Adventures in Running- Now Resuming!

I am finally nearing the end of my physical therapy training!

Gosh it feels good to say that. :) I went to see the sports doc on July 8th and my first PT on July 9. If all goes well this week my last will be next Monday October 6. I can't believe it's been 3 months! so how about an update:

The last 2 months of PT has been pretty much the same- working on strengthening and flexibility. We needed to get certain muscle groups to quit being such slackers and I think we've done that. Back at the end of July/early August I got assigned to Trainer Mark and that has been the best thing about PT. This guy really knows his stuff and got me doing a lot of different exercises that has really helped. I will admit that I could have done much better on my home exercises than I did but what really matters is that I can tell a huge difference in my knees, legs, core muscles, the way I walk, stand, etc over the last 3 months. Now what's really scary is that I'm almost done with PT, so I'm going to have to keep this up on my own.

New Goals:

will walk/run x 2 per week- sub goal here is to just get the heart pumping and get to running on a more regular basis. I will not be running for distance here but just time intervals for as long as I can keep a good running form. I will end up doing more damage to my knee if I over do it and and run too tired with bad form. I will be starting off at run 2 min/walk 2 min a total of 7-8 times (=28-32 min) and if towards the end I need to walk for 4 min between each run then that's fine. If after about 20 min I'm tired that's fine too. The point is I'll be actually running, even if it's just a little bit!

will do strength training/circuit training x 2 per week- This means I will cont. with the strengthening exercises I have been doing at PT and maybe adding a few min of some kind of cardio to the strength training. I'm going to take another look at some of the workout videos I have to see if I can do some sort of 15 min cardio leading into my usual exercises.  But it needs to be low impact and work muscles that may not get to do much work during running/walking. 

will cont. to do my stretches and roll my muscles every single day- even on days I work I must stretch and use a thingie to roll out the knots over my leg muscles. I have a leg thingie I'm going to order off the internet because the best thing I have here is a rolling pin and it's not as good, and also I hate the foam rollers. (the foam rollers are where you have a large cylindrical roll that you move your body over in order to work the knots out in large muscles groups in your legs such as the calf, hamstring, quad, etc. I look like I'm trying to have uncomfortable sex with this huge piece of foam. not my favorite thing.) For those of you in the know- the roller thingie I like and am going to order is called a "Tiger Tail" instead of those massage sticks. It does not have those little ringlet sections all down the stick like the massage sticks but is just a single bar with what looks like bicycle handles on each end. but the middle is what makes the difference- it's hard like there's a metal bar there but it's covered with something that is soft but not cushiony. I'm not sure what it's really made out of but I know I like it and I found it on sale for $20 at performbetter.com.

So more of an update on the Olsons- Life here has been good. :) I've been on vacation the past week. I will go back to work on Thursday but it's been good time off. Brian and I got a few projects done around the house. I had some time to be lazy too. I feel relaxed and ready to go back to the world of sick babies. I think I have finally come to terms with Fantasia's death and I'm ready to go back. I'll admit- I've been a little down on work for the last few months. and honestly it's not been all Fantasia.- there's just been a lot of things at work that's burned me out but I think I have finally had the chance to mentally reset. I just hope that this "reset" has the chance to stick for a while and I don't get burned out again quickly.

The birthday day last week was really good. Brian got me a digital picture frame. It's soooo cool! I love it! Brian has his birthday on Wednesday and I can't wait for him to get his present. I just hope he likes it all. :) We just got a package today from Bed Bath and Beyond and I think it's from Ron and Sue. I'm waiting from Brian to get home from work to open it.  But thanks to everyone for Birthday well wishes and for the presents. Oh- Mom gave Brian and I come $$ and I think that's going towards painting the living room. Which we will be doing...sometime...soon...I think. Thanks!!

Adventures in Cooking and Baking

Anna and I love to cook and bake.  We often choose food that we've never made before.  I personally like trying to make things from scratch, without the help of any prepackaged mixes.  

On Friday night we grilled stuffed pork chops.  We have made chops before and also have stuffed them before.  However, recently we saw a Good Eats episode on how to make them better.  We became easily enthused and decided to copy the recipe.  This time we brined them for a couple hours.  Also we used thick pork chops, about 1.5 inches.  Unfortunately we cooked them a little too long, and they were still dry.  They had great flavor, but definitely could be more juicy.  Next time we'll pull them off the grill earlier.

Saturday we made Angel Food cake.  I takes eggs... a lot of eggs, 12 to be exact.  Actually 12 egg whites, the yellows are useless.  The Betty Crocker cookbook recommended using the yellows in another recipe, such as Creme Brule.  Riiight, nothing completes a meal like Angel Food cake AND Creme Brule.  I have nothing against Creme Brule, but I'm thinking we don't need both at once.  I actually used 14 eggs, I broke two yolks.  You have to be extremely careful, the eggs won't foam if there is any yolk.  I was using an "isolation method" so the two egg whites that I did contaminate with yolk could just be thrown away without affecting the other whites.  We are very happy to have a kitchen-aid mixer.  It took several minutes on high speed to force the egg whites to foam.  I can't imagine doing this by hand with a wisk, and even using a hand mixer would have been tiring on the arm from holding it for an extended period of time.  I did make one mistake.  I completely forgot the 1/4 tsp of salt.  By the time I realized the cake was already in the oven.  I was really worried, in cooking salt is used to bring out flavor, but in baking salt is often required in some chemical process.  However even without salt the cake turned out extremely well.  Since it was extremely tasty and was relatively easy it has gone on the list of things we want to make again soon.  We may have messed up the whipped cream.  Whipped cream takes heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla extract, the ratios are whats important.  We had just finised watching another Good Eats show, this one on milk, specifically we watched him make Tres Leche Cake.  In it he made whipped cream to use as a frosting.  We were paying to much attention, but he used 2:1 cream-to-sugar ratio.  Our whipped cream turned out much more sweet than usual.  We are thinking he was making a whipped cream specifically to be used as a frosting, not necessarily one used for pies and angel food cake.  Oh well, it still was incredible.

Brian