
Bag 3:  Stir Fry Mix
- red bell peppers, snap peas, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, onion
Bag 4:  carrots, onion, bell pepper, celery
Bag 5:  zucchini and squash

These have been used almost every night for the past week.  I highly recommend these to anyone who is too tired on the week nights to think about what vegetables should be prepped for that night's meal.  The work is already done.  Just throw it is a skillet and enjoy.

Oh.  One more thing... I love garlic, but don't add it to your prepped vegetable bags.  Garlic does not take as long to cook.  If you cook it too long, it will burn and turn bitter.  Mince your garlic and add it a few minutes after starting the other vegetables.

2 mile run

Now you would think that this is the easy part! I would bet that most triathletes start as runners and add biking and swimming. I hate running!! It hurts my Achilles' tendons terribly. It's boring. It feels awkward and plodding. I hate it. I have tried to get into the 5k craze like the rest of America but I just hate every step. The only running that I enjoy is a short sprint - that's what I ran in track back in the day, so I guess that's just what I learned to do. I have practiced at the track, on the treadmill, down our road at home. Nothing. 

But last week I decided to try our new walking track. It's about a mile around and it's very nice. I still hated it but I hated it less and I can see learning to like it. On a really really good day, I can run 2 15 minute miles on the treadmill. Somehow I will have to get that down to 2 10 minute miles on pavement. 

11 mile bike ride

This is what actually gave me the triathlon idea! The bike ride! We have a Rail to Trails trail nearby called the Tanglefoot Trail. It's a total of about 40 miles end to end (New Albany to Houston). I decided to see how far I could go on my granny bike. On my first try I rode 4 miles and turned around for a total of 8 miles. It wasn't very fun. Then a friend of mine from junior high messaged me to say that she rode bikes 2-3 times a week and would I like to join her. I did and we made it to the "whistlestop" in the little town of Ingomar - about 12 miles round trip. That was fun. But exhausting. 

I have learned that I absolutely must get a hybrid bike or a road bike if I'm going to get anywhere with this leg of the training. I am saving for a hybrid but may get a cheaper road bike. I don't know yet. 

This week I timed myself and I rode about 6 miles in 40 minutes. To do the race I would have to about double that distance in 40 minutes. I am anxious to see how much a bike with gears helps. 

In the meantime, I love my bike route. It's beautiful and peaceful ...... And unfortunately hilly. 

300 meter swim

Swimming will be the easiest part for me. Not to say that it's easy.  But I'm a good swimmer and I took a lifeguarding class in college so I have done this part before. I had been doing a little swimming already. But it's really physically challenging so my efforts were pretty pitiful. I have discovered that our pool is 25 meters long (sure feels longer) so I will have to swim 6 laps (down and back).  I had worked up to being able to swim 5-6 free style laps resting.......actually gasping for breath....at EACH end of the pool before I had this triathlon idea. 

Now I have gotten strong enough to swim a lap with no break and I can even do 1.5 laps with no break but it's pretty frightening to watch......think drowning victim. Last week I decided to time my laps: I can swim a lap in 55 seconds with a 2 minute break before the next lap. That's a total of 18 minutes in the water. 

I looked at time results for some past triathlons and I will have to get that time down to 7 minutes. Which of course means swim six laps with no break. I have no idea how I will ever accomplish that but I am stronger every week. And this part is actually fun.....well, not the drowning parts. 

Triathlon

I started working out at my local gym in March of 2014 (17 months ago) because my friend wanted to loose weight and thought she would do better with a group. I didn't want to do it. I had tried the gym several times and hated it. But I agreed to try. We hired a trainer and and worked out with her twice a week and ate her meal plan for three months. Finally, finally I began to see some progress. I was getting stronger and I was getting more lean. And I was having fun! Ever since then I have been on an upward spiral toward healthy living. 

One thing I know about myself, I get bored and quit things if they don't change. So since we have ventured out on our own (March) without our wonderful trainer, I have been looking for something that will grab my attention and will be fun. After several different experiments I have settled on "training" for a triathlon.  I have chosen one that takes place in April in nearby Tupelo. It is called a "half sprint" and is supposed to be great for beginners. 

It consists of 300 meters in the water, an 11 mile bike ride and a 2 mile run. I am physically able to do each of these three things already. Not NEARLY in the expected time frame and certainly not back to back. I am going to write one separate blog on my initial efforts in each area. 

I have told myself that it doesn't matter if I ever actually compete in the race. It is enough just to train.  Anyway, feel free to follow along with me on this adventure.