The First Step

“Half the game is 90% mental” – Yogi Berra

When the alarm goes off at 4:30am, I always want to go back to sleep. Always. The hardest part of my morning is taking the first step out of bed. Then taking the first step of my run. It’s a battle each morning – but it is always worth it.

This morning’s cold 6 miles was a struggle for the first mile. I was tired and cold – but by mile 2, things started looking up, and step-by-step I started enjoying things. By the end of the run – I was ecstatic about life, and probably glowing. A mini-victory.

I was craving fruit, so when I got back – I had a peach over plain yogurt and some toast. A beautiful breakfast.

Happy Wednesday!

Track Tuesdays

Nothing like a good night’s sleep and a morning track session to pop me back into the routine. With the exception of a few running gear changes (a winter hat and gloves!) I hit the track at 5am to do speed work. Because of the temperature (around 30*) I had to do a substantial warm up (~2 miles) and then did the speed work (6x400s) before running home.

It felt wonderful to be running through the crisp air…my times were good and the workout flew by. When I got home, I made a grocery list for Meeker to take care of (FINALLY there will be produce in our house TODAY!)

Then made a cold-morning + empty-fridge standby…

An outstanding bowl of pumpkin oats.

• ½ cup oats
• 1 cup water
• ¼ cup canned pumpkin
• brown sugar
• handful of butterscotch chips
• coconut
• sprinkle of cinnamon

…it’s really just dessert, pretending to be breakfast.

My day is off to a fantastic start and I’m excited to see what else is in store! Happy Tuesday!

Huh?

That is the only word I can use to describe this day. Huh?

• I woke up to cold, cold, cold
• Did some yoga and got a LARGE latte to warm me up
• Got to school and 20 minutes later, I found out that the construction site next door had broken a gas pipe, which was leaking in our school..no bueno
• Got the 5 kids that had already arrived and prepared to evacuate and send them home (I was excited, and secretly planning my day at home)
• Started the evacuation process, only to find out that the situation was under control and we were staying – It completely threw me off
• I had only 5 kids in my class (more trickled in later…for a whopping total of 10 for the day), so I babysat all day. We couldn’t teach anything because we would just have to re-teach the material tomorrow when the rest of the class was there
• It started SNOWING an hour later. That’s right, SNOWING. It’s September 21^st.
• I had a meeting with the special ed. department/a parent, and was basically blubbering the whole time because I was so sad about the child’s disability and his lack of progress. I didn’t know I cared so much.
• It was the end of our no-grocery-week-challenge, but I couldn’t go to the store because I was too cold. Haha. I’m such a wimp.

So here is a meal made on the 15^th day without groceries.

I thawed/browned some ground turkey that had been hiding in the back of the freezer and added canned tomatoes.

Then I added the lentils I had crock-potted yesterday. Broth and all.

Then, topped the mess with hummus.

What’s better than a bowl of soup on a snowy evening?!

(It’s not still snowing, but in my mind, it is a snowy evening.)

I have to go have another bowl – it was that good. I will post the proper instructions on my recipe page.

I am such a creature of habit that the lack of routine today threw me way off – I could hardly function. Not unhappy, just weird.

Here’s to some normalcy tomorrow!

Winners

The Broncos game was SO fun!

I had never been to a NFL game before, and it was very entertaining!

Some highlights:

• My brother-in-law got chosen to catch the pre-game punts (and he caught all 3 and got some awesome Broncos gear! – yay Hills!!)
• Shannon Sharpe was inducted into the “Ring of Fame” – and he made a grand entrance by skydiving onto the field
• The F-16 Flyover!
• During the game, Meeker told me that his middle school girlfriend is now a Bronco’s cheerleader. I win.
• The Broncos WON! Whohoo!

Mr. Sharpe came home with us….

How funny is this?!

Now I am home and about to enjoy the last of our veggies…

3 zucchinis, drizzled with evoo, salt, pepper, and garlic powder and roasted in the oven for 25 minutes @ 400* and then I put lentils (that were in the crockpot all day) and hummus on top.

I have to finish some grading before bed. Ick.

Enjoy the last drops of the weekend!!

Successful Clean Out

This is our fridge. I am saving the goodies in the bottom right drawer (3 zucchinis, 1 bell pepper and a ½ lemon) for dinner tonight. We also have hummus and olives (top right) – so that will spruce up whatever we can fabricate out of the veggies. Tomorrow is the end of our no-grocery-challenge week! We’ve almost made it…

Happy Sunday! We are off to the Broncos game!

__

Oh, and this happened last night and I couldn’t stop laughing.

What a Friday

About 30 seconds after I posted my breakfast, I pulled out of the garage and ripped my passenger side mirror off my BRAND NEW CAR. I immediately burst into tears, but couldn’t fall apart for too long because my school is 2 minutes from my house. Geez. I am so mad at myself I can’t even stand it.

That’s what a car looks like without a mirror on the side. Gaaahh.

However, today was Teacher Appreciate Lunch at my school! Our wonderful, wonderful parents make an enormous themed feast once a month for the teachers. Today’s theme was Asian.

Everything is always homemade, and everything is always DELICIOUS.

My plate was ¾ salad, but there was some traditional Asian fare on there.

Then of course…the dessert. Holy moly yums.

I chose 2, and that was really difficult.

I chose wisely. Both were delish. A Madeline cookie and a chocolate, chunk cookie. I almost forgot about the lack of a mirror on my car…

Meeker just laughed at me when I told him about the car (could I ask for a better reaction from my husband…who bought the car for me?!) and to make me feel better, he made LOBSTER for dinner. LOBSTER. (For the record, he went grocery shopping at his PARENTS house…which means FREE…which means we still stuck to our no-grocery-week-challenge. Is that cheating? Nah.)

I have only had lobster one other time in my life…and both times were phenomenal. Duh.

Meeker made his own “rub” that included: dried parsley, salt, cayenne pepper, garlic, onion powder and pepper. He grilled the tails and basted them with melted butter 2 different times during cooking. I DID forget about the mirror incident while I was eating dinner. I also had a salad and some canned asparagus.

Okay…this long post is over. I am so happy it is the weekend and I am going to now lie on the couch and watch Felicity re-runs.

Happy, Happy, Happy ‘Finally Friday!’