Books in January

I can’t belive that these are the books I read in January – having read most of these in the 9 days before I started back at school I sort of forgot about them.

Running Blind (Jack Reacher #4) – Lee Child

I am slowly working my way through the whole series, although not always in order. I don’t really have anything to say about this particular novel in the series. It was entertaining but I think I was maybe suffering from Jack Reacher burnout having just read books #1 and #3 in December. It’s got the FBI, dead women and Jack having to make tough decisions about what he really wants in life.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J.K. Rowling

I was on a real roll with this – I read the first three books in the series between Christmas and New Years – but then I had a bit of a falling out with Harry part way through the Order of the Phoenix and decided I needed to take a break after I finished the book. I admit to not being in love with the series but I think that after a few weeks break I’m ready to tackle the remaining two books and finish off this goal for the year.

Point of Impact (Bob Lee Swagger #1) – Stephen Hunter

A complete switch from Harry Potter. I’ve read a few other Stephen Hunter books so this one was exactly what I expected. This is the first story with Bob Lee Swagger but if you really want to get hooked you need to read book #3 (Time to Hunt).

Outlander – Diana Gabaldon

This is our current book club book and I found it a quick read even though it is fairly long. It’s got time travel, romance, bad Englishmen, manly Scotts, numerous bad decisions that always end well and a heroine who, in my opinion, is way too calm about being accidentally transported back in time. I read most of it in an afternoon because I couldn’t put it down. Totally a guilty pleasure but I loved reading it, flaws and all.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth – Carrie Ryan

One of my students was reading the third book in this series so I thought I’d see what they were about. I really struggled to get into this book and didn’t end up enjoying reading it. It’s got the undead, lost love and bad decisions that don’t turn out well for all involved.

Total Books Read in January: 6

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February Goals: I started Cloud Atlas as my first selection from our shelf, but didn’t have the time to finish it in January. My first task for February is to finish it. After that I’m going to try the last two Harry Potter books. And finally, I’d like to read another book from the basement.

2012 Vegetable Seeds

It’s just the end of January, which seems a little early to be thinking about spring planting, but with the arrival of our 2012 seed catalog from West Coast Seeds earlier this month it’s hard not too! Last year we ordered a bunch of seeds for our garden and were generally pretty happy with what grew. We’ve still got lots of seeds left from that order, so we’ll be growing the same vegetables this year to use them up. I also wanted to try a new vegetable this year, which quickly turned into several new vegetables, so there will be new things as well. And then there is some stuff that just didn’t work for us, so we’re cutting a few things from the garden this year too.

So Great We’re Growing it Again

These veggies were tasty last year and grew pretty well.

• Red Russian Kale
• Amish Deer Tongue and Darkness leaf lettuce
• Fordhook Giant and Rhubarb swiss chard
• Nantes and Napoli carrots
• Cylindra and Chioggia beets
• Venture Blue Lake, Dragons Tongue and Kentucky Wonder Brown beans
• Eight Ball zucchini
• Dill

We’re hoping that the asparagus (both the crowns and the seedlings) and the artichokes survive the winter and will be part of this year’s garden again.

What’s New in 2012:

I knew for sure that I wanted to try another squash variety, but the new vegetables list quickly exploded once we started flipping through the catalog. We’re up to 8 new types of vegetables, and 5 new varieties of vegetables we’re already growing.

We didn’t have a lot of lettuce, carrot or zucchini seeds left over, so we’re trying some new varieties:

• Carrots: we’re adding in Little Fingers (baby carrots) and Neptune (medium size and store well)
• Lettuce: I wanted to try some head lettuce so we’re growing Continuity and Tom Thumb. They both take longer than our loose leaf lettuces from last year so we’ll see how they do. The Tom Thumb is a tiny head lettuce, so I plan to grow it in containers on our deck.
• Zucchini: Our eight ball zucchini was a great producer and peaked earlier in the summer. I want to extend our zucchini season with a different variety so we’ll be planting a few Ambassador zucchini too.

And we’ve never tried (or had any success with) these vegetables, so they’re going to be a new adventure. A few of these are things I’m not sure about – Jonny is the gardener who likes to “push the limits”. He’s responsible for the artichokes, asparagus, Haskaps and garlic and has so far been successful in his choices.

• Broccoli (Calebrese): It didn’t grow at all last year, but since we have seeds we’ll try again.
• Cabbage (Pixie and Charmant): I bought a few plants at the sale last year but they never did anything. I have a serious addiction to homemade sauerkraut so I hope these varieties produce better!
• Spinach (Corvair and Bloomsdale Savoy): our north veggie bed (where we grew beans last year) turned out to be quite shady so we’re hoping that spinach does OK there.
• Corn (Kandy King): totally a wild card but people down the street grow it.
• Cucumber (Salad Bush and Sultan): I wanted to narrow it down to one cucumber but two will have to do. Salad bush should be compact enough for container growing.
• Onion (Ailsa Craig): Never grown onions before but I’m willing to try!
• Squash: Pinnacle (a spaghetti squash) and Table Queen (a more acorn style squash)
• Watermelon (Diana): Can you guess who chose this? I guess you never know unless you try
• Pumpkin (Snack Jack):
• Sunflower: Not really a vegetable but would be cool to grow. They will look pretty in our yard,

What You Won’t See in the Garden This Year

• Tomatoes – Every year I try tomatoes and while we got lots of tomatoes last year, they just didn’t taste very good. Compared to our other veggies, they just aren’t a good cost to reward plant for us. I’m going to use the space on my deck to try a few of those new veggies.
• Cilantro – It grew but attracted a lot of little green aphids. It wasn’t worth it to wash them all off. I’ll stick to my other herbs (and hope that they come back!)
• Snap peas – This one is a maybe on the don’t grow list. Our’s didn’t do well but the women down the street had tons and tons of peas. Maybe I need to ask what her secret is?

And Some Inedibles:

They were not in the plan, but when we were ordering we decided that a few flowers to attract more pollinators couldn’t hurt.

• Columbine – they self-seed and look pretty
• Hollyhocks: I remember these from when I was a kid and I see that the people down the street have been growing them successfully so I’m going to try too.
• Phacelia and Purple Coneflowers: for pollinators

It’s going to be a busy spring and summer in the garden. I think that we might need to expand our current space, but where to put the new bed(s)? There will definitely be some planning happening between ordering our seeds and actually getting them out into the yard. I think we’re going to start things inside the growing cage again, but I might add in some extra light source to keep everything from getting spindly.

So many things to figure out – the joy of gardening!

Four Weeks In

Yesterday I really, really didn’t want to be training for anything. It took me until 11 am to get myself dressed and out the door for my long run. Ugh. But the rest of training has been going OK and bad days are too be expected. The run itself was good and I did feel so much better after but it is obvious that my motivation was a little low.

After two warmish weeks of running, last week was our first really cold snap of the year. Sometimes it is just too unpleasant to run outside, so Week #3 looked like this:

Monday: 3 mile run
Tuesday: 90 minutes Bikram yoga
Wednesday: 3 mile run
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 30 minute swim + 3 mile run + 90 minutes Bikram yoga
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Conditioning swim + 4 mile run + weights

Totals: 13 miles, 1 strength workout, 2 yoga workouts, 2 cross training (swim) workouts.

It warmed up on Sunday so I was able (and more willing) to run outside more this week than last week. I’ve switched to running a few times a week before work, which is good because I get it done but my pace is generally much slower when it is dark and icy out. Training Week #4 looked like this:

Monday: 5 mile run + weights
Tuesday: 3 mile run
Wednesday: 3 mile run + weights
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 6 mile run + 90 minutes Bikram yoga
Saturday: 11 mile run
Sunday: Conditioning swim + 90 minutes Bikram yoga

Totals: 28 miles, 2 strength workouts, 2 yoga workouts and 1 swim

Week #4 called for a 6 mile mid-week run, but I didn’t check my training schedule before I set off on Monday morning and only ran 5 miles. Not the end of the world but I’ve got to remember to run 6 miles this week.

Weeks 1 and 2 were easier than these past two weeks because all I did was go to school a few days a week, but now I’m juggling how best to fit in my workouts with school, part-time work and having a personal life. To make it work, Patches still has to be my running partner (and a reluctant one for our AM runs) and Jonny sometimes has to wait until almost 8 pm for dinner (yoga on week nights) but we’re doing ok. On to Week #5!