Meh.

I got a little work done tonight. Not as much as I’d like, but a little. I made a pretty good batch of new potatoes with leeks (recipe follows) and made a good dent in my office-cleaning project by rearranging some shelves and organizing some craft supplies.

I ought to finish cleaning the office, but I’m tired, so I think what I will do instead is read a magazine or two and go to bed. The rest of this stuff can wait for tomorrow.

Here’s the potato recipe, for whatever it’s worth:

Roasted Potatoes with Leeks

Cooking spray
About a dozen new potatoes, diced
Three leeks, cleaned thoroughly and cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/4 stick butter

Coat the inside of a good-sized casserole dish with cooking spray. Put the potatoes and leeks into the casserole dish, dot with butter, and bake, covered, at 400 degrees until potatoes are tender (about an hour). Remove lid and bake for another 10 minutes.

Nothing fancy — just a nice, basic recipe that lends itself well to experimentation. The leeks have a very mild, sweet onion flavor, and the potatoes don’t have a whole lot of flavor of their own, so you could go just about any direction you wanted. Crushed garlic and red pepper flakes would probably be good, or a bit of curry powder, or maybe a marinade of Italian dressing and fresh herbs. But I think it’s pretty good all by itself.

Expect more recipes in the not-too-distant future. I’ve gone vegetarian again, which means more cooking at home.

Emily

Three miles

“We are all capable of more than we do.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

I got to the gym too late to catch a real, live human being on the premises (apparently the employees go home at 3 p.m. on Saturdays), so I gave up and put in three miles on the river trail. I’d already spent about an hour installing stepping stones in my backyard in the pouring rain, and I didn’t melt or anything, so I figured if the sky decided to open up again while I was on the trail (which it did), I could handle it. We’ll call the stepping-stone project cross-training, as it involved a lot of lifting.

I got a little over two miles’ worth of blue skies before the rain started. It actually felt kind of good, because it was 81 degrees when I started running, and the earlier rain had things pretty steamy out there. Maybe I’ll just suck it up and run in the rain for the rest of the summer. It’s only a problem if there’s lightning, which wasn’t the case today.

I saw a flock of Canada geese hanging out next to the river. They were pretty.

I’m supposed to be making potatoes and leeks and cleaning my office this evening, but I am procrastinating (as usual). I’d kind of like to spend my whole evening sitting on the couch with a stack of Sentinels, reading as many as I can so I can take them to the Reading Room and reclaim the end table next to my papasan chair, but I have a long list of other stuff that really needs to be done first. I probably ought to pick up some magazine files and at least get my magazines organized if I’m going to keep them around. I’m pretty sure I’ve read some of them three or four times, because I never seem to remember which stack is the “to read” pile and which stack is the “to drop off at the Reading Room” pile.

Ah, well. Guess I’ll dive into my umpteen projects and see how far I get before bedtime. I’ll post an update when I’ve accomplished something….

Emily

P.S.: On the training blog that I kept in 2005, I would close each post with a quote about running or perseverance or something like that. I think people actually liked the quotes more than they liked the blog itself. In the interest of keeping the tradition alive, I’m opening each of my training posts with a quote this time around.

Rain

The rain keeps pouring, and the storms keep popping up, and I keep shutting off the computer and staying inside, offline, and out of shape.

We’ve finally reached the limits of my patience: I’m heading out this afternoon to join a gym so I can log some training miles without having to worry about being hit by lightning. Treadmill miles aren’t the most fun way to train for a marathon, but I’ve already waited (in vain) for clear skies for so long that there’s no way I can be marathon-ready in time for Albuquerque (which is Labor Day weekend), and if I put it off much longer, I’ll be out of luck for Route 66 in November, too.

I don’t mind running in the rain, provided there’s no lightning, but rain without lightning is rare in Oklahoma, and I don’t want to get caught in a heavy storm several miles from the nearest shelter … so I think it’s time to suck it up and hit the treadmill.

Emily