Blueberries!

One of my yearly July rituals is picking blueberries. Blueberries are extremely nutritious, and also one of the most refreshing and convenient foods to eat in the heat of the summer. If you pick enough, you can also freeze them and continue enjoying their health benefits and deliciousness for many months to come.  I am lucky to live near several organic/no-spray blueberry farms, and I have visited three of them regularly in the past few years. Today, my mom joined me at the Friendly Grove Blueberry Farm, where we had perfect weather for picking lots of tasty berries. I have also  enjoyed picking at Carr's Organic Blueberry Farm, and Blue Horizons Farm.  There is something really cool about having seasonal rituals to look forward to, and when I woke up this morning, I knew that I wanted to do my first pick today. Last year, I ate all of the blueberries I picked before I got a chance to freeze them, so this year, I'll need to be sure to go out a few more times to make sure I get my freezer (and belly) full of blueberries before the season is over!

Weird Snack: Blueberry Cinnamon Whole Wheat Crackers With Yogurt Dip

Yesterday I made some very weird snacks. Even though I am not a football fan, I decided to show some team spirit for a super bowl party by making snacks that were intended to be green and blue (but turned out green and purple-oops!). I was inspired by this post on oh she glows, and the green cracker and dip in the photo come from that recipe. For my "blue" crackers, I decided to try using blueberries, and they turned out pretty well for a first attempt. They remind me a little of the cinnamon and sugar tortas we sell at the Co-op, but whole-wheat and baked instead of fried. I will warn you that these take awhile to make  and aren't super healthy- after all, they're crackers topped with sugar! But in the realm of "healthier" treats, I guess they qualify. You can use whatever cookie cutters you like. I happened to have these Halloween cookie cutters on hand and decided they were perfect for scaring the opposing team and sweeping them right out the door. Ha!

Blueberry Cinnamon Whole Wheat Crackers 
With Yogurt Dip
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 Tbs sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 heaping tsp cinnamon
4 Tbs butter
1 cup blueberries (frozen are fine but thaw them ahead of time)
extra cinnamon and sugar for topping

Preheat oven to 400F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk together flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Using a pastry blender or two butter knives scissor-fashion, cut the butter into the dry mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Blend the blueberries in a blender until they are smooth. Pour into the flour mixture and stir until well-combined. Gently knead the mixture and form two balls. Using a well-floured work surface, roll out the dough and cut into shapes with your cookie cutters. By the way, this dough is pretty sticky, so continue adding flour to work surface and rolling pin as needed. After you have cut out your shapes, re-roll remaining dough and continue making crackers until all of you dough is used up. Mix the extra cinnamon and sugar together and sprinkle liberally on top of the crackers. Bake for four minutes, the switch position of pans in oven.  bake four more minutes and then check crackers for doneness, baking two minutes more or as long as needed for them to turn slightly golden-brown.

Berry Yogurt Dip
2 6oz containers greek yogurt
1 cup blueberries (frozen fine, but thaw)
1 cup blackberries (frozen fine, but thaw)
2 Tbs maple syrup
Blend all ingredients in a food processor. Chill and serve with crackers.

Cooking Class- Better Nutrition For the New Year

Yesterday I taught a cooking class focused on incorporating healthier, fiber-rich foods into recipes and making New Year's food resolutions stick. I've been reading about the important role fiber plays in the body, and I was excited to present some easy ways to add more fiber to everyday meals. A high-fiber diet reduces your risk for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and diverticulitis (disease of the intestines).  In the class, we made dishes that were full of vegetables, beans, whole grains, and seeds- all great sources of fiber. The class was well attended (20 people!), and I had fun and felt proud of myself. Most of the recipes I used were from my blog, and it was so cool to be able to use pictures I had taken in the class handout.
I still get nervous when I'm teaching, but it makes me feel great to share some of the knowledge I've gained over the past year with people who are interested in improving their eating habits. I'm also really grateful to GRuB for the use of their fabulous kitchen. If you don't know about GRub, they are an awesome community non-profit that works to: "inspire positive personal and community change by bringing people together around food and agriculture, partner with youth and people with low-incomes to create empowering individual & community food solutions, and to offer tools & trainings to help build a just & sustainable food system". They are an amazing organization, and they generously share their wonderful kitchen with the Co-op's classes program. By the way, I'm teaching a class on cooking with greens in March, and there's still room if you want to sign up!

A Few Technology Goals

A lot of the goals I've made this year have focused on improving my diet and exercise habits. Although I've also made a few goals about stress-reduction, as the end of the year is drawing closer, I've realized that this is an area where I could still stand to make some improvements. I was thinking about which things in my life cause me to feel stressed and which things help me to feel relaxed. In thinking about this, I've come to the conclusion that my i-phone is contributing both positively and negatively to my health, and my use of it is an area where I could make some changes.

First the positive: My i-phone allows me to download and store a ton of music. I love listening to music when I'm walking, and if I have music that I'm excited to listen to, I'm a lot more likely to walk than I am to take the bus. Extra exercise-yay! Having excellent work-out music downloaded also keeps my time at the gym fun, and keeps me feeling energetic and motivated. But I often wait until I am really sick of the music I have to download more. Why? This must be an area where I'm just really, really lazy. I have a music subscription service through Rhapsody, so I'm already paying for access to lots of music, but I'm not using it nearly as much as I could. Music is one of the things that brings me the most joy in life, and I think it would be great to keep music that I like more present in my life. Goal #48: download new music at least once a month.

Now the negative: I use my i-phone to check my work email a lot, and at times I'd say almost compulsively; when I'm waiting for the bus, when I'm waiting at a restaurant or a coffee shop, when I'm laying in bed at night. Ugh. Having access to my work email via my phone is great when I'm traveling and don't have regular access to a computer, but in my daily life, it just feels like a time and energy suck. I think the best solution is to remove the app I use to check my work email, which is Goal#49 (and is now done!).

The other way my i-phone is contributing negatively to my life is that it is putting a lot of stress on my hands and wrists- especially when I look at my phone in bed. There have actually been times that my hands have fallen asleep when I am doing this, and I know that can't be good. Goal#50 is to limit the amount of time I spend looking at my i-phone in bed to 10 minutes per night (ideally, I'd like to stop doing this altogether, but this seems like a more realistic goal for now).
I can't believe the year is almost over!! Only 2 more goals to go...

Crafty Christmas

My newest goal (#47) is to try to do a better job of using/reusing things I already have before buying new things. I, like many people in the United States, tend to buy and accumulate way more things than I actually need. Sometimes, buying things makes me feel happy in the moment, but later I feel really disappointed in myself for spending money on junk I don't need, for contributing to poor working conditions by buying poorly made mass-produced crap, and for harming the environment by creating demand for a bunch of unneeded junk. Having excess stuff around also makes my house feel cluttered. I live in a small house, and the less stuff I have the more comfortable my environment is. I think it's fair to say that having a clutter-free house greatly contributes to my over-all sense of well-being.
The other positive side of this goal is that when I am trying to reuse the stuff I already have, I feel purposeful, creative, and often have a lot fun being crafty. Last night my niece and nephew and my dear friend Kim (their mother) and I made Christmas ornaments out of craft supplies that I already had on hand- colored paper, buttons, glue, and embroidery floss. I made several more ornaments today, and I also made a garland out of felt scraps. Now I have a bunch of really pretty and unique decorations for my tree and they're all made out of stuff I already had lying around my house!

Crossfit?

This week I'm making kind of a weird goal (#47) and that is to go check out the CrossFit gym downtown before February of next year. I am simultaneously intrigued and wary of CrossFit- most of the people I know who do CrossFit are in excellent shape and talk about how much they loooovvvveee CrossFit. I have also met a fair number of people who have gotten injured doing CrossFit, and that is part of what makes me wary.  I've also have gotten the impression that CrossFit gyms can be a little competitive, and as I think I've said before, competitiveness in gyms is something that isn't really a good fit for me. But recently a customer at the Co-op who I really like told me that the downtown CrossFit gym has a beginner program where you learn to do the exercises with other folks who have never done CrossFit before. He claims it's low-pressure, fun, and fairly affordable. I figure it's at least worth checking out and might be a way to keep myself motivated and interested in working out.

Doing What I Love Most

Today I spent much of the day cooking and prepping food for the week, and my oh my, it was fun! I felt productive and happy, and I got to listen to lots of great music too. One of the  things I love best about winter is staying inside and making lots of delicious and healthy food for the coming week. It feels great to open the refrigerator and have so many healthy options to choose from.


Today I made:
Cinnamon Breakfast Quinoa (I substituted apples for the berries)
Quinoa Banana Pecan Bread with Cranberries (I added zest of one lemon and a half cup of dried cranberries)
Rice with Lemon, Parsley, and Walnuts (I substituted a rice-quinoa blend and adjusted the amount of liquid and cooking time)
Washed lettuce for the week
Prepped carrots, celery, beets, daikon radish, cucumbers, and red peppers for salads and snacks
Baked a delicata squash that we'll have for dinner
And there's still time to go for a second walk of the day- yay!!- winter is a cook's best friend!

More Fun in the Woods

 I went for a hike on Monday in Priest Point Park, and I was surprised to find a pretty big tree had fallen and blocked the main trail. I don't remember it being particularly windy on Saturday or Sunday, but it must have been, because the tree appeared to have simply fallen over, and the base was broken and splintered. Of course, I didn't let that downed tree stop me; I just climbed over it and kept going. Farther along the trail, I saw a few other smaller trees that appeared to have taken a topple as well.  It's pretty cool to be in the same woods so often that you can easily tell when some weather event has happened, even if you didn't notice it when you were cozy in your bed at home. I also got to see my first PPP snake on Monday! I heard rustling and then noticed a pile of leaves that appeared to be moving of its own accord. Suddenly, out slithered a little black and green snake. I stopped and watched it for a little while, and I think it was watching me too, as it stayed very still when I moved close to it. We sat there, each waiting for the other to make the first move, until a boisterous golden retriever bounded up and broke the spell.

In the Woods

 This morning I went for a hike in the woods, and it was absolutely magical. There was a very light breeze blowing, which kept sending the leaves falling towards the ground. They were swirling lazily from the sky, and eventually touching down with a melodic little flutter. It was spooky and beautiful. If you like to hike and don't want to go far away to get to a trail, Priest Point Park is a perfect destination. The trails are well-maintained and provide a (mostly) easy walk through woods of both deciduous and evergreen trees, and include several nice views of Puget Sound as well as beach access if you want to get a little closer to the water. The uncharacteristic lack of rain this fall has left piles and piles of beautiful leaves to look at and crunch under your boots. Knowing Olympia, this isn't going to last much longer, so get out there while you can and enjoy one of the coolest (and free!) places in Olympia.

Push It

This week at the gym I used 10lb weights for my arm workouts  instead of my usual 8lbs. A couple of years ago I was working out with a friend and he suggested I try using 10lb weights- pointing out that due to the amount of lifting that I do for my job, 8lbs probably isn't much of a challenge for me. While I've used 10lb weights occasionally since then, they've always felt a little too heavy for me to use consistently. It's true that I lift a lot for work (40lb cases of bananas! 50lb cases of potatoes!), but somehow at the gym, the 10lb weights just felt too heavy...
This week, however, I decided to give the 10lb weights another try, and to my surprise, they didn't feel too heavy at all. They were challenging, but totally manageable. I'm going to credit the amount of yoga I've been doing with helping me develop better arm and shoulder strength.  I want to keep using the 10lb weights and see if I can eventually work my way up to 12lbs. Goal #40-  to use 10lb weights for my primary arm and shoulder exercises, doing 3 sets of eight reps for each exercise.

Underwater Fun

When I was in Hawaii, I was shocked to discover how much I love snorkeling.  I have never been a fan of putting my head under water, so I thought I would be really uncomfortable. Imagine my surprise when I found that swimming is really fun when you can open your eyes and breathe under water. After I tried snorkeling once, I was hooked, and I wanted to do it as much as possible. Now, being back at home, I'd love to recapture some of the fun I had in the ocean, and enjoy some of the awesome exercise that swimming provides.  Despite the fact that I live near the sound, the water is far too cold here to swim or snorkel without a wetsuit except during the very warmest times of the year, and even then, it's pretty cold! I think I'm going to give swimming in the pool at the YMCA another chance. I wish I could wear a snorkel mask during lap swim, but I think maybe I'll just stick with goggles and maybe even be a total nerd and get a nose clip. Goal#38: Swim at the YMCA at least once before the year is over. I hope I really love it and decide to make swimming a part of my regular gym workouts.

Welcome Back and Happy Birthday Self

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted on this blog-just about 3 weeks. Happily, the reason I wasn't posting is that I was enjoying myself in Hawaii! One of the goals I made before I left for my trip was to try at least one new activity before the end of the year. In Hawaii, it was easy to meet this goal, as I tried a lot of new things. Snorkeling was my favorite new thing I tried, and since I did it without fins, it was great exercise too! I saw many beautiful fish, tons of coral, a few eels, and even some sea turtles! I also tried some new foods: Ono (a delicious type of fish that I had grilled on a salad), green papaya slaw, lilikoi (also known as passionfruit), ahi poke (raw tuna salad with yummy marinade), rambutan (a fruit that looks scary but tastes good), and laulau (in this case they were little bundles of root veggie wrapped in taro leaves). I also ate lots of fresh ripe papaya and pineapple. Lastly, I officiated a wedding, which was a very exciting and fun experience. Getting away was so refreshing and relaxing, and even though I didn't maintain some of my usual goals (going to the gym, riding my bike, eating blueberries, etc.), I feel like the mental health benefits were so great that it far outweighs any physical health benefits that I may have missed out on for a few weeks. Now I'm back and ready to start working on my health and blogging about it again, and right in time for my 39th birthday!

More Mysteries of the Deep

(Photo from TESC's invertebrate zoology webpage)

 I went out for a beautiful paddle on Monday morning. When I launched, the tide was extremely low, and I was able to see some marine life that I haven't had the opportunity to see before. There were lots of the amazing creatures pictured here. When I saw them, I assumed they were some kind of anemones, but thanks to David Jamison's fabulous webpage, I was able to identify what I saw as Northern Feather Duster Worms. WORMS! There is a video here of this thing in action, and it is pretty amazing. I think I've written about David Jamison's site before, but I want to mention it again, because it is  incredibly cool to be out paddling, see an animal or plant, and have such an easy to use and detailed resource to help me identify it. In addition to the spectacular worms, I also saw a lot of Purple Sea Stars. Even though being out during such a low tide was kind of weird (my paddle hit the bottom in the middle of the sound!), it was fantastic to get the chance to see some of the animals that live a little further down than I usually get to see.

Sweaty Selfie

I had a great workout at the gym tonight, and I was proud of my efforts. You can't really really tell in the picture, but I am absolutely drenched in sweat here. That is partially because I was really pushing myself and partially because the downtown YMCA is not air conditioned, so it is hot as Hades in the summer. I had a funny moment tonight when I was working out, where I felt like a total fraud, and thought that all of the other gymmies were looking at me and thinking "What is she doing here?", but as I kept going and my endorphins started kicking in, I felt like I totally owned the place. This is my 3rd YMCA workout this week. Say what you will about the rain,  but nothing like foul weather to motivate me to spend time at the gym!

My Sweet Ride #2

 This post is an ode to my beautiful paddleboard. I took it out on the Sound today, and the whole time I was out there, I kept thinking "Man, I love this board!". My board isn't the fanciest, or the sleekest, or the most expensive board out there, but it's perfect for me. It's long enough and wide enough to deal with the small waves and boat wake that are frequently present in the Sound, yet it's light enough for me to lift it onto my car fairly easily. I love the way it feels under my feet, and when I am on it, I feel stable, strong, and athletic. I can move through the water quickly and easily maneuver and turn the board when I need to. Plus, it's just so darn pretty. I love you sweet paddleboard. Thanks for taking me out to places I used to only see from the shore!

New Adventures

Today I went on a fun adventure, and had a completely new experience- something that just doesn't happen often enough anymore. Zach and I went sailing with some friends who are fairly experienced and they showed us a great time. We rented a sailboat from Boston Harbor Marina and headed out into the sound. There wasn't a lot of wind for much of the day, so at times it was pretty slow going, but when the wind was in the sails and we were moving along at a nice clip, it was pretty amazing. We brought some delicious picnic food, listened to  great music, and had a lot of fun relaxing in the sun (with sunblock, hats, and sunglasses of course!).  It was also interesting to be able to get a view of the sound from a boat- I now have a better idea of how visible I probably am to most boats when I'm out paddling. Even though sailing isn't something I plan to do regularly, I really enjoyed doing something new, and this makes me want to add to my list of goals. Goal #30: Try at least one new activity before the end of the year. This can be anything, as long as it is trying something I've never done to keep my life fresh and interesting.

Keeping Your Workouts Interesting

I've been doing a lot of yoga lately, so much in fact, that I'm making Goal #29 to add another yoga workout each week to my fitness commitments. Since I sometimes don't have the time or money to go to classes at the yoga studio, I have been doing some of my yoga at home, using DVDs from the library. In order to keep these workouts interesting and challenging, I am trying something new, which is to use light dumbells (3lbs) with some of the poses I am doing. 3lbs doesn't sound like much, but when I am in a pose that is already challenging, the weights push me just a little farther and keep my workouts interesting. I am also very grateful to Zach who rearranged the furniture in our dining room to give me a mini yoga studio in our house. Even though I was (highly) skeptical at first, it has been so awesome to have a nice space to work out in at home.

Sunday Bike Ride

 Today I wanted to get out and enjoy the beautiful Pacific NW. I really felt like taking a hike in the woods, but due to some blisters I got breaking in new shoes this week, I knew that probably wasn't a good idea. I decided to take a bike ride instead, and as I was riding along I remembered that there is a portion of the Chehalis-Western trail near my house that is wooded and quiet, and I thought that would be a great substitute for a hike in the woods. I've written about the Chehalis-Western trail before in relation to walking, but I have to say, it is even better on a bike! The trail is flat and paved, and it winds through some really beautiful areas. The portion of the trail I was on today is kind of funny, because it is bordered in some areas by cow and horse pasture, so you do get an occasional whiff of barnyard smell, especially on warm days like today. In a few more weeks the blackberries will be ripe, though, and when that happens, the only thing you will smell on the trail is their heavenly, musky berriness. As I was riding on the trail, I looked up at the trees. With the dappled sunlight hitting their array of green leaves and needles,  they were breathtaking. I thought about how amazing it must be for people who come to the Pacific NW for the first time. I feel so fortunate to live in a place of such incredible beauty, and I hope I never take this place for granted.

Lose Yourself To Dance

 Last weekend some friends and I were watching videos from Daft Punk's new album Random Access Memories. A couple of the videos (Lose Yourself To Dance and Give Life Back to Music) featured people dancing on the show Soul Train in the 1970s, as well some fantastic shots of people dancing from movies and music videos. We danced along with the videos, and I had so much fun and got in some great exercise too. I've posted before about how much I love to dance, but when I was watching the Soul Train dancers, I felt totally in awe of their incredible moves. There is also this memorable dance scene from the movie Boogie Nights which I've always loved. I want to learn to dance like that, and believe me, if anyone ever offers a disco fitness class, I'm totally in! Since that doesn't exist yet, I decided to check out the library's catalogue to see if there were any instructional disco dvds I could check out. There were two available, and I checked them both out a few days ago. Tonight, I watched portions of both of them and danced along with them for about an hour. It was so super cheesy, and I felt like a total weirdo dancing along to these in my living room by myself. It was definitely a funny and fun experiment though, and I'm going to try to find a better quality disco dvd and keep practicing my moves. Hopefully, someone will invent a time machine eventually, and I'll get to go back and show off my moves. Ha!

Happy Anniversary!

Today Zach and I celebrated 17 years together! It's pretty weird to think that we were both in our early 20s when we got together (so long ago!), and it definitely doesn't feel like 17 years have gone by already. About 10 years ago, my mom told me to appreciate every day because as you age, time will start going by really fast, and boy, she wasn't kidding! For our anniversary, we had a  fun day hanging out and enjoying time together. The best part of the day was sitting in a park in the shade, watching bunnies hopping around, listening to the rustle of the leaves in the trees, and eating ripe blackberries from the Fremont Sunday Market.  It's awesome to be with someone who I can still have so much fun with after all this time, and I feel incredibly lucky to have such a great partner.