Muddy Buddy

Buddy and I had to be out of the house for 2 hours today for more house selling shenanigans. Lucky for us, the weather has gotten better, and it was in the upper 40s this afternoon.

This is the look I got when I made him sit in the snow.

We headed to Rockefeller for a while. The paths were either still snow-covered and slushy, or really muddy. We walked the slushy parts and ran the muddy parts. Buddy was having a blast!

Sometimes we run home from the mailbox or the dumpster and when I tell Buddy to "go, go, go!" he spins around and grabs the leash to drag me back to the house. I told him to "go, go, go!" during a particularly muddy part of the path today so he would go faster.

Instead I ended up standing in the mud cracking up at my crazy dog.

We were a little muddy by the time we got back to the car.

 And Buddy was a little tired.

We had a couple of bananas just begging to be turned into banana bread, and some mini chocolate chips may have made their way into the batter.

Don't mind if I do!

I was smart for once

I'm really grumpy.

I woke up kind of grumpy, but I was making progress up until my run. It was supposed to be a tempo run, but I only made it through my warmup and the first mile at tempo. My ankle, which was feeling tight and a little off earlier this week decided that it definitely does not want to run.

The thing is, I don't remember doing anything to it. The best I can figure is I might have twisted it at some point on Monday or Tuesday. I noticed it was a little off after my run on Tuesday, but it was nothing to cause concern. Today on my run there was definite pain.

For once in my running life, I was smart, and stopped. I'm giving it a couple of days off and hopefully it will feel better. At least it's happening now, and not closer to my next race.

In happier news: I made brownies today!

I kind of made them up and can probably never duplicate them, but they're really good. They are dark chocolate brownies with a peanut butter cream cheese swirl type thing and mini chocolate chips (for good measure).

I sliced a million brussel sprouts without cutting myself on the mandoline I got Tom for his birthday. That's because I wore the gloves that he is too cool for.

Dinner tonight is going to be those brussels with bacon, roasted butternut squash and pork chops. Now I just have to stop myself from eating ALL the brownies so I will still want dinner! :)

Are you a recipe follower or do you prefer the trial and error method?

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Some Saturday Randomness

I meant to write yesterday, but I got home later than I thought I would last night.

Friday we woke up to snow, which I didn't know we were getting.

Rather than do anything productive (ok, I did the dishes), I decided to make cookies instead - snickerdoodles!

I really didn't want to work out, but mostly because I was feeling lazy (which I decided was not a good enough reason), so did a little 30 day shred with Jillian Michaels. I may even make it past level 1 one of these days! ;)

I got a little caffeine boost from some Nuun Energy before heading off to babysit for one of the kiddos from my old class.

I intend to use this holiday glass all year round, and you can't stop me.

I didn't end up getting home until 11:30, and since there's no way I can just go straight to sleep, it was yet another Saturday morning where I woke up way too tired.

It was a little brisk this morning - check out that "feels like" temp!

We had about 14 runners show up this morning for our run. Most of yesterday's snow is gone from the roads, but the trails still have about an inch on them. It definitely slowed us down a bit (especially on the downhills where you don't want to suddenly lose traction), but other than my frozen face, it was a really good run! My gps says we went 6.61 miles in 1:00:32, a 9:09 pace. Not bad considering the weather and the trail conditions.

Any exciting plans for the weekend?

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A Big Chicken, Fun Mail, and Good Food

Buddy is officially afraid of the smoke detector/oven. He was home alone a few weeks ago when the low battery warning started going off...every 60 seconds the alarm would sound, and the voice (because it talks) would say "low battery." We don't know how long it was going off before I got home, but he's been afraid of it ever since.

Now he acts weird when we turn the oven on and looks anxiously up at the smoke alarm. Apparently he's made the connection between the oven being on and the smoke alarm going off. When it goes off (it's sensitive, we don't just burn things all the time), he jumps on the couch, or runs upstairs to hide.

We have an 80lb chicken for a dog.

This is Buddy keeping an eye on the smoke alarm - he doesn't understand why we are not concerned by the woman in the ceiling.

I wore my Transcends to run today to (hopefully) give my foot/ankle a little more support - and then I complained about how heavy they are compared to my usual Mizunos. I think they helped though.

It was a fun mail day today.

I was a little disappointed that my Pro Compression grab bag ended up being two colors I already have and a pair of Ragnar socks (I guess now I should run a Ragnar relay?). It will still be nice to have new socks, a couple of my old ones are getting stretched out.

I got new Nuun to try out - Tangerine Ginger! And they threw in a fun holiday glass! :)

Dinner tonight was Egg Roll in a Bowl. It doesn't photograph well, but it's delicious! We make it pretty often, and switch up what veggies we throw in (I say we, but Tom cooks it).

I made more Eggnog cookies tonight too - my running group polished off most of the last batch, so we needed more to have for Christmas.

Are you ready for the holidays or do you still have tons of things to do?

Apple Toffee Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Recipe

I was inspired by Janae's apple dip the other day and decided to make cookies this morning.

Apple Toffee Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Adapted from THIS RECIPE

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plus 6 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 c flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup raisins
1 granny smith apple, peeled and diced
1 cup Heath toffee bits

Directions:

Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat butter and sugars on medium speed of electric mixer until creamy. 

Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. 

Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats, raisins, apple and toffee bits; wish you had a bigger bowl; mix well. 

Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. 

I had to experiment with bake time a little. The original recipe says 8-10 minutes, but mine ended up taking around 15 minutes per tray. I think it's because of the extra stuff I added, but it could also be that I made my cookies a little bigger because they're better that way. :)

And now we have way too many cookies for two people. 

There are worse things.

I hope your Sunday is off to a good start!