Bloomin' Onions

I love green onions. Yellow onions, not so much. But there's no such thing as too much green onion.

The problem is - they die so quickly. I buy them at the beginning of the week and when I go to cook with them on Thursday, they're floppy and sad. Bummer. I read somewhere online that you can take the leftover green onions and stick them in some water and they'll start growing all over again.

Really?!

I haven't had too much success with growing things, but I couldn't resist trying this one. So I took my leftover stalks of green onions and stuck them in a mason jar filled with water.

Jeff gave me an odd look and shook his head, but he does that every time I fiddle with something green. (He's getting a good laugh out of my cactus suddenly dying today. It was green and growing yesterday, and today it's all wilted and brown. Why??)

I don't have a window with direct sunlight to place the onions in, so I put them on my kitchen counter and hoped the daylight would peek in somehow.

After about a week, they're growing!

At first the ends started to brown and crisp, and I figured it was a bust. But then they started to firm back up. And those little roots? They're a-growing!

Clearly that means something is happening, right? God, I need to pick up a gardening and growing for dummies book or something.

I'm not putting too much into this. If it fails, it's green onions that probably would have ended up in the trash anyways. If it works, I can stop spending money on them. I'm cooking an enchilada casserole at the end of this week, so I'm hoping they'll last at least that long!

Oh, and I'm hoping to start gardening something once all this snow finally melts in another month or two...or three? I'm hoping I can tackle some herbs and some normal plants out on our balcony. I think I may need some books or something though... I'm going to continue blaming my failures on my inability to understand what soil/dirt/plant I'm buying since everything is labeled in kanji ---it'll work until we leave Japan!

No More Trouble Zones

I can.not.move.

I did Jillian Michael's No More Trouble Zones workout last night, even though my legs were already tired. Oh my god, legs. Shoulders. Triceps. LEGS.

I've discovered through random spurts of working out that I far prefer weight training to cardio. I may not be good at it and I may have wimpy arms, but I love it.

I hate Jillian while I'm working out with her, as I'm shaking and wobbling and about to die. But it's good, right? It'll feel good in about a week when I'm no longer sore.

Her weight training is intense. You work at least two muscles at a time - squats with shoulder work, crunches with chest presses, triceps with lunges. It feels like it's going to go on forever, but it's about 45 minutes and I believe 6 circuits.

This is my favorite Jillian Michaels DVD. It's low weight high intensity, and seriously kicks your ass. Well, it kicks mine.

And when I can move again next week, I'll do it all over again!

Operation Get in Shape for Fuji --- Progress?

I've been saying since we moved here that I needed to get into shape. We had planned to climb Mt. Fuji before we even moved here, and I would die if I tried it right now. Only sort of kidding. I'm wheezing like an old man just climbing our 8 flights of stairs.

It's um... 13 months after we moved here and less than 6 until we do the big climb. I've gained 10lbs and gotten into even worse shape. Awesome, right?

I've been on my Operation for four weeks now.

The first week I tried to start Body Rock TV's 30 Day Challenge . I thought it could be a good before work activity. But I kept getting dizzy when I was doing that high intensity before I was fully awake or nourished. It was nice not to have weights or machines, but I needed variety from all the heavy impact jumping on my severely screwed up balls of my feet.

http://www.bodyrock.tv/2012/01/26/day-4-week-4-the-30-day-challenge-stronger-workout/

The second and third weeks I hit the gym. I did some intervals on the treadmill and switched between a fast jog/run and walking, until I was sweating like I was going to die. Then I'd do weights. The first week, I did pretty well. But the second week, I didn't do as well. My timing wasn't good for me. I'd go after work because it was most convenient for me, but it's most convenient for a lot of people. I don't like crowds. I'd get itchy trying to lift weights next to some beefy guy, and I couldn't stand when all the treadmills were full or the weight machines I wanted were in use. No patience. My feet were also screaming at my jump right into running method. Maybe not my smartest decision...

NOT what my gym looks like! I wish...

This week, I'm working slightly later. It's enough that by the time I'd go to the gym and get a good workout in, then come home and cook dinner, eat, and clean it up - it'd be bedtime. I need at least a half an hour somewhere in there to chill. So I decided to try my home DVD's again. I have them, most of them I've had since we first got out to Lemoore. I know they're all good if I do them consistency, but consistency is my weakness.

I was super proud of myself when I did a workout Monday night. I had Monday off and indulged in pizza and a movie with some friends. I remembered to workout. It was painful working out on greasy food like that. I don't really want to see pizza for a while now... which isn't so bad really.

Monday I did my old favorite, Jillian Michaels. Despite feeling like I was going to have death by pizza and cardio, it felt good to get through it. Today I did Julianne and danced like an idiot. I have no rhythm.

I'm hoping to make it through three more workouts this week, in whatever order seems best each night.

I'm hoping if I keep blogging about it publicly, it'll kick my ass in gear to get moving!

Starting the Big List

It's official, I've broken in my Day Zero Project!



54.   Read one hundred and twenty-five books (9/125)

I've read nine books since we last talked:

1. Nora Roberts - The Next Always 
2. Diane Haeger - The Secret Bride: In the Court of Henry VIII (In Progress!) 
3. Sophie Kinsella - Shopaholic Ties the Knot 
4. Sophie Kinsella - Shopaholic and Sister
5.  Sophie Kinsella - Shopaholic and Baby 
6. Nora Roberts - Enchanted 
7. Nora Roberts - Charmed 
8. Nora Roberts - Entranced 
9. Nora Roberts - Captivated

The new Nora Roberts book was okay, but not as good as some of her others. The Sophie Kinsella Shopaholic series is SO funny and cute. The flop movie turned me off, but I'm so glad I gave the books a chance. I've loved every Sophie Kinsella book I've read -- I think I might have even read them all? The Nora Roberts series was cheap for my Kindle. It was a little fantasy, with witches and magic. It was okay, again. Nothing amazing, but plenty good enough to curl up with and forget the world for a while. My favorite kind.




69.   Try ten new slow-cooker recipes (2/10)

 I've been trying so hard to use my slow cooker more. I've got chili on the menu for later in the week. But I've had the hardest time finding good recipes for it that don't come out totally bland.

We tried a BBQ chicken recipe that was just that - BLAND. It was so bad, I didn't even eat it. Fail! But it counts.

Last week I tried a different beef recipe. I have a favorite that I make all the time, and everyone loves. But I wanted something different, so I tried this French Dip Recipe. It was pretty good! I topped the sandwiches with mozzarella and broiled them for a few minutes, and they reminded me of a sub you would pick up at a sandwich shop like Charlie's Subs, which we have on base. Still pretty tasty. I've got half leftover which we'll probably eat later this week.



70.   Try ten restaurants in and around Misawa (2/10)

Since the weather is so full of snow and ice, we've been staying close to home. Which makes adventures hard to tackle, so we've been eating instead.

We tried a local Italian restaurant called Angelo's one weekend.

Excuse the blurry photo. I took a picture of Jeff eating his tortellini, but he was chewing and it's just bad. I ate most of my margherita pizza before I remembered to snap a picture. It was a really good dinner. We both got a salad and delicious crusty garlic bread. Both of our meals were delicious. We'll probably go back sometime in the near future.

We also tried a local fast food place called Sukiya. We've heard about it a lot from our friends but hadn't gone yet. On Saturday I had a craving for yakisoba, but my favorite place had no parking, so we went elsewhere. We tried Sukiya since it had plenty of parking (this little city has NO parking).

It's basically rice bowls of all combinations. Jeff got a basic beef bowl, I got a 3 cheese beef bowl, and we both got miso soup. It was really tasty, although I think I prefer another rice bowl place we tried a while back. I didn't take a picture, but it looks really similar to this. This picture is from the other place I prefer, which I cannot pronounce the name of, and we went there a couple times over the summer. I've been meaning to go back, but you know how that goes.

It doesn't fit neatly into the checklist, but I've started my "Get in Shape to Climb Mount Fuji" challenge. I worked out hard last week and was dying by Friday, and I started it again this week. I'm hoping next month I can make it longer than five minutes on the stair stepper...but I have lost 3lbs. since I've started!

Superbowl Monday - Toned Down

This was my second Superbowl overseas.

Here's the story of my first: Superbowl Monday

Basically, it was a big, drunken party at 8am on Monday morning. I had a blast meeting some of the guys from Jeff's work and teaming up against those silly Packers fans.

This year?

I worked! Exciting, I know.

Luckily, I didn't really care about either team. But I was missing all the good food. So I decided to do Superbowl food on Sunday evening, and pretend we were watching the big game. I believe we watched Covert Affairs or Burn Notice, but whatever.

Mini Spicy Buffalo Chicken Balls

I made this spicy buffalo chicken balls recipe, because wings and games go together. I used ground turkey because I had it on hand. I left the sauce as a dipping sauce instead of drizzling it over the meatballs in case we didn't like it, and added a bbq sauce to dip as well. I picked up some mozzarella sticks and made some spicy potato wedges and called it done. It was delicious. The meatballs were good but were missing the texture. They weren't crispy, so I want to fiddle with the recipe next time I make them. But they were still really good and we inhaled them. I didn't make the blue cheese sauce because I don't like blue cheese. I cut up my leftover celery and just grabbed a bottle of ranch. Easier.

I make potatoes a lot of different ways and never use a specific recipe. This time, I cut the potatoes into chip-like slim wedges and mixed them with olive oil, chili powder, red pepper flakes, and garlic. I roasted them in the oven at 450 until crispy. Yum.


So this year's big game was pretty uneventful. I just wanted to share the decent recipe for something different. And voice my jealousy that Jeff got the day off work while I didn't. After his snow day, I wasn't very happy!

Let it Snow

Long time, no talk. 

Not a lot has been happening over here. Lots of working. And lots of snow. It snows basically every single day. Normally it's just a dusting or doesn't even stick. Some days - it does.

One weekend, we had 27" of snow. It snowed from sundown Friday to sunup Monday.

We had to run out in the middle of the snow to pick up our car from a friend. You can sort of see the flakes are huge. All the pictures are with Jeff's small point and shoot because I could picture myself taking my gorgeous new camera out and dropping her in the snow.

My sweet husband has gotten even sweeter this winter and wipes my car off every morning before I go to work. When it looks like this, I'm pretty grateful!

A week or so later, 19" of snow fell overnight. There were high winds all night long, making our windows rattle and the howls and screams of the wind kept us up all night. Our windows were all covered in snow, even though we're on the 8th floor. It was nasty. We woke up to a snow day! Well, for everybody else. Schools were closed. Base was running on mission essential personnel only. Jeff got the day off. I worked extra hours. Because even mission essential personnel have children, our center was open for business.

Jeff went outside nearly thirty minutes before me. Once I grabbed something to eat I joined him to help dig out our cars. My black car is on the left, his red car is across the aisle. You can imagine how they looked before he dug them out...

Our parking lot was a mess. Cars were stranded half in and half out of their parking spots. Some very intelligent people thought they could just gun their engines and make it over all the snow and out of their spots. They got stuck, of course. Jeff dug trenches for our wheels and it still took the two of us to get his car out of its spot, after much maneuvering and shoveling. There was a line of cars stranded in the entrance to our parking lot, blocking it completely. Some of them actually looked like they got stuck, some looked like they just decided to park in the way. Luckily we had another exit. It was crazy!

The plows must have been out all night, because the roads weren't bad at all. The snow was up to my hips in the parking lot and I could see the roads while driving. Jeff drove me to work because we didn't know how the roads would be. He really didn't need to, but it made me feel slightly better about working a long day while he got the day off!

With all this snow, we haven't been out exploring too much. The roads off base are nowhere near as nice as the roads on base. They're uneven stretches of ice, which means you feel like you're riding a horse and you're slipping and sliding through intersections. Doable for a run to a local restaurant, not for a trip out of town. We've had plans to go snowboarding for two months, and each month something has come up. Maybe next month :)

I've been reading books like crazy and we've tried a couple different restaurants in Misawa, so I'm starting to make a dent in my Day Zero Project. I'll update about that soon.