Posted by Lindsay Beeson on January 24, 2012. 4 comments.

What I Ate Wednesday friends: my day, it was full of things! Mostly walky things. And talky things. Write-y things, too. Today, every plate of food or cup feels a little more like a story.

What I ate (and did)

Breakfast:I gone and done it. I replaced my two-toasts-and-egg breakfast (plus butter and sea salt) — something I ate for nearly a year solid — with oatmeal. But not regular oatmeal. I mean, not regular to me. This oatmeal is cooked up with fruit sliced into it. And without sugar. Just fruit (an apple for the bowl above), oats, cinnamon, salt, pecans. Then top it with peanut butter and stir. Yeah, I totally borrowed this from Kath. So thank you, Kath, for introducing me to the wonder that is heated fruit. And I highly recommend banana slices — soft, puffy, candy bites! No need for sweeteners.

Mid-morning snack: My sister(-in-law) was in town this weekend, and her plane didn’t take off until midday. Enough time for a run! Together! I almost always run by myself, so I was excited to have a partner and see how she does things. I’m a newbie to running; she has a lot more miles under her belt (she’s running a half-marathon in March!). And what I didn’t know was that I was excited to have someone to talk to during my run. I like my solitude, yeah. But this was fun. This made it easier. And we ran a 5k this morning without a thought.

By the time we got home, I needed a snack. Clementine, please. And just a little later, another snack. Juicy pear. The morning was good. Full of sisterly talk and running, cleaning, eating good-for-us foods. Too bad she had to head out on a plane, all the way to New Orleans.

So far away!

Lunch: Durn this was tasty. Quinoa mixed with: a can of tuna; a bit of pesto; a bit of plain yogurt; red onions (chopped); salt; pepper; nutritional yeast (just to try it out); black olives. Stirred good. Pile of spinach. This was improved only by taking it to our porch swing (built by my brother!) and eating it while listening to the radio, then to my husband on the phone.

My view.

The porch swing. Isn’t beautiful? My brother made it shortly after Patrick and I knew this would be Our House. It was the first thing that went up when we moved in.

Midafternoon coffee: My time at Krankies is dear. I’m resolved: I’ll come here once a week, order a cup of drip, write, think, plan. But just once a week. I went so far as to buy myself a gift certificate, just enough for eight weekly visits.

And this day was perfect; so good that I walked here, bag strapped to my back and boots on my feet. Notebook for (paper!) journaling, notepad for letter-writing to old friends, laptop for being productive. Coffee for being very productive.

It was all sore feet and warm belly.

Pre-dinner snack: A hand-in-jar serving of homemade granola. Dogger keeping watch.

Dinner: OK, so the dinner story is simple: I got home to discover a “Welcome to the neighborhood!” coupon from Whole Foods. What was it for? A free family-sized meal. Free! So I rushed out, of course. I grabbed the spiced turkey burritos (other choices were pasta primavera or chicken tenders), along with the free family-sized salad.

Marvelous, right? The burritos needed just an extra sprinkle of salt (and goat cheese for good measure), but otherwise the meal was satisfying. Not so satisfying was this:

This is half the amount of burritos that came with the dish. It’s sitting in a very standard-sized 9-inch-square pan. And guess what the whole thing was billed as? Enough for a family of four, or two to three adults.” Holy crap. With that logic, what you see above would have fed a single person. I fear for the future of our country when even Whole Foods seems to misunderstand portion control.

Dessert: I’m sure I’ll write in more detail about this later (it’s on my to-do list) … I’m cutting out sugar, except for honey. On a whim, and for a week. And then possibly a month. And then maybe for most of my life (excluding joyous celebrations). Guess what I would miss like hell without sugar? Chocolate. I got a craving the other night, and I experimented this way:

I had unsweetened chocolate in my pantry. We always have honey. So I melted an ounce of the chocolate (in the microwave, in a little ramekin, about a minute-and-a-half), and then I poured in 10 grams of honey. Stirred like crazy. Watched the mixture go from silky smooth sauce to grainifying paste to dookie-looking-ball. I ate that stuff up (with a sprinkle of granola), because it was delicious. So bittersweet. New thing in my life. Forever and always? Maybe I’ll marry it since I love it so much?

Posted by Lindsay Beeson on January 20, 2012. 4 comments.

These feet! They ran this morning!

That dawgface! … OK. She didn’t help me run, but she helped make a cute photo (and I’m kinda thinking she needs to squirm her way to Star of Lindsay’s Blog. The eyes. The moufspace. The perfect schnozzle).

Back to my feet. And to my 10k goal. It’ll be a relatively slow start. I plan to use the beginner’s plan for this 10k training schedule on Cool Running.

Included in the plan, as laid out, is four to five weeks of pre-training to make sure you’re ready for the real thing. The pre-training is five days a week of four- or three-mile runs. And the thing is, I’m not sure I’m totally ready for that. So I’m setting myself up a little pre-training pre-train.

This week: three days of 28-minute runs. Next week: three days of 30-minute runs.

A good start

I woke up this morning ready to work. I had my coffee and oatmeal breakfast, gave it time to settle, and hit the sidewalks for a chilly, hilly run.

I’m not kidding about hilly: there were two monsters at about three blocks apiece that slowed me down quite a bit. But I plowed through and found a surprise: the climb was hard while I was doing it, but once I got the top and settled into the flat/downhill, I felt normal. No worse for the wear. Happy little discoveries.

Because my focus for these runs is time, not distance, I’ve gone out blind: no planned route; I barely know the turns I’ll be taking half a mile down the road. I just go where my feet go. And no looking at the clock. Just eyes on the path ahead, head in the clouds.

After some countless number of blocks, I marked a spot on my course to check my watch, mentally prepared that I’d have to put in an additional five minutes to finish my training.

I got to the spot. I checked my watch. Six minutes. Six minutes more than the 28 I set out to do. “Jesus! Holy sh*t!” I said it. I hope there weren’t any little ears to hear me.

To make it even, I kept running until I hit a nice, round 35 minutes. And I walked home feeling pretty good about the way I started my day, and started this very long journey to a 10k.

Posted by Lindsay Beeson on January 18, 2012. 4 comments.

What I Ate Wednesday friends, I’m late to the party this week. You know what? Seriously, I’m OK with not having Internet at my house. But sometimes, like this time, it gets in the way of staying on top of my to-do list. I’ll get used to my new rhythm. Time, is all.

My day in food, and dog

So, our day started with a little of this …

How was that comfortable for her? She sat like that — like a person — for ten solid minutes.

Then there was some of this …

They’re both pretty cute, right? We were headed to a local-produce-and-meats market — only a mile or so away! It was a perfect walk, and I strapped a messenger bag to my back while Patrick manned the dog (she can be wily; I prefer the bag).

But this is supposed to be about food I ate, right? Like coffee.

And a pre-hot-water bowl of oatmeal, pecan, banana slices, cinnamon (no sugar! no honey! the bananas taste like candy once they’re heated through).

Snack: farmers market apple (so sweet and fragrant). This is not actually the apple I ate. The apple I ate was the size of three fists, and Patrick and I shared it as we walked back from the market.

Leftovers lunch: rice and black bean hummus hiding under spinach and mushrooms.

Midday snack: coffee and nuts & fruit (a date! dried cherries!).

Finally, dinner … I was hungry for just this: two slices of homemade pesto pizza, topped with fresh mozzarella, mushrooms, and tomato. So very good, mostly because of that delicious crust we made. I might have to get my husband to write a guest post … he’s our pizza-crust master, and I think you’d be happily surprised at how simple this one comes together.

And there was a day in food! And Miss Dawg.

Posted by Lindsay Beeson on January 14, 2012. 2 comments.

This was Patrick's, until his bike commutes demanded a bigger bag. Now it's mine, and I think we'll be getting chummy as I tote it around my many, many walks to run errands.

Let me get right to the list of the few things we are doing without, that are changing a lot about my daily habits (and how my brain works):

» Parking the car. Well, just my car (It’s still a little too cold for Patrick to ride his bike to work, which he’s anxious to do).

» No internet service to the house. That means no cable, too.

It’s just those two things, really, but it’s amazing how they change the landscape!

Walking, walking, walking

Our new home is within two miles of: our favorite coffee shop; a wonderful bakery; two grocery stores; the bank; the library; the entire downtown; the gym (if I decide to join … I’m contemplating an all-at-home scheme); a beer/homebrew shop; a brew-pub; a really good local bar/restaurant; a huge park (with running track!); any number of food and service businesses that we have yet to explore.

In other words, we are finally living in a space that does not require a car for our day-to-day. So it’s decided: I’m walking whenever I can.

WHAT NO INTERNET?!

Kinda sorta. We have an “unlimited” data plan for our smartphones … quotation marks because the limit is 5G apiece, after which point our connection speed drops. A lot.

What does it mean? It means that with that data plan, so long as we don’t go over our 5G (which is cumulative; it slowly fills up as we use it), we can use our phones as portable wi-fi hotspots.

Guess what? I used up my 5G about a week ago (damn you, Parks & Recreation!), Patrick used up his the other day, and our cycle doesn’t start again until the Jan. 24. Also, that slower connection speed is SO slow that my browser times out before it can load, essentially rendering the hotspot useless.

Lesson learned: streaming a lot of video is out of the question, and streaming any at all isn’t even advisable if we want to be able to do things like check our email and write blog entries.

Where it all comes together

Too bad about my internet-less home, right?

You know what? Not really. I haven’t watched ANY VIDEO (not even a three-minute anything) in a week. And I don’t miss it. Not a bit. Now, I would like to pick up Parks & Recreation where I left off. And we haven’t finished the second season of Breaking Bad yet. wanna.

But it can wait. All in good time. All in carefully parceled, purposeful, focused time.

And not being able to get on the internet on my computer? Problem solved: I have a library within twenty minutes’ walk of my house. And they have unlimited wireless for me to use. For the cost of a little exercise and absolutely no money.

Let me pile it on a little: Having lugged my (decidedly small and not really cumbersome) computer to the library, and knowing I can’t just spend the entire day here, I’m feeling less wander-y. No wasting time on random links and three-minute videos.

To re-iterate: this is where it all comes together …

These two simple limits have helped me carve more meaningful chunks of time. Yes, I still occasionally find myself idle (less often, because of all the walking). But now I’m more likely to spend that idle time reading something (really reading it), or choosing to observe the moment in appreciation (you would not believe how corny I am in real life; really, truly corny — because I love how light breaks through a window, or to hear the out-of-season call of birds, or the way that dog sighs when she’s sleeping …).

And to think on the months ahead and how we’ll have to parse our internet-connectedness at home. I am grateful for the purpose it will require me to assign those moments.

Purpose, purpose, purpose. More of this, please.

Posted by Lindsay Beeson on January 11, 2012. 4 comments.

You know what, What I Ate Wednesday friends? Yesterday I was all “know what I should do, self? I should take photos of food. I’m totally gonna.” So I did. So simple.

What I ate in our house

I’m gonna be infatuated with our new house for a while. Maybe for, like, thirty years. So now you know. Anyway, yesterday’s food was familiar, with a touch of new. And a touch of “it tastes better when it comes out of this kitchen.”

Morning coffee, of course.

That egg? It was hard-cooked. So I sliced it and laid little yellow-white disks on that bread, which I first made into buttered and sea-salted toast.

This little shelf? Belonged to my grandfather. When he was a child. While our house is still too big for the few things we have to put in it, I’m really enjoying how much attention little humble pieces like this command. Also, see the clementines? I ate one.

And then I ate a dried fig (half-bit), just because.

A little hard to make out, but lunch was black bean hummus-y dip, rice, sauteed mushrooms, and fresh spinach. The blueberries were on the counter to keep me busy while I sauteed the mushrooms.

Post-lunch (and then later, post-dinner) sweet: Chocolate-covered raisins. I’m making myself take no more than four of these suckers at a time, because they are one of my favorite, favorite treats. Left without limits, I would eat a jar of them (and there is a jar of them in our cupboard).

Coffee at our local shop, Krankies. Where I also picked up a bag of beans for the coming week, and discovered that there is a Winston-Salem bean-to-bar chocolate maker. I don’t know enough about chocolate-making. What does it mean that they use dried milk and cocoa butter in the bar? It tasted good, but I want to know more about what goes into it …

Dinner: Pasta, pesto, oven-roasted broccoli (officially my new favorite), goat cheese. Yarm.

Posted by Lindsay Beeson on January 11, 2012. 6 comments.

The first is a view from the door. The second, a view as I’m standing at the window you see in the first.

Everything in the middle is vast and empty, waiting for me to make decisions and create … a table, chairs, a floor mat for doing morning exercises, even.

This is my space. No (wonderful, sweet, clutter-loving) husband. No dog unless she’s invited. I’ll take photographs of food here (the light!). I’ll write letters to friends (the bottom row of that first shelf is full of paper, pens, envelopes). I’ll make schedules and plans, fill notebooks with ideas and then do those ideas.

It’ll come inch by inch. We bought a house twice as big as the (quite tiny) apartment we’d been living in. Our things take up a very little space, and we won’t be using our money to buy up more more more things. So a table-building project here, an estate-sale chair there.

This is a room big enough to fit the next twenty years. Maybe thirty. Why rush to fill it?

Posted by Lindsay Beeson on January 9, 2012. 4 comments.

I was inspired by Ms. Less Serious Life to make the polenta recipe above. (I’ve only been daydreaming about trying polenta — for the first time! — for a few years).

I might even make a red sauce to serve it with, too. (Such a copy cat.)

How about I let you know how that goes? Sounds nice, right?

Posted by Lindsay Beeson on January 7, 2012. 2 comments.

I have a front porch. I’ve wanted one of these since we moved out of my childhood home when I was ten (wraparound porch galore).

Today: I put away all the knick-knacks, make triple-chocolate brownies for my new neighbors, and practice my interview skills for a job I would love to get!

Posted by Lindsay Beeson on January 6, 2012. No comments.

Oh. Hi!

I’ve been, umm. Busy? Yeah, I think I’ve been busy, and that any objective observer would agree.

Patrick and I lived out of a few boxes for a month, in the company of my generous parents. We spent Christmas at their house, but also visiting extended family in High Point and Raleigh. And then we closed on our house! And then we moved into our house! And then we had lovely family visiting our house!

And our house! It’s beautiful. I don’t have pictures yet to show you the whole deal. But you can believe it. It’s better than I could have imagined my house would ever be.

And I’ve been slowly unpacking boxes and arranging shelves (I want to get it as right as I can the first time).

And I’ve been thinking … “I should write!”. But then I’ve been thinking “but I don’t have pictures, and also what do I have to say that’s new? And also I’ve been eating only OK and I haven’t been exercising as much as I’d like to …”

Oh brother. Excuses already? It’s only January 6!

So forget about this blog entry being exceptional or full of beautiful photos or educational or inspirational. It just is.

And isn’t that nice? To just be sometimes? What-will-be-will-be kind of being.

I’ll be back. Soon. Photos. Promise.

Posted by Lindsay Beeson on December 30, 2011. 4 comments.

This is my life right now. I couldn’t dream it to be any better. Our kitchen is beautiful, and I’m on the plum spot of putting it together for the first time.

I’m trying to cherish each of these small moments (lining up spices in the pantry!).

I have so much more to say, but not the time … yet.