Hard to believe another year has flown by and it’s time for the Slowtwitch 100 runs in 100 days challenge. Last year, I signed up and finished 80 runs in 100 days, despite losing a number of days at the beginning due to an epic snow storm. My goals were fairly modest last year, as I’d never run that many times a week and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do it. I soon learned that frequency was a great way to up my mileage and was very pleased with how much my running fitness improved. This year, I’m not sure which level of the challenge I’m going to pursue – go for the 80 again or try to shoot for 90 or even god forbid the full 100.

I’m in desperate need of motivation, so I’m just going to focus on getting out there and running as many days as I can. The biggest difference this year is mixing up the distances/pace a little more. Last year, I did pretty much nothing but runs of 30-40 minutes, which made the first few runs over 4 miles not so enjoyable. This year also will have hot yoga and pilates interjected into the mix as well as some strength training. Bring it on, 2010!

After a traumatizing look at our grocery expenditures at mint.com, I’ve been on a mission to overhaul our grocery spending. Part of this mission involved using up some of the stuff we have in our kitchen. Since the container that contained the pumpkin I roasted and pureed for Thanksgiving was in a faulty container and in danger of freezer burn it was the first ingredient to find a use for. I came across this recipe on Cooking Light’s website for pumpkin gnocchi which sounded delicious, and for which we already had all of the other ingredients.

Sadly, we devoured it before I thought to take a picture, but it was delicious. I served it with some blanched broccolini from our veggie box, which complimented it nicely. It turns out that gnocchi is super easy to make, provided that you know that you will probably have to add more flour than the recipe calls for in order to get dough that you can roll into the correct shape. (You basically roll the dough into a long thin rope and then cut it into pieces – easy peasy!) Luckily, we had Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and our friend J’s experiences with gnocchi to draw on, so we figured it out pretty quickly.

Sunday, T made homemade scones with some of the unused heavy whipping cream from Thanksgiving. These I did manage to get a picture of:

And trust me, they tasted as good as they look! Then for dinner, I made a white bean and ham soup with dried white beans and ham hocks from the freezer. This was my first time soaking beans and then cooking them and I don’t know why it took me so long to try this. It’s ridiculously easy! I used Bittman’s quick soak method, where you bring the beans to a boil and then soak them for two hours before you cook them. I ended up soaking them for a little longer, as we went and ran some errands while they were soaking, but it didn’t seem to matter to the beans.

I didn’t think to take a picture of the soup either, but it was a very delicious dinner – perfect for the chilly winter evening. I did have to pick up a few ingredients for the soup, but for the most part the weekend’s entire menu came out of our freezer/cupboard/refrigerator, which totally rocks.

I’ve had these rolls of film kicking around the house for years. Yes, actual film. (Well, two rolls of film and one of those disposable cameras… ) Finally, I decided it was time to either take it in to be developed or throw it away. I literally had no idea what was on these rolls, so I was really looking forward to finally seeing what was on them.

Two of the rolls were what you’d expect. One produced three poor quality prints of our cats in our Oakland apartment (which dates them between 1999 and 2001, yikes!) Another was a random assortment of candid shots from our New York years, enjoyable to look through but nothing spectacular. But the third turned out to be unbelievably awesome. Somehow, shots of the set design for a play I directed in 2000:

ended up superimposed onto some landscapes of what looks like Alaska, producing some really nice artistic effects, that I’ve scanned for your enjoyment:

Pretty cool, huh? I have no idea how photos from Alaska, which I visited in 1997 ended up on the same roll as a play I directed in 2000, but that’s just one more mysterious aspect to the project. And for those of you who are familiar with Eugene O’Neill’s play Moon for the Misbegotten, wouldn’t this be a bad-ass set?

Our Saturday was pretty low key. Lots of Bananagrams, some errand running followed by dinner with M & J and an epic set of Rock Band. Very, very fun.

On Sunday, we wandered over the the Ballard Farmer’s Market and browsed through the local shops nearby. There was an innovative potato display at one of the stands:

We also indulged in a Banana-Nutella crepe. Yummy!

We wandered over to the Locks to help work off some of the crepe calories (Ha!) It was totally different from T’s and my visit back in the fall:

There weren’t all of the fish that we saw previously, but it was still fun to walk around. On the way back home we came across this lovely piece of “social commentary.”

Oh hippies, what is wrong with you? And do you not realize the irony of placing a cardboard sign in protest of trees being cut down? Really? Suddenly, I’m feeling nostalgic for Berkeley…

At any rate, we had a great visit with Erik & Nerissa. I wish they lived closer so that we could hang out more often, but I guess it just makes the visits more special when they do happen.

We awoke to a bright blue sky on Friday morning, so we decided to take advantage of it. After a nice breakfast at a local diner, we parked along the Elliot Bay path for a nice walk to the Sculpture Garden and Pikes Place Market. We stopped to take some photos:

and even got a passer-by to take one of the whole group:

I think this might be some sort of record, four people and not one of us is blinking or making a face. (Of course, 3/4 of the group are wearing sunglasses… ) Not surprisingly, the market was crazy busy:

We saw tons of great artistic stuff. First we saw this “crocheted food” at Kasala:

Then we happened across this great mural:

We wandered through Post Alley and got a snack from the Humbow place across the street. We also grabbed coffee at a Tullys on the way back and saw these cute fiberglass doggies:

And then on the corner across the street was this pretty piece of moving scuplture:

After all of that walking, we pretty much just kicked back at the house for a few hours. We also played a fair amount of Bananagrams:

We went to dinner at the Oaxacan place in our neighborhood, followed by cupcakes. I must say, this was a much more enjoyable way to spend the day than at the mall. Cheaper too!

I’m not a big believer in “holiday-mandated” behavior (i.e. telling some one you love them on Valentines Day.) I feel that we shouldn’t be bossed around by random days on the calendar, but deep down inside I do like what Thanksgiving draws attention to — those areas of our lives that we may not appreciate as much as we should. Maybe it’s because I really enjoy the company of the friends and family at my Thanksgiving table, but this year I felt much more in the spirit of the holiday than usual.

We were hosting this year’s dinner, which was thankfully much smaller than J & M’s epic gathering last year. T & I have cooked quite a few Thanksgiving dinners over the years, so we have a pretty good routine down. After the Turkey Trot, T made bagels for breakfast and we hung out for most of the morning. In between games of Bananagrams, I popped into the kitchen for various dinner-making tasks. It was very low-key and fun. The only thing that was even remotely stressful was figuring out how to configure all of the food in the fridge.

Later in the afternoon, M & J came over with more delicious food to wrangle into the fridge and keep Wally out of. As usual, the last hour was a blur of food prep:

But the table got set and actually looked quite nice, given our low-key approach compared to years past:

Here’s the gang at dinner:

Since M is making a silly face above (and I’m about to post another not so glamorous shot of her) here’s M working the Thanksgiving table:

FIERCE! I made a beet salad to start us off and I made M try a golden beet, which she clearly didn’t enjoy:

After a ton of food and a little too much wine, we lounged around in the living room. Wally eventually wrangled himself a couch spot, while Nerissa & Erik were doing dishes and got snuggled by M for his trouble:

It was a great evening – filled with good food and enjoyable conversation. J & M made a pumpkin creme brule with candied nuts and bacon sprinkled on top – an unusual but delicious combination. A delicious ending to a delightful evening.

So, last year M & I ran this little neighborhood race, which I chronicled here. This year, we were joined by my brother, his wife and T, pictured here standing in a long registration line:

I think everyone else must have brought a bunch more people with them, because this was the pre-race scene this year:

It was crazy crowded compared to last year. They tried to do wave starts at the last minute, hence the illegible sign being held up in the above photo. T, M & Nerissa were all planning to run together and debated going in the “joggers” wave, but in the end lined up with Erik & I in the “runners” wave. They sent our wave off and after a cheeky “on your left” to M, Erik and I were off. Despite having run three times in his whole file, Erik’s basketball fitness enabled him to run with me for the whole race, which was nice.

He had a killer sprint to the finish line (watching a 6′8″ guy running all out through packs of “fun-runners” is one of the most comical spectacles I’ve ever witnessed.  I was profoundly sorry I didn’t have a video camera handy… ) and I made it across the line in 29:09 – a one minute and 12 second improvement over last year’s time. (Hells yeah!)

While waiting for the others, I saw these awesome “pilgrims”:

M held T in check and only let him sprint it out at the end, so he finished the race slower than he would have liked but un-injured, a definite plus!

And just behind T were Nerissa and M looking strong:

Everyone had a good time and I indoctrinated Erik into my post-race ritual:

(I don’t think he’s a fan… ) I definitely think the Turkey Trot organizers need to step up in terms of pre-race organization, especially given this event’s growth. But once the race got started, we had a good time and a lot of money was raised for the Ballard Food Bank – a definite bright side.

While shopping at the Fred Meyer with T, I came across this fabulous product:

Oh yeah, special edition baby! Does this strike anyone else as absurd? Should the Commander in Chief really be represented in Chia-form? For those who aren’t struggling with these philosophical dilemmas, you can display your Chia-patriotism with these other fabulous options as well:

(I must confess I’m a fan of Chia Washington… ) God bless America!

On my drive home from work, I pulled up behind this car/tow-truck:

An unremarkable sight, save for the bumper sticker that the car had:

I have a feeling there’s a story here…

T & M have been working on a redesign for her office. It’s been an ongoing process, eventually T convinced M to spring for some nice Herman Miller furniture. (This is one of the down-sides of working with T – he has good taste, but definitely not cheap.) But since M has been on a major campaign to get rid of the excess stuff in her life (also known as The Purge) and with all of her diligent Craigslist/Ebaying had raised enough money to make a nice dent in the cost of the furniture, which just makes the beautiful furniture that much better. There’s something so rad about converting a bunch of useless crap into a beautiful desk. (Especially having seen how much work went into it… )

T & I were invited over for delivery day, mostly T so that he could help assemble, but I tagged along to hang out and see the big unveiling. Getting “real” furniture is exciting and somewhat daunting. When you bring home that IKEA shelf, it just doesn’t have the same gravity if you make a mistake assembling it. I couldn’t resist taking some photos of the big day:

And at last, the removing of the plastic:

Here’s M, modeling one of the shelf-panels:

And finally, a sneak peak of the impressive new office set-up. M will definitely have prettier pictures of this in the future, but for now you get my blurry version of the mogul in action:

Congratulations, on the awesome new office. I hope it wows your clients into spending lots and lots of money.