Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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creamy coconut-pumpkin soup with chicken

A few days ago my friend Meredith posted to snap chat an intriguing soup she had discovered at her office’s cafeteria. She raved over the soup’s deliciousness, vowed to crack the code, and hooked me. I stalked her snaps and Facebook until, on a particularly bitter cold afternoon this past weekend, she reported having deduced the recipe and thereby warmed her house and tummy. We saw each other at a holiday party shortly afterward and she offered some details.

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Thank goodness for friends who are adventurous and love to cook! Because, dear reader, I have a new favorite: Creamy Coconut-Pumpkin Soup with Chicken. It is as weird and perfect as you might expect, and although I just yesterday inhaled this glorious food for His-and-Hers Soup Night at the Farm, I already cannot wait to make it again. So good.

I actually, literally, no joke, licked my bowl clean. Not sorry. Also, three cheers for using Christmas china on weeknights as often as possible.

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The building blocks for this simple luxury are pumpkin puree and coconut milk, with plenty of unusual (to me) spices, add chicken breast (because protein!). The recipe came together fragrantly in less than the time it took to make chicken and dumplings for my guy, and I suspect it would do well in a slow cooker, too, which you can bet I’ll be trying soon. 

If we gotta do winter let’s do it cozy, okay? OK. And let’s not skimp on vitamins and fiber. OK. 

soup-sticker

What You Need:

  • olive oil
  • salt, black pepper, garlic powder (optional)
  • ground cayenne pepper, turmeric, ground ginger, curry if you have it (I did not)
  • 3 celery stalks, diced, and a few cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 can pumpkin puree
  • 1/3 cup of coconut milk
  • 2 cups chicken broth
  • 1 fully cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast

cp-soup-celery-c

cp-soup-spices-c

 

What You Do:

  1. Sautee the celery and garlic till tender, adding spices as you go.
  2. Add the pumpkin puree, coconut milk, and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. Spice again, to taste.
  3. Add the fully cooked chicken and stir, taste, season, etc. It is ready to eat when it is all blended well and tastes good to you.
  4. Devour it all guiltlessly, knowing you are providing your hard-working body with gorgeous phyto-nutrients, hefty fiber, immunity-boosting spice, and that ever-important protein.

Other Gorgeous Ideas:

  • Add roasted pumpkin seeds. (I forgot we had a can of these in the pantry!! Would have been so nice and crunchy.)
  • Add lime juice.
  • Include some onion with your garlic and celery. The Lazy W is “not in the onion business,” as my Grandpa says, due to an allergy. But I know all about the cooking trinity.
  • Roast or saute some diced fresh pumpkin and let that simmer and soften more in the liquids. Mer said her original bowl of soup featured this and it was delicious, tender like cooked potatoes. Yum! I will try this soon. In fact in my kitchen right now is one final pumpkin from our Lazy W pumpkin patch that needs to be used. Destiny.
  • Drizzle the finished soup with a little extra coconut milk.
  • Fresh basil, yaaaaasssss.
  • shrimp instead of chicken? Maybe…

Things I Adore About This Soup:

  • It fills you up. Thoroughly. It is immensely satisfying on a cold, hard-working winter day. 
  • The creamy decadence is achieved with neither butter nor heavy cream or anything like that. I am a coconut milk convert.
  • The spicy heat was a welcome reprieve from so many standard savory flavors lately. Perfect for when you crave something different but not something too different.
  • It’s sweet without being sugary.
  • Back to the bowl-licking: fewer dishes to wash!
  • It’s a fast weeknight recipe if you have the chicken already cooked, and you can make it in small batches like this or just add cans and make more. Easy! I love that. 

Thank you, beautiful Mer, for sharing your soup discovery and for doing the leg work of cracking the code! I am obsessed. My mouth actually watered while typing this blog post. 

Have a cozy week, friends! I hope your final days of Christmas prep are clicking along joyfully.

XOXOXOXO

 

marathon monday: october recap

Whew, October was PACKED. With lots of great things, brimming with joy, a nice mix of work and play, but WOW. We have stayed busy every day of every week.

Oh of course, Happy Halloween! We have already been seizing every chance to celebrate, so around here today feels more like a calm, creepy finale than the sugar-coated crescendo. We have been dressing up repeatedly all month, crawling through haunted forests, attending fabulous parties, watching scary movies alone and with friends (particularly once outside here at the farm), you name it. Around here, Halloween is a month long event, just how we like it!

stabby

Okay, fitness and wellness. What’s up!

  • I got new shoes! Two pairs of Brooks arrived in the mail as gifts from my husband, one gently used pair intended for trails (Pure Flow 2) and one brand spanking new pair designated for road running (Pure Flow 3). I am in shoe heaven.
  • I have gradually picked up both my “easy” pace and my “hard effort” pace, which means that my heart and lungs are getting stronger. I have been reading tons about running efficiency so this makes me happy. My capillaries are brilliant little rocks stars, ok?
  • ALSO! I have enjoyed several fast runs that totally surprised me. Several sprints (400 meters) faster than 7 minutes, plus one day a five mile run at just slightly slower than that. This kind of progress is even more exciting than weight loss!

could-not-do

  • Strength training is stuff I do alone here at the farm using 15-20 pound hexagon weights, and I am convinced it all is helping me run better. My stomach and arms feel really tight but also bendy and comfortable, which helps a lot. Oh, have you heard that a strong posterior can make you better at sprinting? Haha, yes. It’s true.
  • Continuing to take multivitamins and high-potency, slow-release iron makes a big difference in how I feel day to day. 
  • Very little dieting anymore! I love knowing how I am going to feel after eating certain meals, and I love knowing calmly how to put carbs, proteins, and all kinds of other foods to good use. Not at all in a punishment kind of way, just as a way of looking within myself (mind and body) and understanding what’s going on.

Training Log:

Oct 3-9: 39 miles total. That week’s highlight was no longer being quite sick like the week before, haha, and also focusing on lots of farm work. I felt revitalized!

Oct 10-16: 26 miles total, including more aggressive speed workouts, also twice as many strength sessions and lots of evening foam rolling. That week Miss Velvet (Klaus’ mom) was visiting the farm, so I avoided leaving the dogs alone too long. 

Oct 17-23: 36.5 miles total. My big happy event that week was running 12 miles at an 8:08 pace. That would lead to a pretty decent half marathon for me, close to an hour and 45 minutes! I continued running that day to finish with 18.5 miles total (latter miles slower = positive splits), but those first 12 were at a pace that was quick for me, without really trying.! I was on a high for several hours. It felt like my body was wrapped in twinkle lights.

Oct 24-30: 44 miles total. I switched up the training plan weeks a couple of times and somehow landed with the perfect amount of miles at the perfect time for my body. It was magical. After spending last Monday through Wednesday on longer speed workouts (9, 5 plus strength, 10) and one decent rest day, I went out for my Friday morning long run feeling strong. I was also down about 8 pounds, which was unexpected but helped me feel light and comfortable. The plan that morning was 20. I started slowly on purpose, thinking of how cool it would be to get negative splits finally. My body needed a break (hello Shark Week) at 15 miles (which were finished at a 9:40 pace) so I drove home and ate a snack then finished some housework and animals chores. I laced up again and wrapped up the day with 5 more miles, this time at a 7:12 pace which is REALLY good for me! It felt like flight! I could not wipe the smile off of my sweaty, sand-crusted face. I was so so so happy. Running double workouts is not my ideal plan, but life and female health can be complicated, and sometimes this just works out beautifully.

October Total: 145.5 miles 

party-kids

I am so happy with how October went! After a successful but challenging September I briefly considered halting marathon training in favor of some more aggressive weight loss efforts but decided that running makes me way too happy, and it had already brought me so far in that goal, anyway. I will stick this out a few more weeks (on the downhill slope!) despite not being registered for any races in November. Speaking of November, here are some thoughts and plans:

Looking Ahead to November:

I have a step back week started already (six today plus strength), during which I will also try to kick a couple of naughty eating habits. It’s good timing, because lots of miles often means a crazy appetite. Running less this week should immediately cool my cravings a bit. Gina at Fitnessista is hosting a quick and easy 7-day focus group, and I like it. Nothing drastic, just healthful encouragement and a big focus on what she calls “eating like a PRO,” which is including both PRO-duce and PRO-tein in each meal. I am also excited to try a few new workout ideas with her.

Next, November is the traditional month for Monica at Run Eat Repeat to host Pile on the Miles, so if you are jonesing for a fun and measurable way to aim for higher mileage before the holiday gluttony, check it out. 

After this step back week and a taper week during which we will be traveling, I plan to see how I feel then arrange a 26.2 run around a local lake. Friends! Run with me! If you do I will invite to the farm for a recovery meal and party.

Okay! Happy Halloween friends, take care of yourself and carpe all those beautiful diems!

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind you
Can’t carry it with you if you want to survive
~Florence and the Machine
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

never trust that first mile or mondays

After a sluggish beginning, this past week of running was spectacular. Mentally and physically, every day was an investment in well-being, and for that I am so grateful. My total mileage was ever so slightly higher than the previous weeks, which is great; but mostly it all just felt so dang good. I ate better day-to-day, paying more attention to nutritional content and energy than to calories; I stayed hydrated; and we even managed to enjoy life and rest in between. Balance.

Monday: Struggle Bus for four miles here at home. I think most of my problem that day was being consumed with normal Monday catch up work plus frustrating household problems (our new fridge went out so I was waiting on a delivery all day then had several errands to run in Midwest City), so I didn’t lace up until almost 2 p.m. This is a rough time of day for running, especially on the tread mill, so I was glad to have that done. I added some strength exercises then walked away, not feeling particularly accomplished or refreshed. Had I believed that first difficult mile, I would have stopped running. And had I believed that Monday’s funky energy would last all week, I might have thrown in the towel, haha.

Tuesday: Seven miles, again kind of like running through cold mud, but I pressed through and felt completely better afterwards! This was one of those paradoxical runs that made me feel more energetic after spending all my energy. I just love that. By mid-morning on Tuesday I had reclaimed some much needed optimism and enthusiasm. 

Wednesday: Seven miles at the park. This day I saw a good-sized road runner (bird) in the grass. It was standing still, just watching me run on the sidewalk. I could not stop chuckling to myself. Trust me, this is funny. Also on this day I smelled maple syrup all along the north edge of the park, every single lap. It was lovely.

Thursday: Active rest all day, preparing for a longish run the next day and taking advantage of a chance to see my friend Marci. I got lots of housework done and accomplished a little shopping in OKC, too. That afternoon I tried about an hour of deep-stretch yoga, the kind where you hold challenging poses for five minutes or longer, which is not what I am used to. Also the video was pretty bad so I will not bother to share it. Good to stretch, though. I felt nice and bendy that night and my legs were rested.

Marci and Marie, aka Lelma and Thouise! xoxo

Friday: Fourteen miles at the Choctaw Creek Trails. I felt even better than last Friday, when I ran fewer miles. The difference might have been a package of sports beans I ate between miles eight and twelve and a sugar-free electrolyte replacement drink I sipped too. YUM. It also could have been that I had eaten so much better the day before, plus a really great breakfast Friday morning. On these kinds of days I don’t really eat more food; but I do eat more of my calories in good, starchy carbs like oatmeal, rice, or pasta. It seems to make a wonderful difference in my sustained energy.

Friday night was Handsome’s birthday scavenger hunt and dinner in Bricktown with a bunch of our friends, and I enjoyed two really good homemade cookies plus far too many tortilla chips, haha, but it was all so worth it. I am pretty sure I burned off most of those calories, yet again, by laughing hard with our people.

Saturday: Rest day to help my guy catch his breath after a killer week. We hibernated a little and soaked up some romance. xoxo

Sunday: After Hot Tub Summit, we toweled off and went for a very hilly six-mile bike ride, just out here on the road along the front of our farm. Then I headed to the back field for four sweaty miles and called it good. We spent most of the day doing stuff around the farm then got cleaned up and dressed.
We soon went to the City for an early dinner at the newly opened Texas de Brazil near Penn Square Mall. This restaurant in Texas has been one of our favorites for years, and we are so happy they have migrated a bit north. We both were completely happy with the atmosphere, the service, and of course the food! These days I just order the Soup and Salad bar, but if you have ever visited a good churrasco-style restaurant then you know this is just as gluttonous and luxurious as the meat option. That meal capped off an incredible week of exertion and indulgence!

 

 

Total weekly mileage: 36, plus some biking, yoga, and strength stuff. 

If this week had a theme or a lesson, it is that old joke, “Never trust the first mile. The first mile is a liar!” haha I’ll add that Monday can be a liar too. Don’t give up after one difficult workout, and never let Monday dictate how the rest of your week will go.

Always give it ten more minutes
And maybe one more day.
You might be happily surprised!
XOXOXOXO

marathon monday week four: wellness is about your whole self

This past week was the fourth of an eighteen week cycle for preparing for a late November marathon, and overall I am feeling fantastic. I went into week four knowing it was Shark Week for me (sorry guys, if you don’t know what that means, I bet you’re guessing correctly now), in addition to a heavy little season for me personally. Just had some personal stuff going on. I knew it all would be happening at the same time, the intense emotions and the hormones and the attendant physical exhaustion. No doubt, I was grateful to have the freedom to run and tend to my well-being in the midst of it all. So grateful. Knowing how to care for yourself and being free to do so is the best feeling. Running covers all the bases, you know? Emotional, hormonal, muscular, aerobic, imaginative. Everything feels better after a good run. After a few days of good running? Well, that’s partly why it’s addictive. 

Looking at the previous three weeks, I saw a nine mile total deficit. I had been feeling pretty good and was mentally satisfied because running was consistently in balance with the rest of life. But the nine mile deficit was eventually bugging me so last Sunday night I had this bright idea to “use” those extra nine miles in the coming week to battle emotional and physical fatigue. It’s funny how this actually works, the relationship between exertion and relaxation, the therapy of sweat. I am crazy for it.

Well, haha, that most optimistic intention was great for exactly three days. I tacked on extra miles Monday through Wednesday and was feeling spectacular. By Thursday my tune had changed, so I was even happier to have run ahead of schedule early in the week.

EARBUDS LOL

Monday: Six miles on the treadmill, easy pace. I actually was so sad and distracted that morning that I had to run three, take a break for water and a handful of grapes (somehow this helped me collect my thoughts), then finish with three more. I felt completely better by the end of the hour. Ready to really start the week’s various work.

Tuesday: Eight extremely sweaty miles at the Harrah loop. Very happy. Decent pace. Stayed busy at the farm the rest of the day.

Wednesday: Six miles at home again, this time around the back field, nice and early in the morning. We had an electrician appointment set for mid-morning, so that motivated me to lace up immediately after morning chores and be showered and dressed before my own breakfast. After the repairs I worked around the house and on writing projects all day, which was restful and productive, then Handsome and I met friends for an early dinner. I overindulged a little with chips and quesadillas but probably burned it all off laughing. We love our friends! Good people are good for the soul. They might not know what I was dealing with emotionally in those days, but laughing with them was so helpful.

Thursday: My energy plummeted on Thursday and I was hurting a lot. I skipped a workout in order to funnel all of my energy to the house, farm, and errands in town. All of that kept me busy enough. I honestly had to make a huge effort just to get through the day. Later I amazed myself by falling asleep before sunset, ha. Sometimes it cannot be helped, and on these days I try to talk to myself the way I would talk to one of my daughters in the same condition. No reprimanding, just compassion and encouragement. These days are rare. Life goes on.

Friday: Rest day. I had a gardeners’ meeting in OKC Friday morning, too early to squeeze in a run first, then Handsome and I went on a lunch date together and on a short series of errands on the way back to the farm. I had already planned on this being a rest day, complete with shampooed hair (kind of a big deal for me); I just hadn’t planned on it being the week’s second consecutive rest day. So I was beginning to feel twitchy and guilty about straying from my “extra miles” plan. Oh well. The day was happy and our food was delicious then we rested at home together with lots of love. Win.

Saturday: I woke up well before sunrise to get caffeinated and dressed for a long run, drove to the Harrah loop, and thoroughly enjoyed eleven miles. It felt so great to be in the cool air, watch a slow, colorful daybreak, and build up that deep inner heat for a long time. I was feeling like myself again, magically, which is just the way Shark Week works. I got home with a bag of donuts for Handsome and was on cloud nine to be “reset.” We enjoyed the rest of the day together. So much. xoxo

Sunday: I ended up staying un-sweaty and hung out with my guy for a long day of walking around the zoo, which was so beautiful. We hadn’t toured the zoo in warm weather for years! For some reason we have been visiting only in January, really ever since we bought this farm. It’s weird. After the zoo we lingered over lunch at Hollie’s Flat Iron Grill. I had a most excellent hamburger loaded with smoked hatch peppers and was happy.  Afterwards we stopped at a local Mexican market where I found a bunch of delicious treasures. Have you seen the mini watermelons? My nutrition by Sunday night was pretty excellent. 

Then on Monday morning the chickens ate breakfast out of the tiny watermelon rinds.

Weekly total: 31, my exact mileage plan. Had I not tacked on extra miles Monday through Wednesday, I would have missed the mark by a lot and been more frustrated. More importantly, I might have felt even worse on Thursday and Friday or not coped well with those difficult emotions earlier in the week. In the scheme of things, this was all a pretty mild fare to pay for being a healthy woman of child bearing age. Ha. Also, it bears mentioning, yoga is so helpful. Do yoga, friends. Eat well, run a lot, and do yoga. 

I am so happy and grateful to be on a roll, to be building this momentum finally. As I type this, week five has already started great. How are you doing? What habits do you keep in your life to stay feeling good and cope in healthy ways with hard emotions?

“Eliminating the things you love is not wellness.
Wellness feeds your soul and makes you feel good.”
~Iman
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

happy international day of yoga!

Ahh yoga. I feel like I love you for reasons I am just beginning to understand and perhaps in ways that make you scoff at me privately. Except that scoffing’s not really your thing, is it? You don’t mind me being a complete amateur. You welcome everyone. Oh yoga, you peaceful, sweetly smirking, soft-gaze-having beauty with only positive vibes. I groove you.

I first felt truly curious about yoga while reading that very famous Liz Gilbert memoir. You know the one where she eats all the carbs in Italy, searches her soul after railing against God, then has a trans-continental romance? Such a fun read. Gilbert made yoga seem like an experience. A journey, not just a workout. She made it feel like prayer. But during that chapter of my own life, the whole thing felt incompatible with church. I had a lot to sort through and my own kind of language and balance to discover in the midst of heavy doctrine and even heavier personal crises. For quite a while yoga was a sneaky indulgence that I was content to treat just like a good stretch here and there. But in the back of my mind was always this idea that God was in it, that He in fact created both my mind and my body and therefore didn’t mind one bit that I might try to strengthen and nourish them both. My reins began to loosen on my own soul.

Fast forward several years to when I started running. (HALLELUJAH!!) Once my body was wide awake and on a daily basis filled with adrenaline, delirious with exertion, I discovered the need to remain pliable and comfortable. I started reading about yoga for runners and became pretty good at the most basic post-miles stretches for calves, hips, and hammies. Pigeon pose, haha! The fact that it had a name was enough to make me happy.

In the midst of all this, a few blogging friends turned me on to yoga as a meditative endeavor. They introduced me to Yoga With Adrienne, whose mantra find what feels good is just so soothing. These videos were so fun to explore that soon I found Tara Stiles, PsycheTruth, and much more. (My You Tube favorites are about 35% yoga channels.) The breathing, posturing, and simple guided meditations did for me all the classic favors you hear about: I felt grounded, connected to myself, relaxed yet invigorated, pliable, strong, full of fire (like in my belly!), calm, all of it. And while I have yet to enjoy a spiritual breakthrough during yoga or even cry really hard like so many people report, I have had those experiences while running. By the time I unwind on the mat I’m generally in a pretty good place, haha. Even if I start in a good place, though, I always leave the yoga mat feeling more focused. More purposeful and less scattered around, as my mind tends to be. Yoga quiets me.

morning glories yoga day june 2016

This has been my experience so far, and I am so grateful for all of it. So excited to see what’s next bodily and spiritually. And today is International Yoga Day! To both mark the occasion and spend time with some cool folks in my life, this evening we are opening the farm at dusk. We will gather with quilts and mats in the grassy area between the bonfire and the vegetable garden and watch the sun set behind the horse pond. We will stretch our muscles and breathe deeply, inhaling blessings and exhaling peace. We will ease through some pose sequences that are thousands of years old and remind each other that we are both physical and emotional creatures, capable of more than we once thought possible.

If you are practicing yoga to celebrate this fun day, enjoy!! Consider yourself connected to us here at the Lazy W. If you are only curious about it, let me urge you to explore. Like anything in life the experience is largely what you invest in it. Open yourself to what beautiful things might happen. Maybe you will have a spiritual breakthrough! Or maybe you will realign your back or relax your shoulders and hips. Or maybe you will discover some hidden energy in your intestines or rid yourself of too much and finally get a good night’s sleep. I’m excited for what might happen for you! And I am really excited to see my friends tonight at sunset.

“Allign your hands with your heart.”
yoga mantra
XOXOXOXO