Patricia's Space

I've decided to move my blog. Windows Live Spaces, while free and mostly easy, is a little limiting for some things. I want more flexibility. I want to be able to do more things (easier). I want to be able to make my blog look the way I want and not the way Windows Live thinks it should look. I want to add buttons, feeds, a flickr feed, and some promotion for Cook Local and for the Cook Local Examiner. I might want to set up subpages that do other things. Maybe play around with wiki software, or some sort of database application. I don't know. But the point is, I can't do any of that with Windows Live Spaces. So after a very frustrating weekend working with Movable Type (my blogging software for Cook Local), I've moved my blog over to www.grumpysmonkey.com. So head on over there in the future. It's got an RSS feed, a nice clean look, and hopefully by tonight will actually have some interesting content.

The sentence "I haven't had goat cheese in ages" sounds so foreign to you that you almost burst out laughing.

You see an ingredient list that contains "mushrooms" and you immediately think "what type?"

You have more than three types of mustard|vinegar|oil|salt in your kitchen.

I'm sure there are others. Anyone want to add to the list?

Half-marathon training is time consuming. There's a very good reason most people don't run marathons or half marathons. We're up to regular 7 mile runs these days and it's becoming harder and harder to fit everything in. A 7 mile run takes about 90 minutes (we're slow). Then you add 30 minutes of PT exercises after the run and we're up to 2 hours. Probably another 10 minutes added to that to get dressed and gadgeted up. So a little over 2 hours for the long runs. Our short runs (4 miles), still take about 50 minutes, plus a good 10 minutes afterwards for stretching and maybe a PT exercise.

Then you add in the PT exercises I do 5 days a week in addition to the session I do after the long run (about 30 minutes a day). So we're up to let's see...

140 minutes + 60 + 60 + 30 + 30 + 30 + 30 + 30 = 410 minutes

So that's 6.8 hours a week and just getting longer. Every week we add another 10 minutes or so to our runs.

Yesterday the therapist added even more. Apparently I have some pretty tight hamstrings. That's not a compliment unfortunately. My hamstrings are tight enough that they are causing friction on my knees. So I have to stretch my hamstrings. Every other hour. Yes. EVERY.OTHER.HOUR.

At 8 minutes per stretching session, that's um... almost another hour a day assuming I do the stretches 7 times a day. We'll see if I'm that dedicated.

Today, the last of our guests return home. It's been a fantastic two weeks. We had great visits with our parents, spent some quality time with friends, ate, drank, saw sights... I could have only asked for one more thing. More downtime. It's been exhausting. I wouldn't have traded it for anything. The friends who stayed the longest are the ones I almost never get to see and we had a fantastic time over the past week (I'm really hoping they move out here someday because all four of us just have a great time together... hint hint... Seattle is a great place to live... hint hint). But even so, I'm ready for a little time to myself. I'm ready to be able to come home and put laundry away, to come home and both cook AND clean up in the same night. I'm looking forward to getting to bed before 11 some nights and hopefully even getting back to the gym regularly again. 

So to our friends and families... I miss you and I can't wait for you to come back and visit again soon. But please, not next week. Or the week after that. Otherwise you're welcome at any time.

Saturday night we took the entire group (plus our friends Incandragon and Lycangeek) to Pasta Freska for dinner. It was an amazing dinner, as always. Here are a couple of shots from Ben of the dinner.

Now, onto Sunday!

We hired a mobile pizza oven to come cook for the party.

And the pizza...

We ate a lot of pizza. A lot. The pizza is so thin that you can pretty much eat a whole pie and not even feel full. In addition to the pizza, we had fruits and veggies, and chips and dip. Everyone had a great time and everyone got along. Fantastic. Here are a few more pictures.

Well, I'm finally feeling like I might eventually catch up from the past week's activity. It was a fun, but exhausting week, and I wouldn't change much of anything other than having to go to Florida the week before! So for anyone who is curious, here's the recap.

Thursday we picked up both sets of parents at the airport. This required two trips since we don't own a car that seats 6. Next time, we're renting a minivan. Went out for dinner at Brouwers, a great spot that is completely hidden to any GPS system. Yet somehow, we made it and much drinking and eating ensued.

Friday was spent wandering around downtown Seattle a bit with a brief stop for lunch at Steelhead Diner. Excellent food as always, and then John and I left to pick up our friends, Danny and Yvette, from the airport. A brief grocery store trip and some excellent coffee later, we were headed back to our house to meet the parents, who all took the bus over from downtown.

Friday night's BBQ was excellent and a lot of fun, with fresh kielbasa, some salmon, and Ben's super secret pork chop recipe.

Me and Mom.

On to Saturday!

Since Ben and Maureen were in town, and all four of us run, we decided to do the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Had a great time, finished in about 36 minutes, and then we were off for the rest of our day. Here's a photo from the race.

Note the shirt I'm wearing. "I run for Wine".

Saturday afternoon we headed out for a Harbor Tour. Minor peeve: WTF is up with a ONE DOLLAR senior discount? At that point, why even offer a senior discount?

The Harbor Cruise was fun, just the right length, and possibly the best part was that I got to see them load the big container ships. I'd never actually seen that before, and I really enjoyed it. Here are a few photos from that trip.

Patricia and Ben on the boat.

Two bald eagles on a container ship.

A ship in dry dock.

A container ship being loaded.

Maureen on the boat.

On to Saturday's dinner in the next post...

It's been a hectic couple of weeks. I went to Florida for work, then came back, had about 3 harried days to clean the house, and then entertained a variety of out of town and in town visitors for what we're calling our 0th Anniversary.

I'll have some pictures and blog posts on the past weekend soon, but for now, just wanted to remind everyone that I'm still alive and will be back to blogging soon.

In summary, let's see...

Our parents think we have great friends.

Our friends think we have cool parents.

We think we have great friends AND cool parents.

Sometimes, Seattle will just surprise you with amazing weather.

Now we have to get back to work.