It’s simply that time of year.
I don’t usually buy flavored coffee, but for whatever reason, I decided to go for it this time. I think the Green Mountain Coffee Marketing Department totally sucked me in with their “Limited Edition!!” ploy. I can’t miss out! Throw it in the cart!! HURRY!
I’m such a sucker.
It’s too pumpkiny though, to the point of being nearly undrinkable.
I solved that pumpkin problem by buying a pound of regular and brewing a 1/4 pumpkin, 3/4 regular in our little 4 cup pot.
I ran today. I made it 3.25 miles without a hint of knee pain. And the final .9 miles home weren’t much to complain about either.
And this is good news! I have a race on Saturday. It’s a 5K, (3.1 miles) so now I’m sure I’ve got that distance covered.
But there’s bad news too. You see, it’s a race where runners are chased through the woods by zombies.
(can’t see? click here. another video here.)
Dinner tonight was about ease and speed. Mama’s got a 6:30 yoga class she wants to get to, gang! Chop chop!
Or should I say “slice slice!”?
With fast cookin’ potatoes on my mind, a couple of orange spuds and I went head to head with the mandolin.
A mandolin is a fancy schmancy slicer contraption that is supposed to make vegetable slicing easier. The last time I used this thing, the mandolin and I had words. But tonight? I grabbed this bull by the horns until it bucked me off.
(Alternate – and perhaps more catchy? – Title: The One Where I Show You My Underwear)
(Took me a minute to decide.)
So!
White bean blondies aren’t the only thing you can bake to heat up your kitchen. Pumpkins are good for that too, especially first thing in the morning.
This pumpkin showed up in this week’s CSA share, and I swear, my first thought was “A pumpkin?? How on earth do you cook THAT?”
And then I reminded me that a pumpkin is just a squash.
Oh yeah.
It’s Saturday. And at the moment, I am home alone.
The kids are out, the husband is out, I am in.
With the house cleared out, I opted for a few of my favorite things.
I tested out my knee with a short run (3 pain free miles + 1 naggy mile) on a cool, breezy, temporarily sunny, autumn afternoon.
I listened to The Biggest Loser on Hulu while I stretched out my IT Band and did some unplanned push ups too. Bob Harper screaming “LAST! CHANCE! WORKOUT!” is curiously motivating.
Ouch.
This would be the work of Ron English, a renegade artist who cooked up a bunch of large stickers to give some cereal boxes in a grocery store in Venice, California a face lift.
Some of Ron’s previous work can be seen in the documentary Super Size Me, and Ron says he considers his work a success “if I don’t go to jail”.
I don’t know, I’d be inclined to consider these a success when they’re followed by an article like this in the Wall Street Journal,
I don’t know about you, but we learned how to ride the bus.
Crazy, no? We’ve only lived here for nearly two years now.
Did you know that Google Maps makes it EXTREMELY easy to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B on the bus?
Yet another thing I learned today!
With an afternoon class on the schedule for the girls, we decided to try the bus and let Zak take the car to work.
The Plan:
I can’t seem to eat salad without hummus these days.
Normally I try to spare you the daily salad shenanigans unless it’s something new or remarkable – and at first glance this salad is neither new or remarkable.
Today’s Hummus on Salad story has a moral to it.
It starts with the sad fact that our car died last week. We found out today that the cost of repairs are going to be more than we’d prefer to sink into this car, so we’re done with it. Eight years and 150,000 miles later, the Honda Civic is off to car heaven.
Life is settling back into a post-marathon norm around here. I spent much of today getting caught up on all things food and laundry now that I’m hobbling around a little bit less and taking the stairs slightly faster than yesterday.
Or at the very least I’m not doing the “step up with my right leg, drag my left leg up behind me like a sack of potatoes” thing anyway.
Dinner got started this morning when I threw this guy from last week’s CSA share into the oven – not immediately sure what I was going to do with him.
I will never do that again.
But do I regret it?
And if you told me you wanted to try it, I wouldn’t talk you out of it either. If you’re an experienced runner and have run a marathon or two before? Go for it.
With that said, it’s obviously best to run a marathon when properly trained – but if it weren’t for the fact that I went into this under-trained, I probably wouldn’t have investigated the run/walk approach to a marathon. From where I sit now, I’m very grateful I had a reason to try it.
More Mama’s Weeds
