Olivia and I encountered a lovely sky on our walk Saturday morning.
11 Jul
A familiar recipe and a first bite
Last week, Ava helped me make a batch of pesto (five batches, actually) from the basil we have growing in the garden. We followed this recipe from Epicurious. Usually, I make pesto in my Cuisinart, but the recipe suggested using a blender. It worked very well!
I packaged the pesto into half-cup containers and shared it with our friends and coworkers. We froze a few here, too.
I tossed it with pasta for dinner, and pureed a bit for Olivia to try. I won’t say that she loved it, but maybe she’ll come around by the time summer’s out. I hope so…we have a lot of basil.
10 Jul
Weekend weather
I took these photos of a quick storm that passed just south of the reservoir this weekend.
That same weekend, an overnight storm in a neighboring county brought warnings for heat bursts. From Wikipedia:
A heat burst is a rare atmospheric phenomenon characterized by gusty winds and a rapid increase in temperature and decrease in dew point. Heat bursts typically occur during night-time and are associated with decaying thunderstorms.
While this phenomenon is not fully understood, it is theorized that the event is caused when rain evaporates into a parcel of cold dry air high in the atmosphere making the air more dense than its surroundings. The parcel descends rapidly, warming due to compression, overshoots its equilibrium level and reaches the surface, similar to a downburst.
Recorded temperatures during heat bursts have reached well above 90 °F, sometimes rising by 20 °F or more within only a few minutes. More extreme events have also been documented, where temperatures have been reported to exceed 130 °F, although such extreme events have never been officially verified.
Heat bursts are also characterized by extremely dry air and are sometimes associated with very strong, even damaging, winds.
9 Jul
Addition has never been my forte
Our family doctor, who is built a lot like I am, has recently dropped about 35 pounds. I know this because I manage to see her about once every two weeks. (If I don’t drop at least $60 a month in office visit co-pays, I just don’t know what to do with myself.)
Anyway, I finally asked her what she was doing. As a health care professional, I assumed she’d have keen insight into something that’s always been a challenge for me. Her response? “I stopped eating.” I laughed, and she said, “No, I’m serious.”
So much for that.
When I saw her again recently, I asked exactly what “not eating” entails. She said she’s keeping her caloric intake to around 1400 calories. I said, I can do that–I mean, I get to add about 500-600 on top of that because I’m nursing, right? She responded that nursing only burns about 200-300 calories a day, which–by the way–is not what they tell you when they’re trying to talk you into nursing in the first place. Still, though, 1700 calories seems like a lot. Totally manageable, right?
Despite my five (okay, seven) year affair with Weight Watchers, I’ve really fallen out of the habit of counting calories. I know roughly how many points are in various things, but I couldn’t tell you how many points I should be consuming a day. Now that I have a target, certainly that will help, right?
I started the day like I usually do, a bowl of cereal, a piece of fruit and coffee. I’m thinking that’s about 200 calories.
Except that it’s Kashi, and not the kind that suspiciously resembles hamster food. This actually has almonds. And honey. And 200 calories a cup.
And the milk? Normally I buy 1 percent for Ava, and sometimes even skim for myself. Apparently, though, I picked up whole milk yesterday. Do you have any idea how many grams of fat are in a cup of whole milk? Eight! That’s a huge difference. Plus, there’s almost double the calories, so it comes in at 150. And that banana I sliced over the top? 125. So before I downed the iced coffee (with a bit of cream, and alright, some sugar, too), I’m near 500. For breakfast! And a relatively healthy breakfast at that.
At this rate, I’m really going to have to reign in my brownie consumption.
8 Jul
I love a parade
Really, I do. I have no good excuse, but the Fourth of July parade in the small Nebraska town near my Mom’s didn’t disappoint. In fact, both Katie and I found ourselves a bit choked up as the color guard started down the street and the crowd sang the national anthem. It’s probably a good thing my soft-hearted husband stayed back at the lake to fish.
I thought this little girl riding in the firetruck with her dad was especially sweet.
The Red Hat Society, which I believe is derived from the poem that starts, “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple.” It seems to me that the open bed of a moving truck isn’t the safest place to stash a group of elderly ladies, but they seem to be enjoying themselves.
If Mom didn’t look so darn cute in this photo, I’d make a “speaking of elderly ladies” joke here. Since she was nice enough to put up with us for four days (and we’d like to come back), I think I’d better not.
One of the many signs on this very old implement read, “Happy birthday, America.”
This trailer holds what has to be a majority of the cousins attending this family’s reunion.
This float was sponsored by a brand new organic farm in the area. We attended their open house the following day–photos to come.
A poignant reminder of the importance of the holiday:
7 Jul
Happy 4th!
Happy (belated) Fourth of July!
We spent the weekend in Nebraska at my mom’s, and I have many more photos to share in the coming days.
Also, a belated happy birthday to Laura, who celebrated on Friday as well!
2 Jul
Summer storms
I took these photos about 10 minutes ago. This storm passed through quickly, dropping half-dollar sized hail downtown. It’s the first in a long line this evening.
Smith Family Weblog 