thanksgiving

I thought the breakfast potatoes I made last weekend were very colorful, so I had to take a picture. They're in our cast iron skillet, which for the most part, has been used to make breakfast potatoes.


Fall foods! Mmm, acorn squash and sweet potatoes.


My grandma while finishing cutting up the turkey or getting the stuffing ready. Something food related.


I was at a party last weekend and spent at least 30 minutes listening to other people talk about their dogs. And what classes they were going to put their dogs in for socializing. It was so boring! Am I really at the point in my life where I go to parties and people spend all their time talking about their dogs? I would never be one of those people.

... And then I went to Thanksgiving and spent the whole time taking pictures and videos of my brother's dog.



Oscar is so cute though! I like hearing about Oscar because I know him and his cuteness. Other dogs are weird, though.

Andrew and I set up our Christmas decorations! It took a time consuming 30 minutes, including rearranging the furniture.


Our tree is very red.

The end! Time to go to the gym. I am running and Andrew is swimming. I wish I had a swimsuit for lane swimming as opposed to going to the beach, but a new one is in the plan for some of my Christmas money.

honduras

This is where I'm going when I visit Kari in Honduras in January. Yes!

the most lopsided haircut ever!

Pictures! Huzzah!

These are the two pictures I took while camping before my camera battery died:



Get an idea of how cold it was? COLD! The temperature the first night was only 5 or 6 degrees warmer than it is now (33 now, 38 the first night. 48 most of Saturday). That's my extended family: Andrew, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, Andrew's two cousins (5 and 3) and his uncle. Andrew and I are planning a trip to the North Shore with some friends in February but this time we're going to go the cabin route. Maybe my battery won't die that weekend and I can actually show you something!

This week's recipes:



Autumn mac and cheese! It had butternut squash and apples roasted in it. My oven did something weird for the second half of the recipe; it was like it stopped heating. At least everything in the dish was pre-cooked. It just needed to congeal together for autumny goodness. See how there's still unmelted cheese on top?

I'm going to try it again at some point. I told Andrew today that I want to eat as much squash as possible before it goes out of season!


I made some venison and black bean chili with venison from my grandparents. It was just ok - maybe since I made some chili verde a few weeks that was utterly fantastic, every chili in comparison is a little lacking. This picture isn't particularly appetizing, but it was a good solid chili. I forgot to take a picture of it before eating!


I got a haircut last Friday that was a disaster! I had to go back and have the dude even it out for me since there was such a large chunk out of the right side. It was noticeably uneven. The end result ended up being shorter than I would have liked, but the good thing about short is that it'll aways grow out. It's much shorter on the sides than I've had it before, making it less of a bob. It's still pretty cute though. In this picture it's a little wet and unstyled after my post-workout shower.

All right, time to go and do some laundry. I just handwashed all my workout clothes and then realized I should have just thrown it in with all the rest of the laundry - oh well!

Before I go: Extra bonus points to the first person who can name the building in the painting on the right in my haircut picture!

here we go!

Speaking of goal setting...

I'm kind of psyched to participate in Amanda's Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge at Run to the Finish. I've been reading her blog for a few months now and I've enjoyed reading her insights - plus who doesn't like her gratitude journal at the end of all her posts?


I've been on and off with the running for the past few months/weeks. I stopped working at the Y and my rental company's gym closed (rats!), it was too hot for me to run outside (lazy!), I get busy with work (excuses!), etc.

But if I really want to run the Cellcom half marathon in May, I need to start being consistent about building a base before starting increasing my distance. That goes back to tracking my workouts, making the time to get to the gym and sticking with my schedule. Earlier this week, Andrew and I went to the YWCA to redeem our year family membership that I won awhile back. I'm primed for committing to half marathon training - consistent access to a gym, a goal to work towards, a regular schedule I can plan around. I think the HBBC will be exactly the type of additional motivation I need to stay on track.

Mom - whatcha thinking? I bet I can get more points than you!


In the words of Mario... here we go!

80 book update - two months to go!

60 book update! Well, I've bumped it up to 80 books in 2010. Here are the books from October:

65. The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
66. Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson
67. Salvation City, Sigrid Nunez
68. The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson
69. Dirty Sexy Politics, Meghan McCain
70. Every Last One, Anna Quindlen
71. Heat Wave, Richard Castle
72. Between Two Worlds, Roxana Saberi
73. Work Hard. Be Nice, Jay Mathews
74. Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha

I really liked The Ghost Map; it's a great nonfiction book about epidemiology and cholera. Makes those stories about cholera in Haiti seem even more pointless - we know how cholera spreads and how to survive it. The only reason people are dying is because of poverty. Plain and simple.

Also liked the Stieg Larsson books. I'm waiting on the last one... hopefully soon! I'm near the top on the waiting list. Every Last One was surprisingly good, also.

I actually really like the majority of the books I read last month. I won't say which one I liked the least because that would be singling it out. It'd be a hard pick; I really like most of them and was indifferent bordering on slight liking for the rest.

So I adjusted my goal from 60 books in 2010 to 80 (I hit 60 on August 31, fyi). I think I'm going to have to adjust it again, just to keep it realistic. I'm already halfway done with book 75, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Or is it tracking now? Am I not motivated by a goal, but has the goal helped form a year-long habit? I mean, I've always been a big reader, but each year I read a little more than the year before. 2007 - 47; 2008 - 53; 2009 - 63; 2010 - upwards of 75. I'd say not being a student, riding the bus, and close proximity to a library have all contributed to this being a banner year in the 50 book challenge.

If only I had this kind of foresight and discipline in all my other goal setting...