Impromptu half marathon and my trusty George Foreman

Hey I ran a half marathon this morning. Not an official race, but I did go run 13.1 miles on my own. I just decided that I am going to go down to Boston Sunday to see some friends and check out the marathon expo. Then Monday morning I am going to cheer for my college friend Jen as she runs the Boston Marathon. So I have running fever. And I realized that it has been about a month since I ran the Rome Marathon. I am determined not to do what I usually do after a marathon, which is not run longer than 6 miles for months after and lose all my hard won fitness. So this year I am going to try and run at least 13 miles once a month.

cheesy, sweat post run self portrait. the camera is strategically placed to hide the giant sweat stain around my neck.

I didn't head out until 9:30 because I did several hours of work before I headed out, which meant that by the time I got home, stretched, checked my work e-mail, and showered I was starving. I will blame the fact that it took me 4 tries to get my new fitted sheet on my bed right on low blood sugar. I had some yummy roasted broccoli, sweet potato, and kale from yesterday but I was also craving some protein.  Perfect time for some George Foreman chicken.

This does not even  include the ice-creamer or snow-cone maker.

I am a small kitchen appliance junky. Seriously I have a whole shelf of them. There have been some that I bought, but just never were useful or helpful (like the cocoa motion that I begged for when I was 13 that took a good 45 minutes to make a cup of hot chocolate). And then there are those that I just love. The George Foreman little grill is one of those.


I know it's kind of cheesy and lame, but I love the thing. It makes a grilled chicken breast in about 5 minutes and the chicken is always moist and flavorful.

What can't you live without in the kitchen?

Working at Home DIY

After the craziness of traveling for 2 weeks I always look forward to working at home. And I love the more relaxed pace for about a day. Then I get bored with myself. Without all the hours of travels I just have so much more time in my life. And of course my kitchen is always available. I don't have the embarrassment factor to keep me from going back for a third (or fourth or fifth) handful of peanut butter m&m's. There are no coworkers watching me. All out of m&m's? No problem..... I can always whip up some cookies. No good at all. So I am trying to come up with projects to keep myself occupied.

Luckily I now own a house. As part of my on-going effort to make my house not look like an old lady's house, this week's project was replacing the ugly shelf and drawer linings in the kitchen. The hardest part was finding the contact paper in Home Depot . I was lost in there for a good hour.

The old shelf paper was an ugly beige

 Like most project this involved making a big mess . I had to take everything out of my cabinets.

 

 

 

 

 

Don't judge, this is the continents of my baking cabinet so yes there is a lot of chocolate and marshmallow.

And then my entire kitchen floor was covered in old shelf paper and scraps of the new stuff.

It was going pretty well. I thought I'd broken my stupid injuries while doing DIY projects streak (last month when I tried to fix the trim on my mantle I almost cut off my thumb). Not so fast. The old paper was really hard to get off. Especially on the top shelf where I had to stand on top of the counter to reach. There was one particularly stubborn piece and I was pulling with all my weight against it. And you know what's coming. It finally came off and I went flying backward. I managed to get my feet underneath me so that at least I didn't fall 6 feet and smack my head on the tile floor. I had so much momentum though, that once I got my feet down I was still moving backward and ended up sitting in the trash can. The best part was that I somehow managed to turn my phone off mute as I falling so everyone on my work conference call heard the whole thing. Yup, my name is Kiersten and I am excellent at embarrassing myself.

Horrific embarrassment not withstanding, I think it came out pretty well. The polka dots make me happy every time I open a door in the kitchen.

 My next project is going to be painting the cupboards because I hate the maroon color they are now. It involves a power sander. I see potential disaster.

Easter weekend

I was not all that excited to be leaving my house less than 12 hours after getting home, but once I got up to my Mom's house I was so glad I was there. Honestly of all the places I've been, I am always the happiest there.

I rushed around Saturday morning so that I could get up there by noon because I knew my friend Lucy and here baby would be there. I gave my Mom a bunch of house cleaning sessions with Lucy and the last 2 weekends my Mom was torturing me by sending adorable pictures of the baby. I needed to get in on that baby action because he about the cutest thing ever!

Baby in a fuzzy bear suit? Cutest thing EVER.

After Lucy and the babe headed out I helped my Mom with some yard work. It was so nice to be outside after being inside the hospital for 2 weeks. This has got to be a record for working in the gardens- usually we still have snow this time of year!

I'm sure my Mom will appreciate me posting pictures of her butt

 

 

 

 

 

 It started to get really windy in the late afternoon so we headed inside. My Mom started making an apple and almond paste pie and I started working on a shrimp pasta for dinner. My aunt arrived with some fried shrimp from Sea Basket and our neighbor came over with wine, so we had wine and shrimp appetizers and talked as we cooked.

My inspiration for dinner was this Shrimp Cobb Salad from cooking light. But instead of making it a green salad I made it a hot pasta dish. It was pretty good, but I restrained myself from seconds because I wanted to leave room for pie. Normally I can take or leave apple pie, but this apple almond crumb pie is incredible. It is the best of everything, apple crisp, pie crust, and creamy sweet almond paste. I had 2 pieces. And then stayed up way too late playing music with my Mom and aunt. 3 guitars, 3 voices, and a whole bunch of new music. Yeah!

We finally dragged ourselves to bed around 2. My Mom and I slept in the boathouse for the first time this year. It's funny because we have this big old rambling house up on the hill but if at all possible my Mom and I always sleep down in our little campy boathouse. I just love my little bunk right on the water. Even if I have to sleep in a sleeping bag and use 4 blankets because it doesn't have any insulation or heat!

Normally I love the sunrise service on Easter morning. It's held down on the rocks by the ocean and we watch the sun rise over the ocean. But this year I was just so tired from the last 2 weeks that I just couldn't fathom getting out of bed. So I didn't. Happy Easter to me. And then I had a Reese's egg before heading out on my run. I did a lovely, but windy, 6 miler up the west side of the island and back. Love those hills!

The rest of the day included church, the Sunday Crossword puzzle, helping my Mom with a bulletin board for school, a walk to the dock, and yummy left-overs. Including 2 more pieces of pie. It was nice and relaxed. I left my phone in my car and didn't turn on my computer. And I didn't make myself sick on Easter candy. Good day.

Silence and Noise

It was a long day of travel yesterday and by the time I finally got home my head was pounding and my body hurt from sitting on planes all day. I had a list a million items long of things I should do, but instead I set my bags inside, put on my sneakers, and headed outside. I didn't bring my phone or my i-pod and I headed to the trails. I needed silence. I came back totally refreshed and ready to tackle my piles of mail and laundry.

This morning when my alarm went off my body wasn't happy.  After two weeks of very little sleep and a 3 hour time difference I could have stayed in bed all day. But that wasn't an option because I had a bunch of stuff to do before heading up to my Mom's on the island for Easter. First stop was the gym for kickboxing. She blasted the music this morning and it was like an instant shot of energy. I went from totally dragging to totally kicking butt. This morning I needed noise.

When do you need silence and when do you need noise?

Following my own advice

Why is it that your own advice is the hardest to follow? In my job I introduce massive changes into the lives of doctors and tell them to be patient and work through the initial kinks. So I have tried to be patient with the United/Continental merger. The first time the web-site wouldn't work I patiently waited on the phone for an hour to speak to an agent, and then continued to wait for another hour as she tried to change my ticket. The second time I was a little less patient, the third time I was starting to get annoyed, and today I just about lost it. When I went to check in for my flight tomorrow, my reservation just wasn't there. I waited on the phone and when the agent told me that my reservation had been cancelled because I was a no show last Saturday, I really think my almost exploded.

"I WAS NOT A NO SHOW. YOU CANCELLED THE FLIGHT. I WAITED ON THE PHONE FOR HOURS TO TALK TO SOMEONE AND I TALKED TO AN AGENT AT THE AIRPORT. BOTH TOOK MY INFORMATION AND TOLD ME I WAS ALL SET. AND THEN I HAD TO DRIVE 10 HOURS IN THE POURING RAIN. SO DON'T TELL ME THIS IS MY FAULT. GET ME ON A PLANE TO MAINE TOMORROW.


Silence on the other end. I feel a little bad for flipping out on that poor person. But I do have my flights for tomorrow.

Place Triggers

Does anyone else have those places where they just can't seem to stop eating? I definitely do. One of them is my grandmother's (now my mother's) house on the island. When I was a kid we only had healthy food at my house. Once a week we got Kraft Mac and Cheese because my Mom taught a night class and we had a babysitter. Other that that it was all wholesome goodness, all the time. But at Grandma's house we got Lucky Charms for breakfast, Pringles with lunch, pudding cups for snacks, and ice cream for dessert. And despite the fact that I'm now an adult and can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, when I go into that house I'm like a kid in a candy store trying to stuff in as much as possible before anyone notices. There is a big pantry off the kitchen and I literally go in there, grab the bag of chocolate chips off the shelf, and sit on the floor in the dark and hide and eat them.

Awesome view, but I'm too busy hiding in the pantry and stuffing my face

And this week I've realized that my client in Santa Rosa is a trigger too. I was here every Monday-Thursday for almost a year for work. It was my first consulting job and I went a little crazy. I was eating massive dinners out with co-workers or trying to ease my homesickness by eating comfort food alone in my hotel room. The women I shared an office with all had candy jars on their desks and I was frequently alone in the office to eat all I wanted from them. Someone was always bringing in donuts, cookies, or some treat, And so it seems that I associate being here with eating. When I was here for the LIVE a month ago I had a major candy binge. Yesterday I did the same in the command center, where there were cookies, cake, chocolate, and chips.

The running trails and the gym here are my favorite of all the places I currently travel, but all my exercise doesn't ever come close to balancing out what I eat.

Are there certain places that trigger you to eat?

Don't Mess with my Coffee

I woke up today and thought it was going to be a better day. I am so tired of nasty hotel coffee, so I went to the grocery store last night and got some decent coffee. Then I did a complicated operation where I opened a slit in the crappy hotel coffee pod thing, dumped out the nasty coffee, poured mine in, and then folded it over so it wouldn't get grounds in the coffee. So I had a delicious 1/2 mug of my hazelnut before I headed out on my run and couldn't wait to have the rest of the pot when I got back. I put a note on the coffee maker to "please leave coffee" just to make sure house cleaning wouldn't touch it.

After a solid week of rain, the sun was finally out! It was a crisp, clear morning just perfect for a run. I went for a great 8 mile run around Spring Lake. This was my longest run by far since the Rome Marathon 2 weeks ago, and it has some decent hills. I felt good, running about a 9:30 pace :-)

As I went to get into the shower I looked over at the coffee pot. Empty. I was so mad. I literally screamed a swear and almost ran out into the hall in my little towel to confront housekeeping. I mean they had to lift the note off to pour out the coffee. I know I was being a little irrational, but I was pissed.

I didn't get any less angry as I drank the awful hotel coffee at breakfast. Luckily, I had also planned to go a yoga class at 11. Yoga always reminds me what is really important. It's not coffee. Today, it was pigeon pose. After a week of hard workouts and 10 hours in the car yesterday my hips were holding a lot of tension. A few minutes in pigeon and I feel like a new person. But I still want coffee.