Gardening - It Does a Body Good

I knew what I had to do this morning to help myself get back on track - GARDEN! My garden, aka The Wild Wild West, is my biggest de-stresser. Without fail, every time I trim roses, pick fresh organic veggies, and find worms to feed to my girls (chickens) I feel better. Refreshed. Gardening is able to 'wash away' a lot of my stress, anxiety, worries, etc.

I haven't been able to garden much in the last week due to triple digit temps. This morning, I took full advantage of a break in weather and headed straight out.

We are currently redoing the small Potager behind our back porch. After the brick work is done, I will plant lots of herbs for cooking.

I never really saw gardening as an 'activity.' I don't know why. Maybe because I find it so pleasurable. You can imagine my surprise when once finished, my pedometer was over 4,000 steps. Can that be?

Apparently, gardening does a body good.

Both my husband and I enjoy gardening... I think we need to do it more. We have a system where I do all the planting, pruning, and watering and he does all the harvesting. He does the harvesting because a) I'm allergic to the leaves of the tomato plant (we have over 200 tomato plants this year) and b) I'm freaked out by bugs crawling on me (I've been known to cry like a baby if a lizard happens to wander by).

Daily, I find lots of fresh veggies on my counter. Today's pick included zucchini, peaches, nectarines, cucumbers, green peppers, and many different kinds of tomatoes.

I cook down our tomatoes (the ones that aren't eaten in a salad) with some garlic and onion into a thick tomato sauce. Remember last week when I had marina on pasta twice? Yeah...this is where I get my marina from - from the garden. Generally, I save enough to eat for a couple of meals and then freeze the rest (it freezes well and we eat it frozen during the winter months). I like cooking it from scratch because I don't add a ton of salt and I make it without any fat (oil). Believe it or not, it's pretty low in calories and quite healthy.

Tonight, as a pasta alternative, I am trying a new noodle I ordered : brown rice noodles. Should be interesting. I may make some chicken meatballs, too.

Speaking of interesting... I ordered a jar of this - PB2. I read about it on the "Runs for Cookies" blog (www.runsforcookies.com). I love her blog - I find it so motivating and 'real.' I have no idea what to do with this stuff.

In case you were wondering why a second post today, I'll fill you in:

#1: I am stalling. I really need to put on my tennies and get my rear on the treadmill.

#2: I still really want to eat crack-crackers and am trying to divert my thinking into good healthy food (like homemade marina over some potentially freakish noodles).

Okay. Okay.

I'm going to have some intimate time with my treadmill now.