Walk to Mordor Week 27 and Mothers Day Food

Hi all!

Mother's Day Food! I made everything except the meat in the foil.

Nothing too exciting happened in week 27 of my WtM. I only walked a little over 10 miles so I didn't get very far (I'm sill on day 15, and isn't that a little frustrating?!).

Yummy Pasta, Corn, and Bread with Salad!

Mother's day was yesterday, and I ended up making/ cooking most of the food. My dad made rib eye steaks for the meat eaters in the family (I find that the smell of cooked meat makes me feel ill now. I guess that's what happens when you don't eat it for almost a year). I made a delicious pasta (it was sort of a puttanesca sauce, but not really since I didn't add anchovies or chili peppers or parsley) with kalamata olive, pimento stuffed green olives, large capers, canned tomatoes, oregano, basil, onion powder, garlic powder, olive oil, and Cajun seasoning. I also made a salad with tons of fun things in it: cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots, celery, green onion, red onion, capers, kalamata olives, green olives, and artichoke hearts on top of mixed baby greens and topped with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We also had corn on the cob and bread. Over all it was a really great meal and we will probably have leftovers for a long time.

Up Close with the Corn

My mom got my Grandmother a pedometer from CVS as her present and I got to set it up and teach her how to use it. It has a huge readout, so I think she'll be able to read it, but the instruction booklet has ridiculously tiny print. The hardest part about setting it up was getting the battery cover unscrewed because all of our Philips head screwdrivers were too big (even the ones used to repair glasses!). We ended up using the corner of a flat one and it somehow worked. I felt very accomplished once I finished that!

Salad from Nutrition Company

Today I went to Koko with Meagan and then to the Nutrition Company for lunch. I'm trying more of their foods instead of always ordering the same thing and I had this awesome salad today! It's the not fried not chicken salad with the house dressing.

That's all for now! I hope everyone has a great day and I'll post more tomorrow!

Week #__27____ Day ___15____ WTR Goals: Mileage___20___ Weight __267____

Starting Weight	Current Weight	Goal Weight	Projected Goal Date	Day
270	268.5	175	2017	15

Date	Activity	Duration Miles	Beginning Mileage	Ending Mileage	Location*
3/30	Walk	1.83	262.81	264.64
3/31	Walk	2.75	264.64	267.39
4/1	Walk	1.71	267.39	269.1
4/2	Walk	1.98	269.1	271.08
4/3	Walk	1.26	271.08	272.34
4/4	Walk	1.72	272.34	274.06
4/5	Walk	.50	274.06	274.56
Totals	This week:	11.75	Total Miles:	274.56	Still on day 15

Trip to North Carolina Part Three

Part The Third

Dreary weather in the mountains Monday Morning

Monday dawned dark, damp, and dreary. I was able to drag myself out of bed after almost ten hours of sleep (I was super tired... the mountain air always makes me sleep hard) and ate some lovely orzo for breakfast. I had been hoping to hike, but the on again- off again rain storms mixed with ice was a definite deterrent to my hiking plans. Instead I spent the day listening to my "Unheard" playlist on ITunes and reading up on some info for future blog posts.

Tuesday was exciting and stressful all at once. I woke up at the crack of dawn to drive to Spartanburg, South Carolina to see my friends. It had either iced/ snowed the night before or the dew froze. It was beautiful.

The Garden in Winter

The drive down the mountain was uneventful. I visited my friend Wendi, the music librarian and we had a really nice chat to catch up. I then went to my friend Katie's voice lesson. She is working on her pieces for the NATS competition later this month and it was wonderful to hear her sing. She has improved a lot in the year or so since I heard her sing last and it is always fun to hear how someone's voice develops as they hone their technique.

Katie at Lime Leaf in Spartanburg, SC

We then went to lunch at Lime Leaf and had a lovely time chatting over our food. I had the Basil with Eggplant (vegetables) with white rice and Katie had the Chicken with Cashews (minus the chicken plus the vegetables) with white rice and fried rice. They came with spring rolls and dipping sauce. We split the Mango Sticky Rice for desert (one of my favorite deserts ever). The waiters were super nice and chatted with us for a bit (Katie is a regular customer) and had great suggestions on how to vegan-ize the menu items.

Basil Eggplant with Vegetables and White Rice from Lime Leaf

Cashew Vegetables and White Rice

After lunch, I tagged along in Opera Workshop class (one of my favorite classes ever) where they were learning about writing up resumes and bios. It was fun to get a little refresher course. After class, Katie and I ran back to the library to pick out some new music for her to sing. Then I went to my voice studio's seminar/ studio class and listened to people sing. I spoke briefly with my voice teacher afterwards and set up a time to see her on Friday. I then proceeded to get lost on my way to Katie's apartment, find my way there, and briefly visit with her and her roommate.



We look like sisters! Besties that match?

Our hair even matches!

I then drove to Greenville, where I met my awesome former roommate Lauren. We ate dinner at Kanpai of Tokyo, a really awesome Japanese restaurant with lots of atmosphere. As in, they have a giant taxidermied turtle just hanging out in the anti-room on the restrooms. It is huge. The sushi bar area is separate from the hibachi bars, so the volume of noise is muffled and quiet. The room is dark and very night-club-sushi-esque instead of day-at-the-spa-sushi-esque. It was happy hour for sushi so I got the salad roll, cucumber roll, and shitake roll as well as a seaweed salad. It was all fantastic. The shitake roll was drizzled in a slightly sweet brown sauce of unknown origin that really brought out the earthiness of the mushrooms. The salad roll was lettuce, tomato, and carrot in rice and seaweed. I had never had a roll like it and I absolutely adored it. The cucumber roll and seaweed salad were pretty basic and just like any other sushi place, but still good.

Lauren took me back to her apartment where we watched part of a documentary called The Corporation about the evils of big business. I'm not sure I agree with some of the sentiments of the movie, but it was interesting to watch. We ended up staying up a little late, but had a great time catching up.

Wednesday I went back to school and sat in on a freshman music history class that was learning about instrumental music in Italy in the early renaissance. The teacher is one of my favorites, and I greatly enjoyed her lecture. I went to church after that (early of course, because I never go places late and I tend to get the time wrong) and had a brief chat with my former choir director.

Episcopal Church of the Advent, Spartanburg, SC

Stained Glass at Church of the Advent, Spartanburg, SC

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, and is therefore one of the Fast Days of the church. I inadvertently fasted until almost 2:00 just because I didn't have time to eat, but many people fast on purpose on that day. Church was really great. The sermon was about our relationships with others and our relationship with God. The human relationships run on a flat horizontal plain, and our relationship with God is vertical. What we have to do is get them to intersect. Fr. Stephen made the point that they do intersect in the form of the cross (like the ashes that were imposed upon our foreheads). It was a really nice sermon and I was glad to be there to hear it.



This is what the ashes look like, FYI

After church, I went back to school and had some tea and a nice chat with one of my other music history teachers. It was really great to catch up with him while I could.


Stained Glass at Church of the Advent, Spartanburg, SC

Then, Katie and I went to lunch (well, it was 2:15 pm, so it was lunch for me and afternoon tea for Katie) at this great new restaurant called Willy Taco. It was really just what I needed. Katie and I both got the Crispy Avocado Taco (without the crèma sauce) and the Naked Burrito Bowl with roasted vegetables. The inside of the place is a cross between a Dia de los Muertos festival and a recycled items only/ hipster place. It is bright and open and full of yellows, greens, and exposed ceilings. It was pretty busy for an off hour, so I can imagine that it is super packed during regular hours.



Naked Burrito Bowl with Veggies from Willy Taco, Spartanburg, SC

After racing Katie back to school, I filled up my gas tank and drove back to Hendersonville, NC in the sun, singing like a maniac. It was such a beautiful, sunny, glorious, fantastic, bright winter afternoon that I couldn't help myself. I then relaxed and scavenged the pantry and refrigerator for dinner. What a wild day!

The King Cake my parents were eating on Mardi Gras while I was in South Carolina

Trip to North Carolina Part Two

Part Two!

Saturday dawned bright and sunny for my dad's 64th birthday. We went on a hike on our property and had a smashing good time. I will post many photos from our hike throughout this post.

Me and My Dad!

A field in the forest

My Mom is bundled up!

Hiking is one of my favorite pastimes. I love learning about the different trees, flowers, shrubs, mosses, fungi, and ferns that I see while I walk. I love looking at the different insects and I am a pro at walking straight into spider webs. I am usually the first one to get a mouthful of webbing on the hike (I'm usually near the front and tall, so they are right there and invisible), so I'm used to this. (Don't worry Meagan, I'll protect you with my face). It is very different to walk in the woods during the winter as opposed to the summer. In the summer, the understory is thick with lush green vegetation, ferns, mushrooms in bright oranges and whites, and the scurrying of squirrels and chipmunks. In the winter it is so still and quiet. There were birds, yes, but mostly crows and hawks as opposed to the songbirds that are normal in this area.



We heard one animal crash through the underbrush as we approached (probably a large squirrel), but my mom was talking pretty loud, so we probably scared away most of the wildlife (she was wearing a hat over her ears and couldn't tell how loud she was talking). Many of the trees were bare and the evergreens really stood out in the starkness of the forest of sticks and limbs. It was such a wonderful hike through the woods and fields. The sun was shining and I actually worked up a sweat, even though it was chilly. We only hiked for 1.5 hours (about 3 miles) and most of it was gentle ups and downs with a fair bit of up at the end. (More pictures at end)

Tree growing next to old barn

We then went to dinner at the wonderful Sol y Luna in Laurel Park for some Cali-Mex food of goodness! I had the veggie fajitas (without sour cream and cheese). I love that they have carrots and broccoli in the fajitas. Many places only put onions, mushrooms, and peppers in their veggie fajitas and those get sort of tiring after a while. Fajitas is my go to meal at Mexican restaurants because they are usually the only vegan foods available besides salads (although, I guess you could get a vegetable taco or enchilada without the cheese... you would have to talk to the waiter about that). They have the most amazing salsa bar with many fun and original salsas for dipping your corn chips in or slathering on your other food. One of my favorite things about the restaurant is the tableside fresh guacamole where they take 1-2 avocados and chop them up with cilantro, tomatoes, and peppers for spice right at the table. They then squeeze a beautiful spritz of lime juice all over it and give it to you for your eating pleasure. My mom ended up putting some of it on her Caesar salad (which is amazing for you non-vegan people who are eating there). My mom had the chicken enchiladas suizas and my dad had the Santa Fe enchiladas with chicken and they both greatly enjoyed their meals.

My dad being excited about his birthday

My mom and I ended up watching Thor on TV after dinner and I had the job of explaining why Thor in the movie is different from Thor in mythology (He's a comic book character... of course he will be different!) and why Loki turns blue. It was really fun to explain something I enjoy to my mom when she actually wants to hear it. After Thor, my mom went to bed and I watched the first 30 minutes of Iron Man 2 (I had never seen the beginning... how is that possible? I've seen it about 8 times). They cut out so much when it is on TV. I stopped watching it because it was getting to be hard to follow with the scenes they left out.

Sunset on the way to the restaurant

Sunday was another fun day. I drove down to Spartanburg, SC and visited my friends from Church of the Advent and from school. I ended up eating lunch at a wonderful Thai restaurant called Bangkok. I used to eat here all the time when I was in school. It is my absolute favorite Thai restaurant in South Carolina. I had the Basil Fried Rice (sans egg) with tofu and a green salad with ginger dressing. It was super yummy. My waiter was obviously new and he kept coming over asking if he could get me anything. It was kind of cute in a nerve-wracking way. He did accidently give me sweet tea once. I hate sweet tea. It is so sickeningly sweet that it makes me feel yucky. I always get unsweet teas at restaurants and then add sugar if I feel like it needs it. I'm much more likely to put sugar in hot tea than in iced tea. I don't know why, it just happens that way. Sugar is not always vegan, by the way. The bleaching process is sometimes done with bone char, but that is a discussion for another time.

I then spent the rest of my afternoon looking up music in the school library and visiting friends. It takes over an hour for me to drive from school to our house in the mountains. It is such a wonderful drive. I always put my music on and sing my entire way home. It is such a calming thing. I really love driving and just seeing all the really wonderful scenery along the road. For example, on the way home, I passed a deer eating grass on the side of the interstate. I guess it grows better out in the sun by the road in the winter than it does in the woods. It always amazes me how animals live within our very man-made constructed society. I guess animals have to adapt just as much as people.

 

 

 

That's it for part two. Join me next time for Part 3!

Trip to North Carolina Part One

Trip to North Carolina Part One

 

Last view of our street in Louisiana

Sitting in the car for hours at a time is not fun at all. Thursday was a day of running around fast to get nowhere. After packing hurriedly, we got in the car and just drove. By we, I mean my Dad. I was sitting in the front seat jamming to the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, the Sensations, Frank Sinatra, and Bob Dylan. After I read aloud some from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, my Dad remembered a story called Oil of Dog by Ambrose Bierce. It is probably one of the most messed up stories I have ever read in the English language (I've read some really strange short stories in Spanish... there was this one about a woman with a crab living in her leg... totally messed up people).

 Spoiler Alert! DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH
It is about this boy who helps his father boil down dogs and his mother dispose of "unwelcome babes". Yup... just hold it. What?! Boiling down animals and disposing of aborted or killed babies! It gets worse. He then inadvertently causes his parents to start boiling down babies which escalates to adults. Then they are told they can't do it anymore, so they kill each other. Yup, that is the story. Totally messed up.
SPOILERS FINISHED

So, after that exciting, lighthearted reading material, I continued to read some Sherlock Holmes.
Yeah.. my brain needed a break.

My parents at the Alabama welcome center

We got to the Hotel at Auburn and had a lovely dinner at the restaurant downstairs. I think I inadvertently ate some dairy in the salad dressing on the arugula salad. My tummy was pretty upset afterwards. It was either that or the bread. I had a wonderful pizza that they modified for me. It was fig, pear and arugula (minus the Alabama goat cheese and parmesan) and was really fantastic. The fig spread made it nice and sweet and the arugula kept it slightly spicy.

Arugula, Pear, and Fig Spread Pizza

On Friday, I woke up at the crack of dawn because I left the heater on all night so my throat was like sandpaper. I inadvertently woke my parents up and we decided to start the day. We ate in the hotel (Potatoes, a bagel, honeydew, a really nasty granny smith apple, watermelon juice, and orange juice were my vegan findings) and started the rest of our journey.

I finished reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and began The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. I really love the way Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes. It is stuffed with the most beautiful and descriptive adjectives.  I love adjectives. They help me form a mental picture of the words I read so I can view the film of the story in my head. Do others do this as well? I've always wondered. I know I have a really active imagination and I put that to good use when I do my character subtext for songs I perform, but I always assumed everyone sees mental movies when they read. I think this is why I never liked reading magazines like Cosmo or gossip magazines. I don't like how dull they are and the mental movies are boring. The same with some of the Young Adult Paranormal Teen Romances that seem to be the craze right now. They are so beige. I want fire engine red!

So... ahem. I read a whole bunch of Sherlock Holmes stories while listening to my ipod playlist "Dance Trance Electro Pop" and was super glad that the car ride was drawing to a close. We got into Hendersonville in the daylight, so we went grocery shopping and took naps when we got home. I was super tired, but then unable to fall asleep when it was actually time for bed. All that sitting in the car makes me super antsy.

That's all for now. Be sure to catch the next part of my trip in a few days! They will be picture heavy!