"Running," a Mild Case of Amnesia & Ice Cream!

Time is flying by!  I can't believe we are creeping up on the end of July and my new little girl is already 5 weeks old.  Overall, things are going well.  Baby is growing healthfully.  The big sister is having a great summer and I am getting into the swing of things of being mom to 2.

One of the things I looked forward to for me is my return to running.  While pregnant, I only kept up jogging until about 22 weeks and then kept cardio to the elliptical, walking and spinning.  I know ladies who kept up running right until delivery, which I think is awesome.  It just wasn't comfortable for me between a high heart rate and a lot of pressure from the growing baby.  I also had not been running as regularly as usual when I found out I was pregnant.  As delivery got closer, I was constantly day dreaming about running again.  My vision was that of a mom going out jogging in between feedings. I would be up to 4 or 5 runs per week of 3 miles each by now with strength workouts in between.  I would be glowing with endorphins and relaxed.  This is where my mild case of amnesia comes in....how did I forget so much about a newborn in just four years??

I forgot that the estimate of feedings every 2 hours does not mean that one has 2 hours of free time once a feeding is finished (what was I thinking?).  Newborns feed more often than every 2 hours, especially in the first month.  When I have gone out for a jog, I have jogged for 15-20 minutes, returned home, taken a disgustingly quick shower and the baby is past ready for a feeding right then and there- not 2 hours after the last feeding.  Or there are the times when feedings just blend into each other :) I knew there would be little sleep, but I guess I forgot exactly how that feels after a few weeks.  And I guess my husband still has his regular work schedule to contend with. What do you mean you have to go to work right now?  I just got the baby down, the big sister is happy and fed- I can go for a jog NOW and only NOW.  I laugh.  Ok, I may have cried at least once too, but all of the important things are going well, which is what counts. I may have given out more TV time and nutella sandwiches to the big sister over the last few weeks than any mom would want to admit, but the kiddos are healthy and we got our first smile this week from bundle #2, which makes everything in the world just right...at least for a moment :)

My weekly mileage last week was 4.1! Woo hoo....Not the 12'ish miles I thought it would be and I know 4 miles is many runners' warm up/cool down of one of their weekly workouts, but I get out there when I can and am striving for more mileage each week. Pace? Slow but I am concentrating more on time out there at this point.  As for the strength workouts, I do better squeezing those in as I can just drop to the floor with my weights and calisthenics for 15 minutes at a time without having to worry about timing childcare etc.  And boy do I need a crash course in pushups!  Every little bit helps, right?

Moving onto summer fun, the recent heat waves bring about cravings for one of my biggest weaknesses: ice cream!  I love ice cream but do not love the paragraph of ingredients on the back of most brands of ice cream available.  I have been following sites like 100 Days of Real Food, My Whole Food Life and Food Babe and they all have posts of recipes of their own ice cream.  I finally took the plunge with a recent birthday gift and bought my very own ice cream machine and it was worth it! 

Source
Except mine is in red!
 

This thing is dangerous....a house with no ice cream to be tempted by can have fresh ice cream galore within 15-20 minutes.  Seriously, it's awesome.  Get one if you don't have one.  Oh the recipes to come up with.  So far, I have made a simple vanilla ice cream and my favorite is this recipe over at the Detoxinista.  This was my first use of coconut milk and it made this chocolate ice cream heavenly and rich.  Confession: It did not last as long as it should have in our freezer and I can't blame family.
 
So there you have it.  Any home made ice cream tips for me?  Tips for short workouts that are effective?  Have a great week.

Spring, Is That You?

It was Easter.  There was still snow on the ground, but Easter was here!  This is not a health food picture here, but on special occasions I love to enjoy a home made dessert from scratch.  I dusted off an old baking book I picked up at a flea market years ago and got to baking. 

The cake I made is called a Bonnie Butter Cake (I told you this is not a health food shot!).  Basically, a vanilla cake with fresh whipped cream filling, vanilla buttercream frosting but none of the chemicals found in most commercially processed desserts :)  That's what I love about baking- I can pronounce and recognize all of the ingredients...butter, eggs, vanilla, flour, sugar etc.  There isn't the time to do it for every occasion but it's great when I can.  One problem I seem to keep running into since switching from baking from pre-packaged cake mixes to baking from scratch is that the cake seems dense.  I used to use whole wheat flour for these desserts and I thought that was the problem.  This time around I bought an organic all-purpose flour but I still felt like the cake was dense.  Hmmmm......I need to figure this one out!  Any ideas?

Also, I am sure you have been hearing about the recent petition and attention on Kraft foods to remove chemical food dyes from their products.  There was a recent food investigation by Food Babe that revealed that European countries have banned many of such chemicals and large companies, such as Kraft, make their products for the European markets without these harmful additives.  Note the Cadbury mini-eggs on the cake.  My folks recently returned from a trip to see family in Ireland and our house was spoiled with some imported Cadbury mini-eggs.  When I looked at the ingredients, I noticed that the coloring comes from beetroot and paprika!  I bought a bag from a grocery store here in the U.S. and the coloring is from chemical dyes....argh.   Can we please get this right??

Since Easter, we have seen signs of spring!  Although I am sure we are off to a late start, we finally got going on seedlings for our garden this year.  We have plans for corn, tomatoes, spinach, green beans, potatoes and some herbs. 

Standing proudly next to her seedlings....

We have some rearranging in the yard to do in order to keep the chickens from pulling up the seeds!  They are cute, but it was very frustrating last year when I came home to my herbs all pulled up and a flock of chickens "dirt and sun bathing" in my raised garden boxes.

Speaking of the chickens, their strike is over! Woohoo!  Despite using a heat lamp and extending daylight with artificial light all winter, they just were not producing.   My husband began talking about chicken stew.  There was a temporary stop on the strike and we collected one or two eggs (I swear they heard him), but then it quickly resumed again.  I pleaded to give it until spring and see what happens.  Warmer temperatures over the last week or so and another cleaning of the coop seems to have done the trick! They are back in business.

Even with plans for the garden in the works here, I decided to go back to a local farm and also sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share.  We bought one 2 years ago, but last year I decided to try to use farmers' markets instead.  The share worked out better for us as our local market is really small.  We plan on taking our first shot at preserving/canning if our garden produces well this year and there is an abundance of produce from the share.

And....in addition to veggies, I also just connected with a farm about a meat share.  I am very excited about this.  It has been on my "want to do" list for a while.  I will be taking a trip out to the farm soon and have some more news hopefully! 

On the fitness front, the last 2 weeks have been a bust.  I caught the viral chest cold/cough that everyone seems to be sharing and couldn't shake it.  I never get chest colds...I'm spoiled, but this one knocked me down pretty good. Not being able to take anything due to expecting didn't help, but I'm feeling back to myself this weekend and looking forward to getting back to some cardio.  32 weeks along! Almost. There.

Any spring plans or progress going on for you?

Have a great week and good luck to all those Boston Marathoners out there!  I know some runners in this year's race and I can't wait to hear about their experience!