When life hands you lemons..

..make lemonade.

So when life handed me a sick day, I made bread ...once i was feeling better and was able to stomach the idea of looking at food and actually stomach food... plus I was out of bread. So I tied on my new apron from my mom and made Challah from Baking with Julia, by Dorie Greenspan. A previous Challah bake left me with a flat, sorta dense Challah but this one, this one...

The loaves rose well. They are beautifully colored. The inside is so light and fluffy. And it filled the house with most wonderful smell ever. Also, I hear when life hands you 2 day old challah, make french toast. Ugh, if you insist..

In other news, a year ago was this:

while it was all really stressful and time consuming,

i miss it.

no no no

I really wish i had something of substance to write about or post pictures of. I guess I had a pretty eventful weekend what with another long run, being out and about all yesterday and today, and losing bets and baking cookies.. But all I can think about is this:

I can't stop watching it. I love how she's so pleased with herself after each answer.

So watch it. and maybe i'll stop posting youtube videos..if i can tear myself away from this one.

Friday

it's friday

and that makes me happy

this also makes me happy.

that too.

"People call me a feminist whenever I express

sentiments that distinguish me from a doormat."

-Rebecca West (via that's what she said.)

and that. Happy Friday!

Thundersnow?

When I was in elementary school, I thought that every time the sky was pink in the winter, it meant a snow day the following day. For the most part, this always seemed to be the case. Pink sky at night, jessie's delight. I never really understood why.

So tonight the sky is pink... I guess this means I won't have work tomorrow? Awesome.

In other news, tonight I got a free balloon from Harris Teeter. It, along with the snow, made my evening. On the walk home it decided become better acquainted with the ground, but revived itself inside We the Pizza. Unfortunately, it decided to mingle with the holly bushes outside my house and met an untimely end. This short story is photo-documented below.

State of the Union

as my former housemate Dan Fran put it:

I'm hundreds of feet from history

because I walk out of my front door and see

okay so this picture is a block or two closer, but still. i'm close enough to have my running route altered. and to be yelled at several times by capitol police to go to the other side of the street. and to have to turn up the tv because of the noise of the helicopters outside.

pretty exciting and cool.

i'll end with this:

"And yet, as contentious and frustrating and messy as our democracy can sometimes be, I know there isn't a person here who would trade places with any other nation on Earth."

America!

Punkin'!

Let's play bad news good news.

Bad news: i tore a hole in my favorite cardigan

Good news: i bought a new, better, non-shrunken one

Bad news: i was deprived as a child

Good news: housemate josh showed me "shitter was full"

Bad news: ....

Good news: i got a pumpkin at the corner market!! it was hiding. and cheap. better late than never!

weekend. in b&w

postal museum, friday night reading time in starbucks, circulator to get running shoes for josh and a stick (my new best friend after 12 miles), museum of american history, all veerry "hipster" thanks to my hipstamatic app.

and now it's almost game time.

GO JETS!

funfetti.

Last night, housemate Josh introduced me to the concept of funfetti cookies. Up until that point I was only aware of funfetti cakes and cupcakes. But cookies!??

NB: if you haven't had funfetti, you're proobably from wyoming, hey max, and you should go and get it and bake it right now, in whatever form you so desire, because it is so good and will make you happy.

So Josh and I ran down to the corner market to get the ingredients (only 3!, 4 if you want icing), but the corner market didn't have the cake mix. So we went to the other corner market and they didn't have it either. We walked home feeling let down..dejected..defeated by the corner stores..realizing we would have to wait until the next day to get the ingredients and bake them.

But today was met with great success!

while homemade cookies from scratch are delicious,

funfetti cake mix + oil + eggs = simple and a party in your mouth.

i mean, look how happy the doughboy is

AND THE WAIT WAS WORTH IT

go shorty, it's your birthday

Yesterday was Cynthia's 21st birthday! To celebrate, we went out to dinner at Busboy's and Poets (her favorite by far...soon to be mine) and had unnaturally colored girly drinks and way too much delicious food. However, they were out of sweet potato fries. Again. I'm beginning to believe they don't exist there and they put it on their menu to see the disappointed faces of their customers when they reveal that they're out of them. Regardless, Bb&p's food is absolutely delicious and you should go if you haven't been.

Anyhoo, we would have continued the night with a search for a pina colada, but we were too stuffed to really go anywhere but the metro. Talk about a crazy 21st (just kidding, it was really great)

happy birthday!!

ice is back

As a result of last night's wintry mix

I slid the majority of the way to work.

See that ice?? It was everywhere!

Treacherous i tell you.

It, along with the slush, gave me reason

to wear my new boots

(not that i need a reason!...)

but i ran into this man taking pictures of a hawk

that we thought was hurt and unable to fly.

it was really unbelievable to be so close to it.

SO unbelieveable that i took pictures of him

taking pictures of the hawk,

rather than pictures of the hawk itself...

-----

Also, I mentioned in a previous post

that our bathroom light was out.

It still is.

And i'm getting tired of brushing my teeth

and showering by light of my headlamp...

fingers crossed for tomorrow

up in the woods

Erik and I went for a walk in Rock Creek Park

saw some pretty bizarre things..

like this abandoned stroller

(okay so the owners were just down the path..)

and this tumor on a tree

and this family armed with cameras.

they would walk three steps, take a picture

and repeat. bizarre.

unfortunately the highlight of my day was undocumented:

as we were driving to the park, we were stopped at a stop light

and as a older lady was crossing the crosswalk,

she gave us the middle finger and the stink eye.

which left me in a) a state of confusion

and b) fits of laughter.

I'll stick with the birds

Week 1 of marathon training ended successfully yesterday with a really nice 10 mile run down and around Hains Point. I saw 4 foxes. They scared the bejeezus out of me. Afterwards, Cynthia came by for the night and, after much deliberation, we made vegan pita pizzas with vegan cheese (it melts and spreads! mmm?). The best part: I got to try out my new garlic chopper. It was awesome. Worked perfectly. I'm never chopping another garlic clove again.

Then after waking up early (because that's when nature gets up!!!!), navigating my bathroom in the dark because someone blew a fuse, and filling mason jars with coffee, we drove out to Roosevelt Island by civil dawn for some good ol' fashioned freezing cold winter birding. And though it was very cold, and cynthia didn't bring out the hand warmers until near the end, and the planes made it hard to hear, we saw some pretty cool stuff: various woodpeckers, carolina wrens, adorable dogs...

and the morning was not complete

without vegan brunch at sticky fingers

(which made me realize

my past 24 or so hours have been vegan

and it hasn't been thhaatt bad...)

Natalie works on her vision and math

Tonight, Natalie, Stewart, and I went to dinner and a movie. We got our tickets early, ran and got a quick dinner, and headed to the movie just in time for the previews. But not in time to get good seats. We were front row center, just like middle school.

so we spent the whole movie like this.

At least it was really good.

look how excited they are.

probably because we have a 3 day weekend

I have a gambling problem...

..but fortunately I've come out ahead.

I love to bet. Betting makes life more interesting. For example, I recently bet Taylor a milkshake that Arkansas would beat Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl. Arkansas lost. And so did I. However, we went double or nothing on the BCS championship with Taylor choosing Oregon and me choosing Auburn. Thankfully, both Auburn and I were victorious with that final field goal on Monday night. UNfortunately there was no crowd for me to jump into and I don't have a heisman. ..but I am now one milkshake richer.

Taylor struggled to retrieve the oreo in his milkshake...

The outing gave us a chance to discuss race prep and strategy for the Krispy Kreme Challenge. We decided that we need to log some hours eating donuts (life is rough...) and practice running before and after eating massive amounts of fried doughy goodness. We also decided on a team name: Team I Cicada Krispy Kreme...TICKK for short. and registered.

While the iPhone can do a lot, it couldn't register me for the challenge.

All in all, the night was a general success (General Success! name that TV show...).

February 5 can't get here fast enough!