Taking a break

I started seeing a physical therapist last week, and yesterday he gave me the order to take a break from exercise, at least until my next appointment. Usually, this would drive me nuts, but my knee is hurting enough that, for now, it feels like the right thing. Let’s see how long that attitude lasts.

Last night, Matt made dinner while I coached him from the couch. We had some whole wheat penne with turkey sausage, red peppers, and spinach. I had him stir in some goat cheese near the end, which made kind of a sauce without the effort of, you know, a sauce. Then we had some Parm on top. There’s never enough cheese.

Today was pretty low key, but I got a little stir crazy from sitting around, so Matt took me to Target. It was 60 degrees today, which is just totally insane, so I’m really glad I got to enjoy it for a few minutes. Then, we had an awesome time putting up our Christmas tree!  This is the fourth Christmas we’ve spent together, but we’ve never put up a normal-sized tree. We got it at Target after Christmas last year for $5.99 and it’s a little Charlie Brown, so I love it. A strand of lights, a box of silver ornaments, and a glass penguin later, and we’re officially in the spirit of the season. To celebrate, I made two of my favorite foods for dinner: roasted vegetables and barley risotto.

Nothing says winter like things that are warm and make the kitchen warm because they take 45 minutes to cook. I’m really excited about this risotto because, for the first time, I made it without using someone else’s recipe. I’ll post it sometime. For the vegetables, I just added a little bit of olive oil, pepper, and a pinch of rosemary.

And now it’s time to ice my knee and let the holiday festivities continue with the classic film Die Hard 2: Die Harder.

Boktoberfest

At the penultimate farmer’s market of the year on Saturday morning, I got the biggest bunch of bok choy I’ve ever seen. I mean, it wouldn’t fit in a bag, my arm hurt from carrying it, and, half gone now, is still taking up an entire shelf in our refrigerator.

And it was only $2!

So, bok choy has been the featured ingredient in our last two dinners.

Last night, which got a little hectic because I had another event with my class, we made soba with tofu and vegetables, in a delightful almond sauce, using this recipe.

My RA started flaring up last night, and eventually woke me up at 4:00 this morning. I love that. Luckily, I have an awesome husband who didn’t mind getting up at 5:00 to get me some medicine. Anyway, I took the morning off work, and I learned several important things:

1. The construction workers do not care that I did not sleep well and that I am in pain; they continue to yell and dig holes and drive their truckies around regardless.
2. People who live in my building do not seem to work during the day.
3. Which seems to lead them to rampant abuse of hot water, as I had none when I eventually rallied and got out of bed to get ready for the day.

Because not working when I have a million things to do and I feel like I’m supposed to be working makes me twitchy, I drove over to work, got my laptop, and came back home to work for the afternoon. I think I’m going to make “Work on self-care” one of my 2009 resolutions, because I’m going to go ahead and admit that I’ve been kind of a failure at it recently. And I’m pretty sure that getting depressed and eating half a bag of candy corn doesn’t really count.

Anyway, after I finished working, Matt and I went on a really short walk so that I could try to loosen up my knee. Then, we made chicken fried rice, using an adaptation of this recipe.

We still have so much bok choy left. I have no idea what to do with it.

Since dinner, I’ve been grading papers, which pretty much sucked every bit of energy I had left. So now I’m going to go to bed and try to force myself to have a positive attitude about tomorrow. GO TUESDAY.

Independence eve

Happy Fourth of July Eve. If, like me, you live in a state where fireworks are legal to sell, buy, and set off from morning until night on the week of the Fourth, maybe you’re not so excited.

I had a busy evening, and we’re going out of town tomorrow morning for a mini-honeymoon and to celebrate Matt’s birthday, so I’ll make this quick. After the gym tonight I was starving, so I made a few things I knew would be fast:

Open-faced Mushroom Lover’s burger (I don’t typically believe in this “open-faced” nonsense but the only thing we had in the house that even vaguely resembled a bun was a single piece of Ezekiel bread) with swiss cheese, whole wheat couscous, and steamed citrus veggies. Took all of ten minutes, so. All in all, a good thing.

Also featured: new flatware!

I then went to do laundry (FOR FREE – thanks, Donna!) and had some cookies and blood orange tea. Then I came home and ate kind of an obscene amount of birthday cake. This time my hands are even blue. Oops.

Now I’m going to see if we have some beer in here somewhere. The fireworks are starting to get to me.