The Joys of Mid-Summer

This time of year, I just love my job :~). Since my husband and I both teach, we get several weeks off in the summer. It is so awesome to have some kick-back time. We try to make good use of our time, but it's nice to just be more relaxed! Our young friend, Andrew spent the night last night, so we stayed up late watching "Kindergarten Cop". It was great, and I hadn't seen it in a while. Unfortunately, it did make me realize how quickly our time back at work is coming. . . .so I really want to enjoy the rest of my time off.

It's mid-summer, so it is wickedly hot here in southeastern NC! We slept in a bit this morning, had awesome TexMex omelettes, then we went outside for a while. I picked peas from the garden while the guys vacuumed the pool. The we swam and exercised for a while. The guys left, and I spent another 30 minutes or so scrubbing and treating the pool. Then I grabbed a Jude Deveraux book and actually started reading!!!!! Right out in the sun by the pool. My mother-in-law does this often, and I understand why! After a while, though (about 30 pages later), it got pretty hot out, so I came in and showered. By then, it was getting close to lunch-time, so I jumped on my bike, rode about 1/4 mile up to the mini-orchard and picked some pears and a few figs. I had in mind to do roasted pears and figs with goat cheese.

I decided to do it in the form of a salad, and it was SOOOOO good -- absolutely beautiful! One of the days when I realized maybe I really should photograph my food -- at least sometimes. It was gorgeous! So today, I'm sharing that recipe with you. I hope you make it and I hope it's a s beautiful as mine, and that you enjoy yours as much as I enjoyed mine. Here's to mid-summer and days off!

A Mid-Summer Pear-Fig Salad (for 1)


2 cups lettuce (I used an organic mix of spinach and arugula)
1 pear
3-4 small figs
olive oil
balsamic vinegar (mine was fig-orange infused)
goat cheese
honey
thyme
salt
pepper
walnuts

Line your plate with a couple of cups of lettuce. In the meantime, slice your pear into 8 slices and cut figs in half. Drizzle with olive oil. Put pears on a pan and roast off at 350 degrees. About halfway through cooking, turn pears over, and add figs to the pan. Roast for another 10 minutes or so. When the fruit is browned slightly, arrange it beautifully on the bed of lettuce. Drizzle any leftover oil from pan onto salad. Cut about 3 nice slices of goat cheese and arrange on the salad. Drizzle olive oil over the salad. Then give the salad a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Drizzle a little bit of honey over the top. Sprinkle with salt and fresh ground pepper. Give a little sprinkle of thyme. Tope it off with some chopped walnuts. AMAZING!!!!!! Wonderful blend of crunchy and soft, earthy and flavorful, savory and sweet.

Misery Shared Is Joy Doubled

You already know how I feel about exercise. (If you don't, see my earlier post :~) This week we are spending family time in GA with Shane's parents. I am very blessed to have a cool mother-in-law. Not that we haven't had our ups and downs -- we are both imperfect people and have made mistakes in the relationship, but we have worked through all that and our relationship is probably stronger now than it's ever been. Regardless of how she feels about you, she is one of the world's greatest encouragers. And she is a joiner -- totally fearless. I watch her jumping on the trampoline and swimming in the pool with her grandsons and I think back to my own grandmother, and I just have to laugh. The thought of MY grandmother on a trampoline or in a pool is just totally laughable. . . .At any rate, Sheryl has been so supportive of this effort that Shane and I are in the middle of. So while we've been here, we've been working out together -- mostly in the pool, but the other night we had missed our window and it was really too dark to get in the pool, so she suggested pilates (she has a DVD). Always feeling a little self-conscious, my first question was "How hard is it? Can I do it?" She said she thought so. So we grabbed some mats and began. OK -- it wasn't easy. And some of it I couldn't do. But some of it she couldn't do, either. Most of it we both could do. At one point Shane came through and said he thought we were getting more exercise from our laughing than from the pilates. :~) My abs begged to differ over the next two days! Still, it was good -- and much more fun together than it would have been separately! I guess there's nothing like bonding over workout videos. . . .When we got into the pool last night we both felt the after-effects of our earlier-in-the-week pilates session. But we pressed on, sharing exercises that we have been using in our own workouts, and doing line dances in the pool. Truly, misery shared is joy doubled!



Today, I'm sharing one of our favorite breakfast staples. Growing up, we always had "eggs and rice". Now that we've cut white rice out of our diet, we've had to make some slight changes, but it is still one of our favorites. You can jazz it up all kinds of ways. It is a marvelous way to use up a little extra brown rice if you made too much. (We often make a little extra so we can have this during the week.)

Eggs and Rice

Melt 1 T of butter in a saute pan. Crack enough eggs to match the amount of rice you have left over. Scramble eggs until almost done, then add the brown rice in to blend and heat through. If you want to make it beautiful, add some parsley or cilantro on top as you serve.

You can also jazz up the dish as you're cooking by adding whatever is in your eating plan. Stir in ham, sausage, bacon. . . peppers, onions, mushrooms. . . .chunky tomatoes. It's great for breakfast, but equally good for lunch or dinner. Add Chinese veggies and some ginger and garlic and you've got a fried rice! Quite versatile and quite delicious! Try it! You might like it!

Exercise? !#**%@!*

I've never been a big fan of exercise. I am sedentary by nature. My favorite activities are reading, watching TV, writing, scrapbooking. . . . Unfortunately, none of those are aerobic or toning. . . which is what I need right now. Shane and I are fortunate enough to live in a fairly large home (albeit old :~) So a couple of years ago, we remodeled a downstairs room into a home gym. I call it the "Rainbow Gym" (in part because it sounds happy and cheerful, and in part because we literally painted it the colors of the rainbow.) We have a bright blue ceiling, a purple wall, lime green wall, yellow wall, and red wall. It is a bright, happy, cheery room to be in, which does help, I must say. Of course I haven't used it very much -- hit or miss basically. Shane has done somewhat better, but not much.

Now that we are on this New Life Adventure, we are trying to do better, so we reorganized in there yesterday. Currently, we have a treadmill, a universal weights machine, an ab lounger, a mat, a couple of hand-held weights, a couple of "attach-to-the-door-or-wall" stretchy pieces. We have a scale and each of us has a small bulletin board where we are tracking our personal goals and progress. We weigh-in each morning, take measurements twice a month, and record work-outs each day. Since we are in mid-summer, the bulk of my work-outs have been in the pool (ours is a simple above-ground model 20 ft round) -- I use my fun noodles to do crunches and tornadoes in the water, or to support me while I bicycle. Sometimes Shane and I use each others' resistance to add to our work-out, or as an anchor while we do crunches or other toning exercises. Shane (analytic by nature) has measured and marked off the posts of the pool and has calculated that every 15 laps is 100 yards, so by the time we've done 5 rotations of laps, we have walked (or swam) over 1/4 mile. Not too bad, when you consider the resistance of the water.

Several days this week, I have added in a walk after my pool work-out (trying to get rid of that stubborn pound that didn't want to go . . .). Today, it was 1.5 miles in 30 minutes. I am short -- and fat -- so that is not too bad. I was walking @ 3 mph (in case you don't want to do the math -- I know I wouldn't).

Still, no pounds gone (except for that one stubborn one that was clinging for dear life). But, hopefully I am toning and improving -- and I am still holding on to the fact that I've lost 20 lbs in 3 months. AND -- I'm hoping to see the scales go down even more this week.

If you're trying, too, hang in there -- we didn't get here overnight, and we're not going to get out overnight. But if we have faith, and persevere, we will eventually get there.

Check out this quote: "Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did." -N.G. Ain't it the truth???????

And now, today's recipe:

Fruit Smoothie

If you've never tried fruit smoothies or only get them at those expensive smoothie places, do try your own! They're so simple. Just be careful not to go over your fruit servings. Feel free to experiment with your own combinations!

1 frozen banana, peeled and chopped
1 C frozen blueberries
1/2 c cantaloupe
6 oz. pineapple juice
6 ice cubes

Put everything into blender, pulse until consistency you want. Pour into glasses with spoon or straw and enjoy -- just be careful of the "brain freeze" :~)

BTW, depending on your health care provider's recommendations, you might need to avoid cold foods, so this is a treat in moderation for that reason. But wouldn't it be delightful after a long work-out?!?!?