Delightfully delicious!!

Another wonderful meal with wonderful friends. It doesn't get much better than that. Other than we were missing Margo. The dynamics are always a little different, a little "off" when one of us is not there. And she was missed.

The food was fabulous. My picks? The Rainier Cherry Crumble was to die for. Rainier cherries aren't cheap, but this was totally worth it. Fabulous. Other faves were the basil dip and stone fruit salad. Before dinner we were talking about physical therapy and I demonstrated one of my "moved". Kathryn grabbed my camera and got a shot of me in action. Missing--the 3 b's: a band in my left hand, a balloon in my mouth and a ball between my legs. Weird? Yes. But it works.

I found out today that I'm "in" for the Zoom! Yah! Yah! indoor marathon in January. It's held in the field house at St. Olaf College in Northfield. Should be interesting! Also running from Rochester will be Ron Giles. He ought to whip around that track like a tornado!! Running from Sartell will be my friend Arvid. He's the one that got me to the finish line in Duluth. :-)

From Marianne Couser: "We just found out that Chad was on the cover of the May issue of the magazine Youth Runner. We were pretty amazed. He is also on their website, http://www.youthrunner.com/ . You might have to click the home, highschool, kids button first. It flashes back and forth between him on the cover and advertisements. He came in second at the Disney mile last January, and the cover states he is from Rochester, Minnesota along with his time." Way to go, Chad! He is a very talented young runner.

Just a little tidbit about the photos from Laura Lenz's birthday party in Saturday's post: I had one, yes one, tortilla chip. No cake. No ice cream. And what am I doing in the photo Tom Woo took of me? Eating that torilla chip! Too funny!!

It was potluck. So I brought Snickerdoodles and calico beans.

Calico Beans

1 lb. hamburger (I use 1/2 lb)
1/2 lb. bacon
1 med. onion
28 oz. can Bush's Baked Beans
2-1 lb. cans kidney beans (I use one can kidney beans and one can black beans)
1 lb. can butter beans (I use baby butter beans--they're smaller)Sauce: 1/4 c. vinegar
1 c. ketchup
3/4 cup brown sugar

Fry hamburger with onion. Cut and fry bacon. Rinse kidney, butter and black beans. Mix everything together. Heat sauce ingredients in saucepan until warm. Pour over beans. Bake at 300 for 2 hours in the oven or on low in crock pot for 4-8 hours.

Etta and I made cracked wheat bread and blueberry jam over here on Saturday afternoon. Rather than recap it all here, I'll point you to her blog: http://depressionmarathon.blogspot.com/ She was a natural! Both were delicious. :-) We were done in 3 hours.

We're heavy into green beans here. Picked 6 gallons yesterday. Matt was a dear son and froze them for me while I was at my dinner tonight. 18 quarts. The freezer is so full ... I'm not sure where he found space for them, but apparently he did.

I'll be working at Running Room Tuesday afternoon from 1-4. Stop in and say howdy!!

Quote for the day: “Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.” -- Andre Gide

Happy trails!