Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Sand-wow.

I have a confession to make: slap some food between two pieces of bread, throw it on a grill, and I'm a happy camper. I love grilled sandwiches. Grilled cheese, tuna melt, patty melt, reuben, every single form of panini. I love them all.

And yet, I only ever make grilled cheese.

Last night, I stepped outside my usual weeknight comfort zone and made pesto chicken panini. I wanted to take a picture of them, but whoops! We pretended to be starving children and ate them in the blink of an eye.

This sandwich was pretty much my garden's last hurrah. I had some basil that's seen better days, lettuce that's really too bitter for my taste, and a single perfectly ripe tomato. Oh, and some ciabatta rolls and a rotisserie chicken. I made pesto, but overestimated my capacity for garlic. So I took some mayonnaise (eeeew, I hate that stuff) and mixed it in with the pesto.

Clue #5,492 that I'm pregnant: I proceeded to chow down on pesto mayo and Tostitos.

Slathered it on the bread (both pieces!), put on some lettuce, shredded chicken, some shredded mozzerella I found in the cheese drawer, and the tomatoes. Then I smushed each sandwich with the palm of my hand, slammed it laid it lovingly down in a hot cast iron skillet, and covered it with a grill weight.

Oh my stars was that a delicious sandwich. I am going to make as much pesto as possible this weekend so that I can make this sandwich in the coming months.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

What do you mean, I'm a Luddite?

At the urging of a few friends, I joined Pinterest (I think my username is Mamajoie). I get how it's cool. I get how it's a good way to organize stuff. What I don't get is how to do it. Do I follow people? Do I get followers? It's entirely too confusing. Quick, Gertrude, bring the smelling salts! She's got the vapors!

For serious, stuff like this makes me feel so o.l.d. Hello, what is wrong with me? I don't get Twitter, I don't get Pinterest, I didn't even understand Google Reader until a few months ago. I'm still relatively resistant to online shopping, can't stand the thought of an e-reader (though I will say the Kindle app on my phone has come in handy a few times), and prefer the cashier to the self-checkouts at the grocery store.

Shhhh, don't tell, but secretly I'm 87 years old.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

That there? That's a...

We celebrated with Baby * Brownies. They were delicious (seriously, if you want to try the world's fudgiest, crackly-toppiest, kinda-like-boxed-brownies-only17-times-better, make these).

Anyways, we had our ultrasound yesterday! Baby looks great, although frankly I'm pretty sure I saw the Scream mask floating around in there a few times. Everything was just right. Immediately following the scan, M. and I got on our phones and proceeded to be that weird couple in the waiting room that's not talking because we were too busy with the phones. We must have sent out 20 texts before we got called back to have the regular appointment.

Other exciting news: according to the scale at the doc's office, my weight? It is great. Because I'm anal, I wore pretty much the same outfit I wore last time; it's pretty much the lightest thing I own. Not sure what I'll do come winter.

But here's what you've been waiting for:

Courtesy of my lovely co-workers!

21,xxx

We got our race numbers, and yay! I'm not in the dead-last color group at the Army Ten Miler!

Wave 3 Start Corral - 8:15 Start - You will have access to the corral between 7:20am - 8:00am only. All runners in waves 2 & 3 have the responsibility to be in their start corral by 8:00am. 
19501-24500 Orange
24501-30000 Purple

So if we walk reallllly fast and weave our way through approximately 3,000 other runners, we stand a chance of meeting the 5-mile pace requirement and being able to finish the entire race.

Only a little part of me is hoping that we'll get cut off and only get to run 8 miles. Ha.

Already I'm thinking about how my morning routine pre-ATM this year will differ from years past: I'll definitely have to have nearly a full meal, probably will have to shower, and will need to allot more time for taking care of business.

But most importantly, I'm trying to rationalize the purchase of a bump-flattering running shirt. And maybe a longer running skirt. These thighs can only rub together so long before they'll start a fire!

Friday, September 16, 2011

perks of pregnancy



Pretty sure this ranks up there with, you know, the miracle of life.

Is it really as simple as that?

Every Friday, M. and I go to breakfast at a diner. I love the diner - there's a select group of regulars with whom we are very friendly, the food is reliably good, and the prices are incredibly reasonable.

This Friday morning, I woke up hungry (probably because I expended so much energy trying to stay warm last night. God I love sleeping with the window open in the fall!) and knew that eggs and bacon wasn't going to cut it. Instead, I slammed a glass of skim milk mixed with Nesquick before leaving the house, then ordered a bowl of oatmeal.

Here's what I don't get: oatmeal at home is kinda gross. The texture, the smell of it cooking... in general, it skeeves me a little. But oatmeal at the diner (or, frankly, made by anyone but me)? As the old Yo-Plait commercials used to say, c'est si bon. It is so good.

M. says it's better because they use real milk, not skim milk. Can it really be that simple? I'm not sure. But I do know this: that oatmeal was scrumptious! I even took my leftovers in a to-go cup, and enjoyed second breakfast later on.

My goal for next week is to try different ways of cooking oats to see if I can't replicate that taste at home. If I can't, I'll just be calling ahead to the diner on cold mornings!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Can we build it? Yes we can!

It being a reasonable base for this race I've got in, oh, 24 days.

Yesterday morning I coerced M. into running instead of walking. I did 2.5ish miles on an out-and-back, he did a 5k loop with the dog. My run felt good; I've gotten (I think) really good at understanding what my body is telling me and adjusting accordingly. It helps that this morning it was cool enough that I was chilled during the warm-up walk. I love love LOVE running in cold weather.

But the troubling thing is my muscles. They were so tired! After a measly 2.5 miles! I'm blaming it on the fact that I haven't done much of anything for, um, 10 days. Probably I was also mildly dehydrated and low on fuel, as I ran on a totally empty stomach. I really need to get into the habit of drinking and eating pre-run.

This afternoon I'm going to try running with a co-worker. We'll see how I do with back-to-back runs. I purchased a hand-held water bottle to hopefully encourage me to drink more water while running. Mostly I'm really excited about having a pocket! For the life of me, I'll never understand why a majority of clothes don't come with pockets. I mean, seriously, a running skirt? Should have a pocket. If I'm running, I'm probably not carrying a purse.

Amphipod Hydraform Handheld Lite in Breeze
 So excited to use my new accessory today!