Monthly Archives: June 2014

My Workouts

Ab Challenge Almost Done

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I am 3+ days behind in the 30-Day Ab Challenge (Day 14, Day 22 and Day 25, plus 130 crunches from Day 21).  There’s only 4 days left, so I’ve given myself an extension until July 3rd.

I had to make adjustments so that I wouldn’t quit.  I did the situps, crunches, and leg lifts in sets.  For example, on Day 21, instead of 90 situps straight, I did 3 sets of 30.  I did not break up the planks.  I am up to 100 seconds.

Visually, I don’t see any improvement…no six pack abs…yet.  But, I stepped up to the challenge most days, and found out that I can plank.

For July, I was invited to do the 30-Day Arm Challenge, but I gracefully declined.  Pushups and arm dips are too ambitious for the summer.

I briefly clicked on the 30-Day Little Black Dress Challenge.  But, at 46, I’m now more realistic. 1)Burpees — Not even closely related to slurpees.   2)No room for a little black dress in this season’s Project 333 capsule.  3)Again, it’s summer.  I have abs-olutely zero motivation.

I’m going for Jillian Michael’s 30-Day Shred.  Maybe Jillian can motivate me.  A few years ago, when my son was trying to make weight for pee wee football, we bought this DVD and it helped him lose about 8 pounds.  To be fair, we also cut out all sweetened drinks and french fries.  Not sure I can do that…but we’ll see.

So what’s your workout for the summer?  Or how do you deal with the sound of the ice cream truck?

Let it Grow!

Takin’ Out the Suckers

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In order to produce the best tomatoes, I have to take out all the suckers.

Not suckers, like the ones from this D-Nice song…But tomato suckers, shoots that grow between the main stem and a branch.

If left to grow, suckers might steal energy from the main fruit, and you’d get a bunch of mediocre tomatoes instead of some really good ones.  For a more reasonable explanation, go here.

There’s discussion on whether you have to take out the suckers. The square-foot gardening method takes out the suckers to keep the tomato plants from spreading too wide and taking over the rest of the garden.  Who knew three tomato plants would require so much work?

Little sucker growing between main stem and branch.
Little sucker growing between main stem and branch.

I watched several videos while looking for ways to stay sucker free.

My Square Foot Garden had the best video of how to remove the suckers.

Front Porch Farm gives a detailed description of how to string and sucker tomato plants.  I haven’t had any success with training them on the trellis, so I’ve just been tying the branches.

I hope I’m not just hacking away at these plants.  I see lots of flowers, so there’s definitely potential.  There are lots of bugs too…but I’ll talk about that next time.

Here’s some updated pictures of my garden:

Back Row: Pole Bean (Kentucky Wonder), Tomato (Parks Whopper), Tomato (Sugary Hybrid), Tomato (Sweet Seedless) Front Row: Marigolds and Lettuce (All Star Mix)
Back Row: Pole Bean (Kentucky Wonder), Tomato (Parks Whopper), Tomato (Sugary Hybrid), and Tomato (Sweet Seedless).
Front Row: Marigolds and Lettuce (All Star Mix).

 

Back Row: Green Pepper, Red Pepper, Eggplant, Eggplant, Rosemary. Way Back Row: Wild Strawberries and Basil Front Row: (Dying) basil, Italian Parsley, Thyme, Spicy Oregano, Sage, Marjoram, Marigolds
Back Row: Green Pepper, Red Pepper, Eggplant, Eggplant, and Rosemary.  Way Back Row: Wild Strawberries and Basil (dying).
Front Row: Basil (dying), Italian Parsley, Thyme, Spicy Oregano, Sage, Marjoram, and Marigolds.

 

Tomato Sugary Hybrid - can you see the little green bugs?
Tomato Sugary Hybrid – can you see the little green bugs?

 

Lettuce - All Star Mix - has been great in our salads.
Lettuce – All Star Mix – has been great in our salads.

 

I’d love some feedback from the gardeners out there.  So tell us, how do you take out the suckers?  Or do you just leave those suckers alone?

My Family, The Kids

Chasing Dreams

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Del, the kids, and I play “Apartment Dwellers” in a short film called, “Aemorraghe,” which is showing at Eternal Con‘s Film Festival at 3:40pm, this Saturday, June 14th.  How cool is that?

Patrick Devaney, the writer and director, is a friend from elementary school.  When he was 14, he read a mini-graphic novel by Caza that was published in Heavy Metal magazine.  Patrick spent the next 30 years writing, getting necessary permissions, and finally making “Aemorraghe,” the film of his dreams.

We were on the set for one day and it was an awesome experience to see all the different pieces of the movie –the set, the actors, the crew, the makeup process, the costumes, and the filming of the scenes.  The cast and crew were so friendly.  They even fed us lunch.

We watched the film for the first time at the Macabre Faire Film Festival in January.  It was amazing to see the whole story come together.  It was inspiring to see a friend succeed and achieve his dream.

Even though the post may seem like a shameless movie promotion, I do have a point to all this…

Jackson and Elena (my kids) are around the same age as Patrick was when he began dreaming of making this story into a movie.

By working really hard at something he loved, Patrick found a way to make it happen.  I’m sure there were bumps along the road and that he had other day jobs to support him while he was chasing this dream.  But it’s a great example to the kids (and me) that dreams can come true.

Aemorraghe is making its way to film festivals around the US and parts of Canada.  I hope you’ll be able to catch it.  Here’s Trailer 1 and Trailer 2.

This is the year to create, adjust, work hard and chase our dreams 🙂

 

 

 

 

My Family, The Kids

Terramoto

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My little girl — who (at 5’7″) is not so little anymore — has been so helpful to me these past two months that I wanted to give her a shoutout.

Elena had a rough start.  Her uncle nicknamed her “Terramoto” because whenever she left his house, it looked like an earthquake had struck.  Once, at a party, I found a woman prying a checkbook from Elena’s fingers, saying “you must NEVER go into a woman’s purse.”  In preschool, one mother referred to Elena as a “hot mess.”

Elena as Lava Girl in preschool.
Elena as Lava Girl in preschool.

There’s always a fine line of how wild to let her be.  But, thankfully, she really has turned things around.

She’s a good student, who plays soccer, basketball, and the upright bass.

Elena with her "High Honor Roll with Distinction" awards.
Elena with her “High Honor Roll with Distinction” awards.

Most importantly, Elena is my biggest blog supporter.

She is my copy editor.  She spots typos and gives me input on the rough patches–and by rough patches, I mean stuff she doesn’t want the world to know 🙂

She is my workout partner.  She always reminds me that we have to do our “30-Day Ab Challenge” sets.  She probably gets a kick out of watching her 45-year-old mom strain to do situps.   Day 1 provided an evening full of laughs.

She is my backup happy item for my #100happydays project on Instagram.  So far she’s in about 25% of the pictures.

She is my gardening assistant.  This past weekend, she worked all morning putting down mulch.  For now, she doesn’t seem to mind all the micromanaging I do.  But sometimes her smile is so wide, I wonder if she’s really cursing me out in her head.

Elena worked all morning and put down about 8 bags of mulch.
Elena worked all morning and put down about 8 bags of mulch.

Is it the calm before the storm?  I hear that teen girls can be rough.   Elena is 12 years old.

I’m going to enjoy all of this while it lasts. This one’s for you, Happy Peaches.

Elena and me ready for her grandfather's high school reunion ball. (May 2014)
Elena and me ready for her grandfather’s high school reunion ball. (May 2014)