Thursday Friday already?

I wanted to blog yesterday. I really did. But my stupid internet at home wasn't working!

And NOW I'm writing this on Friday instead of Thursday - I wrote that first sentence on Thursday. Geez!

THANK YOU THANK YOU to everybody's nice comments about my tomato disaster! I really appreciate the offers for more tomatoes, the ideas about trading (Chris, I will look into that...). The funny thing is that after I wrote that, one of the horrid-looking plants is somehow still producing some tomatoes. It's like the little plant that could.

Thankfully I DID join a CSA last week. It's with Tierra Vegetables here in Santa Rosa. Last week I got eggplant, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, onion and some carrots. It was GREAT! I can't wait to get my pickup today and see what's in store for the weekend and what might result from cooking.

Speaking of cooking...I have a few recipes to get down here. Two weeks ago I made this Salade Nicoise from the SF Chronicle. Here's how it turned out:


Yes, it really was as good as it looks. Mmmmmmm!!!! With the warm weather, I HIGHLY recommend this salad. It's super easy, doesn't take too much work, and if you can get a really high quality canned tuna (NO CHICKEN OF THE SEA, OKAY?), it will simply be delectable.

I found the most difficult part is getting hard boiled eggs just right. I'm always worried about over-boiling them so I end up under-boiling just a tad. I think that's better than over-boiling, personally. I don't like how dried up the yolk gets. And if you can get some fresh heirloom tomatoes, fresh green beans, and some super tasty bell peppers - it's that much better. I skipped the beets, btw. I just can't do beets. I try, but I can't. Blech.

Next up: Curried Egg Salad from 101 Cookbooks.com.
My picture isn't nearly as pretty as the one on the website. In fact, my creation looks downright, um...well not very good. BUT IT IS GOOD! Again, my eggs were slightly underdone so I think it got a little mushier than it's supposed to be. Still, the flavor was awesome and it went really well on some pita bread. A great protein snack!

Besides being in the kitchen, I've been exploring the area a little bit more. Tuesday evening we went on a hike with LandPaths, a neat organization that does a lot of different things in the community - "LandPaths is dedicated to fostering a love of the land in Sonoma County. LandPaths creates ways for people to experience the beauty, understand the value, and assist in healing the land in their local communities."

So anyway, they were leading a full moon hike up this big 'mountain', which is an open space that is accessible by permit only. So it was our group up there, hiking up this big hill just before sunset, having a picnic dinner at the top, and then hiking back down under the glow of the nearly full moon. HOW COOL IS THAT?! It was very cool.

Awww, baby cow and mama cow!!

Here the moon had just risen and you could just start to see Jupiter off to the left of it. Not visible in my picture, though.

Almost to the top!

READY TO EAT DINNER!

Yes, the cows were getting annoyed that I was trying to take pictures of them in the dark. No moos though. I'm sure they were wondering what we were doing...

So that was fun. I've also enjoyed getting to the pool more - 3x times this week! Yeah! My coach videotaped me and said "I really like your stroke and there's not a lot I'd pick apart. But you pick your head up - look at that - SEE THAT? WOW!" I was like um, yeah, wow. So, apparently that is really affecting my speed a lot. The other major thing she said was that I had to 'get my ribs back.'

She said that if you watch Michael Phelps when he does fly, he looks like a humpback whale, his ribs are SO BACK THERE. Hm. Ribs back. Okay...

Now I'm thinking about ribs, breathing and keeping my elbow up every time I swim, which is both good and bad. Sometimes it's nice just to swim. But, I also love that challenge and that you're always working on something.

I went to the Airport Club this morning to meet my class - I'll officially start teaching on Friday, Sep 5, so I went to get introduced to everybody and get a feel for the class and what the current instructor's style is - he's been there for 4.5 years, so I have some pretty big shoes to fill!! Yipes!

Phew! Busy and fun week with lots of exercise and activity. The one thing I haven't been doing as much of is running, which isn't great. I realized that it's pretty clear I favor swimming and biking, but I'm going to make a more intentional effort to get my miles in over the next few weeks so that I can really be ready for XC!

That's it for now. I should have plenty to blog about after this weekend. Tomorrow is the Winters Road Race and Sunday is the Tour d'Organics, which I'm doing with my friends Megan and Carmen and who knows who else I might bump into? I signed up for the 100M ride but I think there's a good chance we'll end up doing the 100K (65 miles) instead. Afterward the Tour d'Organics serves a vegan meal, which is great for Megan, but yours truly is going to need something much more substantial than a vegan meal by the end of this weekend!

Therefore, Carmen and I are planning on going to HopMonk after the ride. I'm almost as excited about that as the race and the ride! Ha!!!

Before I forget - it IS Friday, and I always put a few fun links up, so this is no different. My picks for the week:

1) Song I recently 'refound' - Out of My Head - Fastball

2) Song I recently downloaded - Gotta Get Thru This - Daniel Bedingfield

3) Because MSNBC doesn't have anything better to report on, they've brought up the issue of preteen girls getting bikini waxes. Um...okay, when I was 12, my mom wouldn't even let me SHAVE MY LEGS (but then somehow when I was 13 she ok'd it so I could stop hiding it!)! I can't even respond to this, it's so stupid. Don't we grow up fast enough as it is? WHY DO PRETEEN GIRLS NEED TO BE IN BIKINIS? Let's start with that one...

Have a fabulous weekend.