Swimming....

...in butter! And sugar. And cinnamon. Guess what I was making tonight?

Man, these things are rich. So much sugar.... *twitches*

I have 7 pans of these things in the house. And none of them are for us...four are for the nurse that helped with my grandma's recent stay in the hospital, and the other three are for Farmer's Market. But there was lots of finger-licking going on tonight. ;) Plus I have to make another double batch later this week! More stickiness!

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This week I got a pair of roller blades (after pining after a pair for months), and I stinking LOVE them.

And when by 'love' I mean 'they make me want to skate to the point of collapse'. I wish we had more/better pavement in town. Sigh. 

The only bad part (aside from the poor pavement) is that I have terrible stamina, and while skating I feel amazing. Then after stopping I feel like absolute crap and have to go lie down for a while. XD Stamina shall be gotten though...eventually. 

Speaking of stamina, I started the year off rather well with exercising/keeping to a relatively clean (mostly) Paleo diet and feeling great. Then in February those efforts completely crashed and burned, but not until I had lost about 10 lbs. And now, as time goes on and I don't exercise and the diet backslides the weight has been creeping very, very slowly back on. I've gained about 4 lbs back in the past 4 months (a pound a month? Maybe that's not as slow as I thought. >.<)--which may not sound horrible, but the new clothes I've bought that used to be comfortable and somewhat loose are getting tighter. I HATE that feeling.

So for the past few weeks I've been riding my bike to work (only about 5 minutes one way, but hey, it's better than driving) and today worked out for the first time in months. It hurts, and I'm one of those people who feels like absolute crap after working out (endorphins, where are you?). But I don't want to keep that creeping gain going and going--shifting to a Paleo diet again should help too.

Plus, if I do fun stuff like skating and riding the horse, it'll be more enjoyable. :D

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Today I got a book in the mail called Practical Herbalism. I'm loving it already--by the second chapter it covers the evolution of herbal medicine (from sometime around 1500 BC to 1945 AD) and 'Practical Herbalism 101' (which covers how to make teas, decoctions, tinctures, etc and how to gather stuff). The cover looks a bit schmaltzy and New-Agey, but the inside is very scientific and pragmatic in nature. I like it.

I love this one line from the gathering section:

"Clothing appropriate to the quest"..."Knife"..."Pruning saw". That makes herbalism sound like an adventure...heh. :3

Though sometimes it CAN be a bit of an adventure--or at least a detour. Yesterday I was walking home and took a shortcut across an empty lot to check 'my' patch of mullein and gather red clover. I don't think normal people do that...do they?