Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Remember when I was being selfish and complaining about sharing? Well, rest assured, I no longer have any resentment about sharing that loaf of bread because I promptly baked another loaf for us to eat. And let me tell you--it was well worth it. Deliciously moist, satisfyingly sweet, and the added bonus of a delicious smelling house (although this time I baked it while Darrell was making a stir-fry for dinner, so it wasn't quite as strong because it was competing with those smells as well). Did I mention that it's super easy to prepare? Are you hungry yet? Are you ready to make this bread yet? Good. 

Cinnamon Swirl Bread
(original recipe found here)
(And please, be sure to check out the original link, because her picture is soooo much better than mine. I need to learn not to take pictures at 9:30 at night)


2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup buttermilk 
2 tsp vanilla


1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp softened butter


Preheat oven to 350*. Grease and flour bottom of a 9x5 loaf pan (totally just realized that I forgot to flour my pan--both times--which would probably explain why we had a devil of a time trying to get it out!). Combine the first group of ingredients (flour through vanilla) and beat three minutes at medium speed. Pour half the batter into the prepared pan. Mix together the topping (brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter) and sprinkle half over the batter. Pour on the rest of the batter and top with the remaining brown sugar mixture. Bake for about 45 minutes and let cool before removing from pan--if you can wait that long to slice into it!


Seriously, I'm not kidding when I say that you NEED to try this bread. It's sweet enough to satisfy a sweet tooth, but not so sweet that you can't enjoy a slice (or two) for breakfast. Make this today--no, wait--DOUBLE this recipe and make it today. You won't regret it!

Growing Pains

Yesterday I had a little discussion with my mom and sister that made me realize the awkward time of my life that I'm stuck in. Are you familiar with what I'm talking about? It's the "I'm married and on my own" period, yet the "I don't have kids of my own so holidays still take preference with and are celebrated with my parents". And because we live a mere seven miles from my parents, it sort of is expected that holidays are with them. Which I'm fine with. I get it. I fully support family time and getting together around holidays. And it'd be super easy if it were just Darrell and I coordinating schedules with my parents. But it's not. It's my sister. And her boyfriend. And my brother. And his girlfriend. And it doesn't matter if we celebrate Easter on Easter Sunday or two weeks before or two weeks after--you can bet your balls there will be a celebration. And EVERYONE will be there. No matter what.


Again, let me reiterate that I'm fine with family time. I'm fine with getting together over the holidays. But I'm also fine with having my own life--with my own family, even if it is just my husband at this point. And I don't know, maybe part of the reason that I'm feeling bitter about this is the fact that I've been with Darrell for 5 years, and in that time we have never celebrated an Easter or a Thanksgiving with HIS family (and he hasn't celebrated those holidays with them in over eight years). And I don't feel like that lessens our relationship with them or means that we don't have strong family values--it just means that we're all able to recognize that it just. doesn't. work. And no one stresses about it or gets upset about it, it's just the way things are for this period in our lives.


Which, for my family, is an unheard of concept. If we're doing something, we're ALL doing something. We WILL find a way. And ultimately, because this is not a perfect world, someone will have to give something up. And make a compromise. Whether it be my dad giving up a celebration at his alma mater for their 150th anniversary. Or my sister (and her boyfriend) giving up their time (and gas money) to drive down here for what might end up being a one-day trip. Or myself giving up a work shift that I committed to four months ago (and trying to find a sub for said shift).


I know that I'm exaggerating the severity of this issue. I'm well aware of that. And I know that because of that I'm coming down really hard on the whole "family holidays" thing. Which I don't (entirely) mean to be. I just wish that my family could acknowledge that family time is family time, whether it's Easter weekend or a random weekend in June. Because at some point, especially if Darrell and I move out East like we want to, the only way a family Easter will happen with my parents and my siblings is if they all fly out to NC. I know that sounds harsh and bitter and mean, but it's the truth. It's realistic. 


I'll say it one last time--especially for the benefit of any of my family that may be reading this. I really do enjoy family time. I think it's great and I think it's incredibly important. But I think that the benefits of family time can be lessened when some of the parties involved might be harboring resentment about having to give up something they wanted to do or feeling stressed about packing family time into an already full weekend. And like I said earlier, part of the reason I feel this way is probably a reflection of the person I married and the (little) time I spend with his family. Little though it may be, everyone knows nearly a year in advance when the time together is going to be, and everyone makes it a priority. It's not the "wait until less than a month beforehand and try to find a time that 'works' with everyone to squeeze it in" stuff that my family does. And yes, when it happens (and it does always manage to happen), family time with my family is still great. It's still a ton of fun. It's still creating lasting memories. But sometimes? It's just A LOT of work to coordinate. 


Disclaimer: Mom or Amanda, I know that if you are reading this that you are probably fuming right now. But I'm not intending this as a personal insult by any means; this is simply how I feel about the issue. Family time is always good and meaningful and important, even if it doesn't "happen" on the holidays. I know we don't necessarily agree with that, but that doesn't mean that I refuse to be cooperative when it comes to scheduling stuff. So please don't interpret this in that way. And I know that we will always find a way to make things work for everyone--but sometimes the process of getting there is not enjoyable for me. Especially when I feel like the two of you have already collaborated and found a weekend to celebrate Easter that would "work" and now want everyone else to try to make it work as well. And it seriously makes me feel like the bad guy when I'm the one with the unmovable conflict when the two of you already have the. entire. weekend. planned. 

Payback

This is apparently what I get for suggesting that we spend our free Sunday night playing Scrabble instead of laying on the couch watching a movie

Isn't my husband's vocabulary so charming? Not that I can really say much... Later in the game I wanted to play "wang", but apparently that doesn't count as a real word in the official Scrabble dictionary. Fail.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful...

Yes, that's right. I busted out frightful. From a Christmas carol. In March. You know why? It's freakin' snowing outside. And not like a "flurries blowing around in the wind" snow. Like, legit "on the ground and making the roads slippery" snow. Don't believe me? This is what I woke up to this morning.

This is one unhappy South Dakotan. And I'm the one who has lived here my whole life--Darrell probably thinks this is more ridiculous than I do! It's March 25th people--we should be worried about thunderstorms and flooding (which, by the way, had a thunderstorm earlier this week and it was awesome!), not snow storms and ice! Boo South Dakota. Old Man Winter has way overstayed his welcome. And temperatures are supposed to stay below freezing all weekend--which sucks because we have a date night planned for tonight and I was looking forward to breaking out my cute spring dresses--but not tonight! It's going to be the good ol' tights and boots that I've been stuck wearing ALL. WINTER. 


Can you tell I'm ready for spring to get here--and stay??

Fudgy Crinkles

I firmly believe that a nice, homemade baked good makes every situation better--or at least more bearable. So when one of my friends had a cat get out and not return earlier this week, fixing her a sweet treat was right up my alley. Plus I had recently stumbled across this super quick and delicious sounding recipe, and since I was short on time after work I knew this would be the perfect time to make it!

Fudgy Crinkles
(I've got to find the link for where I got this from--it's too good not to share!)


1 box Devils Food cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
Powdered sugar


Mix together the dry cake mix, two eggs, and canola oil. The dough will be fairly thick. Roll the dough into one inch balls and then coat with powdered sugar. (Don't be afraid to be generous with this--I ended up putting more on after I pulled them out because I had coated them too lightly!) Place the balls onto a greased cookie sheet and bake in a 350* preheated oven for 8 - 10 minutes (don't overbake!). Makes about two dozen.


That's it! Soooo easy. I had them mixed up and baked in less than 30 minutes. And don't be afraid to error on the side of underbaking--Darrell and I had one fresh out of the oven and it was quite gooey on the inside, which made me worry if I'd pulled them out too soon. But after they cooled completely they were nice and firm on the outside but still plenty soft on the inside. 


I'm excited to try these with other cake mixes--I'm thinking that using red velvet would make a easy and delicious Valentine's Day treat!

Vegetarian Flop

So as an effort to save money (and maybe be healthier), Darrell and I made the decision to eat meatless one night a week. We made it two weeks before something went way wrong with our plans. The first week we played it safe and made a pasta dish that we've had before (posted here with chicken omitted). This week we decided to make burritos using beans instead of meat. Seemed pretty straightforward. We even bought the beans dried instead of can because they were cheaper and we had time to soak them overnight and whatnot. Now, mind you, neither of us have ever cooked with dried beans before, so we were totally reliant on the directions on the bag. Which, we found out later, sucked. We soaked our beans, we rinsed our beans, we cooked our beans--for AN HOUR longer than it said it would take. And they still weren't very soft. But at that point we were so hungry that we didn't care. And because the beans took so long, the other elements of our burrito were sketchy as well. We tried making a queso sauce like the one at Qdoba, and it came out alright at first, but then as we had to keep it warm while waiting for the beans to finish it started to get really thick. So we added some milk to thin it out, which gave it this weird grainy texture. Major boo. We also made some cilantro lime rice, but it got weirdly mushy and not fluffy at all (which, truthfully, I'm not sure if it was from the addition of the lime juice or the sitting out on the stove, but whatever). When it was all said and done it wasn't inedible by any means, and for a vegetarian meal I was pleasantly full... But we both thought that it had such great potential that we were disappointed by the outcome. This will be one we'll have to try again--once we've mastered those darn dried beans.

Sharing isn't Fun

So I have a cousin who got into a really bad car accident a few months ago and he is just now coming home from the hospital (and has to begin oodles of rehab). My mom is heading out to visit him today, so I decided to send along a little home-baked goodie with her. Terrible idea. The recipe for Cinnamon Swirl bread that I found was painful to make--it smelled so good the entire time and killed me that we had to give it away. Had Darrell not been waiting with dinner on the table I may have actually lifted the bowl to my face to make sure it was completely licked clean. I even got a phone call from my mom after I dropped it off asking why I hadn't dropped off an extra loaf from her because it smelled so good that it was making her want to cut into it. 


Needless to say this bread is making it onto my "to cook" list SOON--and you can't bet I won't be sharing it if it's half as good as it smells!

Cheesecake Bites

If you like cheesecake you have got to try these little cheesecake bites. They are wonderfully delicious--and you'll be glad that they are cut into bite-sized pieces, because they are scrumptiously sweet. I made them for a party my mom hosted (like two weeks ago...so what if I'm a little behind), and they were a big hit. Aside from the usual tediousness of a cheesecake (allowing plenty of time for cooling), they were pretty simple to make. Definitely something I'm going to be making again--and the variations are endless (I'm already thinking mint Oreo's with green cheesecake and a white chocolate/mint glaze for St. Patty's Day next year... Yum!)


Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake Bites
(adapted from landolakes.com)


1 1/4 cup crushed Oreos (or other cookie)
1/4 cup butter melted


20 caramels, unwrapped
2 tbsp half and half
1/3 cup chopped pecans, toasted (I omitted these)
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sour cream


Melted chocolate for drizzling


Heat oven to 350*. Line an 8x8 square pan with a double thickness of aluminum foil, extending over the edge of pan for handles. Spray foil with non-stick cooking spray. Combine crushed oreos and butter and press into the bottom of the prepared pan (I only had a 9x9 pan so I had to increase the amount of crust in order to cover the entire bottom of the pan).


Combine caramels and half and half in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high one minute, and continue microwaving for 30 second intervals until smooth. Pour over crust in pan (it will be a thin layer). Top with pecans. Refrigerate while preparing cream cheese mixture.


Combine cream cheese and sugar in large bowl and beat at medium speed until creamy, scraping the sides frequently. Add the egg and vanilla, beating until just combined. Stir in the sour cream. Pour over the caramel/pecan mixture. 


Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until just set 2 inches from the edge of the pan (the top may start to brown in places). Cool on wire rack two hours; loosely cover and refrigerate 4 hours more. Lift cheesecake from pan using foil ends. Cut into 36 squares. Drizzle with melted chocolate and enjoy!


If you happen to check out the Land o Lakes website for this recipe you'll notice that they have the cheesecake bites completely covered in chocolate. While I'm sure that tastes delicious, I wanted to do something that would be a little bit easier, not quite as sweet, and still allow people to see what they were about to eat. Like I said, this recipe is time consuming because of the amount of cooling that it needs to go through, but aside from that it's pretty easy to put together. And they look pretty impressive when you're done. 


I would be remiss if I logged out without covering the details of this weekend, although to protect my dignity it won't be a full disclosure. Let's just say that my Saturday evening started like this

And ended like this

Enough said

Spring!

This week has really made me feel like spring is actually here! It's such a wonderful feeling. Yesterday Darrell and I saw a robin in our yard and today there were birds chirping as I walked into school; the sun has been out and temperatures are above 40; and, thanks to daylight savings time (although no thanks for taking away an hour of my sleep) the sun is out longer! Sigh. Spring is my favorite.

The only issue that I'm currently having is this season of spring is putting me into a dessert pickle. You see, we're having company tomorrow, and have decided that we will bust out our grill for the first time this year. Which I'm totally excited about... But I'm totally stuck on what to do for dessert. It's still early enough in spring that any sort of fresh berry is RIDICULOUSLY expensive, so any crisp/cobbler is out. But it's too nice to do a "comfort food" pie (although, ironically, I have a pumpkin pie in the oven as I'm writing this. But it's for a party tonight--by request of the host. And who am I to say no to that?). Plus, I don't want something that makes a lot of leftovers, which eliminates most any cake--with the exception of a cheesecake. But I don't have the time to make a cheesecake tonight, and they need to season for at least 12 hours before serving. And I just made cookies last night, and besides, I'd want something a little nicer than that anyway.... Excuse after excuse, right? I've talked my way out of every potential recipe I've stumbled across--and this isn't like me! I love excuses to bake! Maybe I'll just go against my "plan ahead" side and wait until tomorrow.... Hopefully something will sound better then. But for now, I must clean. And clean. And then clean some more. It's a good thing we have company periodically or our house would rarely get deep cleaned :-)

Happy Weekend!

A Wee Bit O'Luck to You

Well, since it's actually St. Patrick's Day I figured that it was about time that I update about our last weekend since that was when we celebrated the grand occasion! (Don't be fooled, that's really just a cover, it's taken me this long to get the update posted because I've been feeling downright miserable from my cold and haven't been in the mood. But I'm drug free and feeling fine today!)


Saturday morning started off with the 5K which was a little awful. The wind was gusting up to 30 mph, and air temps were below freezing--but the sun did decide to come out, as did plenty of people in their St. Patty's gear, so things at least seemed enjoyable and festive. The course itself wasn't terrible--a down and back course that (like any route in SD) was pretty well exposed so there was no hiding from the wind. It was also run along the bike trails for a portion of it, which wasn't terrible in theory, but the bottleneck didn't really get a chance to spread out before the course narrowed down to four people wide (at its narrowest), and with snow (and ice!) on both sides of the path passing was a little dicey at times. Not to mention the fact that once people starting making it past the halfway point there was traffic going in both directions. But, in spite of it all, I still came out with a time that I was happy with, especially considering the conditions (and the fact that I woke up with a cold that morning). I finished in 30:19, which was a solid three minute improvement from my last 5K. Not the sub-30 mark that I was hoping for, but I did manage to eek out an average pace of 9:48, so I was pretty pleased with that. 

Our whole clan pre race: My mom, myself, my sister, her boyfriend, Darrell, and my dad

Darrell and I post race

After the 5K we headed to the El Riad Shrine Mosque to partake in their festivities (Saturday was the "unofficial" St. Patty's Day party in Sioux Falls--following the road races there was a parade and other Irish events going on at area locations). My brother had organized a beer pong tournament, so his girlfriend and I decided to pair up and take on the competition. We ended up being the Cinderella team of pool play--we went undefeated for our three games, all of which were against teams of guys. Unfortunately we choked in the tournament bracket, but we still had fun and even managed to get a picture with one of the teams we beat (no hard feelings here!)

With Team Voltron--unfortunately (or maybe intentionally) our photographer didn't capture the full spectacularness of this team--they are definitely sporting what I can only assume is running shorts from the women's department. Talk about a distraction! 

Sadly enough for me, rehydrating after a 5K with green beer, plus having a cold, equals a massive headache and an early night. I had to leave the party shortly after six because my head was throbbing to the point where it literally hurt to stand. Next year I'll just have to remember to drink tons of water first before switching to beer!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Sick

I apologize for the absence in blogging--our weekend was crazy busy, which was made worse by the fact that I came down with a cold at the beginning of it. I'm still struggling with it (thank goodness for DayQuil), and since I want to give my race and weekend recap all the glory they deserve I'm going to hold off on blogging about them. Because miserable Jess = miserable blogging. And to make matters worse, it's actually starting to feel like spring outside. Normally I'd be ecstatic about that, but when I'm holed up inside going through box after box of tissues it's hard to care too much about the weather. Although I'd be lying if I said I was completely un-excited about it--I just wish I could get out and enjoy it!

Driveway Update

Remeber this wonderfulness that we came home to on February 21st? Well, it's been nearly three weeks and I can happily say that it's mostly gone. With very little back-breaking effort from us. Today's high was supposed to be close to 50, and since I had the day off of work I went outside around 10 for about fifteen minutes just to break up some of the bigger pieces that were still left and scrape off some of the top layer of slush and then let the sun work it's magic. And it worked it wonderfully. We still have a little bit of a limp going into and out of our driveway, but that's because that part of our house is NEVER in the sun. But it's supposed to be warm again a few days next week, so hopefully it'll go away on it's own.

The bigger issue now has become the walkway into our house. One of our downspouts drains right on the seam of the front walk and driveway, and it's also an area that receives very little sunlight, so every day that sun melts snow and ice off our roof it flows down onto the layer upon layer of ice already at the bottom of the downspout and freezes pretty quickly. I'm convinced we're going to need some ice melt (or serious manual labor) to get that stuff cleared away--at least if we want it gone before June!

Oh, and don't get fooled into thinking that tomorrow is going to be a good day for the 5K because it's been nice today. South Dakota doesn't work like that. Today's high was 48; tomorrow's is 28. How does that happen you ask? 35-40 mph winds out of the north--which aren't supposed to die down until tomorrow afternoon. AFTER the 5K. Super excited. My expectations for my time keep getting lower and lower.... I think I'm going to have to run another one soon and redeem myself. Otherwise I'll feel like all my training was for naught.

Happy Weekend!

Fancy Tuesday

Darrell and I don't usually have evenings with nothing going on. In fact, we never have evenings with nothing going on. And while last night was no exception, we were actually able to cook dinner together, plus the other things we had going on weren't on any set schedule, so we were able to relax and do something a little nicer than we usually do. It started out simple enough--I've been trying to get better about purchasing produce that is seasonally available and subsequently well priced, and this week that particular item was cauliflower. Now, as the world's pickiest eater growing up, I had never touched cauliflower a day in my life before last night. But I found a recipe for roasting it that sounded good (despite my not knowing what cauliflower actually tasted like), so we decided to go ahead and give it a whirl. Darrell's been on a balsamic vinegar kick lately, plus he really thought a balsamic-y red meat would go well with the cauliflower. We dug through our recipe collection and came up with a lamb recipe that we made to celebrate our first year of dating, but haven't ever gone back to since because lamb is a little pricy. So we decided to try the same recipe on a t-bone steak (at least a little bit cheaper...)


The end result? A pretty spiffy meal if I do say so myself. I definitely felt like it was a special occasion chomping down on this meal on a Tuesday night.

I don't have the recipe that we used for the steak, but I will definitely share the cauliflower recipe. Like I said, I've never made it before, so I really don't have anything to compare it to, but I thought it was good enough that we're doing it again tomorrow!


Garlic Roasted Cauliflower
(discovered here, slightly modified)


2 garlic cloves, minced
1 head of cauliflower, trimmed and cut into florets
3 tbsp olive oil, divided
salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
3 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
2 tbsp lemon juice


Preheat the oven to 450*. In a large bowl, toss the cauliflower with two tbsp olive oil, garlic, and a few generous shakes of salt and pepper. Spread onto a baking sheet and roast 20-25 minutes, tossing twice, until cauliflower is tender. Scrape everything (any juices included) back into the large bowl. Add the remaining tbsp oil, pine nuts, parsley, and lemon juice; toss until well coated. Season with additional salt and pepper if necessary. 


I will say that the easiest way to ruin a nice dinner and a relaxing evening is to try to do four loads of laundry. Especially when one of those loads is whites that need to be bleached--which apparently takes 30 minutes longer in the wash cycle (at least when it is on the "whitest whites" setting). Definitely made for a little bit of a late night, but at the end of it I got all my work done, we got all our laundry done (and the beds remade), and our bellies were perfectly content the whole time. Still a successful evening in my book.

Bruschetta

Yum. Doesn't that look so good? It's making me hungry just looking at it, and it's only 8:30 in the morning. We've both had bruschetta before, and realize that it's fairly simple to throw together, but for some reason we've never done it before. We modeled our recipe after the one found here; we liked that it uses grape tomatoes instead of just tomato slices because we buy grape tomatoes for recipes occasionally but never seem to use all of them before they go bad. Wasted tomatoes we will have no more though, now that we have this recipe.

I don't actually have exact measurements to give you; the website I borrowed the recipe from made enough bruschetta to feed four people, and we certainly didn't need that much, so we just combined the ingredients in reasonable proportions for our tastes. To start we tossed the grape tomatoes (cut into smaller pieces) with olive oil, fresh chopped basil, minced garlic, balsamic vinegar, salt, and freshly ground pepper. Then we spread the tomato mixture on to pieces of French bread and topped with fresh mozzarella. To give the bread a little crisp and melt the mozzarella we baked them in a 350* oven for 8-10 minutes. So delish. I will say, though, French bread maybe wasn't the best choice--when we put the tomatoes on the bread the juices that they were tossed in soaked right through and made it really hard to eat. Of course, it also gave the bread really good flavor, so it wasn't a total loss. I think next time, though, we'll try it on ciabatta bread like the recipe calls for. 


Enjoy!

Wonderful Weekend

Monday was a very unwelcome guest at our house this morning. We both had nice, relaxing weekends (albeit we weren't together for most of it), and capped it off we a nice evening together on Sunday night. I'm a sucker for fresh produce, so when we saw strawberries on sale while we were grocery shopping I just knew we had to get some. Then we subsequently planned our entire evening around these strawberries. The original idea was to do chocolate covered strawberries, so we knew we needed a lighter dinner. Cue bruschetta. So delicious. Then Darrell decided that we also needed to finish off the vanilla ice cream in our freezer, so the strawberries went under the chopper, got drizzled with some chocolate, and topped off our ice cream (actually, there may have been more strawberries than ice cream. Whoops). It was divine. I didn't think to get a picture of our concoction (guess we'll just have to make it again...), but we also used our laid-back evening as a chance to cross another item off our 101 in 1001 list. Since we weren't really doing a sit-down dinner we didn't want to open a bottle of wine (especially since most all we have is heavy reds), and we just weren't in a beer mood, so out came our drink mixer. Darrell had the foresight to pick up some grenadine at the store, so without any difficultly we were able to whip up a Tequila Sunrise.

To be completely honest, I wasn't completely blown away by this drink--Darrell has concocted a few specialized drinks of his own which I definitely think are better. But it was still a good way to close out the night, and now we've officially made a drink listed on our mixer (despite the fact that it was one of the first gifts I bought Darrell when he got his first apartment over three years ago).


I do promise to have some recipes coming up in the next few days; I've got two or three of them ready to go but just don't have the time to get to them today!

Redemption

How'd you all like my negative Nancy rant this morning? Pretty spectacular, huh? I figured I should redeem myself a little bit since I'm actually in a fairly good mood today, what with it being Friday and all. Plus, I actually have exciting plans for the weekend! Not only do I get to visit one of my good friends who has the cutest baby ever (hopefully I'll remember to take my camera!), but I also get to make a dent in my "to cook" list because I'm helping my mom out with some food for a party she's having. And when I say dent, I really mean an unnoticeable scratch--somehow my list grew to 241 recipes long! And it's pretty easy to tell what I prefer cooking the most--over one-third of the recipes are sweets! So as long as nothing is a major disaster (although that might be fun to write about too...) you can look forward to some recipes (and pictures!) next week.


Speaking of pictures, I feel like it's been awhile since I've posted one. So I'll commemorate another item that we checked off of our "101 in 1001" list--here we are last fall at a Husker's game!

Winter Blues

I am seriously done with winter. Seriously. I'm done with the cold, done with the snow, done with the piercing winds the penetrate to your bones no matter what you are wearing (which, while we're on the topic, clothing is a whole beast of an issue right now. I'm sick of wearing sweaters and warm clothes. My long johns should be retired by now. The only clothes that sounded cute this morning were my tees--which worn alone would cause me to freeze and I've already exhausted all my cardigans over the course of this week). I'm done with it all. Unfortunately, it's not done with us. 


Forecast for early next week? A "major storm system" which has the potential to bring twelve more inches of snow. TWELVE. That's a whole additional foot. And high winds. And possibly freezing rain and sleet. And we still have 2-3 inches of ice on our driveway from the last storm. I don't want to deal with this. And I especially don't want to run a 5K on Saturday through all of it (although a 5K in snowshoes might be interesting...)


I'm ready to start packing and move south this weekend... Who's with me?

5K Update

Well, we're a week and a half away from the big race, so I figured it was time for an update about how the training was going. I known I've thrown a few snippets in here and there, but since I have nothing else to talk about (yes, our lives are THAT exciting), I figured to dedicate a whole post to my training.


And really, it's not been that spectacular. Sometime about seven/eight weeks ago I came up with a plan to follow, with the logic that I'd be more likely to stick to my workouts if I made them with a consideration of my schedule (squeezing in a three mile run when I work a twelve-hour shift is just a recipe for disaster--or skipping a workout). And for the most part, that held true. I've been pretty good about getting long runs in when I scheduled them, and cross-training days have fit in nicely. Sometimes my cross-training ends up being a walk with Darrell... But at least it's something. However, while I've been sticking to my running pretty well, the whole lifting thing totally fell by the wayside. It's not that I don't enjoy lifting, but lately I've been rushed at the gym, and since I'm getting ready for a 5K running has trumped lifting. And I know it's good to do both, and I always mean to do some free weights when I get home... But it doesn't happen. I may have to re-evaluate that aspect of my training plan if I embark on another road race. 


The running, though, has been pretty decent. I can definitely notice a difference in my comfort level while running. And maybe that's partially because I've become more comfortable running on a treadmill, but whatever it is, I'll take it. I even ran an 8:40 mile yesterday and then continued to run for another mile (at something resembling 9:30 pace). So those are numbers that have been really encouraging to see, even if I can't yet maintain them for as long as I'd like. I keep telling myself that it'll be easier to keep a quicker pace at the actual race because I'll be outside and running with other people, but who knows. And I've talked to some people who did the race last year and they said the course was still partially covered in slush and mud, so that'll definitely help me run faster. The weather for race day sounds fairly decent, although we're supposed to get another bout of "wintery mix" between now and then, so it looks like I'll be on a treadmill up until race day, which isn't ideal but will work. 


My unofficial "goal"? Finish in under 30 minutes. I know that sounds fairly doable, but when Darrell and I ran a 5K on our honeymoon, it took me over 33 minutes to complete. I blamed it on the hills and higher elevation (we were in the foothills of the Appalachians in NC), but really, I didn't hardly train for it. So I'm hoping that by training I can knock at least three minutes off. And who knows, maybe if it goes well I'll be ready to try my hand at a 10K!!