Kristin’s Playground

Wordless Wednesday

That’s my photo of the day. (Day 7 in a row! 1/3 done with item #95!) That also was yesterday’s baking project. It’s a Linzer torte, and wikipedia tells me it’s the oldest cake known to the world. Cool. I didn’t know that. It’s Austrian, and our Austrian co-worker always brings some back for us when he goes home. He’s leaving for a new job tomorrow, so I thought I’d try my hand at making some for his going away party. I was really nervous about how it would turn out, but I think it worked well. The crust is so delicious - hazelnuts, almonds, butter, sugar, flour. The dough was pretty hard to work with though, so the lattice strips are a little messy. Ah well. I’ve never made anything with lattice strips before. I’m not even sure I’ve ever made a pie crust by myself, so I’m happy.

The party was filled with tasty food and I ate way too much, but Kelly, Beth and I went running again tonight, so it sort of evens out, right? We went about 3.5 miles, which is more than 5k, so we’ll be set when the actual event comes. Took 45-50 minutes or so? (Our timer got a little messed up in the middle…) Not so bad. I certainly jogged for longer than I’d expected to be able to. I had some good constant beat-per-minute music from Podrunner, so it helped me keep a steady pace. Also, running with the group helped keep me going too. I felt pretty awful during the last mile or so, and probably wouldn’t have run much more had I been by myself. If we keep up with this, we definitely won’t embarrass ourselves at the Big House Big Heart 5K in September. We may even get Kelly to reach her under 10-minute mile goal. In high school, I’d been training for a 5k and had goal of completing the mile in gym class in under 10 minutes. I think I got 10:04 or something, so I’d be quite pleased to see a 10 minute mile, too.

Anyway, bedtime. But you should pop over to my sister’s blog to wish my brother-in-law good luck on the bar. He finished Day 1 today, but has another whole day of testing tomorrow. Ugh.

A couple of accomplishments for the day - I had my 7th day of earning both my green check marks, meaning I stayed within my calorie goals for the day, and I had 30 minutes of some sort of exercise. One-third of the way done with item 78.

I also got a pleasant surprise that will let me go see my dad play a gig back in my hometown on Thursday. I’d been planning on going back over the weekend for a reunion, but I’m happy to get to go a little early and spend some quality time with my folks. And I’m extra-happy that I won’t have to drive! (Thanks, Dad!)

I spent this evening baking. It was a little more complicated than things I normally make, so I was nervous, but it looks like it’ll turn out. It’s a surprise for now, but I’ll have pictures later, fear not! Also, I have my picture of the day for you. I had an idea kicking around in my head because Utata has an “Iron Photographer” challenge. It needed to involve a curved piece of wood, something white, and it had to look old. This is what I came up with given my baking evening:

It’s been a busy weekend. Yesterday I went and donated blood when I got up. There’s a real need in the area for donations, and they’ve been calling me every other day to make an appointment. I last donated back in February I think, so it was long past time. I was pleasantly surprised at how it went. My past experiences at the local donor center were less than pleasant - waiting too long, etc, but this time went really well - hardly any wait, the nurse found my vein right away, no problems, etc. They even have comfy new chairs!

On my way back I had an interesting spread of gas prices. I saw regular gas for everything from 3.75 to 4.09. Crazy what less than 8 miles can do. Also, I bought myself a tart pan. I’ve got plans for it too in the next few days!

Saw WALL-E in the afternoon with Kelly. It was great. I didn’t really know what to expect from the previews, but the story was wonderful. We grabbed some dinner, I mowed the lawn, and then I went over to Kelly’s to try out a Wii-fit. I hadn’t been too impressed by the trailer (although its parody was quite funny), but it was actually a lot of fun. Turns out my fitness age is 29. Who knew? Now that I’ve played with one, I kind of actually want one. Not sure if it would actually help get/stay in shape or not, but it was fun. And it has charts and graphs! I love charts and graphs.

Today is a day for catching up on chores and things, although Kelly, Beth, and I did go running. We went about 2.2 miles in around 25 minutes. It was hot and painful. But don’t we look happy about it?

And, so as not to disappoint, here is my photo of the day. When I was experimenting with my “make the photo look old” bit, I learned that one way to do things like that is with textures in photoshop. And then I found ghostbones on flickr who has a lot of good textures to share. So, naturally, I want to experiment with them. Today, my photo was a broken hanger from the front hall closet. I guess my winter jacket was too much for it. Anyway, it was fun to play with. Forgive me for overusing textures in the next little while, but their novelty will probably take awhile to wear off.

Now, I know mowing the lawn doesn’t really seem like it should be on the same list as “Get your Ph.D,” but I felt this was an important life skill that I should know how to do. Don’t get me wrong - it’s not like I’ve never mown a lawn before, it’s just that, growing up, we had a rather large lawn. This meant that we ended up having a riding lawn mower. So, I’ve used one of those plenty. I’ve just never used one of the standard push-mower things, and I felt I should probably know how to use one. Of course, once it was on my list, Logan was all to eager to help me cross this goal off, so yesterday evening I did!

All in all, it wasn’t so bad, though I can’t imagine doing it in full sun on a hot day. You get surprisingly sweaty, even when there’s a nice breeze. Our lawn mower is supposed to have a self-propel feature, but unfortunately, it really doesn’t do too much. The most annoying part of it was the large plants on the edge of the lawn in the backyard. Trying to sufficiently mow the lawn under some rather pokey branches was frustrating at times.

Still, the lawn is mowed, and I get to cross something off of my list! Go me!

Hi all!

It’s been a busy day - you’ll hear more about it later, but for now, I wanted to give you all a heads up: my friend Linda is participating in the Day of Blogs this year. That means she’ll be posting every half hour for 24 hours straight to benefit the Christian Children’s Fund. She starts at 10 EST tonight, so go visit her and cheer her on. There will likely be contests and things, and it’s always great fun.

I’ll be back later, but for now I’ll leave you with my picture of the day. Both of my sunflowers have flowered! Hooray!

However good I felt about going on a run yesterday was fully made up for it by how sore I was today. Oof. I’ll have to do more stretching and I’ll probably have to run more often if I don’t want to hurt like that each time I get the idea to go for a jog. On top of being sore, my alarm didn’t go off this morning, so I had to rush off to work. At least it’s a Friday.

I just finished watching the 1983 Best Picture, Terms of Endearment. Such a sad movie! My friend Kelly had warned me, but I still cried. ::sniff:: Amadeus is the next Best Picture if I go chronologically. I think I’ve seen it before - or at least parts of it, but I’ll watch it again to be sure.

In other news, my first quest for a week of green check marks continues. I think today’s exercise will consist of some yoga before bed; the waking up late and the hurting made biking to work seem like a bad idea.

My photo of the day comes to you from the diag; I saw these flowers hanging from a chain by the sidewalk. They seemed like an odd pairing, so I had to stop to take some photos. When I starting looking at it in photoshop, something about it reminded me of an old, grainy photo of a bouquet someone had hung up to dry, so I ran with it. There’s a photo challenge over at Utata that involves a photo appearing old, so I thought it’d be good practice too. What do you think?

Tomorrow I’ve got an appointment for giving blood, and plans to finally go see WALL-E. Should be fun.

I came home from work today - a beautiful summer evening - and realized I still needed to do 30 minutes of exercise to earn both my green check marks today (today would be the third day in a row - I’m going to make a week!). So I went running. Me. Running? Okay, so me running is really more like most people walking quickly, but still. I changed, dug my gym shoes out of the corner of the closet and took off. I think I’m a little nervous for my upcoming 5k. I told my friend, Kelly about my 101 list, and she asked if she could do the 5k and the 10k with me. It’s a great idea, and now I really have to be committed to doing it. We’ve even picked a 5k: the Big House, Big Heart run in September. So, I should probably do a little training before that day comes if I don’t want to embarrass myself.

I was actually pleased with how far I went before I stopping jogging and started walking. I jogged for almost 10 minutes to get to the park and the river. In all, the google maps pedometer tells me I went around 2.5 miles, and it took me about 30 minutes with my running/walking. I’m pleasantly surprised, and quite proud of myself for getting off my butt and doing it. Maybe the 5k won’t be as painful as I thought.

And, to keep up with another daily task, here’s my photo of the day from my “run”:

Huzzah! A pic a day - and I’m caught up. Think I can keep it up for a week?

21 July 2008:

I was jealously glancing at the Brie section of Trader Joe’s when this caught my eye. Light brie? Couldn’t be! So, I had to try it. While it’s tasty, it’s not the delectable creamy goodness I have come to associate with the word “brie” in my head. Ah well. Thought it had to be too good to be true.

22 July 2008:

There are a bunch of these plants near the physics building, and they contain masses of spider webs. These webs are often dewy, even in mid-afternoon!

23 July 2008 (ie, today!):

The sunflower is opening! Hooray! The color! The happiness!

Last night, I decided that it was time to harvest a pepper! It’s still probably a bit early since the peppers are still small, but peppers can be eaten at almost any stage, and I don’t want to risk ruining them by waiting too long. Besides, I think harvesting early helps increase yields, so maybe this will lead to a new pepper on the plant. I’ll try to be patient with the next one, however, to see if it grows much more or starts to turn colors; I still don’t know what color these peppers are supposed to end up. Anyway, this is the story of the first pepper from my garden: straight from a plant to a tasty omelette!

To reduce damage to the plant, it’s best to cut the pepper off instead of just pulling it. So, here is my freed pepper!

Of course, you should wash your peppers well before eating them. I’m pretty sure the Food Play guy would find a face here to work with. Droopy cheeks and a long nose - it has possibilities.

I chopped it up pretty well and snuck a taste. What do you know? It tasted like a green pepper! I’m so proud!

Ah, the final product: a turkey sausage, pepper, and cheese omelette. It was delicious, and it made my night knowing that I hadn’t killed all of my plants, and actually got to make something tasty with things that grew in my garden! (To be fair, it isn’t the first thing we used from our garden this year. I used some fresh parsley in my roasted potatoes last week, but an herb is much different than a vegetable!)

P.S. Now item #43 on my 101 things list is one step closer to be being crossed off.