LIFE IN A HOLDING PATTERN: Greenapple and Oranges

So, here's a little update on my knee. Obviously Sunday's bad run had me totally down about the whole running situation. It's been almost two months since my half marathon, and about a month since the knee got bad enough for me to stop running. I want to get back out there! Almost everyone I know is training right now and I miss running a lot. Three people I work with have been to this guy Dr. Greenapple. All of them are runners and triathletes and they said the guy is pretty progressive and had them running within two weeks of visiting. They also take our health insurance (I always have issues with that!). I made an appointment and saw him yesterday. Things went well. I told him my loooooooooooong story (seriously, it probably took me 20 minutes to explain everything). He listened and took notes. He examined me. His conclusion made a lot of sense and we went right into some treatment and scheduled more. I'm really encouraged. I'm HOPING to be back out running in a couple weeks.

I rushed back home after visiting Greenapple, to make dinner for Greg and I. He's been away about 5 days this week, so I was really happy to have him home. I had offers to meet for yoga, but I really just felt like he and I needed some quality time together. Which leads me to something I wanted to discuss. For any new readers, I've been with my husband for 8 1/2 years now and we've been married over 4 years. When people ask me about being a pilot's wife, I say that I'm used to him being away and I'm used to him being home. Both seem normal to me. A lot of the time I say it's kind of nice to have the time he's away to myself. You probably notice that I fill my time with various athletic activities, dinners, and social events. I've also been known to give the piece of advice to a new pilot's significant other to "get a life" (well, I try to put it more eloquently than that). I just mean that a pilot's wife needs to be really independent and be able to entertain herself while her man is gone. I think that can also mean to not plan everything around the pilot being home and drop everything just because he's home. But, I think recently I'm guilty of not allotting enough time for my husband. I've gotten so into my social activities, sports, and extracurricular activities, that sometimes I feel like I really only spend a couple hours a week with Greg if he's only home on weeknights. I don't know that that is enough, and I want to try and prioritize spending time with him a little more, while still maintaining an active social life. Do you guys have trouble balancing the things/people in your life?

Ok, on to dinner! I REALLY wanted to try making MILLET!

I actually twittered about it wondering if anyone had a good recipe. No response :( So I just decided to wing it. I toasted the Millet for about 4-5 minutes in a dry pan (this was 1/2 cup).

While it was toasting I brought 2 cups of liquid (I used 1/2 water, 1/2 veg stock) to a boil in a sauce pan. I dumped the Millet into the water and covered it to cook on low for about 30 minutes. I ended up deciding to add some sauteed onion, some orange zest and orange juice (like 1/4 of an orange worth), and just a touch of dried rosemary (like maybe 1/4 teaspoon). I added these things in the last 5 minutes of cooking or so to meld in.

I also steamed some zucchini:

Then I got to the "meat" of the dinner. Greg LOVES orange chicken at a Chinese Restaurant. At least, he used to when he ate meat more often. I have always thought it was gross, with the "mystery" chicken under the deep fried/candy coating. I'm more of a chicken with mixed vegetables or broccoli kind of girl. Anyway, while at ~~the place where we can't spend less than $100~~ Costco recently, we saw this sauce. Yeah, it's not very nutritious, but it gave me an idea. Tempeh would be good cubed with a little of this on it to simulate "orange chicken".

And my idea was right! I used very little, like maybe a tablespoon? A little went a long way and created a nice gooey crust on the tempeh. Success :) I think I actually could make my own healthier version of this with just some orange juice and brown sugar (maybe some corn starch to thicken it slightly). Since I only used a very small amount I think the overall health of this meal was pretty good though.

All together...