Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Date Night

Yesterday my mom and Wayne took the kids home to Boston with them for school vacation week. Harper and Patrick will be spoiled, entertained and loved to bits and we will go down on Saturday after a full week of work. With the kids gone, I thought it would be nice to go on a date to our favorite local restaurant. As an aside, I hesitate to promote this resto because it is owned by a big corporation based in Florida and they seem to want to develop our mountain which can't help but change the rural nature of our perfect little town. However with the state of the economy, their plans have been scaled back and slowed down. In any case, the restaurant has outstanding food, a friendly, local staff and is five minutes from our house, so we patronize it in spite of our concerns. But they are closed on Tuesday nights! So rather than go to one of the other restaurants, which are fine for groups or a family dinner out, but nothing great, I decided to cook a special meal at home. I made Steak au Poivre, pan roasted asparagus, sauteed mushrooms with sherry and blue cheese mashed potatoes. I had this really amazing French blue cheese that I bought in Montreal and couldn't resist including it in some way. It was a fabulous meal, if I do say so myself. The steak came out perfect; everything did! And I bought an extra nice bottle of cabernet. Neil got the house nice and warm with a raging fire in the woodstove, lit some candles and put some jazz on the hifi and date night was saved!

(Neil thinks I'm dorky, but I like taking pictures of food. I like reading other blogs that have pictures of food and so I like to include my own pictures of food on occasion. I actually am kind of dorky.)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

I Wanna Run!

I just want to run.  And it's hard because I have this job and these kids and other stuff I'm supposed to do.  But the days are getting longer which means there is more light in the morning and that is the time I love best.  Last year I ran 2 marathons in the span of five months.  This was a bad idea. Especially since I trained really hard for the second one. Too hard.  I totally burnt myself out.  And that last marathon sucked.  I don't have another full marathon in me right now and I'm not sure I ever will.  I hope so, but I'm not sure.  So my friend Michelle and I are going to run a 2-person relay in the Vermont City Marathon this May.  That venue was my very best marathon ever when I ran it last year, both in terms of time and pure pleasure.  It's a beautiful course and the crowd support is legendary.  

I think training for a Half will be a nice compromise between the "resting" (i.e. sluggishness) of the past few months and a full-tilt boogie to 26.2.  I think I could run 13 miles right now if I wanted to, but to do well, I'll need to train.  I'll start training in earnest in a couple weeks, but I've recently started to gradually increase my mileage.  And it has reminded me how much I love to run; how much I NEED to run.  I ran 8 miles on Monday, which is about the longest I've gone since last September's marathon.  It made me happy.  I'm happiest, in general, in life, when I'm running regularly and at least slightly longer distances than 4 or 5 miles.  There is something about being out running for more than an hour that is especially healing to my mind, body and soul.  I can't really explain it, but something clicks for me with the longer distance.  Maybe I just require that much time out on the roads or trails to really detach and let go of the things that are hard in life. I need it and I'm so grateful that I can do it.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Manny the Music Man

Pat just started taking guitar lessons last Fall. Here he is practicing for us. It's so very sweet.

Pat's been playing the piano for about 3 years. Here he is practicing his latest piece.


Here you can see that Pat gets his musical inclinations from his father.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

A Thousand Words


Skiing

This is Patrick skiing last weekend. It was only his 3rd time ever downhill skiing. He did great!

And a little clip of Harper, who doesn't really ski with me anymore because she's too good and too grown.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

CM: Jersey Girl, Navy Veteran, My Chum

Last night my dear old friend and comrade, Christine called me. We haven't talked for a little while and she had a question for me. She also chastised me for not blogging. She apparently loves this blog. She's my lurker! Since I haven't had much to say lately (or at least not much to say here) I figured I could say a few words about Christine; a good use of words, time and space, really.

Christine and I started working together almost 10 years ago. We literally job shared for a couple years and then continued to work together for several more. For a while, I was even her Boss! We don't work together anymore and we live just far enough apart (about 45 minutes) that we don't see each other as often as we'd like. We kind of "grew up" together in our part of the battered women's movement. We learned and raged together, argued and cried together. I love CM dearly. And she has the nicest kids and one of the sweetest husbands you'd ever want to meet. I miss Katie and Pat (yep, she has a Patrick, too)! While CM and I get together every few months, I rarely get to see the kids, who are kind, thoughtful, interesting people.

Now I'll post this and see how long it takes for CM to call and scold me for posting her picture on the internet! Hey, no last names and this picture is 2.5 years old--you don't even look like this anymore, what with your "incredible shrinking woman" gig. But yer still cute!

Marathoning--A Record of My Times

  • NEW HAMPSHIRE MARATHON, October 3, 2015. 4 hrs. 56 minutes, 8 seconds.
  • MONTREAL "ROCK 'N' ROLL MARATHON, September 22, 2013. 4 hrs. 20 minutes, 41 seconds.
  • VERMONT CITY MARATHON, May 2012. 4 hrs. 20 minutes, 8 seconds.
  • MOUNT DESERT ISLAND MARATHON (Maine), October 2011, 4 hrs. 45 minutes, 14 seconds
  • SUGARLOAF MARATHON (Maine), May 2010. 4 hrs. 18 minutes, 35 seconds
  • MONTREAL MARATHON, September 2008. 4 hrs. 19 minutes, 33 seconds
  • VERMONT CITY MARATHON, May 2008. 4 hrs. 11 minutes, 58 seconds
  • VERMONT CITY MARATHON, May 2007. 4 hrs. 19 minutes, 42 seconds
  • MONTREAL MARATHON, September 2006. 4hrs, 30 minutes, 2 seconds

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