Daily Dabblings

I was going to do all of these in one post, but it was getting way too long so it will, instead, be a brief introductory series to the things that I’m currently considering pursuing.  First off, fitness, which has probably been the most consistent thing in my life since leaving school (other than television).

Exercise has always been part of my life.  I was in gymnastics classes from 2 to 12 and then played tennis and ran track in middle and high school.  Once I left for college, however, it became more sporadic.  I took some random fitness classes over those four years and went to the gym in spurts but I haven’t consistently worked out for more than 6 months at a time since high school.  I can definitely tell the difference in my body, both in appearance and general feelings of wellness and strength, and I can’t say that I’m happy with my current level of fitness. Since I ended grad school at the beginning of December, I’ve started exercising pretty regularly (again).  For the first month and a half this consisted of going running a few times a week or maybe doing some videos that I found online or doing the 30 Day Shred.  Almost a month ago, I started getting more interested in weightlifting and the benefits of getting my strength back.  I ordered The New Rules of Lifting for Women and today will complete my third week of that.  So far my strength has drastically improved relatively quickly (although I’m sure a lot of that has to do with not knowing where I should have actually been starting in terms of weight).  I was lucky enough to find a friend who wanted to do it with me which has been an amazing deterrent from skipping a workout.  So, currently I’m lifting Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and trying to get my running up 3 times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, leaving Sunday as a rest day.

As for how this pertains to my future, over the last year or two, I’ve considered becoming a personal trainer.  I would definitely want to do something with a heavy focus on nutrition (more on that later) but some part of me feels inspired to help other people become healthy.  A lot of this interest began when, out of boredom, I started watching The Biggest Loser.  Mostly the show is too much game for me but the brief parts where you get to see people training and progressing I find very inspiring.  I’ve also noticed that the benefits of exercise is one of the topics that I really enjoy reading about when I’m perusing the internet.  I think it’s clear that there’s something broken in our society and whatever it is has happened fairly recently.  While I’m convinced that the root of the problem isn’t a simple lack of exercise, the decline of physical activity done by adults and children is certainly a component.  So, helping people incorporate exercise into their lives is something that I think is important and that I could see being a part of my future.

As part of my deal with myself, I’m trying to cook more since I don’t really have an excuse now.  I’ve cooked every night this week and we’re having leftovers tonight.  I’m actually really enjoying putting together dinners that are slightly more involved.  Instead of putting veggies in the oven and cooking some rice or cooking everything in one dutch oven, I’ve been using multiple pots and steps and for just that little extra work, the resulting meal is so much better.  They almost look and taste like something I’d get at a decently nice restaurant.  I used recipes found online for all of them with a few modifications or additions to each one.

Raw Tuscan Kale Salad

Monday: Raw tuscan kale salad with lemon pecorino dressing on a bed of wheat berries and topped with a poached egg.  This was a delicious meal that I highly recommend. The dressing is pretty lemony and the cheese in it is amazing.  I used an extra clove of garlic following my personal rule of always adding at least an extra clove of garlic to any recipe and I think that may have been a mistake, it was really strong.  I used her suggestion of topping it with a poached egg (first time attempting that technique, quite a learning experience!) and instead of mixing it with farro, I just cooked some wheat berries and put the salad on top of them.  I used almost an entire bunch of lacinato kale for two people which sounds like a lot but I could have eaten more.

Beet Bourguinon

Tuesday: Beet Bourguinon served with lentils and mashed potatoes.  This was a recipe Drake sent me.  I was a little wary at first because, while I like beets, I generally enjoy them as an accent flavor, not the dominating one.  The earthiness of them really mellows out in this recipe, though; it wasn’t too beety at all.  The recipe suggests only cooking the stew for 30 minutes total but at that point, the beets still weren’t cooked through.  I started this at around 3 and just let it simmer until dinner.  The lentils and mashed potatoes broke up the monochromatic effect and helped it be a little more filling.  If you don’t outright hate beets, I definitely suggest trying this recipe.

Chili Relleno

Wednesday: Chili Relleno. Poblanos stuffed with a quinoa-bison mixture and topped with a pecan cream sauce, served with black beans.  This recipe needed a few tweaks.  I halved the stuffing recipe because there were only two of us eating it and ended up with way too much quinoa,  I ended up leaving out about 2/3 cups of cooked quinoa.  The sauce was really what needs work, though.  It was just really bland. I don’t know if it would be better if the pecans were toasted or if they’d had time to sit in the milk and sour cream mixture so that some of the flavor could absorb, but the pecan flavor was pretty much undetectable and the sauce mostly just tasted like milk and sour cream.  Overall the meal was good I just recommend being careful with the spicing of things.  I didn’t get to put much time into the sauce but I think I’ll come back to this recipe in the future and put more focus on perfecting the sauce.  Making it before the end of the meal would probably be a good idea.

Roasted Veggie Pizza

Thursday: Roasted vegetable pizza.  I used the pioneer woman’s pizza dough recipe topped with pre-roasted sweet potatoes, red onions, carrots, garlic, beets, and broccoli. This is something I’ve made many times since we got a pizza stone and is one of the favorite meals in our house.  Until we did this, carrots and beets on a pizza seemed completely outlandish to me, but trust me, they are fabulous. (Just make sure to roast them first because I’ve tried it without that step and it is not fabulous.)

Tonight will be leftover beet bourguinon because that made a lot of food.

…Or lack thereof. Sort of.

So, here’s a quick summary to bring everyone up to speed.  I left a job I had been unhappy in for 3 years to start a graduate program in landscape architecture last fall.  Skip to late October when I realized that becoming a landscape architect was an old dream that I was trying to mold to fit my new interests.  I do not advise doing this, especially if, when you explain how you want to use your future degree, people just stare at you and don’t say anything positive.  After a few months of doing more things I didn’t enjoy, I started putting less and less effort into the program while focusing more on the things I was interested in during my free time.  This led to the decision to quit the program after the first semester.

Cut to present.  I have been unemployed (by a job or responsibilities of any sort) for a little over 2 months.  I’ve enjoyed my free time but have sort of settled into a rut of cleaning the house, exercising and watching a lot of TV. While the first two are admirable pursuits, I think it’s time for more.  However, after spending 3.5 years doing things that left me feeling miserable and as if I wasn’t contributing anything meaningful to anyone or anything, I’m still not eager to jump into a full-time job just to get a salary and feel secure monetarily.  This is what I did at my last job and I did so at the cost of my happiness and sense of self-worth.  Instead, my (loose) plan is to explore my interests at a deeper level and construct a life around things that make me happy.

This blog will be a documentation of this journey (hopefully).  I’m going to try to be honest in my posts and use them to note my feelings in the moment to keep a record for my future self who may or may not skew the facts when looking back on past events.

This picture just makes me feel happy and calm (it’s the La Fortuna waterfall in Costa Rica taken on my trip there in August of 2008).  Seems appropriate to look at before embarking on something kind of anxiety-inducing.