November - Goals, etc. (Day 1)

For the past few months, I've been trying out some new things, for just a month.  For example, in August I decided I would walk for 15 minutes a day, every day; and in October, I was going to go to bed by 10:30 every night.  The idea is to try something different for 30 days, if it works, great and I can try and incorporate it into my routine; if it doesn't, at least I tried something new.  I probably need to write it down so I don't forget what I was going to do ...

So back to August, I actually did walk for 15 minutes every day or every day but one -- of course I haven't kept it up, but I think I may go back to it.  It's pretty easy to start my day out that way.  I have no idea what I tried for September (hence the reason to write it down).  October was a complete bust.  I can't seem to go to sleep earlier than 11 p.m. no matter what I try.

For November, my goal is to blog every day -- at least post something.

So, this is day 1, and this is a picture of Spooky.

Salsa .. the rest of the tomatoes

So, rather than allow the tomatoes to spoil (like I did the last time I had a bunch of them), I decided to make salsa.  I took the recipe from here.

This is what their salsa looks like:

This is what mine looks like.

I did actually canning, so it can sit in the cupboard for a year.

Creamy Green Tomato Soup

So, we took the tomato plants out today and I pulled whatever tomatoes I could from the plants.  There were some red ones and lots of green ones.

I found a recipe for green tomato soup on the internet, here.  I washed the tomatoes, and quartered them, along with two onions and garlic cloves.

and then I roasted those, for about 25 minutes or so ...

 

After that, I put them in a blender with some vegetable broth, and some spinach...

 

I then made some herb infused oil with basil and parsley ... (no picture of the finished product but here's the parsley and basil).

 

We added some half and half to make it creamier and some sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes.  I then drizzled, some of the herb infused oil on top (more like dripped it from a spoon).

 

 

And here's the finished product ...

The List #30 - DONE!!!

So, one of my goals this year was to have a 35,000 step day (FitBit steps).  I figured the only time I'd be able to do it would be when I was on vacation because it takes a long time to accumulate that many steps. 

I was in the middle of a work week challenge -- fighting for the lead.  I decided that Friday of that week (August 25) I would try and get my 35K steps and hopefully win the challenge.  I took my usual morning walk (to the marina and back about 9K steps).  Then later walked it again ..  

The marina.

and back again.

My husband and I drove in to town and on the way home, I had him drop me off 4 miles from our hotel and began walking.  Since it was dinner time, he came and picked me up after just two miles.  I was at about 26K steps at that point.

After dinner, I again walked to the marina.  I ran into an acquaintance and walked back with her.  She had a set walk so I walked with her and got about 10-11K steps -- hit my 35K! 

However, for the work week challenge, the person nearest to me was only about 4K behind me -- and he was constantly walking and racking up the numbers.  Even though I was exhausted, my husband talked me into walking a little more and I hit 40K! 

At this point, I didn't care if I lost the challenge. I was ready to concede ..  However, I did win, but only by about 1,200 steps.

Vacay ...

So, my husband and I are going on vacation, together.  We'll be going to Eagle Harbor Michigan, home of the tree.

Which I'm pretty sure looks exactly the same this year as it did last year.  We will be there to help my father enjoy his break -- from us.  Not quite sure how that works.  He's been there for two weeks without us, but now we're coming to spend the rest of his vacation with him and bring him home.

We stay at the Lake Breeze Resort.  They don't actually have a website, but this shows you the front of the hotel/resort/lodge/whatever.  When I googled "Lake Breeze", it came up as a haunted place.  Who knew? If I see/hear/experience anything like that, I'll be sure to report it here.

Mozarella ... #27

One of my goals this year was to make mozzarella cheese (#27 on the List).  So a couple of weeks ago we found a recipe, got the rennet and citric acid (order from Amazon) and then did nothing.  Last night, I finally decided to try it. 

I dissolved the citric acid in the water.

Dissolved 1/4 of a rennet tablet in water.
 

Poured an entire gallon of milk into a pan (and then added the citric acid/water) and cooked until it was about 90 degrees.

We then removed it from the heat, added, the rennet, stirred, covered and let it sit for 5 minutes ..
and then 5 more minutes, and then 5 more minutes.

It didn't look like the picture but it had been 15 minutes so I cut it as instructed anyway. and then cooked until it reached about 105 degrees.

After that, I microwaved it as instructed and kneaded it and here is what it looked like.

It tasted fine, but not the way I was hoping.  So we'll use another recipe and try again. 

The recipe made it seem like it would be soooo easy.  but no.  perhaps another recipe will be better.

July Wrap Up - August Goals

So here's how I did on last month's goals:

1 - make some quilt blocks -- I've made quite a few.  Here's a picture of some of them.

2 - start Nate's quilt - NOPE
3 - Couch to 5K - working on it.
4 - meet step goal more often than not (so at least 16 days) -- I only met my goal 13 days (:()
5 - start a biography - started on the first Churchill biography (listening)
6 - get souffle pan - Done

August goals:

1 - finish collar for OD
2 - finish Couch to 5K
3 - have 35K step day

Not only are we half way through the month, but I'm going on vacation for two weeks beginning this Friday, so I'll leave my goals as above...

Just the finishing the Couch to 5K program will be a huge accomplishment...

Banana Bread

Does that count as bread?

We had some overripe bananas so I made some bread .. I used pecans instead of walnuts.  Turned out to be a good thing because we gave one loaf away and one of the recipients had a walnut allergy ..

Got the recipe from here.

June wrap up - July goals

We're well into July, but there's no time like the present to update last month and set goals for this month.

1 - Start quilt for Nate - NOPE
2 - Work on baby quilt (8 more blocks) - NO
3 - Do couch to 5K - no promises on how far I get - worked on. Got to Week 4, Day 1.
4 - Meet step goal 3/7 days

     Wk 1 - May 28 - June 3 : 3 of 7
     Wk 2 - June 4 - June 10 : 5 of 7
     Wk 3 - June 11 - June 17 : 2 of 7
     Wk 4 - June 18 - June 24 : 3 of 7
     Wk 5 - June 25 - July 1 : 1 of 7

5 - Make a new bread - Nope but I did make pretzel bites (well that was for July 4th)

6 - Make blue elephant(s)

Goals for July :

1 - make some quilt blocks
2 - start Nate's quilt
3 - Couch to 5K
4 - meet step goal more often than not (so at least 16 days)
5 - start a biography
6 - get souffle pan

I expect work to be really crazy for the rest of this month and next month too, so I don't want to set myself up for total failure ...

New Hike #3 - Garin Regional Park

In early June, my OD came for a very quick visit.  While she was in town we went on a new hike, to Garin Regional Park. 

 

The two girls, and Max.

The three of us.

There was a big hill to climb up ... we made it to the top .. except for my husband.  He stopped about half way up and waited for us to come down.

Not a great walk.  Probably wouldn't do it again.  But it's one to add to my list.

Napa (yet again)

So, before Nevada left for Washington, we took one more trip to Napa together ... We visited all of our normal haunts, Mumm Napa, Raymond, and Merryvale, but we added a new one : ZD.

They have an outrageously expensive blend called Abacus that we tried .. it was good (but not that good -- we should have asked the price beforehand).

However, we sat on their patio for about two hours, mostly by ourselves and relaxed.  That was really nice.

ZD was actually our second stop of the day -- we had our bubbles first ...

Took a look around the art gallery that they have at Mumm and checked out their barrel rooms.

and our final stop at Merryvale ... you can't tell from this shot so much, but the glass on the right was HUGE.

Then we had dinner at Tra Vigne Pizzeria.  They have the best mozzarella .. to die for.

And that was our day .. it was a very nice trip.  Hopefully we'll have more when she comes to visit, but until then, I've got a wonderful memory.