Friday Night Live!

Menu of the Day: 

The photo: look real hard!.... This is funny in more than one way: My husband, in his health kick with the green soups, made this soup too. Look at the label on the tupperware: He has written Gestapo. What's also funny is he, of course, means gazpacho, a soup i really don't like at all. (Who wants to eat cold soup?) And this soup doesn't even look like gazpacho. It's more like a chili.

My husband and his Nazi soup! hahahaha...... I saw this in the freezer and laughed my ass off, so of course i had to take a photo. My husband is so cute.

The Video: Who saw the finale of Saturday Night Live? I thought it was one of the best ones in a very long time. Mick Jagger hosted and was so funny and awesome. This video is him singing a song he wrote about the presidential election. But the kicker is that Jeff Beck (one of the best guitar players in the world, according to Rolling Stone, is in it.) It's pretty cool.

In my glass: a really cool viognier rousanne blend that my wine friend Tom told me about today. A great summer wine for our 70+ degree day.

Latest iTunes purchase: the new Counting Crows Underwater Sunshine and Bonnie Raitt's Slipstream. I love that Counting Crows is covering that song "Amie", i forget the original artist, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band? I don't think that's right, but it's something like that.  (If eque was posting here she would know. )  I really love the Ooh La La song by Counting Crows.

Book: I'm not getting into Irving's One Person book or whatever the hell it's called. But that happens with him sometime. It might get better.

What I'm happy about: i'm still feeling good about that half marathon because i really surprised myself and i don't often do that. I really do think i'm going to do this again next year because when i look back on it... i love how it got me off my ass during our horrible winter months and this year i never got that seasonal funk. And i am still upping my running. I ran 45 min. yesterday.

Facebook sent a prompt about looking for my photo from the official race photographers. Uggggg. I realize how old i look when i am running. And my arms look muscle-y but not in a cool way. Sort of like when they showed photos of Madonna. I think i'm going to cut back on the weights. Plus i'm scowling. I'll see if i can link it here later.

Gripe: i have little ants in my house ever since the condo management sprayed for ants outside. How do you get rid of these little tiny ants?

Product endorsement: I just discovered Boden catalog! Who else orders online from these folks? dress i ordered from Boden

That's it for today. Only a menu. What's on YOUR menu? What are your Memorial Day plans?

Born to Run.... I hate false humility, so please allow me to toot my horn!

These are the photos Brian took as he came out to support my half marathon run last Sunday, May 20th in Olympia for the Capital City Marathon. (It was my third time running this race. But i haven't run it in 14 years.) 

So  please bear with me as i tell you how excited i was to finish this race in the way that i did ...I like having this on record because i might actually consider doing it again! I know i said i wouldn't, but i might.  Because when i look back on it, it really was a great challenge for me,, and a good thing to do in our terrible dreary winter months.  And all those carbs i eat during this time went to a good cause and not to my ass. 

1. I also kept a spreadsheet of my training. I started before the big NW Pacific snowstorm on Jan. 15th. 

2. In those four months I have run a total of 3965 minutes which comes out to average about 4 hours each week. That's a lot for me considering my old running schedule for the past dozen years was a 35 minute run about 5 times a week, sometimes 4 and closer to only 2 hours a week. 

3. I set a goal of 2 hour 15 minutes but I was alittle worried about not being able to run that fast so i gave myself a second goal of no longer than 2 hours and 30 min. 

4. My official race time was 2:02:32, a pace of less than 9 1/2 min. for 13.1 miles. I didn't really believe that i could have run it that fast. I was in the top 40+% of all runners (1248 runners total), most of whom are much younger. AND i placed in the top 10 of my age division (of the 49 runners in my division i was #8). 

5. I was soooo excited, because i purposely never tried to figure out how fast i running when i was training -  i simply ran for time, so i had no idea when i was running if i was going 9 minute miles or 12 minute miles. 

6. OH yeah, i forgot to mention, something i also didn't know: This race was HILLY. LONG gradual hills, but i'm actually better at those than most and i passed many younger folks going up those hills (and i never saw them again). 

7. I was never bored, even without music. I ran with one young woman named Kim, in the beginning of the race for about 3 miles for awhile and that was fun because we talked and that helped. But after that i was on my own. 

SO enough about that.  I know this is redundant for the Facebookers. So sorry for that, but also thank you for the support! it really helped!  I know that announcing my goal back in January on Facebook might be key to making me keep my commitment because i hate not following through. So i'm glad that people kept commenting on it because it kept me going. 

Thank you all for indulging me! My husband is so great too!  He was there to record it all, and give me kudos, told all his friends and family, and he told me i could do this too. 

That's HIS hat i am wearing because he made me take it. (I call it the Fidel Castro hat). It started raining just before the race started and  I didn't think i wanted it, but he insisted and in the end i was so glad to have it. Or i would have been worried that my mascara would have run! It rained the whole damn time, never stopping. But i didn't mind it. 

So what i would like to hear from y'all is what would YOU like to toot YOUR own horn about right now? Come and tell us!!!! 

On the eve of my 55th birthday. 1 minute video added from my friend Julie/JJ (her students)

May 16 - JJ/Julie is my very good friend,  the elementary music teacher who posts here sometime and this is the second year that she shot a video of her kids doing a birthday tribute in between their fancy dancing. I love the part at the end where they do the Farmer's Insurance jingle. They are all cute but the kid in plaid really cracks me up! I love her subtitles too.

Thanks Julie!!!!

1. This is a big week for me! I turn 55 tomorrow. I meet with those writers who invited me to join them for their monthly get togethers on Saturday and I run my half-marathon on Sunday.

2. I don't like to celebrate my birthday, but i do like celebrating running this race. Assuming i finish and all that. Which i'm pretty sure that i will. I have no idea how long it will take me. (I'm hoping not more than 2 and half hours. I'm going to try and shoot for 2 hours 15 minutes .)

3. I don't mind turning 55 years old. I never minded turning 40 or turning 50 either. However, i do have to say i don't think i will like turning 60 at all.

4. I remember when i was 11 years old my grandfather Pop from Morgan City died. He was 61 years old. I remember thinking that it was his time to go because he was old!

5. I am reading John Irving's new book. It just occurred to me why i can never keep a spreadsheet list of the books i read. I LOVE Excel spreadsheets but i just can't seem to keep one going for books and the reason is i can never remember the damn titles of the books, even as i might remember the author.

6. I just went and looked at it, it's called In One Person.

7. When i write a book i'm going to make sure it has an unforgettable title.

8. I'll think of one next time i'm drinking wine. It's hard for me to be creative when i am not.

9. I got to meet Amanda who posts here often and Amy (who just started posting) last Friday at Brian's work event!.... it was so great to meet with them in person!  (I don't count meeting Amanda before our blogging years because it was so brief.) Brian took a photo of Amanda and me. When he sends it to me i'll put it up on my blog.

9. It was 81 degrees today which is so amazing for us! Last year we didn't get into the 80 degree mark until mid-July. So this is very fun. I got my patio all planted and i've already sat outside. The chickadee baby birds are born and it's fun to watch the parents bring them little worms. When they do the little baby birds sound so twinkly, like tiny little bells ringing.

10. I love our annual chickadee family. They used to get upset with us when we sat outside so Brian moved the bird house they love into the tree. They never inhabited it that summer. So we moved it back and moved it to the opposite end and they are back and don't even mind when i am sitting outside.

11. Ok, now i sound like an old lady, talking about her birds. It's already happening! Yikes. On that note i'll sign off. I need to go switch out my summer and winter clothes. It's been on my list for weeks!

(I just realized i numbered these wrong which reminds me of a beloved yaya from the old Gumbo message board. For ummagumma, i always think of you when i think of number 9. )

Mishmash.

It's Sunday so i think i should change this blog. But i have no ideas. But that never stopped me before. So i'm just going to start numbering stuff and see what happens. Y'all should try it.

1. Gerry Rafferty is on the cd and i have to say i never get tired of City to City.  Right Down the Line is playing.

2. Even if it does remind me of my first ex-husband. Since it came out around 1978.

3. It's 68 degrees outside! To us in the Pacific Northwest, this is as huge a deal as when it has a big snow in January. Our weather is usually so much the same gray skies, 40 degree weather 98 percent humidity. In other words, always a bad hair day.

4. I finished a book called So Much Pretty. It was a layered rural upstate New York suspense story. Good. Much better writing than Fifty Shades!

5. I made fun of myself for buying these Garnet Hill $79 yoga pants online while drinking wine (I think i did this on Facebook instead of here though so some of y'all might not know) and i have to say i LOVE these pants and have been living in them every weekend. They are so comfortable and don't stretch out in the knees.

6. What i like most is they don't have a drawstring like sweatpants do so it doesn't look like you're walking around with a hard on when your t-shirt sticks out over them.

7. I like them so much i asked Brian to buy me a pair for my birthday.

8. This birthday i will be 55 years old. I don't mind this really and i was thinking that i can get senior citizen discount tickets to movies? Is that true? I do mind that I am beyond middle age now, but i was last year too. so not biggie. Nobody lives to be 108 or 110 years old.

9. Not with my Type A personality and the way i drink wine.

10. My nephew Brian called me today (the one who is getting married in Sept.)  and we talked for about an hour on the phone. It's so easy to talk to him. I love his instinctive and intuitive mind. He's grown up a lot in the past few years.

11. I might come back here and put up a photo. (I hate having a blog post without one.) But this is a mishmash of nothing really. Not sure what photo would match.

12. Come and put up your own mishmash! HEY...i think i just came up with a subject line! (I was going to just leave it blank.)

13. It would have sounded better if i put this up tomorrow though. Mishmash Monday! Maybe it should be a regular thing.