the chicken and i

Step one: Get a chicken.



Step two: Cut the chicken apart.


Step three: Make stuff from the chicken for later.


Step four: Eat stuff from the chicken now.


Step five: Repeat.

sam gets excited about popcorn

One of Sam's favorite foods is popcorn.



You'll notice he body-checks me at 21 seconds and Andrew at 27 seconds.

the fall closet purge

Purge of 2011 update:

Still have half a bottle of buffalo sauce in my fridge. I gotta use that up, asap. I did, however, use up all the little mini shampoo bottles that I've had for years. Success! I'm slogging through using up the bars of soap, which doesn't go quite so fast.

Another fun purge was getting rid of all my pants.

Seriously, I got rid of every pair of jeans I own. They either 1: didn't fit me or 2: had holes in them or 3: didn't fit me AND had holes in them. After some bargain shopping, sister's closet shopping and regular shopping, I now have 3 pairs of non-holey jeans that all fit. A miracle! (Don't worry, Kari, I only borrowed one pair of jeans because yours are usually too short for me. I think they're too big for you now anyway.)

I also purged some dress pants I really liked. They're black with blue pinstripes that I found on sale at Old Navy. I love the blue pinstripes, but they were just way too baggy and my legs were drowning in all the fabric. My momma did buy me some new pinstripe pants when I was home this weekend, so huzzah for that!

So we'll be making a Goodwill trip in the near future and hopefully getting rid of some junk that's been riding around in Andrew's trunk for months. Let's see if I can convince him to part with the 1950's gas camping grill that he got while cleaning out his grandparent's old house. We've had it for 18 months, never used it (just like his grandparents never used it) and it has just sat around in our apartment and then in his trunk. I say the statute of limitations is up and if we haven't used it yet, we're not going to use it in the future.

We did go to Green Bay this past weekend, which was fun and relaxing. The dogs played around a ton and I think Sam is still recovering from the weekend. I forgot to bring my camera so there are no pictures, unfortunately. Up for this weekend: Andrew's probably going to the Ren Fest with his brother and I'm hitting up a beer fest with Amy.

I did take some pictures of Sam being goofy, but what's different about that?






One of these days, I'm going to stop thinking everything he does is picture-worthy, but unfortunately for you, that day hasn't happened yet.

Bacher out.

i was running.

I went out for a long run this morning, aiming for 11 miles. It went well; I felt pretty consistent through most of it. I went down to the Midtown Greenway, connected to the Cedar Lake Trail, (which is quickly become one of my favorite running paths), ran along the river, went past Gold Medal park and the Guthrie, then headed back south to my apartment. The scenery is great - you run through woods, through prairies, through urban areas, along a river and over a bridge. Nearly everything you can think of for scenery.

After crossing the river to Northeast, I was chugging along on the path next to the river and there were a lot more people than usual in the area. It seems they were having a 5k race that morning. Which is all fine and dandy, until I realize that the starting line of the race was in my path and the race route went over the river on the Stone Arch Bridge, which was where I wanted to cross back. As I get close to the bridge and the crowd of people, I hear "We're about to begin! One minute until the start of the race!" So I join this race for the first quarter mile across the bridge, then peeled off in the opposite direction to run up a really, big-ass hill.

Other things I've seen while running: A bike accident with an ambulance team, wedding photography, a marching band playing Lady Gaga before the Pride parade, countless crowds for Twins games, some middle aged dude who yelled "Yeah! Yale!" as I wore my Forestry sweatshirt.

Tuesday I took Sam out for his very first run with me. He did very well and wasn't too distracted by squirrels and birds. I took a water bottle to give him water while we ran, which helped him cool down. We did 2.6 miles (including some water breaks) and he was definitely into it. He was speeding up during the last quarter mile to the point where I was sprinting to keep up. I could feel it the next day; it was definitely a good speedy run. I think Sam liked it; after we were done he had lots of energy - almost like his own runner's high - and then he crashed and was tired, tired, tired. We're going to go again on Monday.

The only new picture I have is of a scratch under his eye. He got it from the dog park yesterday; a couple of dogs were rough-housing around with him and one must have got him with their teeth. Sam seems to be fine, so I'm not worried.


It's that spot underneath his right eye. He wouldn't sit still for a picture.

Bacher out.

state parking it

We went up north yesterday for a day trip to hike around in some woods and visit all the finery Duluth has to offer. It was pretty fun hiking around in the woods; the paths along the river are very hilly and actually look more like hiking than walking along a 10 foot wide grass path in the woods (like some of the other trails at the state park... but they're used for cross country skiing in the winter so they have different needs than the hilly trails).



The first orange leaves I've seen this fall! I was excited.

I was trying to figure out why there was blood by my temple; apparently I squashed and killed a mosquito and Andrew helped me get it out of my hair. Family grooming time!

Sam in the car on the way to the state park.

My tired puppy (from a different day).

Sam sitting on Andrew's lap. We think he had a stomachache from licking out the peanut butter jar this morning.

Fajitas from Friday night. We had a lot of peppers from the farmers market that were threatening to go bad, so fajitas seemed like a good idea.

Frittata for breakfast this morning - pretty good, but I threw in a bunch of veggies to use them up and it made it a super veggie frittata. I think next time I'll focus on less veggies but a stronger flavor combination (as opposed to everything but the kitchen sink).

The end. Bacher out.