Busy week! Let's start with Monday evening. Cooking Light get-together. We missed Barb and Mary. ;-( Food was delicious, as always. My faves? The Fig and Goat Cheese Brushetta and Curried Cashew Chicken. Sticky Buns recipe is a keeper as well (that was a take home item). We are unfortunately saying goodbye to Kelly, one of the founders of our group, who's taking a 2-year assignment with IBM headquarters in Somers, New York. We will really miss her presence both with our cooking club and in the running community.

My son Eric was back in Valencia for a couple days. I got an email today that he's now off to Malta. I think this program is called Study Abroad, but I'm not so sure at this point ... Here's a link to some of his latest photos. His camera wasn't working in Dublin. He really enjoyed both London and Dublin but made the comment that they were really expensive. His favorite part of that trip was Portugal.

There was a very nice article and photos in the weekend post-bulletin about hiking the North Country Trail by RTC member Don Morrison.

Here's a link to an article about cheering and volunteering (Chicago Marathon in particular). We always need volunteers at our events and there can never be too much cheering!

Off-Season Striders will run from Dunn Brothers on Elton Hills Drive on Saturday morning at 7:30 am. The planned route will be about 8 miles with at least one hill for us to enjoy. Join us!

Thank you to Jean Murray, Julie Murray, Mark, Mary and Kyle Wernstrom, Tom O'Leary, Benjamin and Mike Schmitt for doing trash detail last night. We picked up 6 bags full. Hopefully with the stiff winds today, it's not looking terrible again ...

Nice run this morning. Slightly drizzly, but overall very pleasant. Ran with Bruce and Lisa for 8.5 miles, plus ran to and from the Y so I got in 12.5. ;-)

My husband harvest the rest of our garden on Sunday afternoon while I was at Church Basement Ladies. Several dozen leeks and a couple of bags full of sweet peppers. So I made Potato Leek soup for supper last night. Yum, yum!! It's definitely soup time of year again.

I contacted a friend's husband who's a bricklayer and he's going to repair our stoop for us in the next couple of days. I went out to Rochester Brick after work and picked up some bricks and "mud". I was pleased to discover that the brick pavers were only $.86 each. ;-)

Thought for the day: "Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.' --Douglas MacArthur

Carry on.