Raspberry Rhubarb Sunset

"Tropical heat wave, we're having heat wave..."

The state that features such things as the Snowmobile Hall of Fame, the Frozen Tundra and the Birkebeiner (a cross-country ski marathon) is having a heat wave. It's supposed to be in the 90's all week long! So what smart things did I do last weekend? I went running, baked a cake and then hiked through Pike Lake State Park.

Running was to train for the half marathon that I wrote about. Got in about 4 miles over the weekend and it felt good despite the humidity!

I made a Raspberry Rhubarb Cake:Here's the recipe:

Cake:

2 cups flour

½ cup sugar

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. butter

1 cup milk

1 egg

4 cups chopped fresh rhubarb (mine was a frozen and then thawed and drained)

3 oz. package of raspberry Jell-o

½ cup fresh raspberries (you can probably use frozen too, but make sure they are thawed and drained)

Topping:

1 ¼ cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

½ tsp. cinnamon

6 Tbsp butter, softened

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Grease bottom only of a 13” x 9” baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour with sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter until crumbly. Add milk and egg. Mix well. Pour batter into prepared pan. Spoon rhubarb evenly over batter. Sprinkle with dry Jell-o.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine all topping ingredients. Mix well with a fork. Sprinkle topping evenly over cake. Bake 40-45 minutes until topping is light golden brown and rhubarb is bubbly.

I highly suggest serving it warm with vanilla ice cream!

Then the hiking took Steve and I to a natural spring where we filled our water bottles (please excuse the awkward camera angle):

And to the tower for a gorgeous sunset (it was very windy):



Stay cool everyone!

Back in Action

Howdy readers!

I’m not going to waste your time and my blog space to apologize to you once again for my lack o’ posts. Instead, I’m going to let you know that I’m going to revamp this blog slightly to reflect my adventures in crafting, cooking and the great outdoors.

First off, let’s tackle the crafting. My new love: sewing and quilting. Thanks to my mom who taught me all things involving a needle and thread to keep life together (and your clothes intact), I could probably make my own clothes if I had to. Fortunately, coupons and sales keep my love of shopping alive, too!

If you hadn’t guessed since my last, long-ago post, I’ve jumped into quilting! See my adorable baby nephew enjoying my first (almost) solo quilt project:

Isn’t he cute?

I say “almost” solo quilt because I had a few glitches with measuring my seam allowance. Live and learn, friends; live and learn. Again, thanks go to Mom for helping! I’m already planning my next two quilts. However, it’s way too nice outside to sit inside at the sewing machine.

Second, cooking rocks in summer because you have more options than winter. Winter foods are warm and comforting. Winter demands warm, baked treats. Winter is the perfect time to enjoy hearty soups and basically anything that will keep the chill of Wisconsin winters outside from your insides.

Summer cooking means grilled food, chilled desserts and things-on-a-stick. Fortunately, my boyfriend, Steve, is handy with a grill and I’ve enjoyed many delicious cookouts! I also got to have dinner at Sanford in Milwaukee. The owner/head chef once cooked for Julia Child. LOVE.

Sadly, the only plants I can seem to keep alive are my pots of petunias and marigolds. Therefore, I’m really excited that Steve also has a green thumb! As I’m writing this during my lunch break, I’m enjoying a salad with greens from his garden. Yum.

Also, black beans? Where have you bean all my life? You make my day and my salad! I’d provide a picture, but the salad has already been consumed.

My first cooking adventure of the summer was Chicken Teriyaki skewers from scratch. Results: I placed in our office’s cooking competition. I just couldn’t win because I was on the committee… Darn.

My next cooking adventure of the summer: Rhubarb. Steve’s mom has handed me a number of recipes for this pink, celery-like veggie that a grows like bonkers behind his garage. I’ve eaten it and enjoyed it. Now let’s see if I can make some rhubarb deliciousness happen. I’ll report the results.

In other cooking news, I want to be this girl’s friend: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/lifestyle/postcollegekitchen.html

Third, I’ve decided to run a half marathon: http://www.foxcitiesmarathon.org/halfMarathon.html. I’ll be training for the next 10 weeks and letting you know how it’s going. Today’s training says “rest”. Check.

I’ve got lots of other things coming up including my longest camping trip yet, softball, running, and more. I’ll keep the bandages, ibuprofen and bug spray handy!

Have a great one!

My apologies

Dear sadly neglected readers, I would like to ask your forgiveness for abandoning the blog and leaving you with nothing to read (ha - I'm sure you've all found lots of interesting things to read). I've been working on some new projects (pictures coming soon). Updates:

• Running is going well. I ended the Blarney run with a time of 32:30. It was fantastic and it felt good despite the windy day. I ran with Steve and Kristi. They both finished ahead of me and did a great job!


• Guitar is going so-so. I have almost mastered "Need You Now" by Lady Antebellum.


• Sewing has taken center stage at the moment. You'll see the project soon. I promise.

Here are some fun other blogs I've found in the mean time for you to check out:

• Can you tell what my new hobby has been?


• How cute is this?


• If you haven't read my friend Kalie's blog, Tales of Wanderlust, in a while, then you're missing out!

New project pictures coming soon!

FYI - Gary's Gallop is this Saturday! Come run with me :) I'm hoping to break last year's personal best!

For the monkeys...

My friend "Jane" told me a little over a year ago, "I think your nuts. I'm glad you love running, but I think you're nuts."
This past November, I got an e-mail from this same friend asking if I would run The Sampson Stomp and Romp with her in January. That's what we did today.
Since it was her first race, I had this big plan to have a before and after shot and to celebrate her big accomplishment. Well, whoopsie, I forgot to charge my camera battery. Photos will show up the next time we do a race.
"Jane" requested that our next race be a bit warmer. You can see our race results here. Nothing like waking up early in the morning on a balmy 11 degrees F and running through the zoo with 1100 of your closest friends... at least neither of us slipped on any snow or ice!

To run or not to run?

To be or not to be?

Screw that. I’m not some weenie Danish prince who had some mega family issues. The answer is always “Be”. Duh.

To marathon or not to marathon?

Now there’s a question for which I do not have an answer. Is it physically possible? Yes. The people on “The Biggest Loser” can do it. They went from being close to death to running one in under 5 hours! Then again, they had Bob and Jillian and a host of doctors…

Remember last year when I started this blog before I kind of fell off the face of blog-dom and abandoned you all? I had a friend, Julie, who ran a half marathon and then a full marathon within two days. Granted, that’s kind of crazy, but that’s why we love Julie! This had inspired a group of us to train for a marathon in January of 2012 – the Disney Marathon. If we do this, the marathon will land exactly on my 28^th birthday. That’s in 322 days.

Pros:

1. Coolest Birthday Goal EVER!

2. The marathon runs through all the Disney parks and you get a medal in the shape of Mickey Mouse.

3. I’d be running it with friends.

4. Nice to meet you, I’m Jen. I ran a marathon.

5. I get to buy more shoes.

6. Side benefit of weight loss – I hope.

7. This is an attainable goal in a year. I’m not trying to do this in 3 months or less or anything.

8. I bet I’ll need some cute shorts to go with those new shoes…

Cons:

1. That’s a long-freakin’-race!

2. Do I really want to spend my birthday running?

3. Questioning myself – Do I have the motivation and discipline?

4. My feet are going to hurt.

5. That’s a long-freakin’-race!

6. The Y puts a 30 minute limit on the treadmills. I don’t think it’s humanly possible to run 26 miles in a half hour. That’s even speeding in a car on HWY 794!

7. I didn’t finish this year’s goal (missed by 2 races). What makes me think I can do this?

So at the moment, the Pros outweigh the Cons, but not by much.

Thoughts?

Can't or Won't?

It's late. I'm going to admit that I was staring at my closet for about 20 minutes before I opened my laptop and started typing. You see, tomorrow is the Fall fashion show at the Wauwatosa Women's Club (you should all join!), and I want to look nice. Duh, you say, but it's more the fact that I have to see my former Boot Camp coach, Sandi, than the fact that it's a fashion show.

I want to show her that thanks to all this working out, and a lot of her encouragement, I'm a whole size smaller than I was a year ago and I've stuck to it! And I don't mean, I'm a size smaller because I bought smaller pants and darn it, I'm going to make the zipper go up no matter what. I'm comfortably a size smaller and a whole lot healthier!

I think a lot of health is determining if you can't or won't do something about your lifestyle. Can't = impossible, and that's a load of hooey. As it says in the Bible, "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength." If you are choosing not to get off your couch, then you're saying "can't", and that's something you can change. However, if you're missing an arm and you say, "I can't do push-ups" that's legitimate. If you are refusing to do something, then that's a "won't", and you probably just need an attitude check.

Sandi, like me, hated the word "can't". She knew that if you just tried a little harder, you could! She once told me, "when you think you can't do any more, do 10 more". If people would just choose to at least walk for 30 minutes (10 minutes three times a day counts) or use a stretchy-band, they could do more than they even think is possible!

Fitness is achievable! If I can do it, you can do it! Heck, if I can learn all this crazy stuff, then there is hope that I'll find just the right outfit for tomorrow!

I don't remember where I read this quote, but I love it, and I'll leave you with it while I find an outfit to wear tomorrow:
"Impossible is nothing. Impossible is a big word used by small people. Nothing is impossible."

I spoke too soon...

OK, so I recently wrote about taking time and not getting sick.
Whoops!
The day after I wrote that, I got strep throat!
Facepalm.
Fortunately, at least it's a real infection where they can give you penicillin, and then you get better quickly unlike a virus where all they can tell you is "good luck". Fortunately, it has been over 48 hours, and now I am no longer contagious nor do I sound like Darth Vader!
Whoo hoo!
Sadly, I am still a bit congested. This means that I had to miss the race this morning, but thanks to my friend Kristi (*waves) I'll still get my race packet [free t-shirt]. Next year! I'll run it next year!
So, thanks to everyone who gave me home remedies, advice, and general well-wishes. I appreciate you all!
Love,
Jen