Things are still kind of blah. Here's a recap of the past week and other random thoughts...
I love to cook for Thanksgiving. For the first time this year, I got to cook for my mom (pretty much all of my "family"). Normally we'd fly to Denver for Thanksgiving for the week, but now we live here. Yay! Also, last year was a bit depressing as we were selling our house and moving, and cooking a big meal would mean making a mess. And we needed to keep our house clean. So no turkey at our house last year. So, this year, I went with tradition and made: apple cider brined turkey (really, the BEST turkey recipe ever), homemade rolls, traditional stuffing (which for the first time, turned out near perfect - I have a hard time seasoning it properly), roasted and mashed squash (I used the Chirimen squash I got from the farm... it was just ok), and homemade cherry pie, including the crust. Mmmm
My mom came over (her second visit since we bought the house). She arrived 15 min before food was served and stayed a whopping 1.5 hours. And she asked for her pie to-go. No idea. And also, kind-of weird.
I love making Thanksgiving because that means I get all the leftovers! Sadly, a 15 lb turkey didn't last very long. We had leftovers for dinner on Friday and that was it. I think that Will had a bit more than he should have for lunch, though. I was really hoping on 3 meals total from the spread. *sigh*
Friday I went skiing with my friend D. My first day of the year. My first ever trip on a season pass. We went to Winter Park because the weather said we'd get 2-4 inches of snow during the day. Copper had more runs open, but we wanted SNOW. Sadly, the weather report lied. It was a good test though - we had pretty much every kind of weather: sun, clouds, wind, snow, sideways snow. It was a good test of my gear and helped me figure out what I was lacking. I then bought a new ski bag (which holds my boots and gear), baclava (protects your face from the wind/cold), some light weight fleeces, and some before and after winter boots. Wooo. Skiing was fun but with the limited runs, it was fairly crowded. I think we hit the slopes at 10, had a short lunch break at 2, took 2 more runs and was done by 3.
Sadly (or maybe this is a good thing?), my winter running gear = ski gear. I used my heavy running tights (which are fleecy on the inside) as long undies. And I used various run shirts as layering for my top.
And speaking of winter running, I ran for the first time since the Denver RnR Half Marathon (Oct 9th). I was supposed to start back up 2 weeks earlier but I got this annoying cold that just wouldn't go away. I did the local Turkey Trot 5k. It cost $15 and I got a fleecy hat. The race was at the local rec center (a whopping 4 miles from my house) and we ran on the hike and bike trail. The race wasn't timed, so it truly was just a fun run. Suprisingly, there were 750 people at the 5k. That's a ton of people for a hike and bike trail. I met up with some of my tri club buddies and fortunately, we all run at about the same pace. We stuck together for the first 2 miles and then I just had to walk. So did one other person, so I didn't feel so bad. And we were both sick. Still - I can't even make it 3 miles? Full disclosure: I actually had to walk 3 times in that last mile. At 2 miles, 2.5 miles, and somewhere way too close to the finish. The last 0.2 miles is uphill (very mean) and I was trying to push, but that made me feel pukey to the point where my stomach was starting to roll. And some chick right in front of me lost her breakfast (over a 5k - REALLY?) so I stopped to regain my composure. My time wasn't awful - 33:03, a 10:36 pace. Not bad considering I walked 3 times. Ugh.
I have a lot of squash, spinach, and apples from my CSA. Its crazy. So yesterday was "processing day", where I basically get things prepped (or processed) to sleep in the freezer. I roasted 3 different pumpkins - a pie pumpkin, a cinderella pumpkin, and a long island cheesecake pumpkin. The pie one only yielded 2 cups. The long island one yielded probably ~6-8 cups and then became pumpkin-lime-coconut soup (with turkey added in). The cinderella pumpkin was so huge I had to cook it up in 2 batches. It yielded 17 cups (!!!) of pureed pumpkin. Crazy. Four large bunches of spinach shrank down to fill a large bowl. And I had 3 medium and 1 large bag of apples. I bought one of those apple peeler-slicer-corer devices a month ago. I always thought those were kind of a worthless kitchen item. That is, until I had a mountain of apples to peel. This device is the shizzle. I went to work prepping apples, intending to just chuck them in the freezer. But then I decided to make a batch of crockpot applesauce. Holy crap, was it the best applesauce ever. And it smelled amazing. And really very heathy for you. I just took apples (enough to fill the crockpot up 3/4 of the way), 1/2 cup of apple cider, 1/2 cup of agave nectar (although you could use sugar), and a few dashes of cinnamon. Then put it on high for 8 hours. Amazingness.
This is the week I will get on the ball and start working out. I finally registered for the new swim team. If I pay for it, I will actually show up. The problem this past month is that I didn't pay for it... which meant I had no motivation to go. Its going to hurt. I haven't swam in 2.5 months. I will also ride my bike on the trainer at least once this week. And resume lifting weights. Being sick really put a kink in my "back on the wagon" attempt from 2 weeks ago.
I'm doing a duathlon series - Chilly Cheeks. First one is this Sunday and go figure, I haven't trained. The first one is a 4 mile trail run and a 10 mile bike. Hopefully I can fake my way through. The second race (in January) consists of a 1.5 mile run, 3.6-mile bike, a 2.5 mile run, 7.2 mile run, and a 50 meter run to the finish line. Mkay! The final race (February) is a 10 mile bike and a 4 mile run. The distances are so very random and conditions could be snowy (they don't cancel due to snow - you just ride your mountain bike) that I really can't justify taking this series very seriously. So I'm doing it for fun and to ensure that I touch my bike once a month this winter.
I had a really bad dream experience on Sunday morning. I dreamt that I was on the couch and Ernie was next to me, lounging, purring loudly, letting me love on him and rub his belly. Then Swift popped up and was on my lap, loving on me. I was so happy to have both of them - acting just as they used to. (Ok, maybe Ernie wasn't quite so friendly - but he could be when he wanted to). Then I rolled over and *poof* the dream was gone. I was still half asleep and found myself sobbing - ragged painful sobbing. It was awful. They were so real and then they were gone. It was like I lost them all over again. :(
New kitties are adjusting (although, awkward - they were snuggled next to me when I woke up sobbing over my other kitties). Zipper has run off with Will's heart. He liked Ernie and Swift, but they were always mine (I had them before we got married). Zipper has claimed Will and they really love eachother. She'll jump up on his lap while he works, just to say hi, stays out a few minutes and zooms off to do something else. They'll play fetch in the mornings for 30 minutes. She'll sit with him at night while we watch tv. She's very playful but in an innocent and nice sort of way. She just likes to be where ever the humans are and wants to play all the time. Gunny is doing better. He's over his bladder issues that was making him want to pee on anything. My hope is that the issue was stress related. He's still really shy but will spend most of his time snoozing on the couch. He will jump out of his hidey hole (under the coffee table) when I'm around and want me to pet him. And he'll cuddle on my lap at night. He's still a scaredy cat, though. Any new visitors, no matter how friendly, and *poof* he's off hiding under the laundry rack in the laundry room. Poor guy - hopefully in time he'll mellow out and let our visitors get to know him.
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