Morning Routine
I follow a pretty set routine on weekdays. My alarm goes off, and after one or two hits of the snooze button, I immediately head to the bathroom. I brush my teeth, put in my contacts, and jump into the shower. After that I get dressed, head to the kitchen, eat a bowl of cereal and maybe drink a glass of orange juice, and then I’m out the door. Most of the time, Jose is still in the shower when I’m already leaving the house since my morning routine only takes about 30 minutes. My theory has always been that:
1) I’d rather not get up any earlier than I have to.
2) Once I’m up, I might as well head to work because the earlier I get to work, the earlier I’ll get home in the evening and have time to do other fun things.
Last night I was really tired. All I wanted to do was get in bed and read my book (I finished Hunger Games book 2 and started the final book!). The catch was that I needed to get things ready to make soup for recipe club tonight…but I just didn’t feel like doing it before bed. I told myself I would do it this morning instead.
I decided to try this recipe for , so today, after my shower and cereal, I chopped vegetables and browned chicken. It felt so weird to be doing something in the morning that wasn’t related to getting ready for work! It took me about a half hour to get everything ready and into the crock pot, and I have to admit there was something kind of peaceful about having some time to relax before going to the office.
Sadly, taking this picture did expose an issue with the replace-the-back-glass iPhone repair that the Apple store did for me on Tuesday: the camera now takes fuzzy pictures. At first I thought I’d just gotten a fingerprint on the back, but nope, the next picture still came out fuzzy. A closer inspection revealed that there’s something on the INSIDE of the glass — almost like someone accidentally got a fingerprint on the inside before they slid the new piece of glass into place. So it’s back to the Apple store this weekend. Hopefully it’ll be another quick fix.
Hopefully the soup turns out well! I’m excited to see what the house smells like when I get home.
Get the Craft Juices Flowing
I don’t have much to talk about lately since my life basically goes like this: work, sleep, read The Hunger Games. It’s been less than a week and I’m already 75% done with book 2. One of my goals for 2012 is to read 20 books, and it’s looking like I’ll have read 4 by the end of January (book club + Hunger Games). This is crazy fast reading for me.
Oh, well, I did do this yesterday:
To avoid this, simply avoid letting your phone fall from 3 feet onto concrete! Easy. Fortunately it only shattered the back, and the Apple store was able to replace it in 5 minutes for only $30. I was VERY pleasantly surprised at the cost and speed of the repair. I had to get rid of the sticker/skin I had on it though, since there were shards of glass stuck to it. I’m now back to a rubber case I got a while ago, and all things considered, it’s probably better that way. Now it’s less slippery, and more padded.
And in other news, I did get one fun thing in the mail over the weekend:
Last month, I signed up for after seeing my friend mention it on Twitter. When you subscribe, they send you a box each month filled with a few little crafty items and since I’ve rediscovered my love of crafts lately, I couldn’t resist.
I got my first box on Saturday, and I was oohing and aahing before I even figured out what was inside. I’m such a sucker for cute packaging, and Whimseybox has cute packaging DOWN.
There were several fun things inside — three different bits of pink and orange ribbon, a small jar of red paint, a couple bags of red and black sequins, a slap bracelet (which made me laugh) and two packages of polymer clay. I’m most excited about the ribbon and the clay. I bought a necklace at the Art Festival last fall that’s made of out polymer clay, so you can definitely do some neat things and although neon pink and green aren’t exactly my go-to colors, I’m excited to do a little experimenting with the clay to see what I can create.
But it’ll have to wait until I’m done with my reading spree.
This ‘n That
Posted by saroy in Various & Sundry on January 22, 2012
Bundled up at the Olympic Trials last weekend
I can’t believe January is 2/3 over already. It feels like I was just in Charlotte for Christmas! I didn’t have any real plans for this weekend so I ended up spending most of it so far on the couch with my Kindle reading The Hunger Games. I know, I am apparently the last person on earth to read it. At least that’s the impression I got when I mentioned this on Thursday night at book club, and everyone looked at me in shock and said “you haven’t read that yet??”
I told them they weren’t allowed to talk about it, since I didn’t want them to accidentally reveal any key plot points.
“I read the first 2 chapters last night,” I said, “which basically laid out what I already knew about the story.”
“How did you stop reading after only 2 chapters??” said Alicia.
Anyway. I finished the first book yesterday and immediately started the second. I’ve borrowed the first two from the Amazon lending library, but I can’t borrow another until February 1 — and let’s be honest, if I read the second book at even half the rate I tore through the first one, February 1 is not soon enough! Oh, first world problems.
Pot roast, pre cooking
So what else is new? I got a crock pot for Christmas and last weekend we gave it a spin for the first time. We made pot roast which turned out really, really well. Now I’m ready to slow cook all kinds of stuff. Pulled pork! Beans! Taco chicken! Other crazy things!
I bought myself this little CD case calendar from Paper Source to put on my desk at work. Each month is blank, so you’re supposed to decorate it yourself — but mine sat blank for the first 2/3 of the month because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to draw. You’d be amazed how many times this happens. I consider myself a pretty creative person, but I’m also a perfectionist. I don’t think those two things always go together very well. I want to draw something or make something, but I’m afraid it won’t be perfect, so I don’t do it.
Finally, on Friday afternoon as I listened to an online training class, I just started doodling with the pens I had available at my desk. And you know what? It didn’t even turn out too bad. I should do that more often.
Olympic Marathon Trials
Every year since 2004, I’ve run Houston’s big half marathon or full marathon in mid-January. Eight years in a row! But alas, a 9th straight year was not to be since I wasn’t selected in the lottery. I was pretty bummed to see my streak come to an end, but I’m hopeful that I’ll get in next year. I did, however, get a pretty nice consolation prize (through no doing of my own, obviously, but still) — the 2012 US Olympic Marathon Trials were held in Houston on Saturday morning! I dragged Jose downtown bright and early to see them, and it was even cooler than I expected!
It was a really chilly morning with the temperature at start time hovering around 40. I knew we’d be in the shade and possibly some wind downtown, so I was pretty bundled up. I had on running tights under my jeans, thick wool socks, a long sleeve shirt and sweatshirt topped by a fleece jacket, and a hat and gloves. I felt pretty silly leaving the house but I was thankful for all the layers once we actually got out there!
Men’s pack at Mile 1
We found a good spot about a hundred yards from the 1/9/17/25 mile marker and settled in. The course took the runners on a 2.2 mile loop followed by three times around an 8 mile loop. I read somewhere that it was designed to mimic this summer’s Olympic Marathon course in London, but it was also ideal for spectators! We got to see both the men and women as they passed the mile marker, and then we could jog a short block to see them pass again about a quarter of a mile later — so all in all, we got to see all the runners 8 times during the race, including a final look less than a mile from the finish! The staggered start also meant that we never had to wait more than 20 or 25 minutes for the next round of runners to come through, and more like 10 or 15 minutes towards the end of the race, since the men began to catch up to and lap the “slow” women.
Women’s pack at Mile 1
The men’s race started at 8:00 and the women started 15 minutes later. This was the first time the men’s and women’s trials have been held on the same course on the same day, which was really a treat for all of us here in Houston. I wasn’t involved in the race as a volunteer or anything, but from my perspective as a spectator and runner, everything seemed to run like clockwork. Race volunteers were all over the place making sure the course stayed clear and that everyone knew how far out the pack of runners was.
Men’s lead pack at ~Mile 9.2
Each time the runners came around, the lead pack had changed slightly. The 5 men above had separated themselves from the rest by a significant amount by mile 9 — and I’m sure the separation actually happened a lot earlier than that. These guys are the cream of the crop of American long distance runners. From left to right are , , , , and .
Look at all those spectators watching the men turn the corner! I really wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of crowds, but Houston surprised me. I’m sure the crowd was even bigger on Sunday for the marathon and half marathon, but there were still thousands of people that turned out on a cold morning to watch the trials. I loved it!
Women’s lead pack at mile 9
The women’s lead pack didn’t dwindle quite as fast as the men. At mile 9 there were still a bunch of women up front. From left to right in this particular photo are , , , , , and . (Just out of frame were and , and possibly 1 or 2 more.) And yes, as they ran past in their skimpy running outfits I was still bundled up in all my layers! Pretty funny.
Men’s lead pack at mile 17
By mile 17, there were only 4 men in contention — Ritz, Abdi, Hall, and Meb. Abdi’s been on 3 Olympic teams already and Meb’s been on 2 — including the 2004 team in Athens where he won a silver medal in the marathon. Ritz and Hall are relative newcomers by comparison, but they both ran the marathon in Beijing in 2008 (Ritz was 9th, Hall was 10th). Ryan Hall is particularly memorable to a lot of people in Houston because he broke the US half marathon record here in 2007.
Women’s lead pack at mile 17
The women’s leaders had thinned out quite a bit when they came back through at mile 17, and it was down to Hastings, Goucher, Davila and Flanagan. I was sad to see that Deena Kastor, who won a bronze medal in the marathon in 2004 in Athens, had been dropped. Still, it was so amazing to watch these ladies and realize that they are running almost twice as fast as I can. They averaged somewhere around a 5:40 mile I think, and frankly I don’t think I could even run ONE mile — maybe not even a HALF mile — at that pace. The men quite literally ran twice as fast as me, since their 2:09:xx finish matches my PR in the HALF marathon exactly. The real kicker is that none of them even look like they’re working very hard! If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were just out for a relaxing jog.
Meb Keflezighi – 1st
I was really excited for the runners to come past a final time at mile 25, because I knew we’d probably be able to identify the top 3 in each race that would go on to the Olympics. And we were! Meb was in the lead and would go on to set a PR of 2:09:08 and become the oldest trials winner at age 36. And did I mention he had just run the New York Marathon in November? Meb rocks!
Ryan Hall – 2nd
Ryan Hall had another great race and finished second in 2:09:30 (which is exactly my PR for the HALF marathon — geez).
Abdi Abdirahman – 3rd
Abdi was a bit of a dark horse, sneaking into the 3rd spot in 2:09:47. According to one article I read, he hadn’t run under 2:14 since 2006 so he must have been training like a monster all fall! He was about 30 seconds ahead of Ritz when we saw them at mile 25, but Ritz rallied and might have been able to grab 3rd place if the race had gone another half mile. He finished in 2:09:55 and looked absolutely heartbroken — it was so sad to see the photos later that day. So close!
Shalane Flanagan – 1st
The women were a bit closer together, but the order at mile 25 held through the finish. Shalane Flanagan won a bronze medal in the 10K in Beijing, but this was only her second marathon ever! She won in 2:25:38. I found out this morning that she is Becca’s uncle’s sister’s step-daughter, which is pretty neat — plus she’s a former Tarheel, so I automatically like her.
Desi Davila – 2nd
Desi Davila was on Shalane’s heels, as you can see from the photo above, and finished 18 seconds back in 2:25:55.
Kara Goucher – 3rd
I’ve seen Kara Goucher run several times on TV, and she always looks like she’s about to keel over, but I guess that’s just her running style. She finished in 3rd in 2:26:06. That’s less than 30 seconds that separated 1st and 3rd in the women’s race! Amy Hastings finished in 4th just over a minute behind Goucher.
And even though I haven’t highlighted them in this post, it was also really fun to watch all the “other” runners. I was explaining to Jose that there were really only a dozen or so people in each race that had a realistic chance of finishing in the top 3 and making the Olympic team, but there were still 100+ other runners in each race who met the qualifying times and earned the right to compete in the trials. They gave it just as much effort as the winners and actually looked like they might have had a little more fun along the way. There were runners in the back of each pack (and let’s be clear — the “back of the pack” in this race were still all amazing athletes) pumping up the crowd with huge smiles on their faces, just ecstatic to be there. I can only imagine how they felt, but I’m betting it felt awesome.
Overall it was a really great morning and I had so much fun watching Olympians run right here in my city! Can we do this again next year, Houston? Please?
Adventures in the Kitchen
It is SO. WINDY. today. I almost got blown over this morning as I walked from one building to another and a huge gust came along — and I’m not even exaggerating. The gust came along so quickly and strongly, and my hands were in my pockets, and I wobbled.
(Photo of my ‘hood from Tuesday, i.e. a much less windy day)
I got a little ambitious this week and made not one but two new recipes! On week nights, no less! Jose had to work late on Monday so I entertained myself by making Pioneer Woman’s . I feel kind of silly because it seems like I’m always making PW recipes, but it’s hard to resist when her site (when you include the Tasty Kitchen portion too) has a recipe for pretty much anything you can think of to make. Anyway, I had never made risotto before. We watch a lot of Food Network and Top Chef these days, and inevitably there’s always a chef on one of the many competition shows that screws up risotto — so it seemed kind of intimidating.
Turns out it’s not that hard, as long as you’re available to sit there and monitor the rice for half an hour or so. Not as easy as using my trusty rice cooker, but still, not as difficult as I thought. And unlike some PW recipes, which I find underseasoned, this one came out great. I skipped the cauliflower but added red bell pepper. Other than that, the only change I made was to add less salt at the end (I didn’t think it needed a full 1.5 teaspoons). My only minor complaint is that the carrots were still pretty crunch, so if you decide to try this one, I’d suggest putting the carrots in the pan alone first, so they can cook for a couple minutes before you add the onions and then the other veggies.
On Tuesday, I got home from work really early since I’d gone in for a 6 a.m. meeting so I decided to try this How Sweet It Is pizza recipe — whole wheat crust, roasted red peppers, fontina cheese, and balsamic glaze. It was the balsamic glaze that really caught my eye — and the balsamic glaze is the only thing that was a total FAIL for me. I don’t think I’ve ever successfully reduced any kind of sauce. I don’t get what I’m doing wrong. I poured the vinegar into a saucepan like she said, boiled it, then took it to a simmer. Half an hour later, there was still at least a cup of vinegar left in there (not the 1/3-1/2 cup the recipe said) and when it cooled, it didn’t thicken at all.
So we ate the pizza without glaze. Fortunately, it was still DELICIOUS. Seriously, I would order this pizza at a restaurant. Yum. And yes, I even made the crust from scratch. And yes, I patted myself on the back for that one.
Any Kind of Chip
It has proven quite tough so far to get back into the swing of things at work. It’s never fun to come back from a vacation!
I spent a lovely relaxing weekend at home. Jose and I finally took down the Christmas decorations on Saturday, spurred on by the fact that the city had tree recycling available at a nearby park — but only until noon. We are normally pretty lazy on Saturday mornings, but not this weekend! By noon, we had recycled the tree, vacuumed up all the needles it left behind, packed up all the ornaments, taken down all the other decorations in the house, and — last but not least! — cleaned the master bathroom. After a quick lunch, Christmas officially came to an end when we took down the icicle lights outside. It took 2 hours to put them up but only 15 minutes to take them down. Did you know that if you tug gently on one end of the cord, the shingle clips all pop out and the whole string comes tumbling down? Convenient!
We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon while watching the Texans win their first playoff game ever. (And by that I mean it was their first playoff game ever, PLUS they happened to win.) I’ve never really been a football fan except for the few years I was in college, but it was fun to jump on the bandwagon and watch on Saturday. About halfway through the game, Jose gave me a fornlorn look and said “I want some cookies” so I made some of those too.
The weird part was that when he opened up the bag of chocolate and peanut butter chips, they were expired! They were weirdly soft and tasted slightly off, and the bag listed the expiration date as August 2011. Chocolate chips last for like 2 years, and they definitely don’t last that long in our house, so the only explanation is that they were already bad when I bought them at the store. Annoying! The only other bag I had was cinnamon chips, so I experimented and just threw those into the same batter I make for chocolate chip cookies. The verdict? Just as tasty, of course. You really can’t go wrong with that recipe plus any kind of chip.
Purse, Bag, and Nook Cover
This week has kicked my butt. It started on Monday, our last lovely day of vacation, when my luck ran out and I finally caught the same bug that Jose had been fighting for several days. It started with a tickly throat and morphed into a runny nose but the worst part is just that it has TOTALLY wiped me out. I skipped work on Tuesday and laid on the couch in and out of consciousness the entire day. I slept in on Wednesday and only worked the afternoon. I came to work yesterday and felt pretty good, but today I am just so, so tired. I’ve spent every night this week completely sedentary on the couch, and despite 9+ hours of sleep per night every night, I just feel EXHAUSTED.
I really hope I can kick this to the curb by Monday. But on to more fun topics…
I sewed three Christmas gifts for people this year, and I can post them now that it won’t ruin any surprises! (I got them all “real gifts” too — these were just bonuses! My sewing skills aren’t good enough for me to feel like these are high quality gifts…yet. Maybe next year!)
I made a second fat quarter bag for my sister, who had said she liked the first one but didn’t like the colors as much. She didn’t know what fabric I had picked out, but she knew I’d made her one — in fact, she was so confident that she didn’t even bring a purse with her from Seattle. I hope this one lived up to her expectations!
For my mom, I used from to make a “half tote.” This bag gave me some trouble, but that was primarily because I measured wrong and the outer lining turned out an inch wider than the inner lining! I didn’t discover my mistake until I was about to sew them together and couldn’t figure out why it didn’t fit. Fortunately I was able to fix the problem with some seam ripping, trimming, and resewing. As you can see, I made the straps myself from the same fabric as the outer lining, instead of buying webbed cotton straps.
I also suspect there is a mistake in the tutorial in the measurements given for the gusseted corners — either that, or I just did it wrong, but I don’t think I did. My bag appears to be shorter and deeper/wider than the bag shown in the tutorial. When making the gusset, I measured 2.5 inches down from the corner like the instructions said, which results in a 5″ deep corner. Maybe it’s only supposed to be 2.5″ wide, which would mean only measuring 1.25″ down from the corner? (Or am I misunderstanding something here?) Dimensions aside, the bag still turned out well. I really like the fabrics I chose for this one, and think they were well-suited for my mom.
And finally, I knew my brother was getting a Nook tablet, so I decided to make him a case so that he’d have one to tide him over until he buys a better one. I followed from and it worked great. I used a heavier-weight fusible interfacing than what the tutorial called for since I wanted the case to feel nice and sturdy. The heavy duty interfacing makes it hard to turn inside out (since you sew on the wrong side), but I think the end result was worth it. The case feels soft but structured, instead of shapeless.
(I gave it a “test run” with my Kindle, of course)
Also, can I just add how difficult it was to find a fabric that wasn’t too girly for this case? I didn’t think my brother would appreciate flowers or loud patterns, but I wanted something more than plain black. In my head, I had pictured some sort of black pinstripe but I couldn’t find anything like that at Joann and didn’t have time to order online, so this black fabric with tiny circles was the next best thing. The inside is royal blue fleece, so it’s nice and soft against the Nook itself. This is the first time I’ve sewn anything other than basic cotton broadcloth, and the fleece was a bit challenging since it had a lot of stretch to it. Good thing I only had to sew it in a rectangle!
There was one more project I was hoping to get done for my sister-in-law, but I ran out of time. I’m not going to post it yet because I’m hoping to finish it this weekend!
2012 Goals – Part 1
(Old school Soviet space/Happy New Year posters from Roscosmos’s )
I’m not going to review last year’s resolutions because I failed pretty miserably at most of them. I failed pretty bad at my 12 by 2012 too. Ah well. I’m not bothered. I like to set goals, and it’s good to have something to work towards.
I think the main problem with listing them here on my blog is that I forget about them after I post! So after I write down this list, I’m going to print it out and stick it somewhere that I’ll see it. I’m also going to go by quarters this year. Instead of year-long goals, for now I’m going to think about what I want to get done between now and the end of March:
Complete my M.A. project. Because seriously, it’s never going to get done if I don’t do it this year. I won’t complete it by March, obviously, but I need to make significant progress. This should take top priority.
Read 4 books. Reading is pretty much the only resolution I completed 100% last year.
Sew myself a skirt. I’ve found a few patterns that should work well for me but I keep putting this one off because I have a couple other projects to finish. But this is the one I really want to do, so why not just do it?
Declutter/clean up the study. It’s a big task. I do a little bit, and then give up for a while because it never seems like I make any headway. This is one of those things that would probably benefit from the “30 minutes a day” strategy. Do a little bit every day.
That seems like a good start for 2012!
2012!
Posted by saroy in Fun Things on January 2, 2012
Happy New Year!
I didn’t intend to disappear over the holidays, but somehow I always spend a lot less time on the computer when I’m in North Carolina or traveling in general. I barely even checked Twitter or Facebook! I have to admit that unplugging was not such a bad thing, and I should really find a way to replicate it more often in my daily life.
Everyone was in Charlotte at the same time for the first time in several years. Hooray! I like how the family picture keeps gaining more and more people. We’re up to 10 now!
Christmas in Charlotte was lovely, and New Years in Corpus Christi was fun. 2012 is shaping up to be a good year!
1 2 3
Posted by saroy in Bits & Pieces, Cooking, Crafts on December 19, 2011
ONE thing I did this weekend:
Went to a hockey game. The Aeros played the Texas Stars on Friday night so Jose and I joined Jason and Debbie for the game. You were supposed to bring toys and/or teddy bears to donate to Toys for Tots. After the Aeros scored their first goal, everyone got to throw teddy bears onto the ice which was pretty darn fun. The game was stopped for 5 minutes or so as they swept up the teddy bears. We also brought toys, which got us free tickets to a future game. Unfortunately that future game was January 1 when we’ll be out of town, but oh well.
TWO things I’ve cooked:
. This looked too good to pass up, so I made it for my division’s holiday lunch last week. The lunch was supposed to be on Thursday but got pushed to Friday after JSC was unexpectedly closed from Wednesday afternoon through lunchtime Thursday after a car ran into a large power transmission tower just outside the fence. The power company had to shut down power to all of JSC while they put up a new tower, so we got a free afternoon and morning off work! Good thing fudge keeps for a while. I brought it for our lunch on Friday and left with an empty plate, so I guess it was a hit!
. Our book club book this month talked a lot about beets (it was a strange book) and it occurred to me that I wasn’t sure if I’d ever actually EATEN beets before. So I made this salad for book club and even though only four people showed up (myself included) the beet salad was a hit with everyone. Turns out that beets taste very earthy. I liked them all right. I should warn you though, if you, like me, have never eaten beets — they are really, really dark red. Almost a purple. When I was peeling them to make the salad, the juice stained my hands. And apparently when you eat them, the juice stains your bladder and your intestines too! ‘Nuff said.
THREE things I’ve made:
Quilted placemat with pieced binding. I took a quilting class at Joann on Saturday. It was the “102″ class and I never took the “101″ class but I decided that I’d just figure it out as I went along. We were supposed to bring a 13″x18″ quilted piece so I made the middle part on Saturday morning. It’s the first time I’ve ever quilted anything, so overall I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. My lines are always exactly straight, but close enough.
In the class, I learned how to make this pieced binding. It’s hard to tell, because I chose three very similar fabrics, but the binding is made of those three different patterns. I had to cut strips, sew the strips together, THEN cut bias strips and sew them onto the quilted piece. It was the make-binding-tape and sew-binding-onto-quilt that I really wanted to learn, but the piecing part was good to learn too. All in all it was another good class there, and since they have 50% off classes coupons all the time, they’re never very expensive!
Another fat quarter purse for my sister. She knows I’m making one for her; it’s part of her Christmas present. But I’m not posting photos of it right now because she doesn’t know what fabrics I chose. Hope she likes it!
Christmas tree skirt. This is what it looked like a week ago (apologies for the crappy out of focus iPhone photo), and now that I know how to make and attach binding from my class, I can finish it this week!