Ready, set, go. It’s feel good time.

I’m turning 40 in a few months. The whole getting older thing doesn’t faze me, at this point I’m happy with my wrinkles and my wisdom. I was a dumb punk for most of my 20′s and numb with sleep deprivation for most of my 30′s, I’m ready for the next phase. Or I am getting ready.

I’ve been plodding away as a runner, very very slowly. But I wasn’t really committed to getting fit, I was more like oh, well, moving is good for me so I’ll keep at it, I guess. Running slowly alone is kinda boring so I searched out a group. The local gym does a run group for the community, no membership required, it’s a good deal. They are a super awesome group of folks but they run fast and there are drills and timed intervals and oh my god I am totally over my head with this running business. I wanted to quit.

Only these runners were the only folks I knew in town and they were really awesome. And they liked good coffee. I found my people and they were fitness people. Does that make me a fitness person? If the sneaker laces, then yes it does. Actually I have a quicklace system on my shoes so I don’t tie them up. But you know what I mean…

I kept running and I got better, slowly.

Mother’s Day weekend I was registered to do a trail relay with 3 other runners. In an unlucky twist of weather fate, we woke up that morning nearly frozen solid. Did I mention I was in a tent? It was a miserable day, freezing cold, raining, snowing and sleeting. Sometimes all at once. And we had to run for 6 hours.

The blurriness in this picture is because of the snow, not because I was moving quickly. My team rocked the race, winning our category. Against ourselves but a gold medal is still exciting. In total I ran 12.6 kms (7.8 miles) that day, more than I’d ever run before. I didn’t even die, I was shocked.

On a crazy race winning high I joined the gym.

The thing about working out at a gym is that is doesn’t make you feel youthful and strong.  It emphasizes that you are old and decrepit and that you can’t do squats because of your bum knee or you have to take every third week off to let your body recover from all this effort.

After 6 weeks of squeezing some sit ups and leg presses in a few times a week I think I am getting a little stronger. I asked my husband “Am I getting trimmer from all this exercise?” He answered “Well, ya.” My face made it clear that his answer was not sufficient to convince me so he added “Yes. You are looking much trimmer from all your running and stuff.”

There you have it- I’m fit (ter). And the truth is I feel good. Not because I’m losing inches but because doing something outside of cleaning my house and driving the kids is good for me.

What do you do to feel good?

The post Feel Good Friday: The Fitness Edition appeared first on Homemade Frontier.

So I am loving the low maintenance that comes from plain ‘ol regular weeds. Gives me lots of time to play with my new vitamix.

Here’s what we’ve harvested so far-

Some awesome lettuce, there’s a new batch of red leaf lettuce coming up in front of the romaine. FYI – I learned an important lesson this week, do not put lettuce into a smoothie, it will look and taste like the Grinch.

Hooray for radishes! They are my favourite. These were just ready this week but I haven’t been allowed to eat any yet because my garden fairies have eaten them right up. Maybe tomorrow when they are at school.

In the nearly ready category – strawberries.  We’ve always grown strawberries but never had a harvest because the local wildlife treated our ripe berries like a all night buffet. I am going to watch this like a hawk to save it from critters. And garden fairies.

The zucchinis are growing too. I love the baby vegetable stage, I might harvest a few when they are still tiny for a fun side dish. Maybe this will be the year that I make fried zucchini flowers. Or maybe not.

In the super sad category – our brussel sprouts are being eaten, and pooped on, by cabbage white caterpillars. I’ve been squishing them but the garden fairies are quite fond of any and all caterpillars and are determined to raise them into butterflies. My garden fairies are also animal loving fairies, they are equal opportunity fairies.

Even more sad is our swiss chard. It’s rotting and dying, even the new leaves. I have no idea what’s wrong with it. I’ve never known swiss chard to do anything other than grow like stink, obnoxiously. The fall I was pregnant with my oldest the swiss chard refused to die in the frost and we ate it twice a week right through until Christmas. That was right through my morning, noon and night sickness part of pregnancy. It was 4 years before I could eat swiss chard again. I feel like it’s maybe getting back at me for that.

But it’s not all lost for team brassica, the kale it doing great! We’ve had at least 4 harvests so far and I’ve sent some home with my sister.  Kale is used in all our green smoothies right now because the leaves are tender and the spinach isn’t big enough yet. We’ve got 2 kinds of kale because we’re cool like that.

Most of the garden is still in the wait and see stage. The beans and peas are up and just starting to grow up the trellis, this is the beans. You’ll see my pink clad garden fairy in the back searching out her beloved caterpillars from the brussel sprouts. The fairy’s evil stepmother would not allow caterpillars in the house. Oh, the injustice!

And the potatoes popping up. I get to see them from the kitchen window, they make me so happy.

How is your garden growing? What have you harvested so far? I’d love to see a picture of your garden’s progress, upload your pictures to the Homemade Frontier’s Facebook page. Let’s show those gardens off!

The post How My Garden Grows appeared first on Homemade Frontier.

I recently had the pleasure of sewing on 9 Brownie merit badges. Nine!

Sure a glue gun would be faster and less painful. But there are things I know about myself and cleaning up a mess made with a needle and thread, doable. Cleaning up a mess made with a glue gun, that’s going to require a new sash, new badges and possibly new fingers.

Also I am a purist and there is something romantically simple about a needle pulling a thread. Even if my finger is bleeding. Also it is a rite of passage, like wiping little bums.

So I sew. I curse a little bit too.

I do have two small complaints. Why must 4 months worth of badges be handed out at one shot? And couldn’t Team Girl Guides come up with something more permeable than plastic cement backing? What was so wrong with the old school style badge with the nice embroidery around the edges, like that pretty sleepover one, huh? That one is finger friendly.

It’s enough to make a mother discourage her eager little brownie from working on more badges. But of course that won’t do, if I can’t pass along my overachieving traits to my kids, what’s the point?

PSA: Extreme badge sewing and scrubbing burnt pots do not mix. Delegate the scrubbing, maybe there’s even a badge in it.

I had so many comments on this post I wrote a response, read Carry On, Warrior, I’ve Got Your Back. 

The post Girl Guides: Code For Mothers With Bleeding Fingers appeared first on Homemade Frontier.

Oh well, that’s not entirely true. My dad bought an old school Vitamix when I was in high school. By the time I finished University I’d put that sucker through it’s paces with ice, lime juice and tequila.

I’ve never had such a serious blender as a grown up.

I spent weeks researching, I hummed and hawed about brands and features. The most common thing I heard and read in my blender research is that a Vitamix blender will change our lives. I’m not really sure how that change is going to happen but I’m open minded to any changes a new kitchen appliance can bring.

While I wait for Costco and UPS to get their blender deployment system organized, I thought I would line up recipes for all the  new things I will make when it gets to me.

Five Vitamix Recipes I’ll Make Soon

1. Homemade Frappuccinos

My iced coffee recipe and blend it up with ice. Better yet coffee ice cubes. Stand by for delicious. I will share. Maybe.

2. Fresh Fruit Sorbet

I’d use fresh pineapples. Or peaches. Or raspberries…

3. Homemade Juice

How about carrot, orange and apple? Or grape? The possibilities are endless and the farmer’s market is just getting started. Hooray!

4. Green Goddess Smoothie

This green goddess smoothie recipe (and picture) is from Happy Food Happy Life, I love how it includes a huge diversity of green goodness.

5. Hummus a la Poppy

I am excited to compare my new blender to my tried and true food processor. I’ll give Poppy’s Awesome Hummus without Stinking Tahini a go in each appliance and report back which one makes a better hummus. Poppy uses a Vitamix and hers looks pretty darn tasty no?

Now, if you can believe, I don’t own an ice cube tray. Please excuse me while I run out for some so I will be ready when my blender is. And maybe I’ll pick up a bottle of tequila just in case homemade margaritas are needed.

What’s your favourite blended treat?

The post Five Recipes I’m Making When My Vitamix Arrives appeared first on Homemade Frontier.

Turns out I’ll take the stomach flu over a broken appliances any day.

It took a whole week to hand wash the backlog of dishes in my weakened state.  I channelled  pioneer housewives of old while I scrubbed every dish in the house. (Because of course when the whole house wakes up barfing there isn’t a one clean thing in the house.) I imagined their surprise to learn that there was a fancy machine that washed dishes. While my fingers turned into sad prunes, I thought of those ladies who had to boil water on a wood fire to wash the dinner dishes or else freeze off their fingers.

I pretended to be grateful for the hot water heater but I was just seething at the injustice of living without a modern convenience I have come to rely on and it’s rudeness for flooding my basement.

Have I mentioned that this is an 8 month old dishwasher? Brand new when we bought the house. The warranty people sent their technician who solved the loose clamp problem quickly but then informed me that a new motor was needed because the leaking water seized ours. He’d call when the part came in.

You’d think those would be the worst words you could hear from a dishwasher repair technician. I thought they were until he added that this flooding problem was a not unusual for our brand of dishwasher.  Awesome.

So I carried on with my semi-pioneer housewife ways and washed dishes by hand while we waited for our part. Once I got on top of the dirty dishes surviving without a dishwasher was easier than I thought it would be. Simpler even.

Here’s something you should know about me – my kitchen is a mess, always. I am lazy as all get out when it comes to washing the dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher, there’s an entire counter full of dirty stuff waiting for my attention every time I walk in there. So when the dishwasher was broken I had no choice but to clean everything. My kitchen was tidy and I liked it.

The dishwasher is fixed now and we’re back into our old habits. By we I mean me. The kitchen is disgusting and I am loathing going in there. What I learned in the broken dishwasher experiment is that a dishwasher complicates my life, living without it is simpler.

But I’m still going to use it.

The post What I Learned When The Dishwasher Broke appeared first on Homemade Frontier.