Dana Burland

Should this just become a grass growing blog ? I think we’re almost there… With all our yard projects this summer, I’ve got new spots that need grassing over. I’ll gladly rip out bushes twice my height, but I loathe planting and caring for high maintenance grass seed. But it was work that needed to get done, so right when September hit and lower temps were ahead, I put down tons of seed in the front yard. Amazingly, happily, I have sprouts! I’ve become consumed checking on them each morning, watering wildly at night and praying for rain but not so much that it swamps out my efforts. Perhaps it was all that time spent watching the grass grow that prevented me from regularly checking our neighborhood app. This app allows people in several connecting neighborhoods to chat with each other, share recommendations for handy men, inquire about babysitters, or post for the one millionth time about a lost cat found when our neighborhood obviously has a stray cat infestation. Anyway. I...

The Internet is littered with 30-second recipe videos. You see hands flailing around mixing this and that covering everything with cheese and before our goldfish-like attention spans are up they pull out a cheesy chicken chipotle ranch tater tot cream casserole. I swear 90% of them have at least four of those ingredients in them. They’re all so involved, gluttonous, anti-pantry-staples. I don’t know. I can’t stop watching them, but I don’t make any of them. Yesterday I was mindlessly Internet wandering and saw one of those videos. The recipe legitimately looked good, but it was filmed at such a hyper speed I could barely make out the ingredients or amounts. Also it was sponsored by American Express or something? So interesting how everyone, no matter how unrelated, gloms on to trending things. I played the video back about seven times to catch everything. Almond butter, maple syrup, dark chocolate, sea salt. All the ingredients sounded good and the no-cook, mini-cupcake tin ...

Last night I had some girlfriends over for a weeknight dinner party. I made a meat-free version of my favorite tomato sauce and homemade pasta ; between the other four girls we also had salad, hand-made cannoli and lots of wine. Dinner was good but the night itself was really great. My neighbor, a local friend and two coworkers had all met before , but it was fun to see everyone from different circles mingle together again—and with ease. We sat around my little dining room table and laughed and laughed and piled more pasta on our plates and opened another, then another bottle of wine. I got to bust out some serving/kitchen wedding gifts that don't get much daily use--and made excellent use of my 9,000 wooden spoons as pasta drying racks. I still feel full--both from our Italian feast and from good time spent with great girls.

I went for a run the other day and woke up the next morning with a twinge in my leg. What?! It wasn’t a long, fast or rough terrain run! I rested, iced, stretched but still felt it. When I finally ran again I felt residual tightness creeping up my hip. This isn’t my first rodeo with aches and pains like this. My core is weak. I know it, and know it’s all connected. And the past gazillion months of saying yeah, I’m DEFINITELY going to do core work tonight and not doing it? Obviously not doing me any favors. So I’m employing self punishment discipline with a core workout I’m going to do daily. Yep, evvvvery day. For a while at least. And since I want to make this a daily commitment I need the hurdles to be reasonably low—quick, minimal equipment, no extreme residual soreness. I put together these exercises because they really target all over—mid core, sides, lower back, upper back, glutes. It takes me no more than 5 minutes but I still felt a little sore after the first and sec...