Winter with spring veggies and other laments

Tulip outside my back door this morning.

Hi friends! It's Thursday, May 2 and it's snowing here. Welcome to the great state of Iowa.

<<I am only annoyed with the weather... earlier this week it was 76 degrees. I really do love being an Iowa girl.>>

<<Also do not tell me smugly how fantastic the weather is where you are. So help me, I will hunt you down. Just enjoy your good fortune and shut up about it.>>

Last night was cardio day at the gym, which I rocked. One hour of cardio, y'all! 3 months ago that would have never happened. It's like I should have some with a side effects warning: "May cause vomiting or even death."

So anyway, I spent a lot of the time on the eliptical last night because of these two women that took the whole hour going the slowest pace on the treadmills. I mean, it was frustrating, but I complained about it last night to my fiance, so I'm not going to get into my annoyance now. (Thanks for listening, Randy!) I like the eliptical for lots of reasons, even though my trainer calls it "lazy cardio."

1. I move my arms and legs. buh-bye lunch lady arms!
2. Larger calorie burn at a quicker pace.
3. Easier on my joints, and my knees have given me some trouble in past years (thanks a lot, high school track.)

So, I booked it on the eliptical! To compensate for the absence of my high incline treadmill warm-up, I kept increasing my resistance, beginning at level 5. I think I got up to 10, which is an amzing butt and upper thigh workout.

The Food Network wasn't on, so I brought my kindle with me. I'm currently trying to get through a book list of "Books every woman should read in her mid-20s." I'm 27, so "mid-20s" is a loose term, but so far, I'm enjoying the books I've read. Check out the list. I've read Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson and I'm currently reading Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling. This book is absolutely hilarious and I'm pretty sure Mindy Kaling and I would be best friends in another life. I actually laughed out loud, more like a guffaw, in the gym. Take that, treadmill hogger girls. Read this book; it's awesome.

My wonderful fiance accompanied me to the gym last night. We consider that time together, which it kind of is, because we're both exercising at the same time, but I'm not one of those people that spots her boyfriend on the weights or runs on the treadmill next to his. Absolutely not. We go, tell each other to have a good workout and reconvene in 60 minutes. When I met up with Randy, he was drenched in sweat. He told me he ran 12 laps on the track (which is a mile on our gym's track) and every 2 laps, he stopped and did 30 push ups. He also did ab exercises and weights. When I saw him, he was killing himself on the stair master.

You guys, I felt like I had a great workout, and I have also instructed you not to compare yourself to others, especially men because they are way different than females. But after Randy told me everything he did, I felt bad. Like, I could have done more. So, the goal next week is to leave the gym completely exhausted every night. It WILL happen, and that will make for some excellent writing I'm sure. Stay tuned.

Last night, Randy and I decided to make something from yesterday's second blog entry. We both are asparagus fans, so we did our own version of the Asparagus Goat Cheese Galette. The difference was, we didn't make the galette crust. We found this pre-packaged artisan flatbread (probably Pepperidge Farms. Those people have a handle on deliciousness). We each made our own. On mine, I put chicken that Randy grilled with garlic and cayenne pepper, asparagus that I steamed a little before baking it, tomatoes, the goat cheese mixture, basil and garlic. Randy topped his with the goat cheese mixture, green olives, chicken and asparagus. We popped it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. The artisan bread was the perfect amount of crispy! Everything was delicious! I highly recommend.

As I said it's snowing here, which always trips a little switch in my head that says, "just put on sweatpants and watch movies on the couch!" With the wedding being 44 days away, I can't do that. I am plugging away on my two-a-day workouts, and suffering from a little soreness each day. It will be worth it though!