This seems to be a much better pace for me

     This seems to be a much better pace for me. I have sometime to think about what I want to write instead of just  spewing words from my brain hoping that they come out right. Hope everyone that is reading enjoys and learns something from what I am writing,

Exercise and Martial Arts


     Last Friday evening I managed to injure my right leg. I guess that is what comes with the practice of karate. I got smacked with the heel of my opponent just above the knee. Swelling set in fairly quickly and my leg was very sore. Unfortunately I did not listen to the pain in my leg and immediately, Saturday morning managed to get in most of a lower body workout. The problem lies in the fact that my muscles were not performing the way that they should and I really tweaked something in my knee. Still as of today my leg is quite sore and is just finally becoming comfortable to walk on all day. Though I cannot sit for very long because my leg will stiffen up sum and get very restless.
     As of Monday I have suspended my leg exercises with the exception of biking. This low impact exercise has been working well for me. I also have not taken any time off from karate, though I am taking it easy with the kicks and other hard impact techniques. I will not let myself miss this testing day to slip by me. I missed last month and am really wanting to get this test out of the way. Then I figure I have until this fall or winter before I test again.
     My upper body training is progressing very nicely however. I have increased some of my weights and am doing great. I am excited to see the progress that I am making. I will be adding one other exercise to my list. However it will not be one that I can track on the workout log, though I might be able to post results on the log.
     One of the goals that I have set for myself is to increase my hand strength. Early last month I purchase two 8  lb. medicine balls. I will be using them while performing my karate moves. Not only will this strengthen my arms and upper body, it should also be a great way to increase my hand strength. With persistent work I believe that I will see a significant increase in the strength of my grip.

Cooking and Eating Healthy


     It is always good to smell fresh baked bread. In this house I am managing to be known for my bread making skills. I am managing to bake two loaves every 2 to 3 days. We eat a lot of bread. My latest creation is a whole wheat honey bread. This is not a difficult recipe in fact I get my recipe from the Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book. It is a very simple recipe and I would encourage everyone to try their hand at making some bread.
     There are many ways to prepare the bread. Some people use automatic bread makers which I suppose is great for those in a real big hurry. Others are a little more traditional but they do use a electric mixer to mix the ingredients and to kneed the dough. I choose to prepare my dough with a wooden spoon and my hands. I find that I have better results by doing it this way.

     By doing it by hand allows my to make adjustments to how I am preparing the dough because I know how it should feel. I can notice things like wetness or dryness and its elasticity. These things cannot be accurately measured when done by a mixer. Also, I have noticed that when letting the bread rise I get better results. I find that dough prepared by hand rises better and has a better texture when baked.


Gardening

Cauliflower foreground, broccoli background.

Kale, rabbit chewed but making a come back.

Spinach, loved by rabbits too, but coming back 

Current whole garden, changes coming.

     As promised, pictures of this years garden. I managed to get a real early start on my garden this year. Planted what is pictured above on the last Sunday of winter. Yes, it managed to survive the frosts that we had after they started growing. That was due to some old windows I had in the shed that I laid over the beds. Glad I covered them.

     One of the biggest issues this year have been the many rabbits that have invaded my garden. Almost everything shown above is chewed off by rabbits. I asked people what humane method could be used to keep the rabbits out of my garden, and the answer that I got was, ask Aarica Ann from www.Myediblegardens.com. Low and behold Aarica Ann responded with a very simple answer, blood meal. I had never heard of this and was really interested in trying it out. 

     What makes blood meal so appealing is that the smell keeps rabbits out of the garden. Fortunately my nose does not work so well and it does not keep me out of the garden. Secondly, the blood meal has a high nitrogen content and makes a great fertilizer. I put this stuff on the garden last Tuesday and I have not even seen a rabbit since. Just in the last few days I have noticed that my kale is getting new leaves and so is my spinach. Blood meal, check it out and have a great week.

I have been running off schedule all week on this blog

     I have been running off schedule all week on this blog. Because of that I have decided to only do this once a week, for now. I just have very little time to write. I do want to continue to do this blog because it is a motivator for me to continue on with the things that I really like to do. Please stick with me and I hope that I can provide useful ideas that can be used by those of you reading this. Once again thank you for taking the time to read this blog.

Exercise and Martial Arts

     My New Workout Log is listed to the right of this posting. That contains a history of my workouts that I have been doing. As you can see I have transformed my workouts from the very simple to slightly more complex. I am currently doing my upper body and lower body on a alternating day rotation. I also limit myself to 5 sets of each different weight exercise. This helps control how long I need for a quality workout. I am getting up at 4 A.M. and leaving for the exercise room at the hospital where I am employed. I arrive there right at about 4:30 A.M. From there I continue to do a 1 hour workout. At this time I am cramped for time but do complete this entire routine with in that hour. Soon I feel that my work schedule is going to slightly change which then would allow me to have a hour and a half to do a workout and maybe even add a little more to each day.
     Lastly, I do allow for one day sometimes two for resting. At this time I find that weekends work well for resting. Weekends around here seem hard for me to be motivated to exercise so I choose to rest on those days. I hope soon that I can find it within me to exercise on the weekends.

Cooking and Healthy Eating


     I have been experimenting with some different combinations of food. I got some of my ideas from reading various sources and have come up with a  couple great concoctions of my own. The first one involves my yogurt that I eat many days for breakfast. It is yogurt, oatmeal, chia, and fresh fruit. This is how I prepare it. I make it a container that is large enough to hold it all.

      2 - 6 oz. yogurts (flavored works well)
      1/2 cup  uncooked oatmeal
      1/2 cup  chia seeds (pre-soaked)
      complimentary fresh fruit of your choice.

This makes a great fast and easy breakfast that fills me up and is very healthy.

     The other thing I like to do is make a nut mix. This I eat shortly after I workout due to its high protein content. So far what I do is a 3 nut mix, but I hope to expand this soon to possible incorporate other nuts. I will work on those combination later so that it fits my taste well. My protein snack is as follows,

      1/4 cup of coarsely chopped walnuts
      1/4 cup of sunflower seeds (I like the lightly salted kind)
      1 o.z of shelled peanuts

The quantities listed about are representative to 1 serving of each nut. I put these all in a 1 pint canning jar with a plastic lid on it then rotate the jar on its side to mix the nuts together. Makes a great snack.


Gardening


     My garden is coming along great. I have started to pick some of my spinach and kale already. I am having some problems with animals eating my cauliflower and broccoli. I will somehow find a way to end this trend too. The only other problem is keeping the creeping charlie out of my garden. It seems to be invading with great force this year. For now I will keep picking it continuously. 
     I am also going to get my tomatoes and pepper plants in soon. They are growing great on my porch but need to be relocated to bigger containers. I am sill debating putting them in the ground or pots. I like the idea of pots because they can be easily moved. I hope to boarder the edges of my yard with tomato and pepper plants. If I can get these successfully in pots then that frees up valuable garden space for other vegetables that I would like to grow.

I just wanted to make a statement concerning my blogging.

I just wanted to make a statement concerning my blogging. May is a new month and I hope to get off to a great start. As I have stated before I intend on posting three times a week. I hope to have content concerning the headings that are listed below. I have decided to add one more heading and that will be gardening. In order to provide useful and accurate information I may choose to skip a topic from time to time or even skip a day posting all together. I will be making my links available via Twitter and Google+. I might even someday expand this link posting into Facebook, but I will be holding off on that one for now.

Also with my new surge in providing quality posting I want to add video to my blogging. This I am still figuring out the best way to provide the best quality video and information. I will be hopefully adding this format soon. Oh and sorry about the bland text laden posting. More color and pictures will follow on following postings.

Exercise and Martial Arts

I have made some changes to my exercise routine. You will see a link to the right of this posting for my workout log. In the past I did mostly biking, pull-ups and sit-ups for my workout. Now I have changed the routine to work my legs and lower body one day, the upper body and arms the other. I will rotate every other day and will be working breaks into my week, most likely on the weekends. However the weekends will not be totally silent. I will be working to hone my karate every day of the week. Speaking of karate I will be testing for my next belt on May 28th. This will be the half way point to achieving my black belt. 

Cooking and Healthy Eating


After being on vacation for the last two weeks I need to work on be working on getting back to my diet. I would have to say that vacations are hard in keeping to healthy eating. Next time I hope to be better prepared, then maybe I will be successful. I did leave the bad food behind and have gotten on with the program again. My wife has stalked my refrigerator with lettuce, spinach, and a fairly large collection of fruits. I have assorted nuts and seeds in the pantry so I think that I am ready.


Gardening

I have managed to keep my garden from freezing during this unusual spring weather. I will be posting more pictures soon. At this time I do have a large assortment of tomato and pepper plants. I would love to grow them as hanging plants but am yet trying to discover the best way of going about it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Since the first week of spring my broccoli, cauliflower, kale and spinach has been growing in my garden. I noticed that the rabbits are just as interested in the kale as I am but I will get them out of there.

I hope that this weekend is good for gardening. I would like to finish planting it now that it is May. I plan on planting carrots, radishes, beans and possibly peas. I also would like to get the tomatoes and peppers into pots or to plant them in the ground this weekend.