Dana Burland

I follow “The Rapping Chef” on Instagram. Exactly as his handle suggests, he raps the directions of each recipe he makes. It’s entertaining. The other day he posted a baked chicken recipe that looks really good. I gotta make that. Except, he doesn’t post the recipe text, just raps it. I gave him several views while I wrote it down, and you know what–WORTH IT. Last night at family dinner it was unanimous: MY baked chicken (The Rapping Chef’s recipe, but hey, I made it!) was a HIT. This does take a while to cook. Honestly, it would be a great fall/winter recipe vs spring/summer. I’ll save this one for a bit, but certainly will cook it again. Mama’s Perfect Baked Chicken Ingredients 1 bunch of green onions (5-7) 5 cloves of garlic ½ cup parsley chopped Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning (or salt/pepper/chili powder/garlic powder mix as a replacement) Chicken broth (about 2 cups) 2-4 chicken thighs (skin on, bone in) 4-8 chicken legs (skin on, bone in) Directions 1. Preheat ...

It’s go time, baby! I just finished two weeks of an eight week sprint triathlon training plan, prepping for early June’s GR Tri. I can’t state enough how much I love training. So much more than the race itself. The daily challenge, the discipline of my paper plan coach, watching progress build–it's rewarding. This year’s training plan is in chunks where I repeat workouts for two weeks before building on. These past two weeks haven’t asked more of me on a daily basis than what I’m capable of, but the nature of triathlon training is to do the next day tired from the day before, and boy was I tired after week one. Monday I ran. Tuesday I biked. Wednesday I lifted. Thursday I rested. THANK GOD. Friday I swam. And ok, just to say, middle-aged-Craig tried to recruit me for the YMCA Masters Club team again, so your girl’s still got it! Saturday I biked and ran. Sunday I did an endurance bike ride. Early bedtimes happened. Snoozing morning alarms happened. Foam rolling while wi...

Plz, bring me much coffee and Kleenex today. I am freshly back from Spring Break, with a full heart of great memories and a souvenir cold. But man, oh man we had a great five-day trip. We started in downtown Chicago–the boys’ first time. There was so much “whoa!”ing and “how many levels is that!?” oogling at the buildings surrounding us. We ate deep dish pizza. We took photos at The Bean and raced around the fabulous Maggie Daley Park. We rode the city bus. Shopped at the Lego store. And then, we went to Medieval Times. This is exactly what it sounds like: grown men playing as knights, riding horses & fake battling each other in a ring, while we sit around and eat rotisserie chicken and corn on the cob dinner theater style. While this, admittedly, is not my cup of tea, it’s hard to resist the excitement of it all. The crowd was divided by six color teams, we were on the green team, and our knight WON! Which honestly, I would have paid extra for given how much the boys lost...

Somehow, who knows how, the boys and I got on the topic of where their relatives are from. “Poland!” said C. Which, yes, both my parent’s relatives. I’m less sure about my mother-in-law’s side, but I then asked them if they knew about Grandpy’s family. Grandpy’s family… …so I’ve heard… …comes from European ROYALTY. Boys, you might be related to kings. Imagine for a minute how 8 and 6 year old boys, who already live like certified kings in our home mind you, took this news. Imagine that. And then multiply it. Once the celebration settled, I told them the only person who knows these details is Grandma Kay. Their sweet, 90+ year old great grandma (Grandpy’s mom). No one knows the details like sharp minded, family historian, Grandma Kay. And what happens when she dies? I’m really resisting hard to get on a mid-blog post soap box about how vital it is to record your family history. If you don’t, it’s gone. If you assume there’s nothing to record, you’ll never know what there might h...

Our local YMCA recently upgraded their equipment, and put many items up for auction… including their fleet of spin bikes. I wanted one of these for our basement gym. I mentioned this to my biking enthusiast, mid-70-year-old, Dad, and he really wanted one. There were about two dozen bikes. When the auction started early March, the bikes were around $30 each. Cool, this should be easy. Also, I’m no stranger to an online auction (says the Mom who won twice at her kid’s super low stake school PTO fundraising auction). Nothing truly happens until the last few minutes of the auction–then you gotta get in a serious and high bid. So my Dad/I arranged a time to sit side by side on our laptops, 15 minutes before the end of the auction, to nab our bikes. At this point each bike was up to about $50. Then quickly $60. Then $75. Ok, we decided on our personal highest bids, around $150. We each bid on a bike, and remain the highest bidder for several minutes. Wow! Ok this is definitely goin...

 ...and the last one of the season! This is indoor triathlon 3 of 3 of the monthly races my local YMCA puts in the winter. It's an excellent kick-start to the Sprint triathlon training I'll start soon. My goal at this race was similar to others this year--race strong and steady, but not so fast I injure myself. About a week ago I was suffering from some gnarly hip/butt pain from over use and lack of stretching. I'd been taking time off, slowly rehabbing and strengthening. I didn't want this casual indoor race to back track that work. And, success!  I swam strong, feeling good in the water for 18 lengths. I biked 6 miles in just over 20 minutes, my typical slow/steady leg. I felt comfortable and in control during the 2 mile run. The hightlight, as always, was having my boys there to time me and watch me do it all. They were so supportive, and I love that they get to see Mom do tough stuff.  In 2 weeks I'll start an 8 week training plan for the early summer Sprint tri...

You're 6. It's breakfast time. And have InstantPot steel cut oatmeal in the fridge.  This is how you take your oatmeal: 1 BIG scoop of steel cut oats in the bottom of a bowl. Add a small splash of milk. Microwave for 20 seconds. Food should never be too hot. When it's done, push the oats down with the back of a spoon to make sure there are no clumps. This is important. There must be NO clumps.  Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top, and brown sugar, too. Make sure the brown sugar gets spread everywhere, but not too much brown sugar, or it's too sweet. When that's done, take out a box of cereal.  This is typically Multi Grain Cheerios (in the purple box) but today you surprised me and asked for Honey Bunches of Oats instead. Pour some cereal on top. Yes cereal, on top of the slightly-warm oatmeal. Enough to fully cover the oatmeal.  Then milk. Yes, again.  As much milk as you'd normally have in a bowl of cereal.  Except this isn't a normal bowl of cereal, it'...