back to the regimen after an extended weekend of indulgence with friends =)

AnnaTheRed makes awesome bento. I love this tutorial on how to turn a little radish into a mario mushroom! Check out her blog and photostream for more tutorials and lots more inspiration.

http://annathered.wordpress.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/annathered/

*me answers door, wearing pt's Goo t-shirt*

"Sonic Youth, are they a band or something?"

Hey young door-to-door AT&T salesman. Don't try to buddy buddy me as part of your sales pitch. I want just the facts, please. Now move along and sweat on someone else's porch.

Severe thunderstorms here, tornado warnings to the east! O_O Our poor community gardens keep getting flooded. We're lucky that our plot isn't under water (at least it wasn't when I checked yesterday morning), since we sorta built up the edge that was next to the low impromptu pond area. I put stakes next to the tomatoes and peppers yesterday, but didn't bring twine/cloth strips or scissors to tie everything to the stakes; I hope the little guys can survive the winds today.

On top of that it's going to be another hot one today. Resisting the urge to turn on the air conditioner. During the day I have a fan blowing directly on me and the computer to keep us cool.

I'm swimming over lunch and then we're planning to hit the gym tonight, I can't run or bike outside in this weather. =/

So have you heard about that jellyfish crop circle? Hooey Batiks designed a beautiful jellyfish shirt based on it! Maybe it will make it into the HooeyBatiks Etsy shop soon‽

Tonight's table tennis session was good. I still get blown off the table by the top guys, but I won matches against several guys that I hadn't beaten yet. I'm seeing improvement in my shot consistency and also match play—figuring out the serve returns and the appropriate strategies against different opponents.

I'm having fun, win or lose, and am getting excellent cross-training workouts so that's what is great about this right now.

We went armed with our shovel and fork last night to do more hard labor in the community garden plot. When we arrived they had a big tiller out there and they tilled the remaining half of our plot for us! We didn't buy any more compost or bring our seedlings out because we thought we'd only have time for tilling.

I was supposed to go back this afternoon, but it was too hot and the ground was still wet from last night's rain. I was hoping it would dry out by 5 or so, but then a big downpour right at 5p ruined those plans. More rain in the forecast tomorrow. Maybe we won't get the remaining plants in until Friday or Saturday. That should be okay; after all the delays we're happy to finally get stuff into the ground.

So far 5 cucumbers and 2 tomatillo plants are in. We have 7 green zebra tomato plants and 3 poblano pepper plants ready to go. We also have eggplant, but the seedlings aren't quite ready. After that it will be interplanting: basil, nasturtiums, various greens (mostly for donating), and marigolds wherever they will fit.

With such a big plot, it's easy to cram too much stuff in. But what's out there now looks like it's spaced too far apart, which means that it's probably just about right.

BBQ tofu, smoked with hickory and applewood:

After a taste test, it's missing one vital component: soy sauce marinade. We were out so I just went with various seasonings and a little drizzle of olive oil and Worcestershire sauce.

( explosivo )

While on errands today our little Honda Civic hit 100,000 miles. It's almost 6 years old and pretty much runs like the day we got it. =)

We finally got out to the garden plot to till it ourselves. It rained briefly this morning, but the rest of the day has been sunny and warm. We worked it for about 2 hours before we were too exhausted to continue and completed a first turning of about 1/3 of the plot. pt used the garden fork on a section that seemed to have been partially tilled before. I took the shovel to the deep tractor ruts. We'll leave the clumps to dry out for another day and go again tomorrow morning to re-till those sections, add more amendments, and I hope finally plant some darn plants!

The soil is clayey, so we plan to add a lot of composted manure to it, and maybe a couple other amendments. The good news is that there are a lot of earthworms crawling around. Talked to the few people that came and went while we were there; nice to meet our fellow community gardeners.

We made a quick round of the home stores to get some needed garden items. No luck on the groundcover, but we finally got three Boston ferns on sale that we wanted to hang around the front porch, French Quarter-style. After that we treated ourselves to a rare fast food trip and got the coffee shake and coffee-toffee frosty at Wendy's. Of course, I had to get a small order of fries to dip in the frosty.

At least we'll get in two long workouts this weekend. :)

Pretty much the last thing I want to see when I enter the locker room at the pool is some guy blow-drying his crotch, FROM BEHIND! >_< WTF‽

I ran back to the pool and tried to wash my eyes out.

I think baked cheddar Goldfish may be our new default roadtrip snack.

Also, happy towel day! (If anyone has ever noticed that I carry a lot of bandanas, it's because I took the Hitchhiker's Guide's advice about towels, but figured that bandanas are more compact and almost as useful as a towel.)

...my latest crochet project. =)

I had gina's gearing bumped up from 39x16 to 39x14. I rode around C-U a bit last week, but I had a longer test ride in the park tonight.

I need a little time to get used to the increased effort, but it's nice to have a faster cruising speed. The goal for this month's biathlon is to average 19-21 mph over 15 miles. The goal for the triathlon at the end of the summer is to maintain right around 19mph over 25 miles.

It could be that I need to move up a notch more, but I think this is good enough for now. It will definitely make things nice and smooth for Bike the Drive on Sunday.

I recommend seeing it. :)

Last week we had a good Cinco de Mayo dinner. pt and I rode our bikes to a local Mexican restaurant. We called N and fortunately she was able to join us, we met her on her bike on the street. It was totally like when we were young, cruising around the neighborhoods meeting up with friends on their bikes. Except now we get to go as far as we want from home, and drink. ;)

We thought about going to one of our favorite places downtown, but they were having music that night as part of the celebration and we didn't want to get too annoyed with a band in our face as we're trying to eat. I'm glad we checked out AZ-T-CA, it's a little place nestled in the corner of a Schnuck's grocery store strip mall. Great find though, their Tuesday half-price margarita special was in effect ($2.50 each!) and they were tasty, definitely not bottom shelf liquor.

The small restaurant was packed and we waited a really long time to find a place to sit, actually ended up squeezing in at the end of a large group's table. The food was good, and cheap. I got 3 fish tacos for $6, pt had some sort of tequila shrimp for about $8. Some guy I was talking to while we were waiting bought us a round of margaritas too! The weird thing is that they had a lot of people working, but maybe just one guy (the owner) doing all the cooking. Maybe he needs to hire me on as sous chef?

I was surprised at how busy the place was, but apparently it's very popular. That's the thing about Springfield, it's like you have to know where some of the good spots are, because, as you see in the picture, you'd never know by driving past that it was hoppin' in that restaurant. Before we left some guy saw our bike helmets and started talking to me about biking; he and his buddies have a riding group that seems like it's about my speed, so I gave him my e-mail address and I hope he contacts me for one of their weekend group rides.

My goal for next year is to get on an smsl futbol squad, maybe AZ-T-CA will have a spot for me... ;)

( my 5x5 strength training testimonial )