Sunday's Almost in the Bag

Sunday is drawing close to it's close and with it, the end of the weekend.  It was a three day weekend for us, as it was Anthony's Friday off, but it still is sort of surprising to me it's over.

We mostly just relaxed on Saturday.  Davan and I each finished a book.  We tried a new recipe for dinner.  Davan did have a gig with the Zig Zags Saturday evening, but it was relatively short.  It was her third year of performing at the Sunnyside Church's Autumn Harvest Festival. 

We made up for the lazy day yesterday today, though, but in good ways.  None of which I had the camera for, so you'll just have to imagine it.

Anthony got up and walked/ran the dog this morning.  He is working on adding running into his workout regimen with the idea of also doing a marathon next year.  He's having much different sorts of running issues than I, though.  My problem is that the minute I go faster than a shuffle just over walking speed, my heart rate soars to ever higher levels and I have trouble breathing.  Anthony, though, with his strong aerobic base from all the biking, is hardly breathing at all, but if he's not careful, he injures his calves because his running muscles are underdeveloped.  So, he does alternating walking and running and is trying to build up slowly.

I got to sleep in a little bit before getting up and finally cleaning up the kitchen catch all counter and side table in the living room that have been driving me nuts for days.  Then we made breakfast - our usual Sunday morning pancakes.  I recently wrote up the recipe for a friend, so I'll share.

Sunday morning pancakes (this is Anthony's thing and he's adapted the recipe as he goes, but here's the general guidelines) -

4 cups of oats processed in the food processor until it's like flour
1 TBS baking powder
cinnamon to taste, but Anthony uses about a TBS min
dash of nutmeg

Add the baking powder and cinnamon to the food processor and run briefly to mix, then poor into a mixing bowl.

Put these things in the processor:

one package individual unsweetened apple sauce, about 1/3 cup
1/4 cup flax meal
1/2 cup water

run until very well blended, then add to the mixing bowl with an additional 2 1/2 cups (give or take - use your judgement) liquid - we usually use almond milk here, but you could use any fake milk or even water.

Then add chocolate chips to your taste and cook as normal for pancakes.  We spray our griddle before starting, but not in between batches. 

We use fresh fruit or a berry compote (basically just frozen berries cooked until they're thawed and reduced - a little corn starch can help here) or pumpkin as topping.


Today, as it's fall and all, we had pumpkin - like from an actual sweet winter squash sort of pumpkin, not from a jar.  I bake it, scrape it out and blend it with pumpkin spices, but no sweetener.  Good stuff. 

And chocolate sauce.  We love the chocolate sauce.  It's hazelnuts, cashews, unsweetened coco powder, dates, water and a splash of vanilla extract all blended together until smooth.  Also good stuff.

After breakfast had a chance to settle, I took my early birthday present out for a run.  As I've mentioned, I'm training for a 10K on Thanksgiving.  It's came to my attention that I really needed a watch.  I was going to just go get one.  I mostly just wanted to keep track of my time.  However, I decided to research a little first.  I ended up getting rather muddled about what I wanted/needed/would need eventually.  There are so many products out there.

I finally asked Anthony to do the research (he likes that sort of thing) and then get me one for my birthday.  We did talk about what I needed/wanted.  I told him I'd be okay with just a watch that had a stopwatch function at this point, but could really see wanting more advanced features when I'm training for the marathon and would also really like things like heart rate and distance measuring now.  He decided the Garmin 210 was the one and he went to REI on Friday and got it for me.  What a guy.

I was really excited to try it out, but not really so excited about running today.  Yesterday, I did run one errand.  I rode to Trader Joes to do a little shopping.  It's just under a two mile ride.  I was working hard on that ride.  It was humbling.  It was supposed to be my rest day after a full week of lots of running, not to mention a cold, but it made me not excited about the 40 minutes at pace workout I was supposed to do today.  I sucked it up and went anyway.

I really like my new toy!  I liked the heart rate monitor.  I liked the distance indicator.  I like that it keeps track of all my data and then I can look at it when I get home.  So, for example, I know that after a 5 minute warm up today, I ran 4 miles in my 40 minutes and my first mile was a little bit faster than my last mile, which you're supposed to avoid, but it wasn't drastically different, so I'm not stressing about it too much.  Besides which, my first mile was actually downhill, so...

I came home, had water, got software working, drank a recovery drink. played with my software, then went for a 12 mile bike ride.  Yeah, crazy.  I know.  After all, it was just my hardest run of the week, during which I was working really hard, and then I went for a bike ride?  Well, Anthony and Davan were going and I wanted to join in.  I did force them to keep the pace down for me so I wasn't working too hard again.  It was a nice outing.

Our family ride in Gresham was on the Springwater Corridor.  Turns out our family ride here is on the Springwater, also.  Just at the other end.  It's nice here, too.  The part we ride is along the Willamette River, which makes it very scenic. 

When we got home, everyone was hungry, I was desperate for a shower and Ranger was in need of bladder relief, not having gone out after her morning outing with Anthony.  Anthony took Ranger out, I did a quick run through the shower and Davan laid across her bed and read.  We have to do what we have to do, right?

After the shower, though, Davan helped out in the kitchen and we threw together a quick meal.  We warmed up a can of vegan, gluten free baked beans to go on some leftover polenta we've got and opened two bags of chopped kale from Trader Joes to steam and make into California Creamed Kale.  (Here's the recipe, but we do tweak it a little.)  It was delish.

We watched our Netflix video over our meal  (Yeah, it's lessened, but we're still doing that.), then cleaned up the kitchen and walked here.

We found these guys at the VegFest this year, where we had samples, and all wanted to try a scoop.  It's all vegan, which is lovely.  We had a few samples again - choices, choices, choices - and then Davan and I went with Mango Pineapple, Anthony with Marrionberry and Ranger (what can I say?  They had dog scoops for a buck.) had vanilla coconut.  It was tasty, but a little too sweet for everyone but Ranger.  I ended up giving Ranger some of mine. 

After all the activity of the day, I was still hungry, though.  I know.  It seems like we ate a meal, had dessert, then needed to eat again.  Yeah.  It seemed that way to me, too, but it didn't change the fact that everyone was asking, "What's for dinner?"  I was answering, "Remember the meal we had?  Yeah.  Dinner."

But, we came home and ate more.  We shared a bag of Trader Joe's Red Chile and Garlic Edamame (we love these), a bag of sugar snap peas with hummus to dip and the last of a bag of tortilla chips left over from our open house last week.  Then we felt better.

Now Davan is off to Do Jump for an open workout with a friend.  Before we know it, it'll be time to walk Ranger again.  Meanwhile, I'm writing this and Anthony just set down his magazine in favor of the iron (yes, he irons his work clothes and no, I don't do it for him).

I'm pleasantly tired and totally satisfied with our day...well, nearly.  We should be able to squeeze in a little couple time before Davan gets back.  I hope your weekend was a good one!