Mostly It's Monday

Can't think of anything noteworthy with which to begin this post, so I'll just post.

Nice morning run today. 11.01 miles. Ran into my physical therapist Toni (she treated me for my hip/glute issue) between the RAC and highway 52 so we chatted for a minute. She said she still reads my blog occasionally so that was nice.

Yet another thing I forgot to mention about Saturday's run. I stopped to use the facilities, minus the facilities part. :-) I ducked under a railing to get off the beaten path and was immediately full of burrs. On my pants, gloves and worst of all--my hair. My ineptitude made us late getting back for the 7:00 runners at Pam & Daryl's. Drat!! But I guess worse thing could happen ...

Thank you John, Larry and Jean for helping to assemble the last hard-copy issue of RTC News this evening. We got done in an hour and a half. Really appreciate their help. Without them it would have taken me at least 6 hours. I just don't have that kind of time (one reason we're going to the electronic version).

There were M&M cookies for them. And there will be cookies for whoever shows up at the Y at noon tomorrow, whether you're running or not.

There will also be cookies for dessert tomorrow for a couple of my friends. I'm bringing them dinner. She was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of weeks ago. It's the least I can do. I'm bringing wild rice soup, asparagus, salad and bread. Then it's off to BBs pizzeria for supper and then to the Michael Jackson movie with Jean, Amy and some others. Maybe I'll bring cookies to that, too. :-) "Changing the world, one cookie at a time" is my motto.

This ...

is one day's worth of junk mail. Ri.Dic.U.Lous. Such a waste of paper and ink. Shop someplace one and I think you're forever on their mailing list.

Busy week coming up. You already know my Tuesday. I have to make a pan of bars for church on Wednesday then it's going to be dinner at the Rainbow Cafe in Pine Island with Jean and George. Thursday, my dad's birthday, it's the Lorie Line concert with Jeanne, an annual event for us for I don't know how many years. For sure 10+. Then Friday it's lunch with Mary and Jeanne. Saturday, Tri-Rochester is getting together at Glynner's Pub at 1:00 and then there's a Messiah Sing-In at WSU at 7 pm. Sunday at 2 pm Matt has a holiday band concert and I have a birthday get-together late morning. Then ... it's next week already.

Today I had to go to the courthouse for work. Good thing: there was 38 minutes left on my meter so I didn't have to plug it. :-) Bad thing: on the way home a squirrel ran in front of the car. Well, usually they stop quick, turn around and head the opposite way. Well, in the other lane was another car so the squirrel stopped again and ran back in front of me. I heard a little clunk under the car and I felt just sick. I quick looked in my rear view mirror and somehow the little fella was still running. I felt much better.

Didn't get much done on the Christmas decorating today. But there will be another day. I do have a quilt hung in the upstairs hallway. It's one I made several years ago.

Out of blogworthy info (actually, most of this isn't that blogworthy, but it fills the page I guess).

Quote for the day: "“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”

Go. Be. Do.

10-1

36-10. 392. 3. 537. 31. 169.

Whoo hoo!! The Vikes are now 10 and 1. Today's score against the Chicago Bears: 36-10. (I'm from Chicago but have pretty much always been a Vikings fan). Favre threw for 392 yards and 3 TDs. The offense netted 537 yards and 31 first downs. The defense allowed only 169 net yards. Great stats!! :-)

My morning (into afternoon) workout: run to the Y, lift (for whatever reason, lifting was easy today), swim for an hour (including about 10 minutes of chatting with Ed Younk), then ran home. Legs felt good. I almost went out for more miles but decided to wait until tomorrow morning instead. Ed asked how my swimming is going: I swear I'm getting slower every time I get in the pool. Too many things people have told me to do: swim "long", swim "down", bilateral breathing, legs together, elbows high. I just get overwhelmed. Once in a very short while, I'll have about 10 meters where I feel like I have everything together and am moving fairly quickly, but it soon passes ...

A couple instances of it being a small world from yesterday in St. Cloud:

Kari Justin introduced herself at the breakfast run. She was there visiting in-laws and she reads this blog. :-) I know I'm repeating the story, but wanted to include her photo and name.

Gary K. said that his girlfriend's brother is from Rochester and Gary asked him if knew a Renee Saxman. Well, small world. He does indeed! It's Lyle from the Y!! (And IBM, but I know him from the Y). He also pours wine for Andy's Liquor and have seen him there once. It's a small world after all. ... it's a small world after all, ... I'm finding it hard to be anonymous.

Tomorrow (Monday) at the Y; 4:30 to 5:30 there will be a member of the Harlem Globetrotters there doing something or other with the kids. It's free and open to the public.

Also tomorrow, the FINAL RTC News assembly line (short one this time) at my house (2026 Kal Lane) at 6:30 PM. Cookies for one and all. Please come! We should be done in less than an hour with this one.

I've been reading snippets from the manual for my new phone. There's NO WAY I'm going to remember all this stuff. It's amazing what that little thing can do. It's pretty fun, actually. LG enV3.

You have until the end of December to nominate someone for an RRCA (Road Runners Club of America) award. Nominations are done online and it just takes a second. Awards include: Spirit of the RRCA, Hall of Fame, Outstanding Club President, Road Runners of the Year (Open and Masters), Journalism (newsletter and writer), Outstanding Volunteer, Outstanding State Rep, Outstanding Youth Director, Outstanding Beginning Running Program, Road Race of the Year, Website. Please consider submitting a nomination (or two).

The Christmas decorating seems to be a slow go this year. I'm purging the house of more "stuff" in the process. But I'm making a little progress. I put up my little Norwegian tree:

and my Candle in the Window version of a log cabin quilt.

Hopefully I'll finish tomorrow. Until tomorrow, then ...

20.6

I got 20.6 miles in this morning and had a wonderful time doing it. It was in the company of fellow St. Cloud River Runners, who'd gathered at Pam & Daryl's lovely home for a breakfast run. 3.7 miles of the run was a "predict your time" run with the 3 getting the closest to their predicted times getting a prize. (That's me running with Molly below. I think it's the only time Molly has run slow enough to be in the same zip code as me. :-)

 It was a beautiful morning for a run. We followed the run with lots of delicious food and lots of chatter. :-) Thank you Pam & Daryl for your hospitality and for opening your lovely home to us.

Get this--there was a gal from Ostrander (near LeRoy) up in St. Cloud visiting her in-laws and she joined us as well and introduced herself to me. She's one of my "bleaders" (blog readers). Small world!

On the way home from St. Cloud, I drive past the Albertville Outlet Mall. I had a 40% anything in the store coupon for Tommy Hilfiger. But as I drove by, I looked at the parking lot. Completely packed. Not at all interested in fighting the crowds, so I drove on home.

Now I'll back up to last night. I went with a few of the River Runners to Ciatti's for supper.

We had a very nice dinner ... (I had some kind of angel hair pasta/chicken combination)

Afterwards, it was off to the theater for the production RENT. The cast did a great job.

Now I'll back up even farther, to Friday morning. I wasn't interested in any Black Friday shopping excursions, but decided to hit the mall for a different reason. I noticed when I got home on Wednesday that I had a 15% off coupon for JCPenney sitting on the counter. Drat! I should have used it on Matt's suit purchase. I'd thought twice about going to the mall Friday morning as I expected LOTS of people there, but I went anyway to get a price adjustment. I ran there, actually, on my way to the Y. After the price adjustment, and the adjustment for the items being "doorbusters", I saved $45. TOTALLY worth running down there. Then I stood in line in the mall for a free $10 mall gift card and 1 yr. subscription to Martha Stewart Living for having "spent" $100 by noon. I was getting ready to give as the wait ended up being 40 minutes, but the closer I got to the front the less inclined I was to leave. When I left I decided to bag the swim at the Y and went home and made cookies for the River Runners instead. :-)

I found out that Mannheim Steamroller is coming to Rochester on December 19. Matt and I will go. I love their music. A lot of it is electronic, but they use some strings too. I've seen them once before and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Matt's acapella singing group Hear and Now won a talent show in WI a couple of weeks ago. Here's Matt with their "winnings" ($100):

And here's their group with some of the other talent from the show. They are ADORABLE. (All of them. :-)

Starting Tuesday, Dec 1 thru Dec 31, registration for the Med-City Marathon (May 30, 2010) is $30. A bargain. Info at http://www.medcitymarathon.com/

Tomorrow, I'll start getting out the Christmas decorations for the house. I'll post some photos. I really enjoy decorating for Christmas.

Well, it's been a full day. I think I'll call it a day.

Quote for the day: “To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world.”

Good night.

Giving Thanks

My Thanks Giving (intentionally spelled that way) started in a wonderful way--with good friends. 14 of us gathered at Dunn Bros. South for a run through SW Rochester. (One of us didn't want a photo taken. :-) Nice sized group for a last-minute run. I was happy.

 For the first time in a while, we had a wind chill. Marilee said she'd heard it was 30 degrees with a 17 degree wind chill. Kinda felt like it. We went around the Baihly Hill clockwise and when we got to 2nd St/County 22 (Randy and Jim) ...

(and Tom ...)

 we got on the Cascade Trail which we took east to 52, then headed south back to Dunn Bros. It was about 7 miles. I went back a couple of times to make sure everyone made the turns (I hadn't gone out early to mark the trail) and then to catch up, ended up doing about 3 fast 1/4 or 1/2 miles. I couldn't get under 6:02 pace.  :-( I've lost some speed. I'd made scones early this morning. Cherry Almond and Peaches 'n Cream with Pecans.

So when we got back, we enjoyed some food and fellowship. Randy and Tom.

Jim.

Randy, Dave, Wayne, Tom, Tom, Jim.

Tom, Dan, Tom, Marilee, Randy, Jim.

Tom, Dan, Trevor, Tom, Marilee.

Bloggable from Randy: he heard about some websites on CNN that do price comparisons and pricing trends ... dealio.com, pricegrabber.com and pricespider.com

I am SO very thankful for my friends. Not just today, but every day. Then it was home where I did 2 more miles to match what Randy, Dan, Trevor and Marilee ran. :-) Then a bowl of oatmeal to tide me over until dinner. I decided to make the Spiced Pumpkin Biscuits after all.

I like to keep the kitchen under control when I'm making a big meal. Dirty dishes everywhere make me crazy, so I like to keep washing them as I go. One of my many eccentricities I guess. So this is kinda what it looked like about 10 minutes before we ate.

I was so happy to have Eric home, if only for a few hours. We even snuck in a haircut while he was here. :-)On the menu, many of the things that were in millions of homes across the U.S.: Mashed potatoes (Yukon Golds from the garden--they weren't loaded with butter, despite how they look) ...

Gravy ...

Rolls (pumpkin biscuits, crusty Italian rolls, Honey Whole Wheat from Great Harvest) ...

Green Beans Amandine (Sorry, I just can't do the Green Bean Casserole thing with Cream of Mushroom Soup and French Fried Onion Rings ... takes the beans too far from their natural state for my taste) ...

Sweet Potatoes with a streusel topping  ...

Stuffing ...

"Orange Fluff" (not health food, but Kaleigh loves it, and I did use Lite Cool Whip) ...

Cranberries ...

Turkey (my last one was dry, this one was wonderfully moist. I cooked them both in my roaster oven, but I cooked this one in a bag. It was delicious) ...

Andrew, my nephew, enjoyed the "fluff" as much as his sister did. We asked her what her favorite was, and she said "the fluff". Most of it went home with them. :-)

I guess my camera was on hiatus during dinner. I didn't get any photos other than Andrew. After having been on my feet for literally 8 hours, it felt so good to sit down. After dinner, Kaleigh helped Matt play the clarinet.

Andrew and Kaleigh went to see Santa yesterday. Andrew wasn't very happy about the situation in which he found himself.

Late afternoon I started baking for the trip up to St. Cloud. First up, pumpkin bread with chocolate chips and walnuts (one loaf will stay here, which will make Matt very happy!), then a cinnamon streusel coffee cake and some birthday oatmeal raisin cookies for Rick Hlebain. :-) I ran out of eggs, so I literally ran down to Kwik Trip to get a dozen. It was a lovely evening. I was very happy to be outside in the fresh air after being in the kitchen so long. I was happy even running uphill (long hill on Fox Valley Dr SW), into the wind carrying a dozen eggs. By the time all was said and done, I'd run 13.35 miles today. Enjoyed every mile.

Sewed a button on Matt's tux, puttered around the house a bit, looked at a few ads in the 4+ pound Post-Bulletin (I'm glad I don't have to deliver those things; I can't get into the black Friday thing--not going out) and now I'm blogging. It was a good day. I have much to be thankful for. Hope you had a wonderful Thanks Giving.

As ever,

Ramblin' Renee

Feels Like Friday

Don't have to work tomorrow. Going to run with friends in the morning. Has to be Friday ... but it's not. Oh, well. It'll just have to feel like two Fridays this week.

Busy day. Worked this morning, then ran to Target (not literally ... still had a skirt on!) for a few last minute items, picked up the newsletter at the printer, stopped at Rochester Cycling & Fitness (they still have the two bikes I was looking at), picked up Matt's tux at the dry cleaner, stopped at Rochester Produce, went home for lunch and got Matt and went to Verizon where we both got new phones (LG V3 or something like that--I got maroon, Matt got blue), ...

(It's MUCH more convenient for texting and has a nice big screen inside, which doesn't show up very well in the photo, and has a 3 megapixel camera) ... dropped some stuff off at our church's thrift store (still decluttering and cleaning cabinets, etc.--today I did my "Tupperware cabinet"), took Matt to the mall to get a new suit, shirt and a couple of ties, made supper (chicken enchiladas, brown rice), made pumpkin pie ...

... made apple pie (I use mostly brown sugar in the filling--nice rich taste; in an effort to reduce the calorie content, I decided to make a crumb topping with very little butter in it ... it got a little too brown) ...

...mixed up the stuffing (I like to add Craising and pecans) ...

... made the "orange fluff" (it's one of those traditions--not exactly health food, but the kids, young and old, love it--small pkg jello, small pkg tapioca pudding, 2 c. water--boil 1 min--cool--stir in 1 Lite Cool Whip and 2 drained cans mandarin oranges--chill), washed dishes twice ...

... cleaned the main floor bathroom, washed the kitchen floor. I thought about starting the sweet potatoes, but I have to save SOMETHING for tomorrw. (Actually there will also be turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans amandine, 2 kinds of rolls and if I'm REALLY  feeling ambitious, spiced pumpkin biscuits from Cooking Light. They're excellent. I think they'd be really good with the little bit of cranberry butter with port that I have left.) And now, here I sit. Blogging. And thankful. :-)

I set up the wind trainer in the basement today so that I have another (non-impact) way to burn off some calories. :-)

Congrats to Tom O'Leary who has already correctly identified the "Where Is It?" locations in the December RTC News, which has been posted on the website.

Well, I'd best get to bed. I have to get up early to make scones for an unknown number of runners at Dunn Bros. South at 7 AM. Sleep is overrated, eh?? There will be 7 that I know of. Hopefully more.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good night. ;-)