Whole Health Dietitian — Tastefully Fueling Active Transportation
We spent the Fourth of July holiday sweating it out in Iowa with my family. Our time there included Sir’s first time in the swimming pool and an early birthday celebration.
Due to the extreme heat, we opted to avoid turning on the oven to make a cake. Instead, we made delicious chocolate birthday waffles, served with a variety of delicious ice creams. Sir thoroughly enjoyed the treat.
Duh, duh-duh duh dunna duh duh. Now that I’ve got that stuck in your head . . .
The plan for Gabriel’s milk feeds during our three-day separation last week involved frozen breast milk (fortunately, I had plenty stockpiled) and dry ice to keep the milk frozen during the eight-plus hour car ride.
Given the early Sunday morning departure time, my only option was to purchase the dry ice on Saturday night. A bit of research suggested that somewhere between 10-20 pounds of dry ice would do the trick, and, with the heat wave in full force, I called Ted Drewes Frozen Custard (our dry ice source) four days ahead of time to make sure that picking up 20 pounds of dry ice on Saturday night wouldn’t be a problem. The person on the phone said I couldn’t reserve it, but it would be no problem.
Worried that I would get there and find them out of dry ice, I called again on Saturday morning, hoping they would set some aside with my name on it, but again, no dice, with the same line that they would be able to fill my order when I arrived.
After we put Gabriel to bed on Saturday night, I drove over, expecting to wait in an insane line.Continue reading “Ice, ice baby”
Here’s another slide show from the garden. Given the fact that we’re baking here (and will be for the foreseeable future), we’re very thankful to have the new drip irrigation system in place (guest post on that coming soon).
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It’s come a long way since May:
A little less than a year ago, Gabriel arrived with a good bit of fairly dark brown hair. I assumed he would have Matthew’s nice, deep brown hair color, but over the past year, G’s hair lightened quite a bit. I now describe it as “golden,” especially when the sun hits it, and in this picture, it looks red.
Anyhow, Sir has been vacationing in Iowa with Baba (Czech for “Grandma” — Matthew’s mom’s side of the family is Czech) for the past few days. We’ll be apart for over 72 hours (previous longest separation was 27 hours), which made me a bit apprehensive.
Fortunately, Baba reports that things are going very well. Sir’s only complaint is that she didn’t bring enough sungolds.
I headed to the garden this morning for a picking session, since Sir said he would refuse to see us if we did not come bearing gifts.
Happy 4th of July!
I’ve planned some version of this post in my head for quite awhile, though I was beginning to think it would never happen.
Over two-and-a-half (!) years ago, I accepted a position promoting active transportation (with a focus on biking). It was a great opportunity, with one big downside: my four-and-a-half years of biking to work came to a screeching halt.
I explored options for bike commuting, including combining biking with transit, but the location, sixteen miles away, with a river crossing that is only spanned by an interstate (if I didn’t want to travel significantly out of the way, and still be on high-speed highways), and no transit service made that an unrealistic option for me. I know some people bike to work at that distance and longer, but spending over two hours getting to and from work, and my route options (or lack there-of), made it a nonstarter for me.
Going into it, I knew the switch from a bike commute to a car commute (about 30 minutes each way) would be hard to swallow, and it was. Everyday, I drove past an overpass reconstruction that was set to be complete exactly a year from when I started the position, and I set an arbitrary deadline of finding something else by the time they completed the project.
A year came and went. Then two. I enjoyed my job and working with my coworkers, but the drive bothered me. And I didn’t want it to NOT bother me, but it didn’t bother me enough to bite the bullet and leave without another job lined up, not in this economy.
I’ve known for several months now that continued funding for my position was uncertain, but I found out just HOW uncertain two weeks ago, when the higher-ups informed me that due to recent budget cuts, my job would be ending effective July 31. Alrighty, then.
I’m exploring a few possibilities, and, at least for now, not even letting myself look at positions that I could not readily access without a car. At this point, I don’t know what things will look like come August 1, but I won’t be spending an hour in the car that day, and that can only be a good thing.
Her Green Life