stress = eat.

I'm in a funk, folks. Being sick for two weeks will do that to a spirit, I suppose, but it's time for some major rebuilding because I'm headed for unhappiness if I don't snap out of it and regroup.

YES I had to take a break from my half marathon training. YES this probably means I won't be able to do the half on Oct. 7 (never say never). YES I had to take a break from yoga. YES I am still recovering. YES I will spring back. YES I will run a half marathon...even if it's not this one. YES I will be okay.

When you've been training to run a half marathon, and then have to stop all the sudden, it's hard to stop eating like you eat when you're training. I've probably gained 5-7 lbs in the past 10 days. I don't really want to know, and I'm not going to look at the scale because that's only going to trigger a lot of negative self-talk at this point. But this is definitely something I'm struggling with.

For example, I made these gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookies a couple days ago. Quartered the recipe. Thank god I did because I pulled them out of the oven and devoured them all, despite the fact they had soggy insides and could've stood for another 6-8 minutes of baking.

They were really good. So I would suggest making some. Just maybe up the baking time a bit, and uh oh yeah, don't eat them all at once. I mean you could. But I wouldn't recommend it.

Tonight when I was feeling blah, I almost made these oatmeal butterscotch cookies. (Granted, they're still on my to-do list.) But then I lit some candles, and pulled out my yoga mat instead. Did an easy flow for 25 minutes. It was the right decision.

Thus I give you:
10 things to do before making/consuming food one knows one doesn't need.

1. Drink a glass of water. Dehydration is, after all, commonly mistaken for hunger.
2. Take the pup for a spin around the block. I don't care what the temp is, just do it.
3. Paint/repaint nails. Can't nom if you're going to ruin wet nails.
4. Chew some gum.
5. Or brush those teeth. 
6. Look at some fit-spiration.
7. Do 10 pushups.
8. Do 30 crunches.
9. Do a 90-second plank.
10. Go on a cleaning rampage. There's always shit to clean.

I will def be consulting above list a lot in the next few days. I eat when I'm stressed, and I'm kind of pretty stressed at the moment.

But then I look at my sleepy puppy, and he makes things instantly better :-)

To getting back on track with running, and yoga, and coursework, and life in general.

All smiles,

b

the cutest thing you will see all weekend

Little Birdie by Danette Serr

via Camping Survival Women

goodness (gracious)

So much for speedy recovery. Apparently I have a viral infection, not a bacterial one, and I am effectively back to square one in terms of recovery. I’m behind on school work and concerned about my half-marathon training. I was pretty sure I’d be fine taking a week off – but I’m probably looking at 2, maybe more.

HOWEVER. Life is overall fabulous, and regardless of anything and everything, there will be other days that I can get a full practice session in, and there will be other half marathons (if it comes to that). Life goes on.

More than that! It thrives. What’s been good lately:

• This recipe for coconut-spinach fritters and guacamole. Honestly, I was a titch skeptical but they are FABULOUS. I left out the nutritional yeast and pink salt and subbed maple syrup for agave. Still great. Oh and I used olive oil instead of safflower, just personal preference – I love the flavor olive oil adds to dishes like this.

omnomnom. I plated with brown rice, as you can see.

• These excerpts from David Byrne‘s new book, How Music Works. He talks about how human creativity has not progressed over time; rather, it has adapted to its surroundings. My brain has been chewing on this for a few days – there are points I agree and disagree with, but I’m not going to get into my thoughts at length, at least not right now.

• Salman Rushdie‘s book Midnight’s Children. I’m about a quarter of the way through and in love with his writing style (haven’t read anything by him before). I e-booked it after hearing an interview with Rushdie and director Deepa Mehta about its movie adaptation on NPR, the transcript for which I cannot find anywhere.

• How to Die Without Regrets (blog post). I’m not in agreement with everything in this post, but I like the overarching message, and found this bit particularly interesting (my mother informed me there was also a recent NPR story on the top five regrets):

“Earlier this year, a palliative care nurse revealed the top five regrets that her patients expressed before they died:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

• Yogi Ginger Tea, and actually Yogi Tea in general, because of the awesome quotes with every tea bag. This one is SO applicable to my life…I feel like I need to make a giant sign with this quote on it and hang it in the room where I practice violin.

love. this.

All smiles,

b

don't fight the downhills

Yesterday, whilst running the five miles that my training called for, I got to thinking about hills. Not metaphorically, although you can definitely metaphor hills to death if you want to. And yup, this post will ultimately be a metaphor. But for now, I'm just talking about physical hills.

 

Running on hills has never bothered me all that much. Even when I didn't take running so seriously, I saw them as a challenge to defeat rather than an insurmountable obstacle to dread. That's just who I am. Every uphill has a downhill. And on that note, every downhill has an uphill. We all know this. But the thought that popped into my head yesterday surprised me: 

You're fighting the downhill. Stop fighting the downhill. 

Of all the things to fight - why on earth would you fight the downhill? But that's exactly what I was doing. I was shortening my stride, and fighting the very momentum that nature was giving me. Not just giving me, more like shoving it in my face, yelling, "TAKE IT! TAKE IT!" But there I was, pounding the earth like I was going out of style on a 40% incline and making the downhill just as difficult, and maybe more so, than an actual uphill. 

I'm good at challenges, but I'm not so good at easy. I'm not so good at letting momentum take me where it will. I will almost always find away to make everything 10,000 times more complicated than it needs to be. I'll get lost because I followed a map to somewhere I already knew how to get to, but was so afraid of getting lost that I plugged it in my GPS anyway. Only to have the GPS take me to the back alley of a department store when I'm trying to get to the doctor's office. It's really, really, really freakin' hard to let go, and just let intuition take you where you're supposed to be. 

Granted, I would end up lost if I always let intuition guide me everywhere. A little foresight and planning never hurt anybody. But it has to be a give and take...there has to be some letting go...I am working on that letting go. I'm working on the downhills. 

And I'm getting better. I let go on the downhills of my runs, now. Let gravity do its job, for goodness' sake. And I let go this afternoon, when I knew I needed to go to the doctor and I didn't fight it, I just went. And now I have antibiotics to kill off what would normally turn into an even nastier case of bacterial tonsilitis than I currently have. My normal pattern when coming down with something: repeat the mantra, "I am not sick!" 100 times, ignore all warning symptoms just to save the hassle of putting things on hold to get better. Then, get sick anyway and increase my recovery time tenfold. 

There are some things you just shouldn't try to fight without some help, and bacterial tonsillitis is one of those things. In the past I would probably be seething right now - seething at having to take some time off, seething at sitting around doing nothing but not feeling good enough to do anything else - but I'm trying hard to be mindful this time. There's nothing I can do about being sick. And it's not going to matter in six months, or even six weeks, unless I don't take the time now to take care of myself. So I'm just going to take care of myself, and not fight it. It's a new angle for me. 

Being under the weather is a different kind of downhill...but I'll be on the upswing again soon, because I didn't fight it so hard this time. 

All smiles, 
b

conquering the acorn squash

If I ever have anything remarkable happen to me medically, it will probably be due to the fact that I eat obscene amounts of salsa. No, really. It's true. Tortilla chips and salsa are my go-to snack. Sometimes I melt a little cheese on top, but more often than not I just pop the container of salsa and pig out (straight from the container, of course). I figure if I'm going to pig out on something, it might as well be relatively healthy. So if I make it to 100+, I'm totally going to have my gravestone read, "Eat your salsa, yo!" Or something like that. 

But I digress. I have nothing cool to tell you to do with salsa at the moment, so instead I'm going to tell you three awesome things you can do with an acorn squash. Omnomnom! I really like figuring out how to make totally underrated vegetables totally scrumptious. Acorn squash is a lovely fall squash that, while hard to cut open when all you have are cheap knives with three-inch blades (guess what's on my Christmas list?), is worth the effort. And once you do get it cut open, it practically makes itself. I can't take credit for the first two acorn squash options (that goes to my lovely former neighbors, with whom I spent Saturday afternoon making acorn squash and yummy banana nut bread), but I do take credit for the seeds.  

First, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Then cut the squash in half along one of the grooves. Be super careful! It's even more difficult to cut open than a pumpkin. Scoop out the seeds (don't throw them away!!) Now you have two options:

1. Fill the fruit about halfway with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper to your taste.
2. Fill the fruit about halfway with maple syrup and add brown sugar to taste (I used a generous teaspoon).

Bam! You're done. Place the halves (rind down) on a baking sheet and pop it in the oven for about 40-45 minutes. When they're done, mash up the fruit so the olive oil or maple syrup mixture gets evenly distributed in the flesh. It should be soft, about the texture of baked sweet potato. Then eat it! Straight out of the fruit if you like - it's a nice natural bowl. 

maple syrup/brown sugar on the left; olive oil/salt/pepper on the right

Now, back to the seeds. While the fruit is in the oven, wash the seeds to get any stringy fruit off of them. Mix a teaspoon of maple syrup and a teaspoon of brown sugar in a Ziploc bag and throw the seeds in there, mixing it together until the seeds are pretty evenly coated. Spread them in a round, 8-inch cake pan and cover with aluminum foil. Why? Acorn squash seeds pop! Or at least they did when I roasted them. Those suckers hadn't been in there for ten minutes before they started popping all over my oven. So yeah. Cover them up. After the fruit is done, put them on the top rack for about 15 minutes (still at 375). Let them cool and crunch away! They're pretty similar in taste to pumpkin seeds. You could also roast them with olive oil and salt. 

pretty, no?

All smiles, 

b

tadasana chords

My theory teacher, as he draws an chord in rood position on the board: 

"And here we have tadasana."

Talk about confused. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that outside of a yoga class, and for a split second I was quite literally unsure as to whether I was at yoga or in music theory class. It turned out to be the latter...but I will forever refer to root-position chords as tadasana chords. Made my day. Ha!

 

via Lesson of Time!.

blue moon busy beaver

I have been a busy beaver over the past week. I'm trying to figure out whether I have time to do my half marathon training and not flunk out of grad school. I faceplanted into concrete at the very beginning of my Thursday run, and the last mile of said run was in pouring rain (go ahead and laugh...I am! now, at least). I got two parking tickets for the same thing (backing into a space - I had no idea you couldn't do it the first time...the second time I just wasn't thinking, obviously) but I think (I hope!!) I've learned my lesson. I made kale chips and lemon bars and confetti vegetable pasta sauce. I lost a water bottle at orchestra rehearsal. I discovered there were anchovies in my carrot juice - going to be reading juice labels very carefully from now on. I had an early morning debate about the public education system in Nashville. I saw The Bourne Legacy (not sure I'd recommend it...wait until it's out on Netflix or something). I had breakfast at The Pancake Pantry with my cousin and wife, who just moved to Nashville from New Haven. 

The confetti vegetable sauce - zucchini, yellow squash, red pepper, and mascarpone cheese. This recipe is from NestMeg (go check out her blog, it's awesome and will most likely make your stomach growl). It was easy to make and pretty sure it's officially my favorite pasta sauce ever.

The sky was really pretty on Thursday night, so that brightened my mood some after my bad run. That and I got a veggie burrito bowl from Chipotle, omnomnom.

   

Ooooof. I am thankful for a long weekend. Last night I sat outside with my pup and enjoyed the blue moon and just didn't think for a while. This morning I went to power flow and I'm feeling much more centered, energized, and ready to enjoy the weekend.

The "blue moon" from yesterday night - there won't be another for three years!

I'm off to the Franklin Jazz Festival to soak up some awesome live music. 

All smiles, 
b

kitchen experiments and other things

Okra is possibly the most underrated pizza topping of all time. No, really. I mean it. I don't think I've ever heard of okra as a pizza topping, but I had some that I needed to use, and so voila - my okra-mushroom pizza creation. Flatbread spread with chipotle salsa and topped with cheddar-jack cheese, okra, and slices of portobello mushroom. Baked at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Super easy, fast, and yummy! 

Didn't do anything to the veggies except sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt!

Grad school has officially started and I am most definitely going to be the busiest I've ever been in my entire life. But that's fantastic for me, because I love being busy. I thrive on busy. I breathe busy. I'm so excited to be busy! Yes I know how ridiculous that sounds. 

Today I'm thankful for: Ten Have, fresh vegetables, and an awesome run (3 miles with a 9:47 average pace!). I also thought it was Monday for a second...which is a good thing, right? My week will seem like it's over faster? Something like that. 

Oh and this is an awesome blog full of inspirational photos and quotes, so go check it out for some happiness! 

All smiles, 
b

A cure for your Monday doldrums: 

spicy peanut kale bowl

I rarely buy fresh greens because I live by myself and it's damn near impossible to consume a bag of greens by yourself before it spoils. However, this recipe for a spicy peanut kale bowl sounded too good not to attempt. It also sounded like a perfect healthy detox lunch after consuming copious amounts of fried food at the Wilson County Fair last night. I had already started the day with a mango-carrot juice-coconut water-mint smoothie (highly recommended), so kale seemed like a reasonable next step.

Mmm, the fried fair fantasticality of a funnel cake.

I made my way to Whole Foods this morning and bought what I needed for this attempt, including my first-ever bunch of fresh kale (omnomnom!). If there's one thing I've learned since I've started to make lots of different dishes from scratch, it's that cooking can seem expensive. This is especially true when you're trying a new genre of food that uses oils, butters, and spices that you probably don't have sitting around your kitchen. But in reality, if you're cooking a lot of different kinds of food, you're going to need things like rice vinegar, tahini, and cayenne. So it's usually worthwhile to buy it, because once you have things like that you won't have to restock for a looong time.

I made a few modifications to her recipe, out of a mix of cheapness and personal preference:

• nixed the tamari and just used soy sauce (it calls for both)
• only used fresh ginger instead of both fresh and pickled
• bought rice vinegar but subbed safflower oil for sesame oil
• subbed dried cilantro for fresh cilantro
• subbed maple syrup for the agave
• for the rice bowl part of the recipe, I sauteed some garlic in the pan before adding the onions and mushrooms.

mise en place (cue dramatic music)

sauté-ing away!

Both the salad by itself and the portobello-infused rice bowl were delicious! I kept nomming on the salad while I was preparing the rice bowl...it's a miracle there was any left to put with the rice, it was so tasty!

the finished product

I'm not sure there's much I'd do differently here! I forgot to add the little bit of lemon juice to the spicy peanut ginger sauce, but I'm also not sure it made a whole lot of difference in the end product because it's infused with so many spices! Speaking of that sauce, it's so tasty that it'd be worth whipping up a bunch to use as a salad dressing or maybe even a marinade! 

ready for its close-up!

Happy nomming, 

b

true love at the fair

 

It's been a long (but great!) day. Goats fed, sheep herded, pigs raced, fried pie consumed, fiddle fiddled...county fair success. Time for some shut-eye! 

All smiles, 

 b

happy friday!

Things I am happy about today and excited for in the near future:

• I just made a yummy homemade pizza out of flatbread and Mexican-blend cheese and chipotle salsa from World Market (one of my favorite places in the universe!). Enjoyed it with a Sam Adams Summer Ale.
• I'm grateful for being at Belmont and being a part of the music community there. Being back in school is a little strange, but it feels good! I'm excited to be a graduate student. Here's to a fabulous Fall 2012!
• My puppy is keeping me good company on this lovely late summer evening. He's enjoying chewing on a rawhide so much - it makes me happy to see him so happy!

One of the reasons my Friday night (and every night!) is fabulous.

• One of my 2012 goals was to become a better cook. I love food, and I love making food, so I want to make learning new recipes a bigger part of my life! In case you missed it, I made delicious sweet potato-avocado veggie burgers last week. Tomorrow I'm going to attempt this spicy peanut portobello kale rice bowl. Stay tuned!
• I'm fiddling at the Wilson County Fair tomorrow! I'm really excited for this. I'll be double-fiddling with the phenomenal Greg Hallums. He's one of my favorite people and favorite musicians in the universe.

I leave you tonight with this adorably-beyond-adorable video of a sleepy kitten and puppy. Have a fabulous weekend! 

All smiles, 
b

love this.

monday night goodness

Two things I wanted to share! 

 One, a Miranda Lambert song that is absolutely beautiful and that I'd never heard before tonight even though it's a couple years old. 

And secondly, the cutest things that ever happened, from buzzfeed. 

All smiles, 
b

meeting a hero

We all have heros. (If you don't, you should!) One of mine is Tristan Prettyman. For her music, and for her person. I've followed her tumblr for a few years now and she's such an inspiration. She has such a graceful personality and I have so much respect for her. I happened to be on twitter yesterday afternoon and I discovered she was playing at 3rd and Lindsley last night - I had no idea! Before last night I'd never had a chance to see her live - she was FABULOUS. I was kind of terrified because she's such a role model to me (and to so many others!) and sometimes people who sound great on their albums can't hold a tune live. But her voice was lovely and the show was great. 

I really really REALLY wanted to meet her, so naturally I snuck to the backstage area and introduced myself. She was a sweetheart and we chatted for a little bit. I don't get starstruck or even excited too easily, but meeting Tristan was definitely an exception to this.

Tristan and me :-)

I told her I was an aspiring singer-songwriter and she said she wanted to hear my stuff - I sent her a link to some scratch demos this morning. Who knows if she'll actually listen...I hope she does! At any rate, her autograph is definitely getting framed and going up on my bedroom's wall-of-inspiration. Woo!

What a great way to wrap up the weekend and ring in a new week! Oh and if y'all don't know Tristan's music, GO CHECK HER OUT. Pronto! She's releasing a new album at the end of September. Her single "My Oh My" is available for download on iTunes and you can see the official video here! 

All smiles, 
b  

yoga and giant anteaters

Someday, I'll be able to do this. Someday.

Had a great practice at Hot Yoga Plus this morning. It was the Bikram series, which I'd never done before (I usually do vinyasa flow, but I have a Groupon that expires soon for HYP). When I first started yoga a couple years ago, I started with hot yoga, but my normal studio here in Nashville is not a hot yoga studio. I love yoga in general, but I do enjoy the added heat element and it felt good to be back on the mat in a heated room that allows for extra stretching and extra detox. 

It was an absolutely gorgeous day here (80 and mostly sunny), so Brooklyn and I went to the Nashville Zoo. It was my first time there as well, barring once when I was just a wee tot, and I was actually impressed by their setup. I had also never seen a giant anteater before - dude, those things are so awesome in real life! I want one. Look how cute they are. Loooook!

I'm sexy and I know it.

 To yoga, and anteaters! Happy Saturday, everyone. 

All smiles, 
b

the world in a peach

I had an awesome run this morning, an awesome cowrite session this afternoon, and I'm going to have an awesome night with some awesome ladies. So I leave you with the happiness of a freshly bitten peach. 

The nectarine, and curious peach/

Into my hands themselves do reach. (Andrew Marvell)

 

Happy weekend everyone! 

All smiles, 
b

kleenex musings

 

I was at my grandmother's house in Kentucky last weekend. She passed away a year ago this October, so my dad and his siblings are in the midst of the tough and frustrating process that is dealing with her estate (my grandfather, her husband of 70+ years, is also deceased). At any rate, I inherited some baking dishes and other kitchen odds, and whilst packing I threw in a box of kleenex to help buffer the breakables. 

It was fortuitous timing, as I ran out of kleenex in my apartment yesterday. It turns out this box of kleenex is almost 30 years old. It's older than me, folks! How on earth does one manage to use so little kleenex that they only have to buy a new box every 30 years? And yet, this typifies my grandmother to a T. She grew up during the Depression and learned to make the most of everything. Having this kleenex box around reminds me of her, and that makes me happy. 

My grandma's Kleenex 20th anniversary box. 1964-1984!

It really is the little things. I always try and find a kleenex box that makes me happy, even if it costs an extra 50 cents. If my kleenex box makes me crack a smile every time I see it (which is multiple times a day), then that to me is totally worth the extra two quarters. For example, the boxes that just ran out. I kept the chick around even after it was empty, but I finally recycled them both yesterday.

How could you not smile at these!

They even had little tails :-)

   
All smiles,
b

why i run

 

I love running. I'm a pretty intense person, and pounding the sidewalks with Drake or Ke$ha (admit it, they're on your running playlist, too) works wonders for me in terms of blowing off steam. I do better all the way around when I run - I'm happier, nicer, more patient. It's good for me, and it's good for everyone that has to deal with me. 

Anyway. A couple weeks ago I did something I've been mulling over for a few years now: I started a half marathon training plan. Legit started. It's a challenge, especially because I have exercise-induced asthma. But I love challenges. Nothing feels better to me than pushing myself to to something I previously thought impossible. The training is going well. I had been running only sporadically when I first started, but now I'm doing 3 miles in a cool 30 minutes. 

Or at least I was until today. My run was awful today. Purely awful. The training called for 30 minutes "easy" today, aka running at a pace where you're able to easily hold a conversation the whole time. Mile one was fine, but the other 1.66 miles (I didn't even make it to 3) were PAINFUL. And the thing was, I was being awful to myself. Why is this hard for you? This shouldn't be hard for you. What happened? I glared at my phone and made faces that I'm sure were infinitely amusing to people driving by. 

Then I stopped. Just be nice to yourself. I said that out loud. And then I felt a little better. So what if not every run is great? So what if not every run is progress? Sometimes you gotta go backward to go forward, right? I had a horrible night's sleep last night. It threw me off this morning. I did my training anyway, so that's accomplishment enough! I have a rest day tomorrow. But Friday I'll lace up, hit the road, and I'll kick its butt - without trash talking myself to death. End of story! 

An unrelated anecdote from walking the dog this morning:

Neighbor: "That is the cutest dog!"

Me: "Thanks. He's friendly...just hyper sometimes."

Neighbor: "I understand. My grandson is like that."

All smiles,

b

sweet potato-avocado veggie burgers

These veggie burgers made life fabulous this evening. Dinner was scrumptious (and easy!). I added chipotle mustard to the seasoning mix and grape tomatoes on the side. Went great with a glass of dry white wine! Recipe here.

All smiles,

b