Who knew?

So I have been really enjoying lately getting into foods that cook themselves. I don’t know whether this is a coincidence or what, but it makes organizing yummy and healthy foods much easier because most of these methods allow me to omit virtually oil etc and be scrupulously aware of the ingredients I am using, without being a massive PITA. So I have the slow cooker and the big iron pots, but the other day I discovered something which had never occurred to me, and was totally prompted by trying to come up with a meal using just what I had in the house.

Got a new rice cooker and noticed that the little recipe book had some recipes for rice cooker risotto. Now I quite like risotto, but find it can be finicky and Hub isn’t always a great fan of the way I make it. So the other day I noticed that I had pretty much everything I needed for one of the recipes in the house. Seeing as this coincided with me being way too unethused to go shopping it was a goer.

I am officially on board with the rice cooker risotto idea. Risotto in the rice cooker is super easy and makes very nice risotto with minimum of finicks, plus it is absolutely designed to regulate portion control.

So far we have experimented with a couple of different recipes which have been a great hit. The only requirements is that the ingredients have to require a relatively limited amount of cooking or otherwise need to be cooked in advance. Simply put, you spray the rice cooker bowl with some oil spray or a dash of olive oil, and put it on the cook setting for one minute. Then you add finely diced onion and/or garlic and whatever herbs you might want to use. Stir until the onions are mostly cooked then add some Arborio rice and the right amount of stock. Stick the lid on and forget it until it flips from cook to warm. Then stir in some parmesan and whatever other ingredients you have decided on and any final seasoning. Leave on warm setting for 10 mins or until it tastes ready.

That is all there is to it – with a little bit of prep you can have a yummy healthy dinner cooking away for you in the background leaving you free to watch Boston Legal to your heart’s content.

We have used this technique for a chicken tomato and basil risotto (add chopped tomato and thinly sliced grilled chicken) and for a chicken, spinach and mushroom risotto so far (baby spinach, grilled chicken and sliced mushrooms) and both were excellent.

Klutz

So I really wasn’t feeling like going for a run yesterday. I had already procrastinated about it for a day so I pulled on the runners and headed out. Felt awful and totally without energy but at least holier than thou about actually getting out there.

And though I felt awful and unenthused it was a pretty nice morning for it. I noticed a young guy on the actual road itself practicing exercises with a soccer ball. So I waited until I drew up almost level with him to display my incredible ineptitude by catching my toe on a raised bit of concrete and falling spectacularly to the ground. Splat.

My first impulse when sprawled on the ground was to see if I could right myself casually so that it would appear to anyone happening to see this spectacle that *I meant it* and that I had fully intended to fall over in that way. Amazingly enough the guy with soccer ball didn’t seem to notice (or was embarrassed enough to pretend not to have noticed), so I think I got away with it.

Needless to say, with a bleeding leg and sore hands from breaking my fall, I decided that karma had decreed that the run should finish. So I limped pitifully back home to drown my sorrows in the shower. The leg is fine, with just some brusing, cuts and gravel rash, but hurts enough for me to feel sorry for myself and vaguely sheepish for managing to be so unco.

Loser. I don’t know why I am allowed out of the house without full crash gear and all the trimmings.

Cold days

Well it certainly has been lately. For some reason to buck the trend I always find it more appetising to be regularly exercising in Winter – love splashing through the puddles and the rain and so on. As a result, having had a week where I have been pretty busy and unable to get out much, I am absolutely hanging out to go for a bit of a trot tonight.

Anyone else who is a big Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) fan like I am absolutely has to check his new project. It had me giggling last night, particularly after having watched Felicity Day for the last year in her web project The Guild. Oh and if you are into fun things on the interwebz, be sure to check out Julia Nunes who I find to be just adorable.

Hmm that turned into a collection of random links, didn’t it?

Anyway, don’t have much to say but to tick the boxes that still on track and doing the things I want to be doing. My ipod ran out of batteries and I was too lazy to charge it so I am not sure how the vampires are going, but will find out what they are up to tonight.

Guh

So, sitting here in dreary old Melbourne on a freezing day.

The running is going well. Still sticking to a short loop which gives me about 20-25 min of running/walking depending on how much I walk. Amazingly enough I have to move to my next biggest loop as am beginning to get through it too quickly due to few walking breaks. Yay me.

Don’t you hate it when you try to make a good food choice and opt for a salad or something instead of that yummy looking fish burger which you are so tempted by. And then the salad turns up drowning in dressing, totally soggy and lacklustre (and the person who ordered a burger said it was fabulous).

I don’t know why it should be that I eat so much better when religiously tracking my food. It is not like anyone checks whether I am telling the truth or finds out if I have done the wrong thing. Maybe I just want to impress the the little online tracker tool with how conscientious I am being.

You know, you can be really focussed on a new running program, but sometimes you have more residual soreness from the weeding and garden clearing galore from four days ago. Ouch. Hammies still sore.

I wonder why my work isn’t more like Boston Legal? It gives me a little let down when I come into work and find that Alan Shore and Denny Crane haven’t materialised in my office holding a cigar and a glass of scotch.

Luxury

So this morning I was amazed to experience the feeling of space on the train. School holidays means all the school bags and kids are absent, but it appears that a good number of their family members have also agreed to take a break so the absence of the filled to the brim carriages was a pleasant change.

So the reintroduction to the running has been going well – completed my intended schedule for this week and actually have done much better than I thought I would in terms of how I have felt about it all. Must be distracted by having the bejeezus scared out of me by the books on tape version of “I am legend”. I didn’t realise that it was the same story as the movie “The Omega Man” so when Will Smith was on the trailers all whiny and “I have a dog” and stuff, I kind of took them at their word when they said “only person alive” and thought that it was kind of an urban version of Castaway and dealing with the fact that everyone else in the whole world was gone. But I realise that they were all being clever and stuff and there were no other human beings on earth, but everyone else had gone and been zombified (in the book they are all vampires).

So given that I have been listening to this while running at night, in the dark, in the cold, on deserted suburban streets, maybe this wasn’t such a good choice after all. A couple of times Toby the dog shaped boy has come along to protect me – but he seems more focussed on peeing on every tree in a five block radius than protecting me from vampires (this from a dog who got the snip as a puppy and therefore should have no marking instinct).

Hmm, that got a little off track, didn’t it?

So the plus side is no really sore legs, good consistency and scary vampires. Everything you look for in an exercise regime.

Overstated it

So just to clarify, there ain’t been much in the way of running over the last 6 months. I have started up again in a more dedicated way but it will be a while before I am thinking about any serious running goals. Just for the moment getting out there and moving regularly will be fine with me.

Toby the dog shaped boy didn’t destroy the house, though he did destroy a few things within the house. Nothing too concerning though. Perhaps Sasha the mature one kept him in check. Actually they are lying on my lap snoring at the moment so who can be mad at them, the darlings.

So with the whole turning over a new leaf, I am tracking exercise, I am tracking food (though I am spectacularly bad at choosing healthy options eating out – I choose something that seems healthy, then go and punch it into the system and whoah – why didn’t I just eat some dried crackers and chug a bottle of champers – it would be less calories and I wouldn’t remember that I was still hungry). And as of tonight, we decided at my church congregation that we would each spend a couple of months tracking our spending. Though I have done this before, I am a little concerned about what it will reveal about the poor way that I steward my resources (always a good source of guilt from my father’s teachings). I use a budget and do these types of assessments relatively regularly but have been putting off doing this one. Suspect that there will be a few changes in that area I need to implement as well.

Okay, so that seems the whole triangle of self-assessment horror. Good-o.

Self deception

It is really very easy for months and months to slip past with all the very best intentions giving way to a vague undirected sort of half effort. The vague half effort has been good as these things go, but ought be replaced by something a little more well-intentioned and consistent. Random thoughts:

1. I am a clutz. How is it possible that I don’t fall down more? I half feel like I should wear crash gear to go running these days.

2. Audio books rock as a soundtrack for running. Started listening to I am Legend last night during my run and can’t wait to go again so I can listen to the next instalment. Side note – how is it possible for me to have completely missed the whole pretext of that plot? I mean, I didn’t see the movie or anything, but I saw a heap of ads for it, and still within the first 2 minutes of listening to the book I was all like “Hmm, that was unexpected”.

3. I still can’t understand why my ribs hurt after I go running. Do I really swing my arms so violently as to provide a workout for my ribs?

4. I am pleasantly surprised at how much fitness I have maintained. Though the other day Hub cautioned me not to run in public because I “run like a [my maiden name]“, as if that explained everything.

5. Note to self – remember that you drove the car to the station today – remind yourself of this so that you (a) get off at the right station and (b) don’t walk home.

6. So reading around it appears that lots has been happening for various people since I last read forums and blogs. Consider this my all purpose congratulations, commiserations, expression of interest in your lives (to the extent that you still read this).

7. Additional note to self – stop spending the day fretting about the destruction that toby the dog shaped boy is sure to have wreaked at home with Hub away all day. He has already destroyed all of the books that your sister lent you so it is not as if you will have to buy (even) more replacements.

8. Too late. I sure hope that the house is still standing when I get home (after remembering to get off at the right station and pick up the car).

Outside motivators

Hmm, this year will be an interesting experiment I think, as I have some “outside motivators” in relation to the whole PROJECT(tm). Not ones of my choosing of course, but ones that I do have to pay attention to. So, though I increasingly have little time to post here, one of the things is to make sure that I do so regularly to be accountable to myself a bit.

I did bite the bullet and start back on the C25K, which is all good fun. I do enjoy running (at least once I have started doing so). Last night Hub and I went for a long walk with the kids and toby the dog shaped boy managed to get all tired out (this is worth mentioning as it so rarely happens). Anyway, still waddling on.

Real life responses to my last post

Okay, did any of you realise that posting things on the intermanet means that other people read them?

So Hub apparently found out about all things I am planning to do this year. Add number 51 to the list: talk to Hub more.

And the other thing he pointed out from my list is that I mentioned toby the dog shaped boy about 4 times but never mentioned at all the darling incomparable sasha, who is our other dog. That is, of course, because she already does what she is told and comes when she is called and all of those detail oriented things. Oh, and she is more of a daddy’s girl anyway, so it tends to be me that has to square off against the dog boy (he is only two years old btw, so we understand that he is going through a bit of a stage.

So I am toying with this idea that I read in the last Runners World of rewarding myself when I meet my exercise goals. Financially that is. I figure I generally feel guilty spending money on splurging for myself anyway, so why not go with it? So starting now, I am going to put some money away every week when I manage at least three sessions of exercise per week, I put $3 in the tin. For every session more than that I chuck in an extra buck. Then after 6 months (or twelve months if I do less well) I can break out the tin and buy myself something nice and running related.

From now on will be reporting the running balance. Geddit?

Oh, and nudge the forerunner refused to speak to me for all of about 5 minutes before he started beeping and recording data like a mad thing. What a sweet little anthropomorphised electronic device.

50 tasks for 2008

1. Keep the whole exercise thing more regular – not necessarily breaking any records or anything, just regularly getting out there.
2. Get a good night’s sleep more often.
3. Keep myself accountable to 1 & 2.
4. Really really really do work on my thesis.
5. Really.
6. Stop putting off all of those things I need to do for myself – eye check, doctors check up, health insurance, tax agent etc etc
7. Be more efficient so that I can spend more time lolling around doing nothing much.
8. Stop procrastinating.
9. Actually, I will leave that one until next year.
10. Catch up with my (extended) family more often.
11. Eat more sensibly more consistently.
12. Walk the dogs more.
13. Finally sort out all of my finances.
14. Get organised – clear out all of my un-needed junk.
15. Get rid of clothes that I don’t wear.
16. Suck it up and buy enough clothes to have a full wardrobe, even if I am trying to drop dress sizes.
17. Organise it so that I actually have a wardrobe, or at least somewhere to hang stuff.
18. Teach toby the dog shaped boy to stop eating my clogs (seriously, 7 pairs in various states of disrepair is too many).
19. Get over my fear of confronting how far I have fallen, and hook up Nudge the garmin again, and load my training records.
20. Maintain training records.
21. Welcome Betty into our home (hopefully more on this in the coming months).
22. Finally find a new bloody house (with a nice laundry) and move in.
23. Finish that cool cardigan that is half knitted under the bed before winter hits.
24. Have a really flash celebration for the wedding anniversary (10 years!)
25. Get savings. Or gold ingots or something.
26. Make another batch of mead.
27. Increase giving to charity.
28. Teach toby the dog shaped boy to come when he is called, even if he does have a ball in his mouth.
29. Go away somewhere nice that I haven’t been before.
30. Embrace my newfound love affair for plain mineral water (ahh, so refreshing).
31. Go through with the plan to get all of the nieces and nephews football memberships.
32. Go to the football more often.
33. Play golf at least once a quarter.
34. Do fun and adventurous activities that I have avoided for a while or have never done (swimming, water aerobics, bike riding, trap shooting).
35. Be a good boss so that people speak about me in awe and hushed tones (seriously, that would be cool).
36. Spend more time with the nieces and nephews.
37. Go to some fun runs and events so that I can catch up with ausrun people again.
38. Be svelte.
39. Drink water lots.
40. Get all the washing done.
41. Take mum and dad out to dinner or to a show. For no reason.
42. Get a new watch
43. Have people for lunch/dinner more often.
44. Dye my hair.
45. Finish painting the house (One part of the house has been done for like 4 years – time for the rest to be done).
46. Preserve lots of tomatoes.
47. Plant flowers.
48. Organise my paperwork once and for all.
49. Keep contact with all the people I know I should keep contact with.
50. Be at peace.