Murphy... and mercies

Sometimes, when you least expect him... Murphy shows up and lays down the law. A few Sundays ago my car was towed from a parking spot where my management told me I can park. Well, "lifted" is more like it because I walked out there as the guy was putting my car up on his rig. So while it wasn't "towed" away I still had to pay One-hundred-and-fifty clams. (Does the hyphening make it feel bigger to you? Hope so. It was a pretty big deal to me that day).

When I got home Mel had been dealing with medical bills and insurance for 2 and 1/2 hours. Needless to say, we were both pretty wiped and just cried and held each other for a while.

It's wonderful to have a spouse that is also your best friend. It's not even that we couldn't suffer the financial blow... it was more the emotional one that was hard.

We have both felt overwhelmed lately. Seems like that's one of our life's themes... but I digress.

So, I'm choosing not to ramble on right now. Sure... I could vent about all the little things that are causing stress (and believe me... there's a lot of little things; I know Melissa has her own list. If only I had a venn diagram right now! :-), but I won't. Instead, what I'm going to do is remind you dear reader (and myself!) of how I have an amazing God that loves me dearly and counts me valuable in spite of what the world may say and how his mercies are new EVERY morning.

Tomorrow's a new day. And, though that new day may have a cluttered kitchen with dishes left to be done, I will have slept the night with my bride by my side and our little one growing in her belly. God is good and there is MUCH that I can be thankful for -- even the little things :-)

Locavore

Not a whole lot to write this morning, but I did want to post this pic! We are fortunate enough to have a farmer's market that is just down the street from us. The above photo is musk melon that I got from there recently.

This year I am growing three varieties of tomatoes, and three varieties of peppers as well. Here is a pic from some Jalapenos that I harvested recently:

DELICIOUS! :-)

Something old... Something new...

Cast iron cookware has been around a LONG time. So has bread. It's only natural that the two should be combined. So that's what I did.

I baked up a batch of No-Knead bread from Sullivan Street Bakery. And it was by far one of the easiest breads I've ever made... that and it was also one of the most impressive.

It took about a minute to mix together (literally), and it only a little bit of "hands-on" time putting the dough in its proper place; however, it again did not need kneading. What it did require was patience. Patience in the neighborhood of 21-22 hrs. It's the kind of thing you mix one day and bake the next.

But in my baking practices this comes par for the course. As a general rule of thumb: less yeast + more time = better flavor. Also, more water & less kneading makes for a more rustic dough with more irregular holes in the crumb.

Just look at it's structure!

This is the first dough that I've ever produced that was geologic in nature. What I mean by this is that you could actually hear the dough as it came out of the oven. There was snapping and crackling, giant fissures, steam, and on the inside? Absolutely wonderful caverns.

The sound was similar to when ice cubes begin breaking and shattering as they crack apart in a fresh glass of water. But to experience this sound from the crust that I had created was simply music to my ears.

All this and yet another reason why I LOVE my cast iron cookware!

G.

Homemade Pasta!!!

Recently, I bought a ravioli form in order to make a special dinner for my beautiful wife.

I filled the pasta with a beef/spinach/ricotta filling- a recipe from one of my new cookbooks: Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it. It's been a winning recipe book so far! Here's the results!

Mr. Fix-it!!!

Recently, I had the "joy" of replacing the headlight on our trailblazer. I can't remember whether it was the old Mazda protege, or on the Honda civic where I have replaced a headlight before... but this was a little more daunting task. I called the dealership and they said that the repair would cost around $70.00 for parts + labor. I called O'reiley auto parts and found out that the headlight bulb cost a little under 9 bucks. So, yeah... I'll figure out how to do this myself (little did I realize that the owner's manual specifically said for headlights to be taken to the dealership, and when I read about how to fix it online it said to remove the entire front grill).

Well... I did need to remove some components, but thankfully the grill didn't have to come off. Here are the pics!

The non-working headlight on the passenger's side.

My working headlight! :-)

The air filter cover which had to be removed.

The air filter pushed out of the way.

The good, the bad...

... the fixed!!! :-)

So, if a "green thumb" means that you have talent at gardening... does a black thumb mean I'm a good mechanic? :-)

Cheers.

CHORES! a.k.a. I need to get back to exercising!

I think one of the single biggest causes for life's stresses could be from not staying on top of the "little things." Bush had it right (the band that is... ) "it's just the little things that kill."

How come dishes, laundry, junk mail, and spam never seem to end?!? It feels like it's been an uphill battle for years and it's all the more challenging when there are other projects to work on. There's this one spot in our bathroom that's needed caulking for how long, I need to wash the trailblazer, our office is a mess, I want to get our tax return filed (EARLY this year!), there's always budgeting to tend to, grocery shopping & planning, there are boxes that have never been dealt with since we got married, and oh yeah... I'm turning thirty this year.

My body doesn't recover as quickly as it used to. I haven't been running since the marathon. I feel like as soon as I do get around to going for a jog it might help loosen up some of muscle kinks I'm having and as an added bonus it would probably help me deal a little better with the stresses. I'm sure that exercising my spirit would be good for me too. That's probably the even bigger thing that's lacking - prayer, and meditation.

Hope you don't mind me venting a little. I'm open to suggestions as to how you stay on top of it all.

Tour De Houston - ¡A Pie!

Well, I did it. I completed the Houston Marathon. I'm going to do my best to keep this blog post scale tipping towards the positive side of things... but bear with me - I do need to vent a little bit.

So, let me start over... I DID IT! I completed the Houston Marathon which officially marks my second full marathon all before hitting 30!

... Better?

I started training in the beginning of July of 2009 for this race. So 4,5,..6+ hrs on race day doesn't even begin to cut it for what sort of time is committed to this endeavor. Sacrifices are made - Sleep, time with friends, time with family... and a little over 6 months of my life all leading up to this one day.

My goal? A finish time of 5:30 or better. Originally I was shooting for 4:30, but after doing some math late in the game, I realized how unreasonable that would be considering my first marathon in Alaska was around 5:55. So, improving my pace by about a minute per mile was still a feat to hit 5:30. My goal pace was to try to stay between 10:17/mi (a 4:30 finish time) and 12:35/mi (a 5:30 finish time). For the most part I was staying on average at around an 11:30/mi pace.

Per my sister's advice (the well-coached, seasoned athlete) I ran intervals of 6:1's meaning - 6 minutes of running, 1 minute of rest. This was working well until around mile 15 or 16.

Everything blew up on me... my legs stiffened up, my feet began blistering, my eyes stung from the salt infusion, I had digestion pain, and my head started hurting. I tried to start back to running, but when I did a muscle would tweak up on me and the last thing I wanted to do was to get an injury that would set me back from getting back to running in the next week or so.

I saw my dad soon after my "wall" and he walked with me and even jogged with me for a bit. His presence gave me enough of a boost to start back at a jog... even though I quickly faded after leaving him. Around mile 17 or 18 I saw Melissa and her parents and she walked with me a while too. (On a side note... this race was hard for her AND me as it's the first race we haven't done together. Aside from the Nike women's marathon, but that doesn't exactly count - I'm kinda D-Q'd from that one :-) As Melissa came alongside me I began letting out the tears as I saw my goal disappearing from the horizon. Her smile and positive spirit helped me feel okay about letting it go, but it still hurts to think about it. She encouraged me with how I was just accomplishing something that a lot of people can't even claim... "Who CARES about a 5:30! You're DOING it!!!"

My family is stupendous. Being part of the race support team is no light task. There is a LOT of planning that goes into the kind of race-watching that my family does. With all the street closures, and routes to figure out it can be quite an undertaking. The watching guide that my sister emailed out proved to be an invaluable resource. My parents went around the course on bicycles to catch us at various points along the way, while Melissa and her parents drove around to different spots to do the same. I got a high five from Larry at one of the watching points and loved it!

I really felt like I had two sets of parents this past Sunday. Two Moms, Two Dads, and the most incredible partner I could ever ask for in life. Each of them are unique in the way that they cheered for me and love me... but the bond that is there is, SO deep. I couldn't be more thankful for the family that I have.

There were so many times during the course when I just wanted to see someone that I know... and knows me. It's a kind of loneliness that is hard to describe.

Just before mile 9 is where the Half Marathoner's course does a U-Turn. I actually got to see Lisa and Ashley as they were heading towards me. Pretty cool! Once I passed the U-turn though, it was a completely different race - Less people on the course, less people cheering, and it is where the loneliness began to set in. It did help that my friend, Travis, was just past the turnaround point. He actually got a picture of me when I still felt somewhat decent!

By the end of the course though... I can assure you, I did NOT look this upbeat. Having to walk the majority of the last 8-10 miles, having missed my goal (AND my Alaska time) by a lot, having heard "Funky Town" being blasted over WAY too many PA systems, and having been tailed by an extremely unprofessional and RUDE police officer that was closing the course... Well, it left me as a hull of a person filled with physical pain, anger, frustration, and bitterness. I managed to finish before they closed down the field, and what do I get for all this hard work? Nothing. That's right... no medal, no finisher's shirt, no race mug, no shiny emergency blanket to keep warm after the race. I got someone writing down race bib numbers with a promise that it would be mailed to me. Talk about salt in the wound. This was after being followed by a Houston Police squad car that was courteously (can you sense the sarcasm?!?) ushering the runners along by constantly nagging them over his bull horn. Not to mention the fact that he was calling out to his friend to asking if they had "his crown royal." COMPLETELY unprofessional. The whole end left a really bad taste in my mouth where I may not do Houston again. (I probably will... but that's how I feel while things are fresh. Time does amazing things for forgiveness).

This may be a little retroactive to write about the beginnings at this point in the blog... but I wasn't quite sure where to fit it in. At least this way... we can end things on a positive note - even if it's the beginning:-) So, I woke up around 3:10am the morning of the race in order to eat and get everything ready to leave by around 4:30. Melissa was a trooper in every way about this... not to mention the fact that she was having to deal with her own emotions that morning of not doing it with me. I got a good night's sleep on Friday night and Saturday night prior to race day. Once Melissa and I got settled in at the George R. Brown convention center, I stretched and felt pretty great. Lisa and Ashley were actually able to meet us there and we had a great visit. I even got to hear about Ashley first cyclocross race. AWESOME! I need to get back on my wheels to be able to do that again this fall.

The night of race day, Melissa and I went to bed around 7:30p and slept for about 12 hours. Yesterday was a day to recuperate. Melissa and I called it our "vacation day." We watched a couple of movies and just hung out all day. It was fantastic! We haven't had a day like that in a long time. So... what's next on the horizon? Well... finisher's swag in the mail (hopefully), and other than that?

... to be determined.

Greggy-D