Who needs dumbells . . : TOLT

. . . when you have cast iron?

Yes, I’m  Thinking Out Loud about cast iron pans. And laundry. Raised hackles. Body envy. Definitely random thoughts this Thursday!

My laundry room frequently looks like this

Why is laundry so complicated?
Don’t machine dry, but don’t hang it to dry — you really need to dry it flat. Machine wash, but don’t you dare machine dry because the fibers will break down. Wash the clothes with zippers separately unless you want holes in your other clothes.

It’s just me and the furkids (Mr. Judy does his own, but then again, I do the furkids’ beddings — once in a blue moon — the sheets, the towels) and I still feel like all I ever do is laundry.

My favorite pans . . . 
. . . are cast iron. I bought my first one a few years ago and fell in love. Easy to clean. Retains heat well (sometimes that’s a disadvantage, but more often than not, it’s an advantage). Versatile — can go on the stovetop and into the oven.

I bought a small pan first — 6″. Quickly followed by a 10″. Then a griddle, various small pans. I knew I needed a larger skillet, but I balked at the weight — that is a drawback; they’re heavy!

Eventually I bought a 12″ skillet, too, and it’s my most used piece of cast iron.

Last week I got curious. I started to think about how cooking with and cleaning my cast iron helps keep my arm muscles strong. So just how much do those suckers weight?

I put the 12″ on my kitchen scale. “Overload”, it told me. I put the 10″ on the scale: 5 lbs. Who needs weights? Talk about functional fitness!

I used to have a large collection of cast iron muffin pans. I got rid of all of them when we moved up here. Not because of the cost of moving, Mr. Judy’s company paid for that, but because I didn’t bake as much at the time and they were rarely used — and we have limited storage space here.

I am so sad I got rid of all of them! Maybe that’s why getting rid of clothes is so hard — you’re afraid you’ll miss them (see this weekly wrap where I talk about that).

More parking that makes you go hmmm
It was even colder this week at the park. Empty parking lot again, for the most part. And no, no one was parked by me when I came back to my car after my run.

As I left, however, there were about 6 cars parked along the side of the road. The main parking lot was almost completely empty. The parking lot on the other side of the road was somewhat full, but not completely.

And yet these people felt the need to park, one right after another, on the side of the road. Would it have been too far to walk had they parked in the empty lot? Did they think because one lot was almost full, all the lots were full?

There are a lot of things that make me go hmm every time I get in my car and leave the house.

Does she envy my curves?
Yes, I finally got myself to the chiropractor. She’s one of those body types that is just naturally slender. It’s pretty obvious it must be genetics. And while I like my curves, I wish they didn’t come with a lousy metabolism.

Later that day it occurred to me that maybe she’s envious of my curves. Don’t we always want what we don’t have?

I would love to see . . . 
. . . a runner’s nutrition guide (or even a healthy recipe guide/plan) from someone that is my age. There are so many healthy food bloggers out there, and I do know a few that are around my age — but not many.

The older runner’s needs, for most of us, are different from a younger runner. I have purchased many books/guides that I love; but I can’t help but wonder — where are the people my age? Are we just already entrenched in our own careers?

I can’t eat the way I ate 10 or 20 years ago. I wish I could, but despite being active, aging still happens.

Do you know what raised hackles mean?
I always thought they were a sign of aggression — a signal from a dog to to stay the heck away. Well, you can teach this old dog some new tricks, because I learned while that is true, raised hackles can also signify:

• Excitement
• Cold

I’m not sure I ever saw Lola or Chester with raised hackles, but we do see that with Bandit sometimes, and one of the conditions that make it happens is, indeed, when he goes outside.

I’ve also seen it sometimes when he’s playing with toys and Lola is around. I assumed that it was part of his guarding tendencies, and we don’t play with them together . . . but I can train them together and they take treats together all the time. Maybe it’s just excitement?

Mr. Judy took this a while ago; but if he’s happy, he’s ahead of me

Bandit update
Bandit takes after me apparently — he’s a fair weather runner. He’s happy to run with me if it’s cold, but not if the road is wet or precipitation is falling from the sky. Alrighty then, I can understand and sympathize.

He’s still not allowed on the bed, and he mostly stays off of it, but every once in a while I walk in there and there he is: laying with Lola (not actually touching, of course), or just sitting on the bed as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. Which I suppose, to him, it is.

Talk to me. Tell me in the comments:

Do you just throw all your laundry in together?

Do you have favorite pans to cook with?

Any favorite older food bloggers?

I’m linking up with Amanda at Running with Spoons for her: