I keep waiting for the watermelon to stop tasting so good -

but alas, that time has yet to come. I guess I’ll just have to keep testing the watermelons until I’m sure watermelon season is over. It is my duty.

So as luck would have it my mom had a technological snow day of sorts and was able to leave work early – thus I was able to get my run checked off the to-do list much earlier than I anticipated.

Midday sun + warm but not too hot air + slight breeze = perfect running weather.  It was my duty to run.

I did my 4.76 mile loop in about 39 minutes. Home to change and throw together a quick Ezekiel bread veggie filled sandwich, we then whisked away to a play date with Ava’s future classmates and a little “getting to know you” meet up.

After our meet up, I got to know this beauty.

I introduced myself to a new Larabar too.

It is my duty to report the facts.  If you like Pistachio nuts (I do! I do!) then this Larabar is for you. It’s like eating a giant, soft, slightly sweet pistachio nut.

I was slightly amused at how GREEN it was. I’m hoping this is just fluorescent green because it’s made from pistachios and not because the ingredients were grown near Chernobyl.

I dawdled getting dinner ready tonight and before I knew it was dinner time, I was starving and annoyed that dinner did not magically appear before me.  This calls for fast and easy – i.e., the food processor.

Homemade garlic hummus and cut up vegetables sticks for a little tasting plate.

See that zucchini in the bowl of the background there? Take note of that. It’s a bit of foreshadowing.

As I’ve been reading Thrive I keep peeking at the recipes in the back and have been drooling into the binding over Brendan Brazier’s large collection of raw and veggie centered recipes. I decided to try his zucchini chips tonight.

Before I made hummus I used my slicer attachment to let my food processor do some slicey dicey magic.

I misto‘d a cookie sheet with olive oil and spread the nicest slices out on and sprayed with more olive oil and a little salt. Preheated the oven to 300 and baked for about 40 minutes before I decided I was too hungry to let them cook any longer.

Some were crispy. And some were not.

For Round 2 I used up the less-than-perfect mixed thickness zucchini slices. This is where those slices pictured in the bowl above come into play.

Round 2?  FAIL.

I can’t say I’m surprised they turned out this way, Round 2 was more of an experiment to see if the paper thin ones would crisp up perfectly.  Maybe they did but I didn’t keep a close eye on them so it’s my fault.  But don’t get me wrong, these tasted great! Especially the few chips I got to crisp up perfectly. Even the mushy limp ones were good.  (Yikes, don’t read that sentence out of context.) I just need to find the perfect chip width to hit the zucchini chip sweet spot.

To fail or not to fail, there is no question.  I will attempt these zucchini chips again!  It is my duty.

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Maxine woke me up in the middle of the night last night to accompany her on a trip to the bathroom and for some water.  Instead of falling back to sleep after I got back into bed, I laid awake for well over an hour while my mind went around and around with all the things that have been accumulating on my mental to-do list.

I remembered something I heard Jillian Michaels talk about on her radio show once, that when she can’t sleep she gets up and writes down everything she has to do and then she feels like once it’s written down, she can rest.

Normally a to-do list in my head is all I need, but sometimes it does get too long and I start to feel overwhelmed, so writing it all down can be one way to alleviate some stress. Around 4am I finally got up and put it all on paper, scribbling every task and item that came to mind – even down to the most mundane things like “fold laundry”.

And it worked! I fell back to sleep almost immediately and then next thing I knew it was 8:45! It helped knowing my morning work out has been pushed back to later in the day when my mom comes out to visit with the girls this afternoon.

First thing on my to do list for today?

Make GREEN JUICE.

I’m down to my last two cucumbers from the garden. Being the last two, they are of course the black sheep of cucumbers.

Meet Shorty and his brother Albino.

Fortunately their stature and color of their skin make no difference to me or the juicer.

Today’s juice contained romaine, cucumbers, an apple, a lemon and some ginger.

We’ve got a couple things going on after lunch but have the morning free to play and work on this to-do list of mine.

Got any good tips or tricks for falling back to sleep?

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Blog: And just where have you been, young lady?

Me: Um, err… I was out.

Blog: out? OUT!? Where exactly is OUT?

Me: Well, let me start at the beginning.

A long, long time ago, on a Sassy Saturday afternoon…

I ate a salad.

A salad filled with red leaf lettuce, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, sprouts, cucumbers and green peppers. It was a lovely salad indeed.

After lunch I packed my bags for an old fashioned, get out your dancing shoes, life before kids, girls night out and sleepover to boot.

What, you don’t take breakfast cookie ingredients with you to a sleepover? Breakfast rookie.

Waiting for my (big) girls to come pick me up, I had a little snack. This was a snack with a purpose, you see. This snack was meant to serve as a REMINDER that I did NOT want to wake up with a tongue feeling like the outside of a kiwi tomorrow morning.

Yes, Blog, last night was Ladies Night you see. Oy what a night. Oh yes, I shirked my parental responsibilities in lieu of a good cause: Food, friends, fun and freedom.

One of my oldest and best girlfriend’s is in town for about a week. My former high school clique turned fellow 30 year old’s circled round to paint the town red. Or whatever it is you kids are calling it these days.

First up, girlfriends Missy, Sharon and yours truly headed out to dinner at a happening little bistro while we waited for gal pal #4 to get out of work.

This would be an attempt to look sassy, wind blown and sexy.

Meh. Two outta three ain’t bad.

The scene.

The menu.

The beverage.

Oooo don’t mind if I do…

The food.

I let this Pinball Panini bounce all around between my teeth.

I was more than happy to get all tied up in my Tangled Up and Bleu Salad.

After dinner and tons catching up and girl talk, we blew that pop stand and moved on to meet up with Tara.

But first, an emergency stop for caffeine and a little something sweet.

Yes, that’s right. Starbucks. A pecan toffee bar and a little insurance policy to insure I wouldn’t fall asleep in my chardonnay.

Coffee with a time check to make sure I wasn’t dreaming because I was definitely feeling sleepy as well as feeling like a I needed a little pinch that I was out with my gals on a Saturday night!

Three hip chicks, hanging out like this is standard operating procedure and pretending our sweatpants never see a Saturday night.

With our coffee buzz well underway, we headed downtown to meet up with Tara and make our move for some more “we do this all the time” action.

The scene.

The company.

The beverages.

Wait, how many of us are there again? Head Count! 1, 2, 3, 4… Drink Count! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…

Interesting.

That might explain why the scene started to look a little like this. I think it’s time we move on.

Hmmm, spelling the name of the bar with our arms?

Yeah. Definitely time to move on. And just about time to remember back to that fuzzy kiwi snack this afternoon too.

We danced, laughed, talked and walked our way through a club and back to Tara’s house to do what any group of fun loving girls would do at this hour of the night. Err… hour of the morning.

A late night lesson on how to make a breakfast cookie, as requested.

Operation Avoid Fuzzy Tongue was a rousing success this morning, as were our breakfast cookies.

The chatting continued this morning and we enjoyed a late morning walk together to the local co-op to refill my stash of Larabars and nut butters before the journey home. A girl’s gotta have priorities.

Home again and caught up on the events of the 18 hours I was able to escape, I’ve already managed to consume my weight in vegetables.

Given all the clocks I studied yesterday, you think I might have made at least once glance at a calendar?

I needed a cup of tea to weave my tale. You just can’t wrong with a box you dig out of the cupboard that has Gingerbread Men on it. August Schmaugust.

So you see Blog, that’s where I’ve been…

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I belly flopped into bed last night as soon as Zak walked through the door. When I woke a little while later as he was getting the girls ready for bed I realized it probably wasn’t just lack of sleep that had me feeling puny. I think I was probably fighting off that odd 12 hour bug Ava seemed to have on Wednesday too.

A 12 hour bug indeed I woke up this morning after 10 hours of sleep feeling almost normal. Nothing a run and some green juice couldn’t fix to get me all the way there. Although who am I kidding? I don’t think any amount of green juice is going to take me all the way to “normal”. Green juice in and of itself has me shooting well past the normal mark.

Instead of a usual Saturday long run I opted for a very nice and easy jaunt around the neighborhood. I did my 4.2 mile loop in 36 minutes. I heard the juicer already whirring as I ascended the porch steps and walked into the house to find my mind reading husband not only making juice but taking pictures too!

He was fully embracing the juicing process, taking an approach I’ve yet to take – a scientific one.

Juice from a large head of romaine:

1 1/2 cups.

Still left to be juiced at that point; two apples, two carrots, a lemon, a beet, a cucumber and some ginger.

Juice from two apples:

1 cup.

Juice from all fruits and vegetables combined:

A grand total of 4 cups!

The pulp left behind.

My glass held some ice and about 1 cup of vegetable juice this morning – I went back for a refill after this was polished off and we each enjoyed 2 cups of juice this morning.

Natalia Rose talks about vegetable juicing in her Raw Food Detox Diet book, which thus far has been my only juicing reference with the exception of some blogs and a few online resources. Natalia’s book is where I’ve learned most everything I know about juicing at this point. On the days I drink green juice I try to follow her advice and have it be the first thing I consume that day or at the very least on an empty stomach if it’s later in the day. I aim to give it a half hour or so before moving on to something more solid.

And by something more solid I of course mean something like 2% Fage, homemade cereal, 1/2 a sliced banana and a scoop of almond butter topped off with a splash of hemp milk.

If yesterday was Friday Funk I’ve since turned it around to Saturday Sass! Sleep, run, green juice? A perfect recipe for sassiness.

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I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was that I get up 5am this morning but I have been walking around feeling like a zombie all day today. I. Am. Tired. I’d love to take a nap but I think at this point I’ve crossed the line from “taking a nap” to just “going to bed”. Do I know how to have a rockin’ good time on a Friday night or what?

For lunch I reheated some lasagna. That’s it. No salad, no side of steamed veggies. Just lasagna.

I finished up some things around here and then decided to eschew yoga this afternoon in favor of an impromptu shopping trip. I did that “swipe the debit card” pose. You know the one.

I was starving when I got home and dove promptly into the bag of carrots.

That carrot + about five others. I’d wished it was a piece of cake slathered with frosting but alas, it was just a carrot. Gotta love those didn’t-get-enough-sleep sugar cravings.

So it was just me and my carrot. I did however remember dark chocolate a short while later. Chocolate makes me happy. The fact that it was the end of the bar is the only reason that wasn’t a picture of 24 squares instead of just 6.

And for dinner tonight? Hold on to your hats.

I feel like that I’m in one of those a bad commercials for Healthy Choice frozen dinners and I’m them chick who says “I had popcorn for dinner last night” and the other chick smirks and rattles on about her fabulous sounding Healthy Choice meal. What a bitch.

Why aren’t these kids tired yet? Don’t they know it’s 6:30? Why isn’t Zak home from work yet? Doesn’t he know it’s 6:30? Why aren’t I in bed yet? Look at the time! It’s 6:30!

Hurry home honey! It’s popcorn for dinner tonight!

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I got up with Zak this morning when the alarm went off at 5. He headed out to go swimming and I headed down to the kitchen. Feeling hungry already, today would have been a perfect morning for some green lemonade, except for one problem. I’m out a romaine. I’ve got spinach but spinach doesn’t have a lot of water and I’ve come to find that it takes A LOT of spinach to get a decent amount of liquid from it.

What’s that saying? If life hands you lemons, make lemonade? Well then, if life hands you spinach, make a green smoothie.

Hmmm, my modified version of that saying doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily but I’m sticking with it.

Today’s concoction was 1 banana, slightly frozen. 1 apple, peeled and sliced. A couple handfuls of spinach and a few splashes of unsweetened vanilla hemp milk.

I’ve got yoga planned for today but made the executive decision to move it back to this afternoon. The girls are spending the day with Aunt Ellen and I always enjoy yoga more in the middle of the day after I’m loosened up from moving around with normal activity.

With my exercise postponed I had time to experiment in the kitchen this morning. I knew my green smoothie wasn’t going to hold me over long so I got a jump start on Breakfast Part II knowing it was going to be at least an hour in the making.

I love cereal. Especially cereals like Kashi Heart to Heart and Peanut Butter Puffins. I’ve come to realize though that eating boxed cereal makes me crave MORE MORE MORE cereal and it’s easy for me to go overboard with it if I don’t try hard to exercise some restraint. I therefore prefer to leave cereal on the grocery store shelves with the exception of what I buy for the girls. (i.e., “safe” cereals that aren’t as titillating as H2H or PB Puffins.  I can safely buy Cheerios with no fear of diving head first into the box.)

I’m quite experienced now in making my own granola, and its had me thinking for a while now that making my own cereal couldn’t be a big stretch from granola. I wanted something slightly different than granola though because I don’t want a “cereal” full of nuts and dried fruit. I like to add fresh banana and almond butter to cereal and make a big ol’ cereal mess!

With that introduction, let me proudly present you with my very own breakfast cereal recipe created this morning.

Mama’s Bunches of Oats

1 cup of rolled oats
1/4 c ground flax
1/4 c canola oil
1/4 c grade A maple syrup

Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients and flatten mixture on a large cookie sheet but be careful not to spread too thin.

Bake at 250 for about an hour. No flipping or stirring necessary while it bakes. Remove after an hour and allow to cool. Break into clusters.

Makes about 3 servings. I didn’t figure out calorie content but I’d put a rough guesstimation at about 300 calories per serving. My typical breakfast cookie or bowl of overnight oats easily runs me 500 calories so this is about par and fits neatly in to my usual complete breakfast. But there no doubt about it, this is calorie dense.

Store in an air tight container to enjoy another day.

“Another day” for me will most likely be tomorrow. This turned out better than I ever expected! I’m already looking forward to experimenting with this further. I’d like try some different spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla… maybe even some nuts if I feel like I can bear to be without my beloved almond butter for breakfast one morning. The possible combos are endless!

Time to eat! Served still warm this morning on top of 1/2 container of 2% Fage, 1/2 a sliced banana and a spoonful of almond butter, topped with unsweetened vanilla hemp milk.

This was crunchy and very satisfying.  More importantly it didn’t leave me wanting to sneak back into the container for a little more. In addition, there are no added preservatives, chemicals, high fructose corn goodness or partially hydrogenated surprises. I’m excited to call this a breakfast success!

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I had lunch today with a childhood friend. Someone I haven’t seen in years and years.

Ummm, close. But not exactly.

Alfalfa! I swear the last time I had alfalfa sprouts was in 1987 when my mom was into sprouting her own. It’s been a long time. Welcome back my friend, looking forward to visiting with you more regularly.

Soup and sandwich for lunch today – left over Curried Carrot Cauliflower Lentil Soup and a veggie sandwich with Sesame Ezekiel, mustard, red leaf, tomatoes and as I mentioned, alfalfa.

The girls busied themselves around the house and outside today while I putzed around doing housework sprinkled with a little playing as needed.

We broke for snacks some time mid afternoon. Fage and granola for me – so happy together.

But now, the reason we’re all here tonight. A Lesson in Vegetarian Lasagna.

Maybe you’re a pro and have made lasagna 1000 times before and you’re already yawning and scrolling through this part wondering when it’s going to be over. If that’s the case – run along and make me something to eat.

If you’ve never made lasagna and are either:

a. intimidated
b. curious
c. intrigued
d. hungry

then please, walk with me.

This is actually one of the first vegetarian dishes I ever made. No, wait. This is actually one the first dishes I ever made – period! It is very near and dear to my heart and is probably why I’m dedicating nearly an entire post to it. I made veggie lasagna years before we were actually vegetarians and were just looking for more meatless dishes to enjoy. This was also something I made early on in our marriage and first had my own kitchen and started making dinner like a grown up. I’ve made this dish many, many times and if I may be so bold I’m going to go ahead and say that I am a VLE. Vegetarian Lasagna Expert. Both in the eating and preparing sense of the term that I made up just now. This is an time intensive dish to prepare but it is honestly not very difficult. I usually only make this for dinner parties or if I’m in the mood to really COOK. Tonight happened to be the latter.

For the sauce you’ll need:

extra virgin olive oil
1 zucchini, shredded
1 carrot, shredded
1/2 cup of mushrooms, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
(the vegetable used in this dish are very flexible and veggies can be left out or included as desired)
15 oz can of diced tomatoes
4 oz can of tomato paste
1 cup of water
oregano
basil
S&P

For the cheese layer:

1 egg, scrambled
2 cups ricotta (or cottage cheese)
8 oz of mozzarella
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese

9 – 11 lasagna noodles – I use uncooked. I’ve never used pre-cooked so I’m not exactly sure how they work. If you’ve ever use pre-cooked noodles for lasagna, do you think it’s a big savings in time/energy?

You should only need 9 noodles but I make a couple extra so I’ve got a few “backups” in case one or two rip or I need to patch up a spot if the noodles are a little short. Plus I’ve got two children who are happy to eat left over, slightly undercooked, plain lasagna noodles.

A spread of everything you’ll need:

Well, everything minus the Parmesan that I didn’t remember to add to the picture until I was up to my elbows in vegetables, sauce, cheese and noodle madness.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large pan, saute veggies of your choice in EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) on medium heat until soft. While this veggies are cooking, fill and begin heating a large pan with water for cooking lasagna noodles.

Add tomatoes, tomato paste, water and stir. Add herbs and S&P.

Oh! And this is an important step. Take an extra carrot and slice it up to enjoy with salsa to snack on and enjoy while cooking. (OK that’s probably not very sanitary so skip that step if you are a food inspector or making this meal for a lot of people.)

While sauce is cooking and water for noodles is heating up, prepare cheese mixture. Scramble egg in a large bowl. Stir in ricotta, mozzarella and parm. Add a few splashes of milk if needed to make it a little thinner and easier to spread.

Cook noodles until they are Al Dante. (i.e., still a little bit firm) They’ll finish cooking as it bakes.

In a 9 x 13 inch baking dish, spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the dish.

Lay three noodles on top of sauce layer.

With a spatula, spread cheese layer on top of noodles. If it’s really thick a little milk can help thin it out and make it easier to spread.

One more time: a layer of sauce, noodles, cheese. Then a layer of sauce, noodles and sauce again. Sprinkle with parm and it’s ready for the oven!

A quick review on the layers, from the bottom up:

sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles, sauce, parm

In it goes!

You did pre-heat the oven, right?

Bake at 375 for about 35 minutes. I keep an eye on it and if I start to really smell it and see that it’s bubbling nicely, it’s done.

Take it out and let it sit for about 10 minutes to cool slighty and set. Slice and enjoy! Makes about 12 servings.

For dinner tonight, with a side salad. (And lunch tomorrow and the next day too probably!)

When I make this for a dinner party I usually make garlic bread too, but since it’s just us tonight I skipped any bread and just went with salad.

So there ya go – Veggie Lasagna a la Alison. Manga!

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Speed work was on the agenda for this morning. I was hungry but didn’t want to eat very much because the likelihood of puking on a run increases exponentially during a speed work session.

A small handful of raisins ought to be safe enough. It’s kind of hard see but my little pile of raisins were in my hand underneath the Newman’s Own Organics carton there. It’s almost as if the perfect portion just dropped right out of the bottom like magic. That would be really “handy”, wouldn’t it?

I out the door at about 6:45 – it was only 55 degrees out! I did almost an exact replica of a track work out that I did a couple weeks ago. Except this one was solo, on Thursday morning instead of a Friday afternoon and it was not nearly as hot. Like I said, almost an exact replica.

A ran a slow easy pace for the mile warm up from my house to the track, and then jumped right into 400 meter sprints (one time around the track), 200 meter recoveries (half way around the track), repeated 5 times. I ran each 400 meter in about 1:35 and each 200 meter in just over a 1:00. There were handful of walkers on the track this morning, I was the only runner.

I took the long way home for a 2 mile cool down. I’m fairly sure my total mileage works out to be just under 5 miles and I was gone just shy of 40 minutes.

I realized this morning that this is such a great way to mix it up. It went by really quickly and barely felt like a “real” run. The warm up run there was easy and enjoyable. The speed work itself didn’t feel like running – it was more like short bursts of torture. The cool down run home was easy and enjoyable too and I didn’t feel like I was slacking with a slow pace after a 15 minutes of running like I was trying to escape the police. The whole run went by really quickly. I need to start doing this more often. Sprinting, that is, not escaping the police.

Back home and grateful my raisins stayed down, I decided today was the day to hack into the young coconut I’ve had in the fridge for a few days now. Except I couldn’t find the mallet I use to pound on the knife to get the frickin’ thing open.

So I tried the “hold the knife behind your head and WHACK down on it”. Umm yeah, do you have any idea how hard it is to AIM a knife when you do that?? I hit the coconut each time but never in the same place twice.

OK, this was going to take ALL MORNING at this rate.

I gave up went to look for the mallet again. I didn’t find it but I did find an acceptable substitute. I’m going to leave it “acceptable substitute” because Zak reads the blog occassionally and I’d hate to incriminate myself.

But let’s just say my substitute did the trick and I finally cracked that nut.

This one was loaded with water and it’s contents filled the glass to the very brim! Probably 12 oz, maybe a little more because some slopped out when I poured it into the glass.

And per usual I scooped out the young coconut meat that I swear looks like squid and the only way I can possibly imagine eating this is pureed into a smoothie.  I’m gagging at the mere thought of slurping this down my throat any other way.

After coconut water and came some body weight exercises – a couple sets of push ups and some yoga flows to stretch it all out.

And finally, a breakfast worthy of sprinting to.

Buried underneath that pile of ground flax, sliced banana, spoonful of almond butter and sprinkle of homemade granola was chocolate overnight oats, believe it or not.

My overnight oat was typical mix of 1/2 c rolled oats soaked overnight in 1/4 c LF Stonyfield Farms vanilla yogurt, 1/2 chocolate unsweetened almond milk and about a tsp of unsweetened cocoa powder.

This breakfast makes me smile almost as much as all your comments and emails do. Almost.

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Thank you all for your warm, sweet comments on my post this morning. I was feeling pretty groovy about it after I posted it but as the day wore on I started feeling less and less groovy and more and more stupid.

Have you ever gone to a party and had too much to drink and then danced around like you thought you were God’s gift to dancing, only to wake up the next morning with a banging headache wondering what on earth you were thinking and where did these weird ass blisters on my feet come from?

Yeah, me either.

Except instead of wine my drug of choice this morning was apparently an exercise induced endorphin rush and a memorable sunrise. My morning-after began here.

Yes, she’s wearing those pants again. I promise they have been washed since she wore them on Monday.

We had a bunch of plans today that were flushed down the toilet when Ava woke up complaining of a sore throat. Homeschooly art thing? Cancelled. Swimming this afternoon? Cancelled. Enter: errands that ended with a quick trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. Oh wait. I think that’s Disney World. OK, scratch that. The Second Happiest Place on Earth.

Wondering about lunch? Did I skip a meal? hahahah not quite. Lunch consisted of rummaging the fridge for all of my favorite side dishes before we danced our way to the car.

Salsa and carrots? Check.

Dates and Almond Butter? Check and check.

Green and Black 70% Dark Chocolate? Triple check.

So back to Adventures at Toys R Us.

We got lost in a sea of pink.

Maxine got so excited she laid down right in the middle of the floor to make dirt angels. I made her get up but not before taking a few pictures.

Naturally.

After groceries (I think I grocery shop just about every day. I need an intervention.) and a couple other stops we were home and was having a big case of blogger remorse. I was in desperate need of tall frosty one. Tall frosty green lemonade that is. And then I cried tears into my throw pillow.

OK, I didn’t really cry. I’m just picking on myself a little bit. I make it so easy.

That was dinner. Well, that and some banana whip to round out a day of randomness.

I’m very eager to hit publish and move this morning’s post away from the top of the page. Backing away… slowly… slowly…

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I woke this morning just as the sky was beginning to fade from the darkness of night to the shade of gray that precedes dawn. As the haze of subconscious lifted I realized Zak was still lying in bed next to me. I nudged him gently with my elbow to ask him if he was planning to swim this morning at the lake or not. The color of the sky lead me to believe he’d overslept.

He confirmed my suspicion when he said it was 5:50 and then proceeded to roll over and go back to sleep. I sat up and said quietly that I was going to go for a bike ride as I slithered my way to the foot of the bed.

I dressed and headed downstairs to forage for something to take the edge off the earliest inkling of hunger and hold off the savage beast until I returned from my ride. I sliced a kiwi and stacked it like a deck of cards, enjoying each card and it’s furry edges as I filled my water bottle and moved the cutting board to the sink.

It occurred to me as I was preparing to head out the kitchen door into the garage that I’d originally planned to do yoga this morning. For a moment I let myself entertain thoughts of changing from my bike riding gear into yoga clothes and staying home to do yoga as scheduled. My mind then leaped forward to the bitter cold and snow filled days that will be here soon enough. A sea of mornings lie ahead to stay inside and do yoga. Reminded that my days of bike riding will soon be over until the spring, I stayed the course and left to ride.

I listened to the mechanical clicks of a the garage door as it lifted and walked my bike out onto the driveway. I was greeted with a beautiful sunrise and air so perfectly cool and crisp it practically begged to be broken and disturbed by a woman on her bicycle.

I wanted to capture more photos of the sunrise. It was so moving that I wanted to remember it in more than just my minds eye. Taking pictures seemed to cheapen it, but it didn’t stop me from stowing my camera in the small bag under my bike seat. I set a course for the east end of the subdivision, beyond the houses and trees to capture the rising sun with my digital eye as it rose between the clouds and moved above the horizon.

I rode through my suburban neighborhood and stopped where the pavement ends near the newer homes and construction. I’ve noticed the dirt road that extends beyond the paved road and on a whim decided I would explore it further, like I might have as a child on my bike before I knew about maximum heart rates and calories burned.

The dirt road ended in some brush and I turned around to continue on my way. Exiting the subdivision and heading into to town toward the commercial district, I watched the sky transform from red and pink as it filled with yellows, oranges and blues.

I was glad to see other people walking and running this morning. I took comfort in knowing I wasn’t the only one awake and outside enjoying this perfect start to a new day.

There is no denying that the season is changing and autumn continues to inch ever closer. Although the wheel of the year never stops turning, the change of the seasons is more evident at certain times of the year than it is at others. I was brought back to this time three years ago, awaiting the impending arrival of our second baby that we now know as Maxine. With Zak’s help I had just made what I believed and hoped to be the best decision I might ever make; to choose the fork in the road that led to leaving a promising career as a computer programmer to stay home and raise our children.

As I approached the large grocery store I made an impulsive decision to turn into and coast down the large sloping parking lot, following my child themed ride for the morning. I noticed three old women walking together toward the store, well before the parking lot, leading me to imagine they had walked together from their near by homes for coffee and to enjoy each others company early on a Wednesday morning.

I breezed past the entrance and watched a woman exit the store with a grocery bag full of packaged food. I observed without judgment that it looked like she had bought candy and some baked goods. Without of course knowing exactly why she bought what she did, it reminded me of a life I once lived, just two short years ago using sugar and refined carbohydrates to find comfort and solace. What was it that lead to me to these feelings of disorder and stress? What drove me to make poor food choices again and again? Oh. Right. Zak in a new demanding job that left me home alone for long hours with a toddler and an infant. As much joy and wonder the girls bring into our lives, caring for small children can be both physically and emotionally taxing. Chocolate covered pretzels and everything bagels were my escape.

I made my way out of the parking lot and down a busy main road. Instead of my usual route I veered off course once again and rode through a neighborhood I’ve never been into. How many times have I walked by the people that live inside these homes and are a part of our community? In the aisles of the grocery store, at the post office, the library? Folks on their own journey, living their own stories that we call our lives, fighting their own fights.

I checked the clock on my bike a noticed I’d been gone for 45 minutes. Based on the landmarks I knew from experience that I was about four miles from home. I set my course for the house to let Zak get on his way to work.

A mile and a half from home, I passed under a large tree whose branches reached over road. At that moment three drops of water fell to my face. Two on my cheek and one on my eye lid. I briefly thought the breeze must have blown a few droplets of water from a leaf into the air, by pure chance landing on me instead of the ground. A few more cycles of my wheels and I quickly observed that those weren’t drops from a leaf at all, they were drops from a cloud. It was starting to rain. Heading west now with the sunrise behind me, I realized gray clouds were moving in and now muddying the colors I’d appreciated barely an hour ago.

The rain remained light but picked up in intensity as I grew closer the house. I contemplated how I might best capture a photo to the end of the story I’d weaved for myself this morning. A beautiful sunrise and morning ending with the rain slowly soaking the grass and the pavement.

I smiled when I realized we’d sat here barely 12 hours ago, watching ants attack popped corn that was now no where to be found. No human moved those kernels, I’m sure of it.

Inside to change out of my rain and sweat soaked clothes, Zak and I talked in hushed voices about the events of the day that just passed and those of the coming day as well. We moved downstairs to have breakfast and coffee together while the fruit of our loins continued to sleep.

I laughed to myself when I took my breakfast out of the fridge with child-like anticipation, realizing that I still and will likely always find joy and comfort in food. I’m grateful though that I’m now better equipped with the knowledge to make healthier choices, as well as more self-awareness to be mindful of the reasons breakfast delights me so.

The morning rain has already passed. The girls are rousing from their slumber and now it’s time to begin another day together.

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