No. 2

Just finished No. 2... "Q"

No. 1 was "N", but the next one wasn't available at the THS library so I skipped ahead. Eryn has the whole series, so now I've borrowed "O" from her.
I liked the mystery of "Q" but there were a lot of characters, all interconnected, and it got a bit confusing. Still, a good read :)

Sh*t Health Living Bloggers Say

Have you seen this yet? It's pretty funny. I know I've read all of these things... and written many myself :)

Enjoy!


:)

Shopping is fun

Man, I love shopping. And I love new gear.

I just have to show off my recent scores.
Brad gave me the shorts and Mom and Dad gave me the bras for Christmas. The original bras were the wrong style, but when I exchanged them, the new ones were on sale. So I got $6 back!

Sis-in-law Jill gave me a generous Target gift card, so I used it, along with my new-found $6, to pick up some new tank tops -- also on sale! And I still have a bunch of $$ left on the gift card - WOOHOO :)

Can't wait for the weather to warm up so I can try out my new duds.

:)

Track Thursday: five!

Pouring rain and gusting winds pounded our area all night and most of today.

By noontime I was dreading my track workout and trying not to give in to my deep desire to throw in the towel and ride the (inside!) elliptical instead.

Thankfully, there was a lull in the storm just about quitting time, and I dressed down and headed out before I could change my mind. The pineapple express has temps in the low 50s, so it actually wasn't that miserable.
I've been running four 800s but hoped to up it to five... and I DID IT!!! And all under an 7:58-minute -mile pace.

Here's how it looked:

warmup - 400m

400m: 7:57 pace
400m: 7:51

200m recovery

400m: 7:41
400m: 7:47

200m recovery

400m: 7:43
400m: 7:49

200m recovery

400m: 7:34
400m: 7:43

200m recovery

400m: 7:53
400m: 7:58

cool down - 400m

In all, 3.76 miles in 37:08 - a 9:53 average, including warmup, recoveries and cool down.
I'm really excited that I finished an extra interval - and each 400 was faster than last week! It was a great workout... feeling strong.

As (almost) always, I'm glad I won my internal debate and went running :)

It's like barefoot

Last month, Brad and I scored several pair of shoes at an REI return sale. All shoes were just $9.83, so we took full advantage!

I got these like-new Merrell Pace Glove cross-training shoes, which retail for $100.
I wore them yesterday for the first time and love them!

It's like being barefoot... always my preference. They're similar to Five Fingers except without the fingers (so people don't look at you funny ;) )

What a fun purchase :)

Muffin Wednesday: Peanut Butter Banana

Honestly, I thought we'd have a snow day today so I did not plan for Muffin Wednesday. Unfortunately, the snow came down hard overnight but turned to rain before school time. Major bummer.

Fortunately, we had a couple brown bananas at home, so I brought those in and flipped through the book for a recipe that I could throw together with standard ingredients.
How about Peanut Butter Banana? Sounds promising. And for extra fun, I added chocolate chips.
2 c flour
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 T baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 c peanut butter
2 T oil
2 eggs
3/4 c milk
2 medium bananas, mashed
(I added some chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease or line muffin tin

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt.

2. In another bowl, combine PB, oil, eggs, milk and mashed bananas. Add to flour mixture and stir just until moistened and blended. Fold in chocolate chips.

3. Spoon batter evenly into prepared muffin tin. Bake for 20 minutes or until done.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These were very good. They were simple but were tasty. The peanut butter and banana were subtle. Plus, the added choco chips maybe covered the other flavors a bit.

Everyone liked them, giving me lots of smiles and thumbs up.

"I could eat a thousand of those," Jake said :)

Since it was supposed to be a snow day (and was for many other schools in our region!), I used snowmen cups!
Not sure if my students noticed, but the tiny snowmen made me smile :)

Playing in the snow

Huge snow showers keep moving through, but it's just a little too warm to stick. So we're at school today. Bummer.

As one big flurry hit, some brave students went outside with me to play.
It's blowing hard from the south, so we mostly just stood with out backs to the wind and laughed at the giant, wet flakes. No one took me up on my challenge to make a snow angel!Sufficiently cold and wet, we gave up and went back inside to work.
Our fingers are still crossed for that big storm tonight to close school tomorrow :) :)