I had a voicemail on my work phone when I came in this morning. It was from a legal recruiter with an opening for an in-house position in Baton Rouge. She mentioned that she had read my profile, seen I was from Louisiana, and wondered if I was interested in returning to the South.

Honey, I may have been born in Louisiana, but I was raised in New York. To me, Virginia, where I live now, is the South.

1. Having perfect driving weather yesterday.
2. Good company on long road trips.
3. Not sitting in a solid three hours of traffic and making it home in less than 7 hours. (Not too shabby for a holiday weekend.)
4. Thanksgiving leftovers!
5. Not completely bombing my football picks for the first time in several weeks.

(Grace in Small Things is a daily (um, occasional?) reminder to take notice of the positive things we tend to overlook.)

Final update on my NoImYoSeMo and 101 in 1001 goals.

101 in 1001: (not much has changed from last week's update)
Stay within Spark calories for the entire week, 4X. (One week) Check!
Post every day for a month. Still going strong!
Link a Flickr account to my website. Work in progress. Still working on backing up everything before upgrading.
Post 10-photo based entries. I'm at 8. I'm not counting entries where I've just included an image... it has to be an actual photo.
Update my address book. Still haven't found one I like. I may look online this week and see what I can find. I want to do this before sending out holiday cards this year.
Donate food to a food bank. Didn't happen last week, but my office building is collecting for the next several weeks so I think we'll buy an extra bag of groceries tomorrow night to donate.

NoImYoSeMo:
Do the dishes and wipe down the counters in the kitchen every night before bed. Did pretty well with this. Helps that we were out of town most of the week. :-)
Wipe down the bathroom counters everyday. Ditto.
Take vitamins every day. I think I missed one of the days this week while I was out of town, because I came back with an extra in my ziploc.
Floss every day. I'm still terrible about this... only did it once while out of town, so I guess only three times last week.
Be better about keeping in touch with out-of-town friends. Sent an email to my high school friends trying to arrange a mini-reunion around Christmastime.
Go to the gym/workout 5X a week. I actually worked out once while out of town, surprisingly. I think I worked out once or twice before that.
Actually bring my bags full of clothes to donate to Goodwill. Done.
Donate my old suits. Still haven't done this. I might just suck it up and do it next weekend. Adam has an appointment next weekend that is relatively near one of the drop off points.
Come up with my holiday shopping list and budget. Just made my Christmas list, budgeted out my gift-giving for my family, and am starting to make a list for the cookie party. I'm trying to stay under $400 for everything, although that may be difficult with my family gift-giving situation. (ugh) Adam and I have decided we are not exchanging gifts this year, but will just put extra money towards the weekend ski trip we hope to take this winter.

(You can catch up on what my Reading Challenge is all about here.)

Book: The Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea

Verdict: This book was written by a Saudi woman about the lives of four upper-class Saudi women in their early 20s. I found it incredibly interesting, especially because I didn't know anything about Saudi culture before reading this book. It followed four fictional women from their time just after graduating high school until they were about 25... at which point, they basically act as if they are old spinsters who will never find love if they aren't married already. (Which, as a 29 year old, is a little depressing.)

It was a great book for our book club and raised a lot of different discussion points. I think if it had been based on another society I was more familiar with, it really wouldn't be a very interesting story... just following four, spoiled rich girls on a quest for a husband. But this book was eye-opening in that I never really thought how difficult it must be, for these women who are exposed to Cinderella-version stories of true love in Western movies, books and the internet, but are still very limited in their ability to socialize with men outside their family and have little say over the men they can marry. These women are caught between tradition and religion, and wanting to find that perfect romantic love as it exists in the movies. I was also surprised by how much young men and women stealthily interact with each other, over the internet or on cell phones, before they even meet, especially because they aren't even supposed to socialize with members of the opposite sex to whom they are not related. Seriously, these people are on the cell phones from midnight to 4AM every day!

I would recommend this book if you're interested in learning a little bit about Saudi culture. It only addresses the lives of the upper-class in a big city, so it's still a small sample of society in Saudi Arabia, but it's still a well written, interesting book.

Adam and I finally got some quality time with his new nephew, Jonah, today, now that many of the other relatives cleared out.

Not too much else to report... this little guy has pretty much been the focus of the past two days around here. But really, who can blame us? Certainly better than dealing with Black Friday madness. (Although, I did manage to buy one Christmas gift online today!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

As a vegetarian, I have been asked many times, what do I eat for Thanksgiving? Really, the better question is, what don't I eat? The answer: Turkey.

This year is the first year I've been with Adam's family for the actual holiday. It's interesting to eat Thanksgiving at someone else's home, because everyone has different traditions. For dinner tonight, I ate butternut squash soup, vegetarian cornbread stuffing (which Adam's dad was kind enough to throw together this afternoon when he realized I wouldn't be eating any of the other three stuffings they had), mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, broccoli pie, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, corn, and challah bread. My family doesn't have soup or bread at our Thanksgivings, so that was new to me, although Adam has made that butternut squash soup recipe for me several times. We still haven't even had dessert, for which I've counted three pies, a pumpkin roll, four breads, and some candy and cookies.

So yeah... I find food to eat at Thanksgiving. :-)

I'm looking forward to our second Thanksgiving at my parents' house on Saturday. My dad will make vegetarian stuffing and gravy. (His vegetarian gravy is SO good, and it's kind of funny, because their turkey gravy usually comes out of a jar so it's one less thing for them to worry about.) There will be cranberry jelly and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans (not casserole, though), corn, brussels sprouts and creamed onions. Creamed onions may seem sort of odd to most people, but for some reason we have them every Thanksgiving, so I'd miss it if they weren't there. (Also, I never see creamed onions in the grocery store down where I live now... is it just a northeast thing?) The only food I won't eat is the turkey (and the turkey stuffing and gravy that accompany it). And of course, we will have at least four desserts... for 12 people.

I'd have to say my favorite Thanksgiving food is my dad's stuffing. It's really hard to choose though... those creamed onions are SO good... and I love cranberries... and now I can add butternut squash to the contenders. Luckily, gorging yourself on food is totally acceptable this one day of the year. :-)

What did you do for Thanksgiving? And what's your favorite food?

I plan to write an actual entry on being a vegetarian on Thanksgiving later today (it's been written in my head for a few days now, just not put on paper... I mean, keyboard). I thought I'd be able to knock it out this morning because it's been a relatively slow week and I only had two quick things to do this morning before I left early. But now, i just got slammed with something that needs to be done before I absolutely need to head out at 1pm, in addition to my previous assignments, so I plan to write a real post tonight, after our travels are concluded. Because traffic is so unpredictable, there is a chance that could fall after midnight, so I'm putting in this placeholder of a post now... I've come this far with NaBloPoMo, I'm not going to let some silly holiday traffic stand in my way!

I didn't eat the candy.

This afternoon, I told myself I was going to run 3 miles in 30 minutes. This may not seem fast to most people, but I haven't run that fast since before the stress fracture. I told myself:

My legs are strong enough to run 10 miles.
My legs are strong enough to have run three 11-minute miles, and then finished 7 more.
My legs are strong enough to have run a single 10-minute mile last week.
My leg does not have a stress fracture.

Just because my legs get tired, doesn't mean I can't run 3 miles in 30 minutes.
Just because my legs burn, doesn't mean I can't run 3 miles in 30 minutes.
Just because I'm breathing hard, doesn't mean I can't run 3 miles in 30 minutes.

If I don't push myself, I won't improve.

I can do it.

I will do it.

. . .

I did it.

29:58.

(Tomorrow, I'll post my take on Thanksgiving dinner... as a vegetarian!)

There is a big box full of candy sitting in the office kitchen.
The office kitchen, which is where I fill up my water bottle several times a day.
The office kitchen, which is where the copiers are located.
The office kitchen, which is where the printers from my computer are located.
The office kitchen, which is directly across the hall from my office.

I will not eat any candy today.
I will not eat any candy today.
I will not eat any candy today.

(Luckily, most of the good stuff is already gone... unfortunately, with my help yesterday. Doesn't mean the sub-par candy isn't sitting there, tempting me, every time I have to go in there, which is probably 3-4 times an hour.)

I've received some great questions on my post last week (feel free to add yours!), including several related to why I started blogging and how I keep going. I was planning on writing that post today, but then...

I fell asleep.

I'd say that I've been fully recovered from the flu for over a week now, except that I cannot shake this utter exhaustion. I was totally dragging all day long, as if I'd gotten three hours of sleep instead of nearly eight. I had total intentions to get a workout in, finish up some work on the baby blanket (that I have two days too finish... I am the biggest procrastinator when it comes to crafty projects), and write that post on blogging. Instead, I got home a little bit later than I planned, ate too much for a snack (as I tend to do when exhausted), then passed out on the couch for 40 minutes. I may or may not have been mid-conversation with Adam when that happened. So, yeah... can't shake the tiredness. So you get this lame post full of excuses instead. I'll probably write the "why I blog" post sometime next week, once everyone's back from the holidays, because I'm pretty sure no one is going to be reading much of anything over the next couple days. But I'm going to keep NaBloPoMo going strong, so tune back in tomorrow, when we talk Thanksgiving!

I've made it past the halfway point of NaBloPoMo, so for my third weekly update for NoImYoSeMo (November Improve Yourself Month), I'm also going to update on my November 101 in 1001 goals.

101 in 1001:
Stay within Spark calories for the entire week, 4X. (One week) Check!
Post every day for a month. Still going strong!
Link a Flickr account to my website. Working on it. Have to upgrade my MT, so first I need to back up all my files just in case, which is turning out to be kind of a pain in the butt. I really need to take a weekend and thoroughly go through all the files on my website, because there are a lot useless things on there.
Post 10-photo based entries. I've only done two this month so far, which brings my total to 6 (I think). I have a photo for the cheesecake entry I need to add, which means I have three left. I'm sure you'll get at least one photo of Jonah from this coming weekend.
Update my address book. Still need to buy a new one.
Donate food to a food bank. We're planning on doing this this week.

NoImYoSeMo:
Do the dishes and wipe down the counters in the kitchen every night before bed. Did mostly okay. Thursday through Saturday they didn't look great, but they didn't look that bad.
Wipe down the bathroom counters everyday. I skipped a day or two this week when the counters looked fine.
Take vitamins every day. Check!
Floss every day. Ugh, this is just an impossible habit for me to adopt. I missed two days this week.
Be better about keeping in touch with out-of-town friends. Chatted and sent an email to out of town friends.
Go to the gym/workout 5X a week. Nope, only three. I was still too run down to work out on Sunday, was good Monday through Wednesday, skipped it Thursday because of poor laundry planning (gym clothes were left in the washer instead of hung to dry, so nothing to wear). Friday and Saturday I have no good excuse except that I've still been tired all week.
Actually bring my bags full of clothes to donate to Goodwill. Done.
Donate my old suits. This will have to get done the weekend after Thanksgiving, if at all. I hate that charities make it so difficult to donate things they actually need!
Come up with my holiday shopping list and budget. Still haven't done this. I have to make a budget for gifts, a budget/plan for decorating the apartment, and a budget/plan for my holiday cookie exchange party. I can't make an actual gift purchasing list until the wishlists start circulating. I'd like to try to be a little more inventive with my gift-giving, but it's such an ordeal in my family I don't know if that'll be able to happen.

1. Beautiful fall days, even in the third weekend of November.
2. Gorgeous, colorful leaves.
3. Cozy sweaters.
4. Lazy, Saturday afternoon naps.
5. $4 wine happy hours!

(Grace in Small Things is a daily (er, occasional?) reminder to take notice of the positive things we tend to overlook.)

(If you haven't already done so and want to add your question(s) to the mix, you can do so here.)

Nick asked: Why did you put so little soy sauce in your fried rice recipe? I ended up having to use a lot more as seasoning after the fact.

Honestly, I don't use measuring spoons when I add soy sauce to the fried rice, so it's a total guestimate that I add a teaspoon at a time. But, three teaspoons (which is what I listed in the recipe) equals a tablespoon of soy sauce, which seems like a lot of shakes from the bottle, so I think it's actually pretty accurate.

If I was making it just for myself, I'd probably add more soy sauce during the cooking process, because I think it does taste better when it has the time to be cooked into the veggies and rice. But, Adam does not like things as salty as I do, so I go easier on it during the cooking process and add more after it's done. (He usually does not add any more soy sauce.) It's all about your personal preference, but I go easy on it in the recipe because I didn't want it to be too salty for some people -- you can always add more, but can't take out.

Oh, and I use low sodium soy sauce, in case anyone is wondering.

Kowala1000 asked: (1) May I have that recipe for the giant crusty and creamy white beans with greens? (2) Does that cookbook have anything to do with demons or the Winchester brothers? (3) Nick can cook fried rice?

(1) Yes, but I don't feel right posting it here, so I will email you a copy of the recipe. If you like it, I suggest you check out 101 Cookbooks, which is Heidi Swanson's website. There are a lot of recipes that we also make from there, some of which are in the cookbook. (The white bean recipe I referenced is not on her website, though.) One favorite, which I've mentioned before and is also in the cookbook, are the chickpea patties, but there are many, many recipes on there I've loved and others in my queue to try.

(2) The cookbook does not have to do with demons or the Winchester brothers, but I do think of that show pretty much every time I say the name of the cookbook... even though I haven't watched since the first season.

(3) So he claims.

(My apologies to my male readers... you can just go ahead and skip this fashion-woe related post altogether.)

(Oh, and in case you missed it yesterday, please go say hi and feel free to ask me a question on this post.)

I've desperately needed a new pair of jeans for a while now. I have two pairs that I wear on a regular basis -- one that fits well in the waist and butt, but is too tight in the hips/thighs, which sort of pulls them down a bit as I walk around in them, and another that fits well in the hips/thighs, but is too big in the waist and saggy in the rear. If I could magically fuse these two pairs of jeans together, I'd have a pair that fits perfectly. (Or one that fits terribly, depending on how you combine them.)

I'd heard a lot of good things about the new jeans from Gap. Lots of people have had these Gap Born to Fit parties and done reviews of their new line of jeans. It seemed like a lot of women out there complained about the same things I do when trying to find a pair of jeans, namely that we're actually shaped like women. Last week, my friend Carolyn sent me a link to a 30% off coupon for Gap, so I decided that this weekend, I'd head to the mall and try on a pair... or twelve.

I knew that I definitely was not going to try on the Always Skinny jeans. Sorry, but the slim/tapered leg look just looks silly on me (what with the hips and all!), like I'm mis-proportioned. I grabbed a pair of Perfect Boot and Sexy Boot jeans in the two sizes I'm usually between, in two different washes each. I figured the Perfect Boot would work best for me because I typically don't love low-rise jeans, but I actually preferred the Sexy Boot. The rise of the Perfect Boot just hit me at a funny spot and wasn't comfortable. (See, I have this problem where I hate the feeling of having a muffin top when you sit down, even though totally normal and just gravity and even skinny girls get that little pooch. But I have this issue with clothes touching me "funny" -- I actually complain about feeling clothes touch me. Yeah...)

Anyway, so I decided the Sexy Boot was okay, but not great... still tighter in the thighs than I'd like (I guess that's what "slim in the hip and thigh" means), slightly more fitted in the waist than I usually prefer (see problem above), but it made my butt look fantastic. So, I figured I'd hold onto a pair of those and try on a couple more styles. (Oh, and the different washes fit me differently too... I could barely button up the dark wash, but the medium wash was fine.)

Next stop, the Curvy jean, which in theory sounds perfect: low waist, curvy in the hip and thigh. Ummm... these fit even tighter in the hip and thigh area than both the Boot jeans. Seriously? Curvy implies to me that it should, oh I don't know, fit a woman with curves. No? But, it fit okay and there was a coupon, and I really needed jeans and I couldn't make a decision then between Sexy Boot and Curvy, so I decided to buy both and return the one I didn't like later.

I was headed to the checkout when I realized there was another whole display of jeans in another aisle. The Boyfriend jean. They have what is described as a "slouchy fit." Apparently, my thighs and hips must be slouchy, because these fit perfectly. They were immediately super comfortable.

I had grabbed the "distressed" pair to try on and loved them so much, I decided I definitely had to get a pair. The only problem? The ridiculous whiskering that Gap does to their distressed wash jeans. I mean, seriously, there were basically bright-white lines pointing at unmentionable areas. NOT COOL. But the jeans, they fit so well! So I went back to the display and grabbed a pair of "destructed" jeans... they didn't have those ridiculous white lines, but they have all that fake wear and tear on them. Not typically my style, but I bought them anyway and decided I'd get Adam's opinion on whether they looked good or inappropriate.

I got home, put on a fashion show with my three pairs of jeans, and decided to return the Curvy, keep the destructed Boyfriend jeans (although I am still getting used to the style, Adam tells me they look great), and temporarily keep the Sexy Boot with the hope that I can break them in wearing them a little bit at a time around the house with the tags on, because then I think they will fit perfectly. Since they were 30% off, I might as well keep them with the tags on for a couple weeks and then just return them later if I don't end up liking the fit. (And, honestly, I fit into them just fine if I was a normal person, but like I said... I don't like my clothes touching me. You know, fitting properly.)

Such a freaking ordeal, just to buy a pair of jeans. It's so frustrating that the only pair that I really will wear on a regular basis after all this (unless I manage to fit into the Sexy Boot) is a destructed pair. Why can't they make jeans that fit in the waist, AND the hips and thighs, AND don't sag in the butt, that have a regular dark wash? How freaking hard is that? Why is it that I have to settle for close enough? I can't possibly be the only woman out there whose thighs are bigger than her waist, can I? I mean, that just isn't how nature intended us... we got them birthin' hips.

Oh, and what is with the inconsistent sizing, even within brands? The Sexy Boot jeans, which are slightly snug, are a size larger than the Boyfriend jean that are looser, and they both even include "actual" waist-sizing on the labels. How is that possible? Why don't they just make waist sizing consistent both within a brand and across brands? I know it's possible... they do it for men!

Hello there, dear readers. I have a favor to ask. See, while I know there aren't tons of people out there reading this little old blog of mine, I know that there are more out there than make themselves known. Now, I'm a frequent lurker on many blogs, so I'm not saying that everyone has to leave a comment here all the time, or ever really. I realize a lot of what I write about isn't exactly going to jump start a conversation in the comments. But, I am interested in knowing who is out there in Blogland reading along so that I can say hi, and even visit your blog if you have one and leave a link.

So, here's the challenge. Just this once (although, I'd welcome more often if you're so inclined), please leave a comment letting me know you're here (won't you be so kind as to click on over from your feed reader, just this once? pretty, pretty please?) and say hi? Even if you see me on a regular basis or I know that you stop by occasionally because you specifically mention blog posts to me (ahem, you know who you guys are), I'd love for you to comment.

And to make it even more interesting, I want to hear from YOU what it is that you want to hear from ME. Here's your chance to ask me that burning question (or two or three) you've always wanted to ask, or present me with an interesting topic for a post you'd like to see. Even if you see me or hear from me all the time, it can be something totally silly like what I had for dinner last night. (For the record, it was giant crusty and creamy white beans with greens from Super Natural Cooking.) And then, I'll answer your questions in future posts.

All right then, let's get started! Thanks for playing along!

From the website, Eating the Road, the "Where Should I Eat? Fast Food Edition" flow chart...

Click image to embiggen.

This made me literally laugh out loud. (Ugh, definitely not LOL. I am not a fan of LOLers.) I'm a little disappointed Wendy's doesn't pop up sooner... I don't eat much fast food at all, but who doesn't love to dunk some fries in a Frosty occasionally? Hope you enjoy!

(You can catch up on what my Reading Challenge is all about here.)

I may kick myself in a few days writing up both these books in one post, but I read them so long ago now that I don't really have too much to write about them.

Book: I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

Verdict: Eh, I didn't really enjoy this book all that much. It's described as a female David Sedaris, but I think the problem was I love David Sedaris so much and Sloane Crosley's storytelling ability doesn't even come close to his in my book. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I just didn't find it to be all that funny. It was sort of interesting to read about a woman who is almost exactly my age, going through her first job and living on her own in a city, but there wasn't anything all that special about it. I mean, I feel like I could have written it, and I certainly don't think I have anything interesting enough to say to land a book deal about my 20-something life.

Book: Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

Verdict: I actually thought I'd like this book more than I did, but I found the author to be kind of annoying. It did make me want to learn more about Julia Child, though... maybe I'll pick up her biography. I don't know what it is that bothered me about Julie though... she seemed sort of whiny to me. I liked the idea of her blog/book, the idea of taking on a huge project as she did, than I did the execution. I think I might just be getting tired of the similar writing style after reading the previous book. It seems as though there is more and more of a market for 20- and 30-something women writing autobiographies and semi-autobiographies and they all blend together. Maybe it's because I've been reading blogs for so many years, but that tone just doesn't carry over well for me from the computer to the printed page. The book did lead to some interesting conversations at book club about tackling big projects and blogging, so there's that at least.

Next up on the Reading Challenge: Our book club is reading The Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea for our next meeting, this Sunday. I haven't even gotten a copy of the book yet... I'll be doing some cram-reading on Saturday!

Here's my second weekly update to the NoImYoSeMo (November Improve Yourself Month).

Do the dishes and wipe down the counters in the kitchen every night before bed. Um, not so much. I blame it on the swine flu.
Wipe down the bathroom counters every night. Ditto.
Take vitamins every day. Check! (Although the first year I'm actually taking vitamins regularly, I get the flu? Really?)
Floss every day. Missed it twice. Again blame the flu.
Be better about keeping in touch with out-of-town friends. I really suck at this. Carla and I were trying to figure out possibly meeting up the day before Thanksgiving, but I'm not sure it's going to happen.
Go to the gym/workout 5X a week. Um, not at all. (Yup, flu.)
Donate my old suits. Still haven't found a place to bring them yet.
Come up with my holiday shopping list and budget. Still workin' on it.

As you can see, the flu pretty much got in the way of my doing anything productive this week. As far as my 101 in 1001 goals I'm trying to tackle in November, I'm just starting a Spark week today, I've managed to keep up with NaBloPoMo all month so far (halfway through!), and I've added two more photo-based entries. (I have a photo of the cheesecake to go back and add in at some point too.)

Hopefully, next week will be better. I'm already starting off with a clean kitchen tonight!

(Man, this NaBloPoMo thing sure is starting to get difficult... and we're not even halfway through the month!)

Adam and I both really like to cook and, as a result, make most of our own meals. But, we don't usually have tons of time at night to make elaborate recipes because we go to the gym after work. (Perhaps more on that in a later post.) Most of our meals can be put together and on the table in a half hour or so. One of our easy, totally yummy meals is fried rice. It's so easy, I call it "Cheater's Fried Rice."

Cheater's Fried Rice
Makes 2 (HUGE) portions as a main dish. (But very healthy and not a lot of calories for a dinner, so we tend to eat it all up over the course of the evening... yum!)

Ingredients:
onion, finely diced
bag of frozen mixed vegetables (We use Trader Joe's Organic Foursome -- green beans, carrots, corn, peas.)
2 cups already cooked rice (We use Trader Joe's brown basmati rice.)
soy sauce
sesame oil
2 eggs
Sriracha (rooster sauce) (optional)

Directions
In a very large skillet, brown up the diced onion with a bit of olive oil over medium-high heat. Once the onions brown, add in the bag of frozen vegetables. Sprinkle about a teaspoon soy sauce over the vegetables and cook until the vegetables are just warmed through about 3-5 minutes, depending on size of the veggies), stirring occasionally. Add in the cooked rice and stir. Sprinkle on another teaspoon of soy sauce and a teaspoon of sesame oil. Let the rice and veggie mixture sit for a few minutes, then push the mixture to the side of the pan.

Beat the two eggs in a mug or small bowl, then pour into the cleared portion of the pan. Turn the heat down to medium. Let the egg start to firm up a minute, and once it starts to become opaque, scramble it up a little and then mix it in with the veggie and rice mixture. Add another teaspoon of soy sauce and of sesame oil. Let it cook for another minute or two until the egg is cooked.

Serve heaping platefuls, with soy sauce, sesame oil and sriracha on the side.

One half of this entire recipe (using the ingredients I stated) is 426 calories, with 17 grams of protein and 10 grams of fat. And, we think it tastes better than veggie fried rice you'd order from your local Chinese place.

I hate being sick. I realize that having the flu is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but as someone who eats mostly healthfully, exercises fairly regularly, and generally takes pretty good care of herself, it is really frustrating to get sick enough to be completely out of commission for an entire week. I didn't go into the office once this week (although I did a not insignificant amount of work from home today), I haven't worked out once this week... I haven't even left my apartment building since last Sunday.

I really, really want to run a half-marathon next year, and I even have the one I want to do all picked out. The National Half-Marathon, which takes place a week after my 30th birthday. It seemed like a great way to kick off a new decade of my life, tackling another goal and crossing it off my list. The only problem is, I have to have a qualifying time to run it. And I just miss the qualifying time in so many categories.

10 Miles - 1:50:00 -- I missed by 9:29.

10k - 1:05:00 -- I missed by 2:59.

5k - 31:00 -- I missed by ELEVEN SECONDS.

ELEVEN FREAKING SECONDS. Argh, I was so close. If only I had run instead of walked just 20 more seconds, I would have done it.

So, I was on a quest to find a race to run by the end of the year where I could run a qualifying time. I figured a 5k would be easiest. I had started to push myself harder on my treadmill runs, doing intervals workouts to increase my speed. I realized that if my leg could hold up during the Army Ten Miler, it was ready to run faster.

And then, BAM, the flu. Bronchitis. An inability to do anything remotely active for more than 10 minutes without needing to lie down. Threw a freaking wrench into my plans.

I'm frustrated. I'm sick. I'm tired. I have to work all weekend to make up for the time I missed this week, meaning I am going to have to work 7 straight days. I am behind in my hours and probably won't be able to catch up, as this was supposed to be my busiest workweek of the quarter and it all fell to other people, because I couldn't be there.

I need another nap.

1. A sweet baby boy named Jonah arriving healthy (and surprisingly punctual, right on his due date!) to Adam's sister and brother-in-law.
2. Being able to stay home sick all week from work and not have to worry about losing my job.
3. Having someone to take care of me while I'm sick.
4. Taking a work phone call in my pajamas.
5. Catching up on the DVR.

(Grace in Small Things is a daily (er, occasional?) reminder to take notice of the positive things we tend to overlook.)

This past Wednesday, three cars-full of us headed up to Delaware to see some flying pumpkins, eat pumpkin funnel cake, tailgate with some hot dogs and beer, and try not to get beat up by the many, many, many people flying Confederate flags that we kept mocking. (I'm sorry, but Confederate flags? Really? I just will never understand that.) There were easily at least twenty times more people there this year than last year, probably because we went on a Saturday this year and people were camping out overnight (or had the day before) and the weather was fantastic. Last year, we went on Sunday, the last day of the Chunkin, and the weather was grey and very chilly. It took us just over two hours to get to our meet up destination... the Sonic three miles down the road from the Chunkin. It then took us about two and a half hours to go those last three miles to go park in a field (with many, many pick-up trucks)... although these might have been some of the most entertaining hours of the day.

The four people on the right of this photo rode in the same car. These are the same four people who all came down with the swine flu within 48 hours of that trip.

Our obligatory arms-length shot. Seriously, we have dozens of these.

We bought a giant Wild Bill's souvenir mug and filled it up with some root beer with a splash of vanilla creme. Upon further inspection, our WIld Bill's souvenir mug had a logo for an event in Saratoga Springs two weekends before, instead of an actual logo for the Pumpkin Chunkin. Hmm. Perhaps we should have asked for a discount.

Okay, so Adam and I were walking back to the cars for the tailgating portion of the afternoon and I paused to attempt to take a photo of the trebuchets, catapults, etc. that were all lined up and finishing their portion of the competition. As you can see from this shot, there is one large parking lot between us and the machines. Obviously, the machines are facing away from the cars and are supposed to shoot straight in front of them. Behind us, were at least six more rows of cars before you even got to where our car was (maybe even double that). We stopped to watch one that was powered by someone pedaling a bike until the machine was as wound up as it could go... and the pumpkin went flying BEHIND US! Seriously, it flew OVER that huge parking lot and into the lot right behind us. If the machine had been turned around, I wouldn't be surprised if it would have placed. Unfortunately, you don't get points for going backwards. (Also, Adam and I are pretty sure this is the same machine that shot a pumpkin backwards last year too.)

Lessons learned:
If you go to the Chunkin on Saturday, GO EARLY.
People from Delaware think they are from the South and fly their Confederate flags, even though Delaware was part of the Union.
Sonic cherry limeade is fizzy.
Swine flu is very contagious... if you share car space, chapstick and bottles.
Double-check your souvenir mugs before you spend way too much money on them.
Look out for pumpkins flying backwards when the machine is wound by bicycle power.

I almost missed posting for today, until I sat bolt upright at 11:15pm and remembered I had to post today. Considering I'm down and out with the flu (what, you haven't heard?), this is some serious dedication to NaBloPoMo. (Or just fever-induced insanity.)

So, a quick and dirty recipe for you. Our building had a bake-off today and we came in second place with our peppermint cheesecake with chocolate peppermint ganache.

Ingredients:

Adam and I had tickets to see The Swell Season play tonight, only I was feeling anything other than swell, so we had to sell the tickets on Craigslist. I was really looking forward to this concert for weeks, but there's no way that I'd be able to stand for three hours in a dark venue, when I can barely walk 15 feet without getting dizzy and winded.

Yesterday started with the coughing and at 3am, I woke up with every muscle in my body aching and a temperature of almost 101. It's been years since I've had the flu. I've only had it twice before in my life -- my 8th birthday and one Thanksgiving weekend in high school. If you're wondering what it feels like, imagine a Mack truck ran you over, and then backed over you a few times for good measure. My body feels like that statue in the steroids commercial, like someone could just knock on me lightly and my whole body would crumble.

I can't even remember the last time I felt this sick. I stayed in bed until 3:30. The idea of even watching television seemed too exhausting for me. I went on the internet a couple of times to check my work email, just in case there were any emergencies, but I basically stayed under the covers all day. Adam stayed home sick too, although he's not as bad as I am... yet. I expect he's probably going to have his fever peak sometime in the middle of the night. A fun couple we are.

Hopefully I'll be able to sleep through the night tonight, even though I slept most of the day. I'm not going into work tomorrow either, but hopefully I'll feel better by Wednesday, because I actually have several filings due in the upcoming week.

* I don't know that it's actually the swine flu, but a friend sent a link to an article that said some ridiculously high percentage of people who have the flu these days have the swine flu. I'm certainly not going to a doctor to find out which kind it is, when it doesn't make a lick of difference in how crappy I feel and how quickly I'll get better.

On a much brighter note, Cagey, from Rancid Raves, is one of my favorite bloggers (hey, if I kiss up a bit, do I get an extra entry, Cagey?) and is trying to spread the word about her husband's new business -- gift cards at Snapgifts.com. Talk about perfect timing for starting this business! I always give a gift card or two during the holiday season... they are great for those people who seem to have everything, but obviously still will enjoy a dinner out or a cup of coffee! She's doing a giveaway over on this post.

Here's my first weekly update to the NoImYoSeMo (November Improve Yourself Month).

Do the dishes and wipe down the counters in the kitchen every night before bed. I've been doing okay with this. It might not get done every night before bed, but we've been putting a lot of stuff away and straightening up, if not actually wiping everything down. Most of the dishes get done, unless they need to soak overnight in the sink or the dishwasher is full and running overnight.
Wipe down the bathroom counters every night. I'm changing this to wiping down the counters every morning before work, because what gets them the most messy is my doing my hair and makeup in the morning. Why have the counters clean only overnight? If I clean them before work, then they are clean most of the day.
Take vitamins every day. Check! (Gummy vitamins ROCK! I've never been so good about taking vitamins until these gummies came into my life.)
Floss every day. Check! This is one where having to be accountable here really helps, because I've almost gone to bed without flossing more than once this week.
Be better about keeping in touch with out-of-town friends. Haven't worked much towards this yet.
Go to the gym/workout 5X a week. Check! Even though it required me getting up early before work on Friday and super early on Saturday.
Actually bring my bags full of clothes to donate to Goodwill. Check! (Well, my friend picked it up and brought it for me as part of a charity drive thing, but the bag made it there and that's the important part.)
Donate my old suits. Not yet. I did some research online to try to find the most local place. I'd rather donate them to an organization that specifically requests suits, rather than Goodwill.
Come up with my holiday shopping list and budget. Not yet, although I'm thinking of some gift ideas.

I am generally not a morning exerciser. Of course, most races we run are held in the morning, but I've been up for at least an hour before the run, usually longer with travel time. But as far as actually rolling out bed, putting on gym clothes and sneakers, and going to the gym? Not so much. My body takes some time to loosen up in the morning, and I tend to feel sick for the rest of the day if I work too hard, probably because I am dehydrated from not having had anything to drink in about 8 hours.

This morning, my alarm went off at 7:10 so that I could roll out of bed, put on gym clothes and sneakers, and go downstairs to the gym. See, I've made it one of my NoImYoSeMo goals to work out 5 days a week. I missed Sunday and Monday, so that meant I had to work out every day, Tuesday through Saturday. Tonight, I'm going out to dinner for a friend's birthday, and because working out on a stomach full of Thai food pretty much isn't going to happen (or end well, anyway), I had to get up early this morning to get my workout in for the day.

It was fantastic.

Now, I didn't work out super hard... just a half hour on the elliptical and a five minute cooldown on the treadmill. I eased into my workout, letting my muscles warm up out of their slumber. But it gave me so much energy in the beginning of the day. I came back upstairs from the gym and was bouncing all over the apartment. So, lesson is, intense workout first thing in the morning = bad, relatively easy get-your-body-moving and blood-flowing workout in the morning = good.

Tomorrow, I have to get up early again for a workout, even earlier most likely, as I need to be out of the door by 8:30 or so, for our trip to the Punkin Chunkin... believe me, it is every bit as awesome as you would not expect it to be. (Heh.)

I am seriously considering buying some Fuggs from Old Navy.

I'm calling them Fuggs because, obviously, they are Fake Uggs, and frankly, they are kinda fugly. But I'm not considering purchasing them for fashion reasons... I'm thinking of getting them because my feet are the coldest feet in the history of the universe. I walk 3/4 of a mile to and from work each day and my feet are already turning into blocks of ice before I make it to my destination... and it is currently in the 50s. Literally, my toes have been dead white the past two days when I've gotten home, and it is only going to get worse once winter arrives and we have temps in the 20s, or below. (Brrrr!) I feel like these might actually keep my feet warm on my walk. I own snow boots, which I would occasionally wear last year in the actual snow, but which I felt looked sort of silly wearing when it was above 30 degrees and no snow was on the ground.

What do you think... are these boots too fugly? Should I get them anyway and avoid frostbite?

On a related note, does anyone have any tips for what tights to buy that will actually keep my legs warm in the winter and not run? (As the pair I wore did today, while I was at work... grrr.) I've been checking out some of the options from Sock Dreams (I've gotten socks there before), but I think they might be too casual. But, I really need something thick and warm, or else I am retiring all my skirts and dresses until next May.

It may be only four days into NaBloPoMo, but I am totally jumping on a free post idea from Beth and Chris. Following their lead, I'm posting a sample of my handwriting. Yes, it's in purple ink. I considered writing it in orange, but wasn't sure how well that would scan. What can I say... I like colored pens. It makes writing more fun.

I'm kind of annoyed by the slanty-ness of this, but that's what you get for my writing on a blank piece of paper instead of a ruled one. (For those curious, I prefer college rule to wide... wide rule makes me twitchy.) I can write a little neater than this if I'm writing a short note or card or something, but I figured the point of this was to be as honest as possible about my actual handwriting. This is also a little more on the cursive side -- my handwriting is usually a combination of print and cursive, although sometimes I write in all print to make it more uniform and neat. And like I mentioned, I do not like crossing things out, so if I am writing something and make a mistake towards the top of the page, I will often start over and rewrite it on a new page. (Totally wasting paper, yes I know.) If I've already written a significant amount, I will cross it out, very, very neatly. But those are issues for another day. :-)

I'd love to see your handwriting as well... if you decide to do a handwritten post, please leave a link here. Don't you think it's interesting that we all learned how to print and write in cursive exactly the same way back in grade school, but we all have totally unique styles now?

On Sunday night, Adam surprised me with tickets to last night's Bruce Springsteen concert. It was AMAZING. I definitely consider myself to be a Springsteen fan, although I'll admit that I really only know the hits (and there are many). Since they've been around for more than 35 years, they obviously have a LOT of songs in their repertoire, so I really only knew very well about a quarter of the songs they played last night, if that. But that didn't matter a bit... it was easily the most energetic, entertaining concert I've ever been too. I have NO idea how, at 60, he is able to perform with such high energy, for a 2.5 hour show, without a break. I mean, our feet got tired and we sat down for one or two of the slower songs. It was phenomenal. I highly recommend spending the $100 to see them perform live... or even better, have someone surprise you with tickets. :-)

(Hee... it just asked if I wanted to correct "NaBloPoMo" to "Abominable.")

I can't remember if I've actually done NaBloPoMo before. I'm pretty sure I haven't, because I usually go to visit my parents for Thanksgiving and wouldn't have taken my old laptop with me because it would have fallen to pieces on the trip. (By year 6 of its life, that laptop wasn't rating so high in the key category for a laptop -- portability. ) Anyway, I don't blog from their home computer because I'm too lazy to cover my trails, so now I'm positive I never decided to do NaBloPoMo before.

That's going to change this year, because I'm going to use NaBloPoMo as motivation to check off some of the items from my 101 in 1001 list:

14. Stay within Spark calories for the entire week, 4X. (I've done this once already.)
24. Post every day for a month. (The entire point of NaBloPoMo.)
25. Link a Flickr account to my website. (This is turning out to be more of a pain in the butt than I had expected. My version of MT is so outdated, I can't link it to Flickr, so I need to back up my whole site, upgrade to a more recent version of MT, and then hopefully link it up from there. For now, I am using the inferior Google Photos, which is fine for sharing albums, but not as nice and neat as posting photos to my blog. Until I get it linked up, you can see my Flickr photos here.)
26. Post 10-photo based entries. (I'm halfway there already.)
35. Update my address book. (Need to do this before it's holiday card season.)
70. Donate food to a food bank.

I also love Slynnro's NoImYoSeMo, which stands for November Improve Yourself Month. I'm going to add a few self-improvement goals for November that are not on my 101 in 1001 list:

Last night was the Fourth Annual Halloween Party, although the party has changed locations now that Adam and his roommates have moved out of their old house. I changed my costume idea twice in the past two weeks, from Robin Sparkles, to one of the girls from Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video, to...

the 2009 New York Mets. All of them. Well, all the injured players, which is pretty much the entire team.

And no, I'm not flashing some gang signs there... one player broke his pinky, while another (Alex Cora) broke both of his thumbs. I'm also missing a knee brace for my right knee (Carlos Beltran), which I borrowed later in the evening. That right there shows you how miserable this season was; at least I was able to get some entertainment value out of it.

(And for those of you who may be curious, in the World Series match up from hell, I am rooting against the Phillies, which does not mean I'm rooting for the Yankees.)

Here's a close-up:

In this photo, you can see that I've labeled the various player's injuries. The baseball fans at the party really appreciated the costume (as well as some stranger on the street, who said it was pretty funny).

Also making an appearance, Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer.

My cake pops from last year were requested, but I didn't feel like taking the time to painstakingly make those again. Instead, I made the cake balls (with the help of Carolyn, while Adam fled the apartment for the evening), which I think turned out pretty well.

Hope you all had a fun Halloween! Did you dress up? What was your costume?