Lazy W Marie

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

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motivation monday: weeks 4 & 5 recap & keeping a confidence journal

Hello, happy Monday! I am ready to get all over this new week ahead. Let’s recap training weeks four and five and talk about confidence.

One of my favorite features of Kara Goucher’s half marathon plan is that she encourages you to keep a “Confidence Journal.”

CONFIDENCE JOURNAL: I keep a log of my runs and workouts. But I also keep a small “confidence journal” and I keep it with me. I write down workouts or runs that have gone particularly well. Or workouts that were hard, but I was able get through. Flipping through the journal when you start to doubt yourself is a good way to confirm you’ve done the work. In many ways, you’re just asking your body to do what you’ve already done.

I have for a long time been tracking my food and  miles and along the way paying attention to how different habits make me feel, both physically and mentally; but often this becomes a critical inner dialog about how things could be better. How it’s never good enough, you know? 

More miles, faster miles, cleaner eating, stronger core, better stretching, everything. Nothing wrong with that exactly. We all are trying to get better at stuff. But focusing only on room for improvement can erode the long view and stall progress.

I don’t know about you, but my inner voice can be pretty discouraging. I should be using it to motivate myself. Positivity matters. You guys know that gratitude is a big deal to me, being actively thankful for the gifts and blessings we are given. Now I am just tacking on some active confidence. Just noting the things that are going well, small accomplishments that make me feel closer to my goals. I groove it. My goal right now is to run a half marathon in well under two hours, without dieting. Ha. Yeah, I need to build up my confidence.

Anyway! Confidence Journal. I urge you to keep one. It feels silly at first, kinda like Stuart Smalley talking to himself in the mirror, but on the days you need a little boost, it’s great. So much healthier than scanning social media and slipping into the comparison trap.

Week Four Recap: 35.8 miles total, plus barre twice, some abs and yoga, and one really short but really fun day of “hiking.” 

Highlights: On Wednesday that week the prescribed workout was called “Ice Cream Sandwich!” LOL. It is basically speed work book-ended by tempo miles. Friends, that was so much fun. The first 2-mile tempo (8:25) was easy and fresh feeling. The speed work in the middle was truly exhilarating! It felt like flying uphill! (400x repeats at a 6:45 pace!) And although I had trouble on the second tempo getting up to speed, I felt so happy. It’s true that you get a completely unique physical sensation from running “fast” (whatever that means to you) than you do from running long and slow. Both feel great. Total that day was 7 miles exactly.

“Most of training is just teaching your body to be okay with working hard – and setting the bar a bit higher. A workout will make you sore, but that’s okay. It just means you’ll be that much more ready when race day comes.” – Kara

Short, easy, refreshing hike with hubby and friends at Mt. Scott. This really made me crave both a cool weather, challenging hike in Colorado and a hot summer’s day in Oklahoma.

Week Five Recap: 41.9 miles plus barre once, a tender knee, a sky-rocketing metabolism, and lots of mental clarity. Last week I needed running to smooth out the extremes of life, and it worked like a charm. 

Week Five Highlights: I was happy to get my mileage up a tiny bit in the midst of stress and noticed that “easy” paces are gradually improving, all while my heart rate is nice and low. I also liked making running more of a scheduled priority than I had the past few weeks. This past week l felt better mentally and physically, despite some tough family news, which of course oozed good vibes into the rest of my days.

Another highlight from week 5 was grabbing a Saturday morning run with my friend Robin. I don’t run with other people very often, and every time I do, I wonder why I don’t make more of an effort. It was so lovely. The miles (3 alone then 8 with her, average pace of 10:01) clicked by like nothing. Runners are fun people.

Side story: The day after our easy run, Robin ran a spontaneous half marathon and PR’d! She hit the time I have set as my next goal, running just by feel, which gave me the best little thrill of encouragement. She is also quickly approaching the Boston Marathon, so send her all your good vibes. She is currently one of my favorite running inspirations.

In the midst of so many great workout days, week five did present some eating challenges. Ha. Hello life stress and a really fun social outing. Thank goodness for a cranked up metabolism!

Thursday evening we attended Oklahoma City’s 30th annual Chefs Feast benefiting the Regional Food Bank. The food was amazing and plentiful. I ate like a… Well… I did not go home hungry.

This photo was snapped after two solid hours of grazing. No longer able to suck it in. We had fun!

Then on Sunday I let some negative household vibes and funky weather get me down and made less than stellar food choices, on top of not running. No biggie. I woke up Monday morning with some tummy regret but am thankful to know exactly how to deal with it all:

RUN. Run and focus on the positive stuff.

Over and out.
XOXOXOXO

 

 

lazy w browned butter oatmeal cookie dough base

Hey hey, happy Thursday! The sun is out again, both metaphorically and in the actual sky, and it’s all gorgeous. Our week started out kinda rough with some difficult family news, but we have pulled out of the tailspin. Deep breaths. Big smiles.

I am in fact having a really great week of running and gardening. The prairie winds are strong and full of big, stormy ideas for the weekend. And my kitchen smells like heaven for two reasons.

First, I am boiling up a triple batch of sugar-syrup for our honeybees, which this time is infused delicately with a mix called “Honey Bee Healthy,” an essential oils-based product meant to bolster the bees’ immune systems and other fun stuff. It smells like lemon, wintergreen, and something else I can’t quite place.

Also, I just pulled out of the oven a half batch of my favorite cookies. I’m going to share with you guys the basic cookie dough recipe we use here at the farm. It’s fantastically versatile and easy to memorize, and it freezes well. In case you are the cookie dough freezing type? Oh let’s just eat it raw. Much more fun.

Something I groove so hard about this cookie dough method is that, since you are browning the butter, you can make it in a flash. No advance notice needed to soften the butter to room temperature. Because that’s annoying, right? This way, you can have cookies mixed, baked, and cooling on a tray in under half an hour total. I like that. Keep the unassuming ingredients on hand, and you are prepared at all times for sweet tooth emergencies.

Side note: Become an avid runner and you don’t have to call this a “sugar indulgence.” From now on you can call it “carb loading,” or “replacing your glycogen stores,” right? Okay. Onward.

Base Dough for 20 large, thick cookies:

  • 1 stick butter
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 2 large eggs
  • generous splash vanilla
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup white granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups plain flour
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder (better results in my opinion than using a tsp of soda)
  • heaping teaspoon sea salt (my personal fave, you do YOU)
  • 2 cups quick oats
  • 2+ cups add-ins

Possible Delicious Additions, use a total of about two cups for a full recipe:

  • walnuts, pecans, or almonds (I add cinnamon & nutmeg when I use nuts)
  • chocolate chips, your fave level of sweet or bitter (Handsome likes only milk chocolate, weirdo)
  • dried cranberries or dried cherries (try adding almond extract with either of these, so good!)
  • bits of toffee, peanut butter chips, or even chopped up candy bars
  • flaked coconut!!
  • pistachios & white chocolate chips (idea from Sandy the Reluctant Entertainer)
  • a combo of nuts, some seeds, & dried fruit would make it like granola
  • hazelnuts…xoxo
  • powdered malted milk along with chopped up Whopper candies (not usually my cup of tea, so more for you)
  • The possibilities and combinations are endless!! Like drinks at Sonic but better!!

Method:

  • brown the butter in a small pan and let it begin cooling while you gather the other stuff
  • mix (slightly cooled) butter with shortening, eggs, vanilla, and both sugars
  • stir together then add in flour, baking powder, and salt
  • use a wooden spoon to fully incorporate oats, achieving a consistent dough that will be neither sticky or dry and therefore infinitely taste-testable
  • stir in your delicious add-ins of choice
  • use an ice cream scoop sprayed with non-stick spray to get uniform balls of dough onto a prepared sheet pan
  • bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes, cool afterwards (Today I let the cookies sit beneath the broiler on low for about 90 seconds, because sometimes I like that cooked top look and crunch. Otherwise they come out pale more tender, more gently browned. Also yum! But pale cookies are delicate and need longer to cool.)

See? Simple basic pantry ingredients, total freedom with add-ins, fast to pull together, and easy to memorize. The best features of an everyday cookie recipe. And the cookies always come out perfectly tender with little crispy edges everywhere, which make them great for dunking in cold milk.

Since my husband and I like different add-ins, and he is currently not wanting many sweets, today I made only a half batch loaded with walnut pieces. One of my top three choices for this base. Quite against my nature I packed up the other half of the dough to freeze for him to enjoy at a moment’s notice, probably with weirdo milk chocolate chips. 

He does eat kale now though, so we’ve got that going for us. And while oats in his cookies is not his most favorite thing in the universe, he has learned to accept it as a nod to heart healthy eating, ha.

Oh! This a great time to mention that if you want the flavor of the oats but not that much texture, feel free to grind them up in a coffee grinder first. It gives your cookies that chewiness you taste in a Double Tree hotel cookie!

Okay, time to feed this perfumed syrup to the bees, do some ironing, get showered for a fun date night, and edit a really cool project I still have not stopped to tell you guys about! Soon. Soon.

Have a most beautiful Thursday, whatever remains of it. Thanks for stopping.

“Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world,
had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon
and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.”
~Barbara Jordan
XOXOXO

 

 

friday 5 at the farm: snapshots of life lately

What a week! Starting with last Sunday, which was refreshing and restful in many ways, this past week ran the gamut. We experienced so many highs and lows, worked so hard, and loved so intently that as I type this early Friday evening I’m feeling kind of amazed. Amazed that we made it unscathed. Amazed by how surrounded we are by goodness and how perfect God’s timing is. Amazed that springtime has finally won the tug of war with winter. There’s a metaphor in all of that, I’m sure.

It’s Friday, so how about five snapshots of life lately?

Monday around lunchtime Jocelyn texted me, asking was I busy? Never too busy to see her. I cleaned myself up and drove to the City. We spent several hours talking, shopping, and drinking these drinks you see below. She is a boba tea devotee, something which I feel only “Kids These Days” really understand, and I enjoyed a viciously strong iced coffee with a not skimpy amount of real cream. Monday happened to be her last day in Oklahoma for a while, so we soaked each other up. (I didn’t even cry!) She brought a friend to the farm that evening for dinner, and all four of us laughed so hard and so much that a big grin was plastered on my face the rest of the night.

Sidenote: Handsome had just endured a ridiculously difficult day at the office, so a night of good food, hard laughter, and face to face time with our Girl was the perfect antidote. xoxo

f5 coffee C

I mentioned that Spring has sprung. The best evidence of this is how sheddy the horses are. A few weeks ago I could brush the loose hair off of their ample bodies, but now a light breeze cause great drifts of it to float away, and by the end of March we will once again look like the tribbles from Star Trek have invaded.

f5 chanta C

Our evening meals all week long have been to die for. Handsome and I both feel so much better when we eat “well,” which means some thing slightly different for each of us. After many consecutive but worthwhile days of feasting with family around the time of Grandpa’s funeral and then celebrating my birthday, both of us were happy to settle back into a more deliberate eating routine. Our bellies just needed a little break. My faves, as always, are big bowls of leafy greens topped with roasted or raw veggies (currently obsessed with radishes and cucumbers) and whatever protein we have available. In this photo I also topped my giant salad with one sweet potato, cooked to perfection in the air fryer. Love that gadget. Zero oil needed.

f5 food C

Don’t you love how once the landscape wakes up, even shrubs and trees that had been more or less green all winter, suddenly look vibrantly green? Check out this unruly beast behind my metal rooster. Those tendrils grew several inches this past week, as they will continue to do all the way up until about Thanksgiving. And the color! Like someone turned on a light bulb inside the branches. I love it.

f5 rooster C

Sewing! I have spent a couple of days in the Apartment this week getting reacquainted with my sewing machines. That’s been fun. Watch for a big Mother’s Day event soon!

f5 apron C

We have been aggressively thinning our decorative and collectible hoard, which feels wonderful. Every day I continue work on manure/compost and take a long walk to see what is growing (nearly everything). We’re so happy the hens are laying again, and with enthusiasm. And of course so many interesting beekeeping jobs. The Lazy W Honey-makers are doing so great, I have a lot to tell you soon.

Ok, that’s it for now! We are off to relax for the night and are excited for a hiking and car show event with friends tomorrow. Then more running, eating, romancing, farm working, and keeping the stress demons at bay.

Wishing you the best weekend ever!

“Misguided urgency can be the enemy of progress.”
~The Minimalists Podcast
XOXOXOXO

 

new running goal and a training plan to match

Ask my husband to confirm this: The only thing more annoying than a super enthusiastic and focused runner is an enthusiastic but indecisive one. Specifically, and especially to a run-running spouse, it’s far easier to listen to a person drone on about how well training is going or how challenging it is than to listen to how she cannot decide what plan to follow, what race to try, how much, how far, how fast, etc. Every. Day.

WHAT DO I DO?? 

For all of January and most of February, this was me, and my husband patiently endured it. I was feeling good 8 weeks into an 18-week plan, unfluffing from the holidays and rebuilding stamina, but I needed a change. The time came to reevaluate.

The first step was focusing on my actual goal.

In a nutshell I want to be faster. Specifically, to start with, I have decided to try for a sub-2 hour half marathon. This may sound easy to some people, but for me it will take considerable work. These past few years of dipping my toes into the running waters, long slow miles have come pretty easily to me, but not so much the swiftness. In my wildest imagination, meeting this current goal will lead naturally to a faster full marathon later this year, then Boston Qualify, then the Olympics etc. Ha! Kidding. Mostly. I do think a sub-4 hour marathon in within me. And that is exciting.

So around Valentine’s Day, goal in my head, I gathered advice from a few trusted running friends and started shopping for a new training plan. I needed something that would help me keep running in balance with a busy springtime at the farm, too. A quick internet search led me to a really enticing one by Kara Goucher.

It has everything:

  • Good, satisfying weekly mileage (most 13.1 plans are flimsy feeling, which makes it difficult to abandon the 26.2 plan).
  • But no three-hour Fridays!! Perfect for my busy springtime calendar.
  • Lots of variety day-to-day, plus lots of flexibility to invest in other physical details (abs, upper body, stretching).
  • Speed work!!
  • This plan is only ten weeks long, and I happened to find it exactly when ten weeks would land me at the OKC event should I choose to race. No biggie if I don’t. (There is something else big that day which I will tell you about soon.)

Just a few weeks into this plan, I already feel better and am seeing small improvements. Perhaps more importantly, fitting in the daily workouts has been easy and natural. Life balance is so important, and this plan is helping me keep running in its proper place as servant, not master. Very cool.

So Far So Good:

Kara Goucher plan week 1/10: One day that week I learned how fun it is to run “strides” at the end of an easy 6 miles. On another day I messed around with cadence, discovering how great it feels to truly do measured intervals. The snapshot below isn’t a great average pace, but it’s from a day of sprinting and walking on both asphalt and hilly mud trails. My body felt amazing at the end and I couldn’t stop grinning. Such fun to get my legs moving swiftly and with lightness, not just cranking hard and sloppy, you know? Total miles: 37

fartlek C

Kara Goucher plan week 2/10: A highlight from week two was running with three of my four siblings, a first for us. I ran alongside my little brother Joe, who helped me keep a decent pace for almost 7 miles despite some stunning headwinds around Lake Hefner. This was the week we lost Grandpa Stubbs, so running helped to siphon off a lot of emotion. Total miles: 39.5

sibs run C

Kara Goucher half week 3/10: My birthday week was particularly strange, mostly because it started with sheer exhaustion (maybe some delayed grief too) and a minor foot injury. I caved to the former problem and avoided dealing with the latter, which together meant frustratingly low mileage. On the bright side, I got lots of farm stuff accomplished and spent so much extra time with loved ones. My foot is healed now, and so far this new week has been refreshing. Sunday afternoon I laced up just to knock some rust off of my mind and body and was pleasantly surprised that an “easy effort” pace was under 9 minutes. That is progress. Total miles: 13

clean slate C

So that’s what’s up. It feels good to have a well defined goal in my head, something concrete and measurable to pursue. It feels even better to have a fun new plan to explore that compliments instead of competes with the rest of my life. And my husband must surely be happy that we are no longer having the same open-ended conversation every single day about whether I want to run the full or the half or nothing, or should we just move to Florida and rent out jetskiis to tourists? 

Signing off now to lace up. The workout today is called “Ice Cream Sandwich.” It’s a two-mile warm up at 15 seconds over goal pace, hard hill repeats x 10, ending with another two miles at the same 15 seconds above goal pace. See? Fun!

“Run Fast for Your Mother, Run Fast for Your Father
Run for Your Children, for Your Sisters and Your Brothers
Leave all Your Love and Your Longing Behind
You Can’t Carry it With You if You Want to Survive”
~Florence+ the Machine
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

43rd birthday snapshots

This week I turned 43 years old! It feels weird. Crazy good weird. Weird in the best sort of way things do, because (as so many of my people have described to me in other ways) time passes fleetingly yet not at all with as much damage as we expect when we are younger. And by younger I mean, obviously, either 8 or 36. 43 is nothing like what I thought it would be at either of those tender ages. I am grateful to report that I feel happier, healthier, and more involved in the business of living life than ever before. 

This year for my birthday I got some new bees. Honeybees, as I am sure you assumed, and lots of them. A fully developed, robust, mellow colony, complete with brood and a speck of sustenance honey. Maribeth helped me cut them out of a shed made available to us by a friend and his sweet family. I will write that whole story soon for apiary record keeping. Suffice it to say I was romanced and enthralled by the whole experience and am deeply happy about having a third colony at the Lazy W!

Cheesy grins and a hug following a successful afternoon of bee wrangling.
Cheesy grins and a hug following a successful afternoon of bee wrangling.

new bees C

A few days ago Handsome took Jocelyn and me to an early birthday lunch of some of the best Tex-Mex food you can find in OKC. Do I need to tell you guys at this point how much I love tortilla chips? And all the things you eat with them? It was so good. More importantly, the three of us had a much needed conversation that I will treasure for years to come.

I made my own 43rd birthday dessert, as part of a random bucket list I wrote for this year only. I had to lovingly stress to my cake-ordering guy that it was my actual birthday dessert wish, truly, to try my hand at a homemade tiramisu. It was a disaster in every way, but we got a great laugh.

ingreds C

My sister Angela sent me the most perfect and hilarious birthday card, accompanied by the most perfect and hilarious written note. It was off color just the right amount, and I laughed all the way from our mailbox back up to the house. She and I only live half an hour apart, and we had already planned to see each other in person this week, so the fact that she snail-mailed me a card made the whole thing funnier. And sweeter. And more perfect.

In addition to new bees, on my actual birthday (Wednesday) I was super happy to collect the first green eggs of the year! And it happened on what was also the first ten-egg day of the year, so go Lazy W hens!! They all taste the same (cue heartfelt lesson on character content, not skin color, although this smacks of cannibalism now), but I can’t help it. The mint green shells are my favorite.

green eggs C

Birthday Week continued with some easy, low key running, some Apartment organizing, and more time with Jocelyn, her friend Garret and the pups. I kinda can’t get enough of that stuff. I laugh so hard with her.

One night Handsome and I drove to the city to watch the Thunder play San Antonio (THUNDER WIN!!) and another day we went to Cars and Coffee (debuting our gigantic pink Cadillac) and then to see a matinée with my parents and little brother Philip, KING KONG SKULL ISLAND. Oh man, you guys, such a great iteration of a classic creature feature. My gosh. Bring on the next Monarch installment!

marilyn cars n coffee C

Somewhere in there my sister Angela drove out to the farm, another much appreciated dose of belly laughter. She and Handsome and I lingered over homemade pizza and had the best conversation for hours. Sometime I will tell you why this is beyond nice, why this represents a long string of beautiful miracles in our family. In the meantime, look how much my dog loves her too:

angela klaus C

I made another happy stop at the Savory Spice Shoppe, to pick up my birthday treat plus more, and the owner recognized me as the Instagram lady who makes aprons, ha! That was fun. I feel like I want to start sending personalized aprons and towels to local businesses.

sss C

The rest of the weekend is likely to be cold and rainy, so some reading and cuddling might be in order. Then starting Monday (possibly before) running ramps up again in earnest and life will return more or less to normal. I’m feeling very loved and wildly blessed. In every way I have shared and a million more I haven’t, turning 43 has been pretty great. I would only like this coming year of life to move more slowly, just to soak up more things, more deeply, and to pursue some exciting goals harder. 

Thank you for all of your birthday wishes all over the place! I appreciate you guys so much. Thanks for reading.

XOXOXOXO

Posts to watch for the coming couple of weeks:

  • Collateral Beauty movie discussion
  • An amazing week of togetherness with my family
  • Joy Luck Club book discussion
  • Spring has sprung! Farm update
  • Bee yard update
  • Running update: New goals, new methods
  • Listen to Your Mother: I am on the 2017 cast!
  • New Lazy W recipe!
  • Cheap gardening project ideas