Livin' the Dream in Lima

Despite my less than stellar dinner choices last night , this morning's race went off without a hitch! Yes, I lined up in the "sprint" category. Not sure I was really sprinting, but I'll take it. The weather was perfect - 50's, little to no wind. I was a little bummed by the "rain" I heard when I woke up, but turns out that was just my parents' pond. No rain. Happy day! My mom & I headed over around 6:45am for a 7:30am start. She walked/ran the 2-mile portion of the race. After a quick restroom trip, I got my 10 minute warm-up in, did some leg swings and was ready to go!  Looking all sorts of awkward waiting for the race to start. I had never really "raced" a 10km, so I wasn't sure what to expect. My friend Alissa raced the 10km in track, and she always said that first 3 miles are so so easy and then all of a sudden you feel like death. Super. I went out with the goal of hitting 6:45-6:50 miles, shooting for sub-...

This afternoon my Business Man and I packed up our bags and are headed west to make the 6-hour trek home. We didn’t quite leave the Bean Town at the time we originally intended, so it’s gonna be a late night. (I’m currently typing this in the car in Microsoft Word. If only we had such fancy things as iPads or wireless cards... sigh.) Road trips are pretty fun… this one has been especially so. My Business Man was gone on a business trip pretty much all of last week so we’ve had some forced QT here in the car. Nothing says “I love you” like belting your guts out to Lady Gaga together. Not that we know her songs by heart or anything. Anyways, we decided to drive a ways before trying to stop for dinner. Ya know, to break up the drive. I got to drive first which meant I got to pick where we stopped. So, I’m thinking it needs to be semi-healthy, since I’m racing a 10km tomorrow morning, bright & early. So we found a Quizno’s and I was very excited! Love Quizno’s! yay Quiz...

I really need to come up with a good name for this series of pumpkin recipes. Last week I called it "Pumpkin Power Thursday"... so lame. This week, just "Pumpkin Thursday." Where oh where are all my creative juices? There's just no good descriptive word that starts with a P! Precious pumpkin? Pitiful pumpkin? Plentiful pumpkin? If you can thing of anything, help a girl out. Anyways, this week's pumpkin recipe is a wonderful breakfast recipe. It just so happens that tomorrow is my "donut day" for the year at work. Every Friday, one of the teachers brings in donuts/bagels/some sort of breakfast for everyone to enjoy. Makes Friday a little extra special. (Aside from the fact that it's the last day before 2 entire days of freedom from whining teenagers! But I do love those kids, I really do.) Night time pictures = no natural lighting! Boo for dark pictures. Since I've had pumpkin on the brain, I thought I'd do some pumpkin baking f...

No, not Christmas. Not yet. (But only 103 days!) But Cross Country season! I might have mentioned it before, but I help out with my high school's cross country team by running with the girls at practice a couple times a week. Today was their first home meet! The home course conveniently happens to be located at the park literally 3 blocks from my house.  Beautiful! And this course is HILLY. Two 1.5 mile loops. With two major hills in each loop, plus a few more rollers. Don't you just want to sprint up this hill? The pic doesn't even do it justice. It's a lot worse in real life. It's tough. Most of the kids run 2-3 minutes slower on this course than others. I'm not gonna lie, I was glad I wasn't racing today. :) There is a man who organizes all the meets that take place at this park - and he goes all out. American flags and orange cones line the entire course. The whole course is striped with white paint. For just 38 kids who raced today...

So I've been feeling pretty domestic this weekend. Trying to be like the domestic queen, Martha.  It all started Friday night with some homemade pizza . Like really homemade - even the crust. In the past I've tried making homemade pizza, and it was always just so-so. The crust always seemed soggy. Well, I tried this method from Annie's Eats, and it makes the best, doughy, chewy, crispy pizza crust ever. The trick is placing the dough directly on the 500*F pizza stone, that way it starts cooking immediately. We topped it with a garlic-butter sauce, chicken, tomatoes, mozzarella, and fresh basil. Yum. I just got done eating the leftovers and they were just as tasty. The domesticity continued with some crafty time . Crafts + Lifetime Movie Channel = one rockin' Saturday night. I might have even enjoyed a few Diet Dews. (Shhh... don't tell.) All ready to go.  I saw an autumn wreath on Pinterest , and immediately fell in love. I just had to make it....

So if you've been around for awhile, you might remember a challenge I did in December. I baked a different Christmas cookie every day for 25 days. (See days 1-25 here .) It was awesome. I think it's about time for another challenge. But not so crazy as the last. If you have been around me at any point during the season of autumn, you must know my love for pumpkin. I shared with you the joy of my favorite pumpkin yogurt earlier this week. I also have a deep love for pumpkin spice lattes. Oh man, pumpkin spice lattes.  Would you believe that my Business Man got his first pumpkin spice latte this week without me? Here's how it went down - Business Man starts to leave the house at 7:30am for an 8:00am meeting. I thought it was kinda early, and said something to the effect of, "Aren't you leaving kind of early?" He told me that it takes a long time to get all the way across town. Okay, that makes sense. And he likes to get places early. Whereas I'm fine...