Wacko for Flacco!

On Sunday I went to my first ever minor league baseball game and guess who just happened to be there, Joe Flacco, the quarter back for the Baltimore Ravens. It was quite exciting. Apparently his brother, Michael, plays for the Aberdeen Ironbirds. A crowd soon formed around him in the stands, not too far from where I was sitting. Police had to come and escort him away to a different part of the stadium where he wouldn't be pestered by fans.

It's sad that he can't even watch his brother play baseball in peace. Although it's not like I was helping any seeing as I did make sure to get a picture of him.

Times Up!

My 31 days to accomplish my 31 things is now over. My final day was officially last Thursday. I definitely didn't get to everything, but I still feel as though I accomplished more than I would have without the list. The items in orange are the one's I didn't get to.



1.) Bake cookies.
2.) Complete a 4 mile run.
3.) Finish The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan.
4.) Go for a walk in the woods.
5.) Finish knitting the sock that I started a while ago.
6.) Pick strawberries and make jam with Brittany @ Little Miss Scatterbrained, Amy @ Little Miss Moon Blossom, Genevieve @ Lil Miss Explorer and maybe even Kara @ Lil Miss Wisecracker.
7.) Finish planning my trip to Chile in August! I still have so much to do and the trip is coming up so fast!
8.) Can another batch of beans.
9.) Organize my disaster of a hall closet.
10.) Finish Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth.
11.) Wander around the library.
12.) Sit on a park bench.
13.) Harvest and eat beets from the garden.
14.) Extend the height of the garden fence.
15.) Do something with the extra bird cage that is just sitting in my apartment.
16.) Organize my recipe box.
17.) Finish the blanket I’ve been crocheting.
18.) Sew an apron.
19.) Log onto Second Life to hang out with Lantern and Brocair (my uncle and grandmother). 20.) Finish reading Pushed by Jennifer Block.
21.) Talk to my friend Jody about bee keeping.
22.) Pick up horse poo for the garden.
23.) Make fried lentil balls.
24.) Clean my refrigerator.
25.) Participate in Chinese Thursday at work (we all order Chinese food together).
26.) Throw a disc (Frisbee) around.
27.) Stake, cage and/or trellis tomato plants.
28.) Give myself a pedicure.
29.) Modify some giant t-shirts that I have so I can actually wear them.
30.) Go to JoAnn fabrics.
31.) Sell some stuff at a flea market or yard sale.

I guess 15 of 31 isn't too bad, that's almost half. I am surprised that I didn't get around to sitting on a park bench, I thought that was going to be an easy one. However, I'm not too surprised that I didn't do any of the one's involving cleaning and organizing.

There are a few things that I didn't officially complete, but I still wanted to mention. Although I didn't finish it, I did make a good amount of progress in crocheting my blanket. I also threw a disc around at a wedding with some friends this past weekend, but it was after my 31 days so it doesn't count. Lastly, although I didn't talk to her myself, my parents saw our friend Jody the beekeeper this past weekend and they talked to her about bees since they knew that I've been interested. She said that she could set us up with some bees early next spring. Now I really have to follow up with her and get more information. I'm super excited that next year I could very well be a beekeeper myself!!

No Poo!!

I'm proud to share that I have been shampoo free for over a month now thanks to Brittany at Little Miss Scatterbrained. Check out her post on going Poo Free to learn more. In a nut shell, I decided to stop using shampoo because I heard that it's pretty harsh on your hair and strips away all of those nice healthy oils. Now to remove some of the excess oils from my hair, I just rub a little bit of baking soda into my scalp. I rinse that out and then I rinse with apple cider vinegar diluted with water.

For about the first 2 weeks my hair was uber gross and oily because my head was in over-production mode since it's used to having to keep up with me constantly stripping away all of the oils with shampoo. But after about 2 weeks my head figured things out, stopped producing so much oil and things got a lot less gross. Now I can actually go a few days without washing my hair and it doesn't get greasy.

All in all, I'm loving that I don't have to buy shampoo ever again. In addition to saving me a few bucks, it's better for my hair and I'm not exposing myself or the environment to all of the chemicals and other additives in shampoo. Plus, if you think about all the energy that goes into making the shampoo, packaging it, transporting it and then storing it on a shelf in a building with air conditioning/heating and lights it's really saving a lot of resources to skip the shampoo. In comparison, baking soda is cheap, I don't have to use much at all on my hair and since I buy a giant box that I use for all sorts of things like cleaning, it lasts a really long time and there isn't much packaging.

If you're interested I think you should totally give it a try. Just stay in there past the 2 week gross part- it gets much better.



Running:
Monday: 2.1 miles
Today: 4 miles!!!

Making Some Progress

I only have 3 more days to finish my 31 in 31 Days list! I have a feeling I'm not going to reach my goal, however, I have accomplished a few things so far:


1.) Bake cookies.

I made raspberry jelly thumbprint cookies. Yum.

5.) Finish knitting the sock that I started a while ago.


6.) Pick strawberries and make jam with Brittany @ Little Miss Scatterbrained, Amy @ Little Miss Moon Blossom, and Kara @ Lil Miss Wisecracker.

First we picked some perdy strawberries at Highland Orchards.

Then we made some delicious jam.


It a very enjoyable day!

10.) Finish Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth.

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome book. I loved all of the birth stories and the way Ina May describes birth and the things that influence it.

11.) Wander around the library.

13.) Harvest and eat beets from the garden.

Yummy!

20.) Finish reading Pushed by Jennifer Block.

This was another totally awesome book. It's packed full of tons and tons of information about the short comings of our modern maternity care. Everyone really needs to read this book.

23.) Make fried lentil balls.

I'd show pictures of the actual finished product but they really didn't turn out that well. Let's just say I need some practice. Interesting process though. My friend gave me this mix so it really wasn't too hard. You first add water to your mix (pictured above) and let it sit for 15 minutes. Drop spoonfuls of it into hot oil and cook until done. Place in a bowl of lukewarm water. After about 10 minutes take the lentil ball out and squeeze out the water. They are then eaten with some yogurt and topped with some cumin and salt. It was definitely interesting and not too bad. But again, I need practice and I'm not even completely sure exactly how they are supposed to turn out!

25.) Participate in Chinese Thursday at work (we all order Chinese food together).

I ordered chicken w/ string beans and fried rice. It was delicious.

27.) Stake, cage and/or trellis tomato plants.

Needless to say I've got a lot of work ahead of me if I want to even get close to finishing my list in the next 3 days!

Running Update

Recently I've been forgetting to add my running mileage to the bottom of my posts so I figure it's probably a good idea to record them now before I completely forget.

Friday 6/11- 2 miles
Saturday 6/12- 2.8 miles
Wednesday 6/16- 2 miles
Sunday 6/20- 3 miles

I haven't been keeping to a schedule or anything so I've been running fairly sporadically, which probably isn't the best thing for improving. I'm just not exactly sure how to change that. Sometimes it's hard to make running a priority when there are so many other things to do and then when I do have time for a run I tend to get lazy. Also, now that it's so hot out in the afternoon I've been doing more of my runs in the morning, but that makes it so easy for me to just roll over in bed and sleep for an extra hour instead of getting up. I should probably plan my runs, however making a plan and sticking to it are two different things. I don't think running on set days of the week would work for me. Maybe I just need to sit once week and plan out my runs for the next few days. Then I can work around things that are going on and make sure to fit in more runs. I may also be less inclined to be lazy if I've got it written down somewhere.

Any other ideas for getting in more runs and getting my butt out of bed in the mornings when I need to run?

Ranch Dressing

With both the garden and the CSA program, we've been bombarded with lettuce. And with lettuce comes salads and with salads comes salad dressing. Needless to say we've gone through a ton of dressing. Just the other day we completely ran out. I really didn't feel like going out and buying more so I decided to make some. I first mixed some sour cream with mayonnaise in about a 1:2 ratio. Then I chopped up a bunch of parsley and a bit of dill from my garden along with some garlic scrapes from the CSA.


I mixed that into my mayo mixture. Added a little salt to taste and stirred in some milk to make the whole thing a bit more pourable.


After it was all mixed up I put it in a handy left-over mayo bottle I had lying around because I'm cool like that.


The whole process didn't take more than a few minutes and boy was the final produce tasty. This batch was a bit dilly, but tasty nonetheless. The cool thing about this is that you can make it however you like with whatever you have lying around. You could throw in some onions, garlic, oregano, lemon juice, chives and I'm sure tons of other things to mix things up. The possibilities are endless! I'm totally excited about experimenting with dressings now. Bring on the lettuce!

Kohlrabi

One of the things that I absolutely love about being in a CSA program, is being introduced to new foods. This past week we got kohlrabi in our boxes- I had never even heard of that vegetable before. But isn't it pretty! I love the colors and its just so weird looking.




The other thing I love about this CSA program is that they tell us what to do with weird stuff like this. Apparently since these are still young and tender we can just cut up the root part and throw it in a salad, which I did and it was very yummy. It's almost like a cross between a turnip and a potato. I hear you can also cook and eat the leaves.

Have any of you ever encountered this strange vegetable before?