Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! I busted my ass for five days last weekend to make that picture possible. Here’s what you’re looking at: 44 1/2 jars of salsa, 41 jars of spaghetti sauce, 41 jars of raspberry jam, and 19 jars of BlackBerry jam. And a princess wine glass. 😉 All that spaghetti sauce and salsa required a total of 390 pounds of tomatoes. Unfortunately, my garden only produced about 30 pounds of those. 🙁 My husband and I are giving serious thought to not planting tomatoes next year, because the effort and expense never pans out.
But, at any rate, it’s over and I have lots of wonderful bounty to share with my family and friends all winter long! Here are some pictures from our weekend:
The kids and I had a great time, and my husband did a wonderful job fixing things that were broken (including my rain gauge, hooray!) and dicing about 30 cups of jalapeño peppers. I didn’t sleep nearly as much as I would’ve liked, but I got it all done by 1:15 AM Tuesday morning, and that left me with Tuesday to clean up the disaster that was my house. Then I had to take Jamie to hockey, because of course, the rest of the world didn’t have Tuesday off like me!
It was a challenging weekend, to be sure, because it was 90° or more every single day from Friday through Tuesday. And of course, with all the boiling water in my kitchen, it was even hotter!
But I survived, and I swear I probably lost 5 pounds from sweating. Actually that would’ve been rather helpful, especially with my eating for the weekend. Here’s where I make a true confession: I didn’t even try to stay on plan this past weekend. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did track from Friday to Sunday, but I ate a ton…and I enjoyed every minute of it! We had fajitas on Friday night, and on Saturday it was chicken cacciatore using our spaghetti sauce, along with this delight:
I do love me some bruschetta caprese. There is no better use of tomatoes, in my opinion! After dinner was over, I made brownies from scratch (double chocolate), and they were so delicious, I didn’t even stop to take a picture. 😉
Then, Sunday morning, I made biscuits for my jam, of course. I have to tell you, they were the best biscuits I have ever had! I’ll share the recipe sometime, but meanwhile, since I had biscuits, and bacon, and eggs, in the house, I decided to fulfill that craving I had a few weeks ago, only using a homemade version:
I can assure you, McDonald’s has nothing on me! It was awesome! I had to chuckle a little as I was making them, which included taking the time to brush melted butter on top after they came out of the oven; the flashbacks to my days of making biscuits at McDonald’s in 1989 we’re strong. 😉
Sunday afternoon, there was a bit of a crimp in my plans because Jamie’s football team had their first game. (What’s up with middle schoolers playing football on Labor Day weekend??) It was so hot, but his team played hard and won 47-32!
Sunday night we had chicken quesadillas.
They were so good that we had beef quesadillas on Monday night. Oh, and more brownies, with plenty of ice cream. Tuesday morning, after I sent the kids off to school and cleaned the house, I decided to reward myself for all my hard work with some more biscuits. I slathered them with raspberry jam, and they were so good. I’m telling you, that biscuit recipe is incredible!
Now, lest you think that I completely went off the wagon, I’ll have you know that while my eating was not stellar, my half marathon training program was spot on! Friday morning, I dragged myself out of bed at 5 AM on my day off and did a 4 1/2-mile, 45-minute tempo run. Did I mention it was hot and humid?
Saturday morning, I again dragged myself out of bed, this time at 4:30 in the morning, to try to mitigate the heat at least somewhat, although that was pretty much impossible. I ran six of the most miserable miles I’ve run in a long time, but on the other hand, because the weather was so awful, I took a break from worrying about pace or distance and just ran. I got to enjoy an amazing lightning show over Toledo, and then watch the sky lighten as the sun rose. I turned off my music and listened to the crickets, the rumbling thunder in the distance, the train horns, and the roosters. I breathed in the smell of soybeans, corn, and yes, even horse manure. 😉 Mostly, I just enjoyed the peacefulness. It was a terrible run, but a beautiful experience. 🙂
Sunday is normally my strength training and Insanity day, but with all the lifting of tomatoes and chopping and peeling and whatnot, I decided I deserved a little break, so I skipped them both. However, Monday morning I was up again early, on a holiday, to run 5 miles. Despite the fact that it was still humid and muggy, I managed a 10:43 pace for 5 miles. I finished the canning at 1:30 Tuesday morning, and then, because the weather was still hot and muggy and I wanted to try do my run as early as possible, I was out of bed just four hours later to run 3 miles at pace. Let me tell you, the last thing I wanted to do at that point was run any pace, much less race pace, in heat and humidity. But, somehow, I pulled it out!!
I am pretty much the craziest person I know. 😉 But I’ll tell you what, I felt damn accomplished after my weekend of canning and running, and I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about going off plan.
I did weigh myself on Monday morning, my usual weigh-in day, just to be true to myself. I was up 1.8, and I was actually surprised that it wasn’t more! The truth is, I’ve had weigh-ins higher than that over this past summer when I was on plan, so that gain didn’t bother me. I am back on plan now, and while I may have some residual gain next week, I feel like it was all worth it. It was nice to have a weekend off, but it’s also nice to be back in control.
Thanks for reading!
You are a lesson and an example in marathon training – let me tell you. I hate humid running so much that I easily talk myself out of it. I think going off plan for a long weekend is sort of real life and if you didn’t, I can’t picture life really being that much fun at all. When I see pictures of you, I see a healthy, in-shape woman (and those are not code words for “not skinny” – because that’s the first thing I think when I hear those words about me). I mean you seem to have your mental and physical health firmly in place for your later decades. Isn’t that what this is all about any way – longevity and functionality? I usually pop over to your blog once every few weeks, but I did have a thought about WW and points. I’ve been on WW and been Lifetime successful (2x) and currently count calories, but do you think that the WW points program can only accommodate just so much exercise in a given week, and that after that the points awarded for exercise are sort of diminishing returns? I wonder if WW calculates in the recommended weekly exercise and then the point system can no longer accommodate the food/point ratio? It seems that the amount of exercise we take in as marathon runners may be too much for WW. Have you ever had that discussion on the boards or in a meeting? It’s just a free form thought I think when you write about your 10 pound gain and how that seems to coincide with your 26 mile training. To me, it almost seems WW can accommodate half marathon training but not full marathon training. I might have a screw loose too, I don’t know!
For some reason, I didn’t see this post until today! Thank you VERY much for taking the time to offer your thoughtful insight–you raise some excellent points! I do think that you may be correct–Weight Watchers, because it is a “made up” point system, probably can’t handle the exercise that comes with marathon training. Maybe if I ever do another one (ha ha ha ha ha!!), I should try calorie counting. Maybe?
Again, thanks so much–I really enjoyed your comments! And no, I don’t think you have a screw loose, ha ha!
Oh man, that is quite the haul. I am most impressed with your hard work and the FRUITS of you labor. Ha. Ha. Ha.
You are crushing your half marathon training. Here’s hoping for perfect race day weather!
Thanks, babe! xoxo