jo burgess hannon

fit for today, fit for life

cooking, eating, doing

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cooking:

Now that the weather has turned to cooler days my trusty Le Creuset is back in regular cooking rotation and soup is on the menu most weeks. Last week our bunco hostess served a delicious minestrone soup using quinoa instead of pasta. I could not get it out of my head and asked her a couple of times for the recipe. However, she had a busy conference weekend and was delayed in passing it on. Good old Google: I figured it was probably a pretty basic recipe and a quick search brought up many recipe options.

photo from BF website

I have several Barefoot Contessa cookbooks and the recipes are reliably good. So I went with Ina’s “Winter Minestrone“ from her Fool Proof book. Not to brag or anything, but it was fantastic. I substituted 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa for the pasta and added a couple extra cups of stock. This recipe got 2 thumbs up from everyone and is going to be in rotation at my house. I think you could easily make this a vegetarian option by omitting the bacon and using vegetable stock.

Side note: I have a trusty butternut squash soup recipe that has been a delicious dinner choice. However, I have made it so many times over the last few winters I miiight be a little burned out on it. I was excited to try this Barefoot Contessa recipe as it too has butternut squash in it.

eating:

Have you ever tried the garlic mozzarella bread with brown sugar from Rock Pizza? It sounds weird but was recommended by a waitress many years ago and we have never looked back. Honey and I order it almost every time we go. And since most Friday’s are pizza Friday, we eat at The Rock often.

doing:

Did you catch the full moon a few nights ago? As I looked at the moon lighting up my nieghborhood this week I felt so connected to all my people. I have a close girlfriend who recently relocated out of state and I imaged she might be checking out the sky from her new backyard, too. Her and I share the moon even if we no longer share a zip code.

part of the bunco crew walking home after a fun night

Life isn’t always good

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I have always loved the Life is Good slogan. The first exposure to the brand was a gift from my in-laws in the form of a cute visor. I even wrote about it when I first started blogging. Turns out the Plain Hardware store was ahead of its time with a whole section devoted to this happy logo.

Sometimes, life is hard, life is a struggle and it’s difficult to find the good. I’m wondering if, as a culture, we spend too much time with our game faces on. (mmmh. It might be more my generation’s habit as there does seem to be a lot of buzz around ‘self-care’ among the millennials.) So, maybe sometimes we need to confide in those around us our troubles.

A couple of months ago I was teaching a fitness class and had a sharp pain in the ball of my foot. There was about 20 minutes of the cardio section left, and other than my foot REALLY hurting, I was in a groove. So I kept going; you know, I ‘gutted it out’. By the time I got home I was limping, trying to keep the weight off it, knowing that I had better make a doctor appointment and grab one of the homemade ice bags out of the freezer.

Side Note: Be wary of becoming someone’s personal dumping ground for all their ongoing crap. The attitude of tell me more can backfire: being on the receiving end of a continual stream of all that is wrong in someone’s life can end up a mind numbing task you Just.Want.To.Run.From. It is not fun when you start making bets with your close family how long it will take for your friend to ask something, anything, about your life. The friendship where you never have a chance to say, ‘I broke a metatarsal in my foot and it really sucks’. I think this type of friendship is probably broken.

Anyway, I am sure a few of my close girlfriends and certainly my daughter and husband have heard my lows and probably I have chattered on and on to point they were gutting it out to get to the end. What I’m trying to say is if you keep it all inside, that’s not a good life.

It’s ok to sometimes admit life is not good.

Sidenote: Want to hear the feel good story of the owners of Life is Good? Check out this podcast: How I Build This Sept. 1 episode

P.S. and in case you need it, here’s how to make a homemade ice pack:

  • 1 quart or 1 gallon plastic freezer bags (depending on how large you want the cold pack)
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 cup rubbing alcohol (70%)

Instructions:

  1. Fill the plastic freezer bag with 1 cup of rubbing alcohol and 2 cups of water.
  2. Try to get as much air out of the freezer bag before sealing it shut.
  3. Place the bag and its contents inside a second freezer bag to contain any leakage.
  4. Leave the bag in the freezer for at least an hour.
  5. When it’s ready, place a cloth or paper towel between the gel pack and bare skin to avoid burning the skin.

When the day is long and my life is short

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I hope I have lived a life of influence. We all influence. Good. Bad.

I understand hope is not a strategy. I have worked hard to support, love and accept those I surround myself with, because in the end, who I am to decide any one person’s way to live life? And I can hope I did it right. However, I can choose to reflect on my actions and make every.effort.to.do.it.right.

I am sometimes judgmental. I can make snap opinions. I can be harsh in assessing someone. I can speak too quickly. Is this true of most people? But in the end, I try to assess my play and walk back my actions that came away contentious. Because, I can’t sleep at night if I think I could do better, be better.

Oh, and I just figured out I am a delayed processor. Yah, you know, where I think an hour later, ‘why didn’t I say this.’ Or, ‘I should have said that.’ Or, ‘Why did I say that?’ Do you do that too?

Sleep. Ah, I am sleeping better with my Bose noise cancelling sleep buds. Yep, they cost a fortune, and once I got over them being in my trying to sleep ears, they are worth every dollar spent. However, I can still spend hours awake re-playing every word of a conversation even with the new ear buds drowning out the snoring next to me.

How about you: how do you influence those around you?

Some random thoughts…

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My niece got married last weekend. It was a simple wedding, bouquets made from household garden flowers, a potluck meal, folding metal chairs organized by a team of volunteer friends. Well, not people who volunteered to be friends, but you know what I mean. It still took several months to organize. The bride was seemingly quite calm, radiating more excitement than nervousness. And at the end of the day, she was right were she wanted to be: married.

Growing up we went to a neighborhood bodega to pick up 6 gallons of milk every week. There was usually 6 glass milk jugs to return, sometimes not because, well, glass. That was back in the day when everyone had milk at every home meal and purchased a personal carton for a nickel at lunch time. Oh, and sometimes before the bill was paid, I got to run over to the deli counter and have a stick of pepperoni wrapped in white butcher paper to add to the milk total.

I so enjoyed most all the days of being 55, and haven’t really had many thoughts about feeling older as past birthdays came and went. This year as year 56 drew near, I started to dread the thought of being on the high side of 50. Somehow 56 sounded ‘old’. Well, I’m just going to own it. My age is what my age is. It’s how I choose to live each year that is important.

Yikes! Maybe I AM old now that I’m using the phrase ‘back in the day’.