A pretty good, low key vacation day:)

Exercise:

I got up this morning to go for my 12km run when I suddenly realized that if I was going to go that far I should probably have some water and honey stinger chews on hand, though I was hoping to be out only 75 minutes. Lol when I went to get the supplies, I came to the realization I am woefully unprepared for longer runs these days. I peeled two mandarin oranges for myself and headed out the door.

I met up with my totally awesome and flexible running buddy who was willing to walk however long it took me to run the 12km (she has hurt her feet and so isn’t running). I set out doing intervals of 4 and 1s as I figured I could survive anything doing that. Of course I quickly learned that one lap of the lake, while beautiful, was only 3.2km, not the 5km it said online. I was not willing to run that lake four times. I ended up doing 6.11km and headed for tea.

I was thinking about Julie as I was blasting Another One Bites the Dust and singing along on the way home from my run. It seemed like the perfect song for after that run!

The good news is that when I uploaded my run to Squad Runner, it gave me credit and 150 points for the mission. Yahoo🎊🎉🎊🎉. I was super relieved to not have to go out and run again in the afternoon.

This evening, I really didn’t want to work out, so I stuck with 200 squats and 150 crunches and called it a day.

Knitting:

I managed to finish my second sleeve today:) I think all I have to do now is sew the parts together and do the shawl collar- only six days to have it done for it to count for HPKCHC!

Reading:

One of my goals this year is to try and finish up the many series that I have started. Last night, I went back through GoodReads and found the first series I hadn’t finished was the Southern Roads series by Stephanie Bond. There were only three novellas left to read, so I got them from Amazon and am through 2.5 of them.

The series is about three brothers who resurrect their hometown that was flattened by a tornado ten years ago. I’ve really enjoyed the series and the short stories have been enjoyable too. Baby I’m Back made me laugh, cry and sigh, which to me is a good read:) Baby Hold On was centered around the rehab of a dog and since I love dogs, it was a given I’d enjoy the book. The only thing that bugged me was the “theories” of the groomer that were spot on. Ugh I don’t like perfect coincidences in books. I’m just finishing up the third short story and then I’ll have that series finished:). Is it bad that I even get excited about “accomplishing” finishing a series?

I have also spent some time listening to Treasure Island while knitting and have gotten to chapter 16:)

Baking:

I was given spinach by my friend Sarah and decided to try a batch of spinach brownies I found the recipe for on WordPress. They were super easy to make, but I have to admit that I can’t get past the look of them. To me they look like baby poop:(. I think these ones are going in the garbage, I don’t want to waste my calories on something that isn’t totally fulfilling!

Family:

Today is my dad’s birthday so I had left his present in the freezer for him yesterday:) Dilly bars- he loves them and my mom isn’t left with more stuff, seems like the perfect gift to me!😛. I also took my parents out for dinner tonight to celebrate. It was pretty good, we just shared three different appetizers:)

I have obviously eaten way too much today as I also had a tortilla pizza for lunch, thanks to Maureen of Maureen Gets Real:) I had a gluten free tortilla (Mission brand is the best I’ve found), spread it with pesto, mushrooms and chicken and then grated dairy free mozzarella on top. It was so good and felt so decadent to eat a whole pizza! I have definitely eaten too much today though, gotta be better tomorrow!

Well, I’m off to bed.

Have fun!

AJ

23 thoughts on “Vacation Day 9”

    1. I was just talking about those yesterday. Was thinking they’d be great because beets are sweet and would add red which would be like a red velvet look

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  2. I’m not sure I could eat something that looked like baby poop either. yuck! hope today brings more fun for you. can’t wait to see your finished sweater

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    1. Yup they tasted okay but I ended up throwing them out cause of the look.
      I’m hoping to finish it today or tomorrow:)

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      2. Well the sleeves are now attached to the front so that’s something:). Of course now I have to stop and go shopping with a friend.😂

  5. A fellow blogger, Anne Mehrling, sent me your site and told me she enjoyed it. I must say, after reading several posts, that you have an ambitious agenda. I’ll put it down to youth and you live in a warm and sunny climate and that way I won’t feel like a sloth. I am an avid walker and trying to surpass last year’s 1,050 miles walked which I was pretty excited about – hopefully I can do it if the dregs of Winter ever leave here. I am also a fellow Canadian, having lived here since 1966 and still never became an American citizen (oops!)

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    1. Wow-1050 miles! I think you’re ambitious too:)
      I just love the feeling of accomplishment and sometimes it makes me a little crazy, and there are other days I really have to search for something to write about:)
      Sunny and warm isn’t how I would describe my location, unless you’re comparing it to Alaska! It is very wet though, so ducks do very well here🤣
      Hope you stick around:)

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      1. Thanks – that is a good accomplishment for me, I’ll have to admit it. I walk more than I drive since I work from home (legal secretary for a sole practitioner labor lawyer) and I do have days where I think “I just can’t write about the squirrels and geese in the Park again!” I have a little squirrel there who I spoil and he comes running like a pet greets you at the end of the day so I write about him and Tuesdays I often do a “Tuesday Musings” post which gives me license to stray from walks and talk about other things as well.

        I know you’ve been having some wet weather lately in and around Vancouver. I like nature walks and one day I saw an eagle and took its picture … looked like a brown blog on an ice floe. A fellow blogger told me to go to a site of a nature photographer from Tofino, B.C. so I’ve been following him a few months now. He’s remarked on the weather being cold and damp … I was thinking more like sunny San Diego, which is supposed to be the most-perfect weather in the U.S. Here is Wayne’s blog about places in Tofino if you get a chance to look at it. The scenery is very pretty there – I wish when my father made the move from Oakville, Ontario to a Ford Motor Company plant here in Southeast Michigan, he would have looked for a job in a warmer climate. We had a brutal Winter which I hope is soon going to be over. I’ll stick around – hope you do likewise; thank you for following me, and special thanks to Anne for suggesting your site to me.

        https://tofinophotography.wordpress.com/

      2. Oh I got to go to Tofino two summers ago and loved it! Thanks for the blog suggestion:). I guess in comparison to you, I’m having a warm winter, but it just still seems cold and wet here. I often wonder why my family couldn’t have settled somewhere warm too, but then I realize I’m quite happy to be Canadian and living here:)
        I love Anne’s blog!

      3. My father had one interview in Minnesota – thankfully he didn’t take that. I’d be a popsicle by now. As to Tofino, it looks very pretty there and I like that small town feel. Wayne likes eagles and he has befriended several of them. His close-ups of them are just incredible. That’s why I was recommended to check out his site. But, he has some beautiful sunsets and pics of other birds, bears and wild life. I’m happy to be a Canadian as well, but wish I was over there. I’ve got no family left in Canada now, but none here either for that matter – it’s just me. So, I think that one day I might return. Once a Canadian, always a Canadian. I was 10 when we moved here

      4. I unfortunately have only seen Tofino during tourist season when it’s crazy there. I’ll look forward to seeing it more like the locals:)
        I think that’s true of a lot of people- tough to get the Canadian out of you:).
        Would you go back to Ontario?

      5. I’m imagining Tofino to be like Summer on the East Coast, just bustling with tourists enjoying that scenic town.

        My mom hated it here when we first moved here. But her family was still back in Toronto, and she missed her mom very much. I was picked on incessantly in school for my accent and proper speech (no slang, no contractions) and ridiculed as well by my sixth grade teacher. I hated school and like my mom wished we’d never moved to the States.

        If I did go back, it would be to Ontario, but that is just a pipe dream. This house is paid for, and I will be 62 next month, so I am reluctant to just pull up stakes and, have no one over there anymore.

      7. The older I get, the harder it is for me to cope with change. I find that as my boss prepares to retire in the next year or so – I’ve worked for him for 17 years, and since February 2003 just working for only him – we left our law firm and went out on our own. Been working from home about 8 years (was laid off and mom was ill, then hired back part-time), so going out into the big work world is even intimidating to me, so moving back to Canada is even more so – but I have not changed my citizenship since moving here in 1966, so that tells you something. 😉

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