Loves Those Nikes!

SNOWING! .. and 30 degrees at 5:30pm. We made our first run in the new Nikes at the indoor track.
Ah spring.. we are waiting for you.

Coming and going... the Nikes are just fine.

Last night we had Sweet Pea's canned wild caught Alaska baked salmon with dill weed and a little shredded Trugole Italian cheese.

Spring Day on Gateway Trail

Haggis, Nips & Tatties: food of shepherds in the hills of Scotland.
(Sausage, of sorts, turnips/rutabaga, potatoes)
Haggis was in the meat counter at Seward Co-op... intended as an Easter treat perhaps?
And the sauce poured over? Southern Comfort (recipe said whiskey), cream & honey.

First trip of the season to the Gateway, a trail built on a railroad right-of-way between St. Paul and Pine Point Park 18 miles to the northeast.
This patch of snow was the only one we saw today. Happy Spring?! Well, until it snows. Just four miles... but 50 degrees and great to be out.

Sweet Pea spotted a new cat. I think we interrupted this furry hunter.

Only one horse on the horse trail that parallels the blacktop trail...


And back home, a have-it-your-way make-it-yourself organic lunch.

Great Day for the Human Race

Nearly a thousand runners lining up.. happy to be running the 8K Human Race outdoors in 60 degree weather. Well, but, probably wishing for calm instead of the 23 mph winds, gusting to 32 mph. Sunny.
On the far right you may see one of the children's strollers that showed up for the pleasant day.

Runners who have run the Twin Cities Marathon may recognize this stretch of Summit Avenue in St. Paul.

None of us ran as fast as we did last year, but hey... we had a fun race.

Cats Can Get It for Themselves

Supper tonight for Don and Sweet Pea...
Bison sloppy joes with my own recipe of salsa and pasta sauce.. with allspice, cinnamon, mustard, liquid smoke and organic red wine... instead of catsup which contains sugar. Also organic asparagus and FoodShouldTasteGood Chocolate Tortilla Chips.

You can check out some of my cooking in the past months on Make It a Masterpiece (Don's blog).
Sweet Pea and I do the cooking; Don does presentation and photography.

I have been continuously seeking to cook more wholesome .. more healthy ... organic when most important... good fats... no added sugars, no gluten ... a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables. We are fighting the myeloma every way we can...
And of course the extra benefit is... healthier eating for Sweet Pea and me too!!

Today, on the way home from the myeloma support and information meeting in St. Louis Park, we made our first visit to Seward Co-op in Minneapolis. What a marvelous place! And they had ... are you ready for this?? They had haggis!! I said we had to buy a pound in honor of my Scottish Sweetie. More about that later... !

I also chose a pound of ground beef, because I was hungry for hamburgers... and a pound of ground bison which he prefers now. We buy co-op or Whole Foods meat.

As I was cooking the bison meal... and my red wine marinated hamburgers..
As I sliced up some sweet onion and fresh tomato... added the convected oven asparagus.
As I put my meal together on a blue plate...

I thought.. yes, my family gets food their way...
But YO!! So do I!
Cats can get it for themselves.

We all went out for a run in the 60 degree day at about 5pm.
Feeling good after a quick 5K in the neighborhood with Sweet Pea.
Best Day of the Year!

UV Rays and Sunglasses

Today we were out in the neighborhood, wearing sunglasses to protect our eyes from UV rays and delay the progression of cataracts.

Now I can think of benefits of the indoor track: no need to wear sunglasses and always near the water supply.
This past week a runner was attacked running around a St. Paul lake... so there is that issue, too.

BUT WOW!! TODAY IT WAS IN THE 50's and it was GREAT BEING OUTDOORS!!

Afternoon snack: peanut butter, Brazel nuts, celery, apple, banana.
I like bananas chilled.

Thermolon Facts from the Company

We read some scary stuff on the internet about Green Pans. We wrote the following to the Thermolon company.....

Question about Thermolon (Green Pan)
I recently visited a web site where the author listed these ingredients in Thermolon: oxygen, silicone, carbon, aluminum and titanium. The author went on to speak badly about the silicone component.
My guess is that the ingredient is not silicone, but silicon, quite a different thing. Can you give me the actual list of ingredients or perhaps the patent number?

Answer from Thermolon company:

Thanks for your inquiry and interest in Thermolon.

You are indeed correct! Originally, National Geographic made the mistake and it spread across the web like a virus.

Thermolon has an elemental composition of oxygen(O), silicon(Si), carbon(C), aluminum(Al) and titanium(Ti). However, it is important for you to understand that there is no free silicon present in our coatings. Instead, silicon atoms are bound with atoms of other elements in a perfectly stable compound. These elements have become silica (-Si-O-Si-) - basically sand.

Possibly, I can explain by giving you an example. Water (H2O) comprises two atoms of Hydrogen bound to one atom of Oxygen. However, you do not find any free hydrogen in water! Hydrogen when mixed with oxygen is a highly explosive mixture – clearly water does not have the properties of either free hydrogen or free oxygen.

In Thermolon coatings, the Si is combined with other elements as a ceramic material. Ceramics are earth-type materials such as clays (Aluminosilicates) that have been used as cooking utensils and tableware for centuries.

I hope that this clears any misunderstanding and thank you for spotting this and passing it on to us at Thermolon.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Hosgood
Communications Officer,
Thermolon

Daylight Time but Not Spring Yet.

March thaw!! On Saturday we were out in the neighborhood.

Frosty windows, then more snow, and back to the indoor track on Sunday, Tuesday, and a whole EIGHT MILES today (Thursday).

Full moon this morning on the way to the indoor track.

Green Pan

GREEN PAN at Target:

Thermolon non-stick
PTFE-free
PFOA-free in manufacturing
High performance to 850 degrees
Dishwasher safe

This stuff is NOT Teflon.. does not give off chemicals that can kill
your canary.

Sweet Runner Dude said, I think you need to get the whole set.
(6 pieces, including lids)
Eggs and oatmeal will come out of the pans ... clean... with no waste.. and no unhealthy air over the pan.

And I am free... from scrubbing the egg pan every morning.
(We gave up Teflon a couple of years ago.)

Wednesday was the ultimate best day of the year.. but this day is pretty swell.

Best Days of the Year

10K on the indoor track this morning.
When I start to run over there, my whole body protests: What are we doing here, anyway? And I put one foot in front of the other and and say, "OK gang, let's get going. This is supposed to be good."

But today.. TWO HOURS short of sleep... It felt great to run.. pleasant, even.
Sweet Pea and I did our usual walk/run... but today, we did it in pretty good time for us. And it felt good... on the 'round and 'round and 'round indoor track!

The myeloma test results at Mayo Clinic yesterday were encouraging: when we're talking myeloma, "plateau" is worth a celebration.

In a day or two, he will have the complete (good!) results posted.

http://myelomahope.blogspot.com.

At Mayo Clinic in Rochester, if you have a wait between appointments, you can always go over to Silver Lake and see about a million Canadian Geese. I mean about a million.. this is just a tiny sampler.

...a few mallards.