CSA Weeks 10 & 11

Week 10: summer squash, cherry tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, snap beans, cantaloupe. 

Another week with no fruit share (le sigh), everyone got a cantaloupe or watermelon? Unsure, as our newsletter said we would be getting a watermelon and I got a cantaloupe. I don’t mind cantaloupe, but I much rather get a watermelon. The summer squash and eggplant was cut up and froze to make a soup later.

Never ate eggplant, don’t really want to try it in its own recipe. I am already having difficulties to sticking to healthy eating the past few weeks; I don’t want to make things harder. The cherry tomatoes were sinfully delicious, as I ate most of them right from the pint. I am starting to feel like perhaps a CSA is not for me. I’d rather not pay for so much squash and zucchini, as it is not my favorite. I am not quite sure I am seeing the value for the price and another week with no fruit share is not making me happy, especially since they seem to have enough to sell at their Farmer’s Market stand, but not to give to us who prepaid? Perhaps I am being over dramatic as it has been an emotionally draining week.

Week 11: summer squash (more!? Ugh), tomatoes (finally!!), a pepper, basil, a cucumber, a walla walla onion, corn, green/yellow beans, broccoli Fruit Share: Melons

Letter to the editor

Hello,

I saw your request for individuals who are participating in a CSA crop share. This is my first year participating in a CSA share. I signed up with Olden Produce back in March, after a couple of Twitter friends had mentioned how much they enjoyed it. I read their excited tweets all last summer and saw the pictures and blog posts about how wonderful it was and I was hooked. I signed up for the ½ farm share, fruit share and late season produce share. This cost me around $600, with the early bird pricing. Not including the late season produce share, I am spending roughly $27 a week on whatever they decide to give me.

The season started out wonderfully, the strawberries were like crack and having fresh produce pesticide-free was exciting; however, it has become quite daunting. Some weeks it feels like a chore, zucchini and summer squash again?? There has been 2-3 weeks, where I have received nothing in my fruit share, yet their Saturday morning Farmer’s Market booth in Oshkosh is full of melons and berries, yet I get nothing? They send out weekly newsletters, the past few weeks touting that I should buy a bushel of tomatoes for canning, yet, I received only 2 tomatoes one week and none the last (except for a small pint of cherry tomatoes)…instead I got MORE zucchini, MORE summer squash and an eggplant.

It is only my husband and I in the house and we both work full-time. I have been working hard on eating better/healthier, but constantly having the same items to cook (in which we were never a big fan of in the beginning) is difficult. I love the concept, I love buying local, I am willing to spend the extra dime (or $10 bill) on these things, but I hate wasting. Some weeks we are so busy with work, volunteering and other activities, that I don’t have time to cook, or if we are out of town, the produce just sits. Having a CSA forces to you to plan ahead and lots of freezing of items. I don’t anticipate getting a CSA again next year. Instead, I will shop at the Farmer’s market and get what I like, when I want it and how much of it.

Sloth

I went for that run on Wednesday night and it felt soo amazing. I really pounded it out and had a good pace and felt good with it. Thursday I was back to no motivation and didn’t even take the dogs for a walk like I had put on my exercise plan. Friday was a rest day and despite making good decisions at dinner, my snacking was out of control that night. Saturday was my day for redemption. I went out for my Saturday 5k and even though I did the 3.1 miles, it wasn’t pretty and there was a lot of walking. The rest of the day was lazy. Saturday night we went to the drive-in movies and had fried food, candy and popcorn with real butter. Got home and to bed at 1:30am. Didn’t get out of bed until 10:30am and did NOTHING the rest of the day except for more poor eating choices.

It’s Monday morning and I feel tired, slothish and disgusting. It’s time to make some better choices in my life. Back to the exercise plan and the healthy eating. I feel SO much better about life and myself when I stick to it. So why do I deviate so much?

Back at it

Well, I didn't quite get back into the groove of things until last Saturday. Saturday morning, I got up and kicked things into gear with a hard 5k. I did the C25K program twice, in order to actually do 3.1 miles. I am SO slow. But at least I am out there.

 

Sunday, I got up and got out there again, bright and early in the morning. I only did C25K once, as I knew the rest of the afternoon would be active with the volunteer work I had planned. 

I love that I am less than a mile from the lake and can "run" around the lake. It is so peaceful and I love ducks!!

To help stay on track, I have printed off a calendar for the rest of the month and have an exercise plan--one that is very doable too! I have stuck with it for 4 days so far and if I get off my ass today, it will be 5 days!

CSA Catch-Up

Sorry for the lack of posts, but life gets in the way. Here is my CSA catch-up.

Week 7: green bell peppers, banana peppers, beets (given to a friend), patty pan squash, cucumbers and a 10 lb box of Michigan blueberries.

This week was a cluster eff. On Wednesday, I was down in Milwaukee with my husband as he had a VA appointment, then we went to Trader Joe’s (sooo nice) and Califoniana Pizza Kitchen (sooo yum!), so I picked up on Thursday… well, I didn’t because they didn’t have my stuff. So I went to pick up on Saturday and yeah, got it, and she made up for it by giving me a full share of stuff, instead of a half share. Yeesh, soo much stuff.

Week 8: more green bell peppers, sweet corn, beets, basil, cucumbers, yellow doll watermelon, small watermelon and a cantaloupe.

It’s a good thing that I put green peppers in everything. The beets were given away again and the basil ended up in the garbage, as I didn’t store it correctly. The sweet corn is still delicious and the yellow doll watermelon was super yummy! It was just different enough from regular red watermelon to make it quite special.

Week 9: snap beans, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, sweet corn, MORE green peppers, squash, basil and not pictured, 10lbs more of blueberries.

Slacking

The last few weeks have quite busy with volunteer work, appointments and my brother-in-law visiting. The first week, I was doing well with still fitting in steps. Last week, my husband started on renovating the basement, so my treadmill was out of order. Plus with my BIL in the house, I just didn’t want to go out for a run and come back as a sweaty mess. I counted my calories and weighed in on Saturday with a 2.2 loss for a total of 38lbs since my highest weight last October.

Sunday morning it was SO nice out, so I did some outside chores. Picked up dog poo, mowed the lawn and pulled LOTS of weeds. My gluts are still sore and it is now Wednesday. Ridiculousness. The rest of this week has been less than spectacular with food choices, alcohol and lack of steps/movement. It is cool out at the moment, when I get home tonight, I hope it is still cool, so I will go for a run and maybe pull more weeds to get more glut exercise in to make up for horrible Sunday, Monday & Tuesday choices.

Breaking habits

Saturday morning I pushed myself. I have always wanted to run in a real 5K, so I decided that I need to start practicing for it. Despite sleeping in and being a lazy morning, mid-morning I hopped on the treadmill and walked fast/jogged 3.1 miles. Some people can run a 10K in 53 minutes, but I am proud of myself anyways!

 

I also weighed myself on Saturday morning and I have lost 2 lbs. Total since my highest weight, I am down 33lbs. Knowing these numbers gives me the motivation to keep at it!

Sunday is my Achilles heal, but so far so good! I did a little snacking around noon, but I stopped myself, downed water and told myself to be aware of what I was doing. I still have 500 calories for today and I am STUFFED from dinner! I am OK not eating all my calories today since I over ate yesterday (working out for that long makes you feel starving!!)

This is a nice feeling after 2 horrible weekends of snacking.