Friday Things

After my post earlier this week about the awesome online community of runners, Sue Gelber at Outside the Comfort Zone posted How Twitter Made Me A Better Runner.  I agree one hundred percent.  This is one of the reasons I adore Twitter and spend WAY less time on Facebook.  I still love it for keeping up with family, friends and PICTURES!  But, Twitter is easily customized to my interests and anything slightly offensive or annoying is limited to 140 characters and can be quickly glossed over - unlike all the advertising and paragraph long rants (on all sorts of topics, not just the election) some people feel the need to post on Facebook, as if it's their own personal soapbox instead of a way to connect with others.  Well, I think I've already made my feelings about Facebook clear - moving on...

This week I tried making oatmeal a la Sarah OUaL (her post here) and, lo, I have reached a new breakfast nirvana.  The secret? A frozen banana.  Genius.  Especially good with a dollop of Justin's chocolate hazelnut butter.  NOM.  Speaking of chocolate, I'm starting to get all antsy to bake now that the holidays are almost upon us.  I'm making these double chocolate chip cookies tomorrow night for dessert, so that I can just totally negate my morning long run.  I've even started listening to Christmas music.  I held out until November 9th, not too bad...

I have another virtual run to pass along; Mommy Run Fast has got lots of great prizes for Racing for Relief, to benefit Hurricane Sandy victims.  Easy peasy, if you haven't already donated to the Red Cross - git on it!

Amazing picture and editor's letter from New York Magazine

Song for today courtesy of BPM, my favorite Sirius XM station for finding new running tunes: Don't You Worry Child by Swedish House Mafia.

Happy Weekend!

Friday Playlist
Castles in the Sky by Ian Van Dahl (11/2/12)
Sanctuary by Gareth Emery, featuring Lucy Saunders (10/26/12)
You Are My Diamond by Tiesto - featuring Kianna (10/19/12)
Numb by Usher (10/12/12)
We Are by Jus Jack & Oza, featuring Aeone (10/5/12)
Chorus by Erasure (9/28/12)
Cinema by Benny Benassi (9/21/12)
Take a Walk - Passion Pit (9/14/12)
Starry Eyed Surprise - Paul Oakenfold (9/7/12)
Space Invaders - Mark Norman (8/31/12)
Beautiful People - Chris Brown feat. Benny Benassi (8/23/12)
Ass Back Home - Gym Class Heroes (8/23/12)
The Veldt - Cover Pop tribute to Deadmau5 & Chris James (8/23/12)
Without You - David Guetta feat. Usher (8/23/12)
Good Time - Owl City feat. Carly Rae Jepsen (8/17/12)
Addiction - Medina (8/3/12)
We Run the Night - Havana Brown feat. Pitbull (7/27/12)
The Night Out - Martin Solveig (7/20/12)
Tell 'Em - Sleigh Bells (7/13/12)
Sun is Up - Two Times (7/06/12)
Steam Machine - Daft Punk (6/29/12)
Arguru - Deadmau5 (6/22/12)
Now or Never - Outasight (6/15/12)
Major Tom - Shiny Toy Guns Remix (6/08/12)
Young Blood - The Naked and Famous remixed by Tiesto (5/18/12)
Call me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen (4/6/12) 

Running in Mommyhood

Hrm, maybe I should change my blog title to that...?  Maybe 'Running in the Mommy 'Hood'...  Is my current name totally misleading since I live in Seattle..?  Nah?  Thoughts? Ack!

ANYWAY!  I have my first guest post over at Kelly's blog today about being a mommy runner; go check out her fab site: Running Kellometers and the post here!

One Word Wednesday - Forward

 

 

 

No matter how you feel about the outcome, I think we can all agree it'll be nice to move forward and enjoy Top Chef tonight without any political ads - cheers!

The Running Community, and a Meetup

When I started on this social media journey, I could never have predicted the connections I'd make, the people I'd get to know and the general awesome-ness of the running community.  I think many people have seen this post from Run to The Finish regarding the NYC Marathon, but just in case you missed it: here ya go.  It speaks volumes.

I've had the pleasure of getting to know so many people through bloggging, Twitter and the catalyst for it all: Oiselle.  This weekend I was able to attend a local running meetup and was so thankful to have these gals along for the last three miles of my ten for the day!  My first run at Green Lake was a memorable one.  Yes, I've never actually run 'round THE path to run in Seattle - after eight years here I've only really visited the splash park with the kids...

Running! At Green Lake! Picture courtesy of Lindsay

I finally got to meet Lindsay (our intrepid organizer), Nicole (a fellow lover of dystopian YA fiction) and new Oiselle Team member Sarah, all of whom I've been friends with on Twitter for awhile now. 

Photo stolen from Sarah's Instagram!

And I got to meet some new peeps: Becky, Zoe, Meghan and Julie. Last, but certainly not least, it's always great to see familiar faces like teammate Megan, as well as Alma, Rebecca, and Lauren.  I feel so lucky that I've been able to connect with them through this whole crazy online world, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them in the real one! 

Requisite group shot, also courtesy of Lindsay

This Week's Eats!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend and that you actually got that extra hour of sleep.  Thankfully, my youngest is trapped in her crib (mwuhahaaaa!) and my oldest waits for his 'alarm' to go off before he leaves his room, so we got a wee bit of extra shuteye before we heard them banging around in their rooms.  I highly recommend clocks that have some sort of light up feature if you have a child transitioning out of a crib.  We got one fashioned like a stoplight for our son because, with his car obsession, he was well aware that red meant 'stop' and green meant 'go.'  He's had the clock light since he was three and has followed the 'rules of the road' ever since.  It's also been a Godsend for when he stopped napping in the afternoons and now plays in his room for 'quiet time' while the red light is on.  Here's something similar, if you're in the market for such a thing.

OK, on to food!  I thought I should report on new recipes from last week: buffalo wing turkey burgers = good, broccoli pesto pasta = baaaad.  Broccoli just didn't translate well to pesto for me.  Blargh.  I still love Smitten Kitchen and I'm for sure going to check out her book, but this one didn't do it for me.   

• Monday - Pizza!
• Tuesday - crockpot chicken and dumplings from How Sweet It Is
• Wednesday - leftover baked ziti and big green salad
• Thursday - satay chicken with peanut sauce and roasted broccoli
• Friday - alpine chicken casserole
• Saturday - got a tenderloin filet with a peppercorn marinade from Safeway, we're gonna give it a whirl on the grill along with sauteed spinach and roasted potatoes
• Sunday - taco bowls with avocado salsa

I'm posting this a little early to jump on the weekly menu link up at Mommy Run Fast.  Click here to check out even more weekly menu goodness!

 

Friday Things

The whole 'Thank God It's Friday' sentiment towards the weekend has taken on epic proportions for me, now that I have a kid in elementary school: no homework! no waking the angry beast! no fighting over the morning routine!  I'm especially thankful that this week is over, as Halloween with kids is exhausting.  I'm not a huge fan of the holiday.  Carving pumpkins (which, thankfully, is a task my husband has taken on with the kids) is infinitely more work and angst than putting up an eight foot trees with hundreds of lights and ornaments.  Christmas invigorates me; Halloween tires me.  The kids sure were cute, though...  Little sister decided to ditch her Bumblebee Transformer costume after her mask kept falling off during our local Y's party earlier in the week.  Luckily, I have awesome friends who give me just as awesome hand me downs - purple dragon FTW!

So cute and cuddly; even Optimus Prime couldn't resist hugging the purple dragon.

At least our town makes trick or treating relatively painless and shuts down Main Street for festivities and candy distribution.

So yeah, the NYC Marathon...  I leaned toward the idea of it being cancelled.  But, now that it IS cancelled, I feel just as sad for all the folks out there that worked so hard toward their goals and traveled from all over the world to run.  However, I feel a bit more sadness for those who've lost everything to a natural disaster.  To all my friends and Oiselle peeps out there, enjoy your time in the Big Apple; I'm sure you'll find SOMETHING to do with your time.

Speaking of Oiselle birds racing, check out the updated Team page on the website!  You can search by state and our upcoming races and results are listed now.  Very cool.  Also very cool?  The stripey is coming in an infinity scarf next month. 

JJ and Mac modeling said scarf (pic stolen from Oiselle Twitter page)

 

Fun flair on the inside! (pic also from Oiselle's Twitter)

 

I hope I get lots of cash money from Santa, because I'm gonna need it to pay off my credit card bill...

I didn't discover anything new for the playlist this week, so I'm gonna kick it old school with Castles in the Sky by Ian Van Dahl.  Happy Weekend!

Sanctuary by Gareth Emery, featuring Lucy Saunders (10/26/12)
You Are My Diamond by Tiesto - featuring Kianna (10/19/12)
Numb by Usher (10/12/12)
We Are by Jus Jack & Oza, featuring Aeone (10/5/12)
Chorus by Erasure (9/28/12)
Cinema by Benny Benassi (9/21/12)
Take a Walk - Passion Pit (9/14/12)
Starry Eyed Surprise - Paul Oakenfold (9/7/12)
Space Invaders - Mark Norman (8/31/12)
Beautiful People - Chris Brown feat. Benny Benassi (8/23/12)
Ass Back Home - Gym Class Heroes (8/23/12)
The Veldt - Cover Pop tribute to Deadmau5 & Chris James (8/23/12)
Without You - David Guetta feat. Usher (8/23/12)
Good Time - Owl City feat. Carly Rae Jepsen (8/17/12)
Addiction - Medina (8/3/12)
We Run the Night - Havana Brown feat. Pitbull (7/27/12)
The Night Out - Martin Solveig (7/20/12)
Tell 'Em - Sleigh Bells (7/13/12)
Sun is Up - Two Times (7/06/12)
Steam Machine - Daft Punk (6/29/12)
Arguru - Deadmau5 (6/22/12)
Now or Never - Outasight (6/15/12)
Major Tom - Shiny Toy Guns Remix (6/08/12)
Young Blood - The Naked and Famous remixed by Tiesto (5/18/12)
Call me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen (4/6/12) 

Books I Read In October

So, another month of only two books.  I suppose that Twitter, writing and blogs have taken up about 50% of my leisure reading time.  But, it all adds up to about 100% of enjoyment, so that works for me!

Wild by Cheryl Strayed - I was a bit hesitant to read this one, as it smacked of Eat Pray Love and I really can't stand that book.  Let's just say I don't relate to the whole self-indulgent idea of ditching it all and eating, meditating and hanging out because of man trouble: woe is me.  BUT, I felt for Cheryl Strayed and the things she had to overcome in her life.  She seems a much more relatable person (on a MUCH more limited budget) and her story is action packed.  I felt like I was with her on this adventure along the Pacific Crest Trail, and was holding my breath in fear or excitement a number of times throughout the book.  I also nearly shed a tear at the end; she pulled it together nicely.  Plus, we do our fair share of day hiking here in the Pacific Northwest, so I could somewhat picture her on the latter parts of the trail and I thought that was cool.  I'd also like to make my way to Crater Lake one day - anyone been?

The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt - I was turned on to this book by two of my favorite bloggers that like to talk books (Elizabeth at Princess Nebraska and Janssen at Everyday Reading) and I'm SO glad I read it.  So unexpected and sweet; it's the very definition of poignant. I was moved and touched by this coming of age story of Holling Hoodhood, set in Long Island during the time of the Vietnam War. It's got everything: laugh out loud humor, tragedy, action and drama. A quick middle grade (Newberry Award winning) must read.

(book read in September, but saved review for October)
Enders Game by Orson Scott Card - I was curious to read this acclaimed (Hugo and Nebula award winning) novel because I'm a fan of both sci-fi and young adult fiction. Turns out, it was not my cup of tea. Two things killed it for me: it was terribly repetitive, and terribly vague. The 'battle' scenes (which we re-live, over and over for nearly 300 pages) are all told from Ender's perspective, and he's not very descriptive; I could barely picture anything in the book and had a hard time feeling a part of the action. And the politics/political structure on Earth (the scenes with Ender's siblings) were also bland and unclear. I felt like I was being forced to read The Fountainhead again. The last ten pages of the book make it somewhat worthwhile, but I'm in no rush to read any sequels. And that's saying something, because I usually finish out any series that I start. Not so for Ender.  Although, Yo Momma Runs told me she enjoyed the audiobook version; so, I might just have to bite the bullet and try audiobooks.  Maybe I'll get my reading level back to 4-5 books a month that way...