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By kilax, November 20, 2009 5:12 am

What’s your morning routine? How long does it take you to get ready for work or a day at home?

I am guilty of being lazy and tired in the morning, and my routine time has cut down drastically. I shower at night. I wake up 30 minutes before I have to leave each morning (usually wake up between 4:30 – 5:30 am) – 10 minutes for makeup/hair, 10 minutes for clothes, 10 minutes for packing lunch. Yeah, I don’t always look so… polished. I don’t think I look sloppy, but I don’t look put together! I just DO NOT KNOW what to do with my hair. I know how to use a hair straightener and that’s about it!

I am actually more likely to spend more time getting ready on the weekends because I do not feel rushed and tired.

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By kilax, November 19, 2009 4:30 am

I finished reading Eating Animals a few days before last night’s reading of it by the author, Jonathan Safran Foer. Woo-hoo! It was stimulating to read a new book, and to listen to the author speak.

Eating Animals Review:

Overall, I found the book to be a gentle and easy read (despite all of the words I had to look up – I need to work on my vocabulary). I was surprised by it though. So many of the reviews I read of it made me think it would be this revolutionary, in-your-face expose pushing veganism. It truly wasn’t. Yes, it did expose gruesome details of the factory farming industry, but what it really did was encourage starting a dialogue to discuss eating animals. And it did it in a gentle way, hence the use of the word above. There was no unnecessary shock in his writing – just the shock of the statistics themselves.

Foer writes in a very relateable manner, telling stories of his childhood that most of us can probably relate to – I know I can. He begins by talking about the stories we tell about food, and how we justify eating the way we do. He goes on to do interviews of some of the more humane animals farmers. He talks about how their processes are much less cruel than those on factory farms, but how they also have their flaws (and are not extremely profitable).

In the end, Foer is just asking people to think about the suffering imposed on factory farmed animals, and to take a stand against it. He encourages vegetarianism, not because he thinks it is wrong to eat animals (that is the impression I got) but because he thinks it is wrong to make animals suffer so much so that we can eat them.

There is a lot more I could say, and I definitely took A LOT of notes, but I will leave it at that for now. I encourage you to pick up a copy of the book. It may be an eye-opener for you! I was familiar with a lot of what he was saying, but it also gave me a lot of food for thought.

Eating Animals Reading:

Yay for small blurry pics… not.

Foer’s reading and discussion enforced my review of the book – he mentioned that he doesn’t think the discussion should be about whether or not it’s right or wrong to eat animals, but whether it’s right or wrong to eat animals the way we’re eating animals. He mentioned a few times that he loves the way meat tastes – but there’s things he loves more. There are things he finds more important.

He reiterated that he want to get the discussion flowing – he wants to start a conversation. I wish there would have been more time to start conversations with the audience! The whole program was about an hour, with questions in the last half. I could tell the audience was very diverse. There were actually a few agriculture people there. One of them told Foer he was impressed with the book and thinks he got it right (This guy said he thinks the meat business is going to change drastically, because it is not sustainable, and that in 20 years, eating a hamburger will be like smoking a cigarette). Foer said he’s been getting a lot of great feedback from farmers. So it seems like it’s working – the conversation has started.

Again, there are so many great points I would love to share with you, but I’m not sure they’ll make any sense, and Foer explains them better than me. I’ve never been very good at explaining things (but let me know if you want to hear more!).

Again, I encourage you to pick up a copy of the book!

Side Note: Don’t forget to enter my Homemade Holiday Sweets Giveaway!

Comments (13)

By kilax, November 18, 2009 6:20 am

Do you ever read those lists that pop up on yahoo? Such as:

• America’s Prettiest Towns (the town we vacation in in Iowa is on the list!)
• 5 Signs You May Be a Bad Coworker (no comment!)
• 8 Toxic Personalities to Avoid (again, no comment, but I could write an entire post on that one!)

For some reason, those articles really draw me in. I guess their marketing is working on me!

One of the interesting ones I read a while ago was on “energy zappers” – regular habits you make partake in that zap your energy and leave you feeling drained. I thought the list was interesting. I’ll bold the items I think sometimes affect me:

• Being Addicted to E-mail
• Visual Clutter
• Being Bored
• Poor Posture
• Toxic Indoor Air
• Eating Too Much at Once
• Living in Artificial Light
• Listening to Negative Nellies
• Holding a Grudge

You can check out the article for a full description of how these items are draining and ideas for solutions. Do any of these apply to you? I really think being addicted to e-mail (and google reader) and being bored are the big ones for me. Just spending too much time with the computer is draining! I’ve been spending less time online the past few weekends and have felt pretty good Monday morning.

Side Note: Don’t forget to enter my Homemade Holiday Sweets Giveaway!

Also, Morning Runner is hosting a fun Blogger Holiday Gift Exchange on her blog! Check it out! The more people who enter, the more fun it will be!

Comments (18)

By kilax, November 17, 2009 5:03 am

Q: How do you prepare for a visit from Grandma?

A: By cleaning like a mad woman, of course!

Come on, it’s not every day you get to:

• iron your place settings
• discover shiny surfaces right there in your own home!
• feel the tactile pleasure of cleaning each and every window blind
• relive memories as you clean tiny little mementos on your knickknack shelf
• vacuum every side of every cushion and pillow on the couch – I’ve confirmed – we do indeed, have a gray cat
• scrub out Data’s litter box by hand – ha, not! gotcha

Truth be told, Steven and I are very neat and tidy (he is more than me, for all of those women who think men can’t be organized*), and we would be doing this type of deep cleaning for any holiday visitor, not just my grandma. It’s just so time consuming!

Do you do a deep clean before each guest arrives? Or do you leave your place “as is”?

We always clean quite a bit for guests, but extra for the holidays.

At least we got to do some fun things, like put up the holiday decorations and listen to music while we were cleaning.

Data loves the fake tree, but we’ve asked him to admire it from a distance. It has valuable Star Wars ornaments on it after all!

Data! I see you there!

You better be a good boy Data, or Santa won’t come!

Side Note: Don’t forget to enter my Homemade Holiday Sweets Giveaway!

I just found out yesterday that I won my first giveaway, EVER! Marcia, from Running Off at the Mouth is sending me a copy of The Runner’s Cookbook, a book I have had my eye on for a year! Thanks Marcia! Check out her blog if you’re looking for a new runner blogging friend!

*Or cook. He’s a wonderful chef. I’m blessed.

Comments (38)

By kilax, November 16, 2009 5:13 am

What a crazy busy week we have ahead of us:

• On Wednesday, I have to give a very important presentation at work which will determine whether or not I get a raise! Steven and I are also going to the Eating Animals Reading on that day AND my sister and her friend are staying at our house Wednesday night.
• On Thursday, I am driving my sister and her friend to the airport at 5:30 am. Then, Steven and I are attending the Chicago Construction Expo all day. Then (!), my mom, dad and grandma are arriving for the weekend.
• On Friday, my mom, grandma and I are going to Chicago to do some window shopping on State Street and Michigan Avenue.
• On Saturday, we are BAKING all day long.
• On Sunday, I will take my grandma and mom to church, then they will head home… and I will promptly collapse!

And that’s not to mention all of the prep work we’ve done these past few weeks, this weekend and today and tomorrow – painting, cleaning, buying groceries, etc.

BUT, I am excited! We had a lot of fun baking all of our holiday sweets last year, and THIS year, I am doing a Homemade Holiday Sweets Giveaway!

Would you like to win a Holiday Sweets Basket like one of these?

The Holiday Sweets Package will likely contain:

• Frosted Sugar Cookies
• Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies
• Snickerdoodles
• Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Toffee
• Caramels
• Caramel Crispix
• Chex Mix

I say “likely” because who knows what the day will bring. My mother is often springing (good) recipe ideas on us at the last minute.

I will put a note in the package saying which items are vegan and which are gluten-free. They will not all be, but please, still enter the contest! Some will be, and you can share the rest with your friends/family/coworkers/grateful strangers.

Contest Rules:

1. To enter the contest, simply leave a comment below telling me what your favorite holiday treat is. It doesn’t have to be one I listed above. It can even be a favorite dish!
2. To get an extra entry, link to the giveaway in your blog, and leave me another comment linking to your post.
3. This contest is open until 5:00 PM CST on Saturday, November 21st. I will use the Random Integer Generator, or if I am feeling fiesty, the old “name out of a hat” drawing to select a winner on Saturday. I will announce the winner Saturday evening.
4. This contest is open to readers in the contiguous United States only. Sorry! I want to make sure your sweets arrive quickly!

Comments (9)

By kilax, November 15, 2009 5:45 pm

Day 22 | November 9, 2009: Stretch and Strengthen

Same strength routine as last Thursday. I was having a very stressful and hectic morning at work, and tried my hardest not to let it affect my workout. I hoped breathing slow and taking my time would calm me down. It did, a bit, but I still did the routine faster than normal. At least it felt somewhat easier, which I take as a sign than I can start trying heavier weights soon.

Day 23 | November 10, 2009: 3.5 m run

All of our evening runs are in the dark now. Did you read the Runner’s World online article Run to the Dark Side (it’s an old article that was in this week’s newsletter)? In the third paragraph they mention how runners have always been warned not to run too close to bed time, because they’ll feel wired all night and won’t be able to fall asleep. But then they go on to discuss a University of South Carolina Study showing that people who exercised intensely for one to three hours were able to fall asleep a half hour later.

First of all, I hope the people in the study refueled with food and drink since they were working out for so long. And secondly, they were able to fall asleep because they EXHAUSTED their bodies! Anything over an hour is fairly taxing. For me, anyway.

Do you ever have issues falling asleep after an evening workout? I don’t. Not recently anyway. I have had issues of waking up an hour before my alarm since we switched off of Daylight Savings Time.

I decided to wear shorts for this low 40°F temperature run. I told Steven that my white legs would work well as reflectors! The wind on my legs made me feel like speeding up, so I did! Or so I thought. Our first two miles were almost the same as last Tuesday! Wah. Hmm. At least we’re consistent?

Distance: 3.50 | Time: 36:24 | 1: 10:42 | 2: 10:38 | 3: 10:18 | 4: 4:44

Day 24 | November 11, 2009: 2 m run or cross

Hooray for Veterans Day and having the day off! Steven and I went on a relaxing, slow and long bike ride at the same place we rode last Saturday. We both had sore legs before, during and after.

If you click on the “cross” link above, you can check out our garmin stats, and it shows an interactive version of the little map below. It’s fun to get home and look at the map and see how far we went!

Bike Time: 1:25:47 | Distance: 12.30 miles

Day 25 | November 12, 2009: 3.5 m run + strength

I didn’t get my full strength workout in because my fellow gymmates were annoying me so much – I had to get out of there! (One person was using the weight machines to balance themselves while they did karate moves. WTF? A few other people were chilling on the weight machines, waiting for the gym manager to show them how to use them.) On the plus side, the gym manager interrupted me in the middle of using the leg press machine to show me how to improve my form. And, I upped the weight on a few moves.

Seated Row: 15 @ 30 lb, 15 @ 45 lb, 15 @45 lb
Lateral Raise: 15 @ 31.25 lb, 15 @ 43.75 lb, 15 @ 43.75 lb
90 Degree Chest: 15 @ 20 lb, 15 @ 40 lb, 15 @ 40 lb
Shoulder Press: 15 @ 20 lb, 15 @ 20 lb, 15 @ 20 lb
Pectoral Fly: 15 @ 30 lb, 15 @ 45 lb, 15 @ 45 lb
Arm Curl: 15 @ 25 lb, 15 @ 25 lb, 15 @ 25 lb
Leg Press: 15 @ 60 lb, 15 @ 60 lb, 15 @ 80 lb
Leg Extension: 15 @ 30 lb, 15 @ 45 lb, 15 @ 45 lb
Hip Abduction: 3 x 15 @ 115 lb
Hip Adduction: 3 x 15 @ 55 lb

I don’t know what my deal with Thursdays is, but I always just want to chill. So I asked Steven if we could run on Friday (We ended up watching The Ugly Truth and chilling. It was kind of funny? I love Gerard Butler but he didn’t look as good as he normally does. This is Sparta!)

Day 26 | November 13, 2009: Rest 3.5 m run

I am getting really sick of running circles in the park, so we ran through the neighborhood instead. I could feel it on the top of my right foot (we did right turns) right away. And the next day. Boo.

Distance: 3.51 | Time: 36:51 | 1: 10:45 | 2: 10:39 | 3: 10:29 | 4: 4:57

Day 27 | November 14, 2009: 40 min cross

We took a very leisurely walk through the neighborhood. It was nice enough to ride our bikes during the day, but I accidentally (?) feel asleep and kind of wasted the daylight. So… walk it was.

Distance: 2.77 | Time: 44:53 | 1: 16:18 | 2: 16:12 | 3: 12:22

Day 28 | November 15, 2009: 5 m run

Whoa! Check out those awesome negative splits below! The rapidly setting sun must have made us speed up – I was worried we were going to get kicked out of the “we close at sunset” forest preserve. We had a super busy day and were trying to get out of the house to run. We didn’t make it to the park until about 4:00, and yeah, doesn’t the sun set at 4:30 now?

Who cares! This run was a whole 5 minutes and 28 seconds faster than last Sunday’s 5-miler. Boo-fuck*n-yeah!

(Okay, my breathing sucked the last mile (Steven kept saying “breathe!”) and my shin was a bit achy. But I feel pretty good!)

Distance: 5.00 | Time: 49:48 | 1: 10:18 | 2: 10:06 | 3: 10:01 | 4: 9:50 | 5: 9:30

Week Summary: 14.77 miles

I feel really good about our training this week. I hope we can keep it up! We bump up to weekday 4-milers next week and a Sunday 6-miler. We have a crazy week ahead of us (see tomorrow’s post) so it will be interesting to see how much we can fit in!

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By kilax, November 14, 2009 7:49 am

The Pharaoh

It’s too soon after posting these pictures, BUT I had been eying this Pharaoh hat at Target for two months. Imagine my delight when I saw it in the Halloween clearance section last week for 75%  off ($1.25 total – not sure if it’s even worth that!).

Doesn’t it look great on Data?! He didn’t like it so much. I had to bribe him with food to wear it so I could take a picture. (I think he deserves it after trying to wake me up for 3 hours this morning.)

Killer House Plants

We have a lot of house plants in our lower level – seven of them! Two of them, somehow from across the room, decided to band together and grow super stinky, killing flower pod things (not yet bloomed) this past week. I am convinced they are trying to take over the house.

The little flower pod.

Both plants are corn plants. We have had one for at least 8 years, and the other for maybe 3. It’s curious that they are blooming now, when they never had before! I’ll let you know what they look like when they open (I imagine there will be little daggers in there, which the plants will use to attach us in our sleep).

The whole corn plant.

Nutritional Yeast Fail

Why is my pasta naked, sad and lonely?

Because it is supposed to have this on it:

A Nutritional Yeast based pasta sauce.

But one bite of that made me want to throw up. Steven tried to fix it with spices and he couldn’t.

Most of the vegan websites I read talk about using nutritional yeast to make a pseudo mac n’cheese dish. I was intrigued so I bought some and was really excited to try it. I tried this recipe from vegweb.

I don’t know if nutritional yeast is a very acquired taste, or if my stomach was just too upset after my run, but this sauce made me feel nauseous, and I lost my appetite. I am hoping I just did something wrong, or it was the wrong recipe, because I have read SO MANY raves for this product!

I felt really bad for “ruining” dinner. I am pretty sensitive in the kitchen, since I am not a very good chef. I need lots of praise and good feedback to keep me going (ha ha). Luckily, Steven was not upset about it. But I think we will be making something “safer” for dinner tonight!

Comments (22)

By kilax, November 13, 2009 4:45 am

What’s your take on leftovers? Love them? Hate them? Won’t eat them?

Steven and I typically make a few big meals each week, then have the opportunity to enjoy the leftovers as part of lunch, or as dinner on a busy (running) night if we so choose. We eat them hot or cold and rarely throw anything out. Sometimes we (meaning Steven) get creative and the leftovers become an entirely new dish!

I ask this question because I know people who refuse to eat leftovers. And I’m curious. Is it because they get sick of eating the same thing more than once? Is it because they think the food isn’t fresh? Is it because they don’t know how to heat leftovers up to make them taste good (hint: it’s probably not in the microwave*)? Enlighten me.

Of course, leftovers from a restaurant are an entirely different story. Ha! I don’t always make it home with leftovers, i.e., I am a little piggy and eat my entire dish there. I am getting better at that though! And we usually eat those leftovers too. If it’s a restaurant I went to without Steven, I am more likely to just let him finish it, so he can try the dish as well.

*Fun fact – we don’t have a microwave. We never saw a need for one.

Comments (16)

By kilax, November 12, 2009 5:34 am

Oops, I am so used to saying “no thanks” to people trying to hand me things in downtown Chicago, that when a when a woman tried to give me a $10 Dunkin’ Donuts giftcard on Monday, I said “no thanks” without even thinking about.

My mother would be so dissapointed.

Even though I wouldn’t use it (I don’t drink coffee and I don’t believe they have vegan options), I am sure I could have found someone whould have (perhaps my donut afficionado husband?).

Oops.

Comments (19)

By kilax, November 11, 2009 8:10 am

This weekend, I was introduced as a blogger to some new people and they asked me, “What is your blog about?”

Um, uh… um…

I’ve actually been borrowing Nilsa’s idea and calling this a “life blog,” at least, over to the right in my intro*. And duh, she even mentioned in point #2 of that post to be prepared to talk about your blog! But I sure wasn’t.

I said I talk about exercise, a little bit about food, a lot of rants… I explained that I started this blog the summer before I went to Rome to keep in touch and that it has kind of expanded off of that…

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………..

Sometimes, it’s just really hard to define who you are. That reminded me of when I had to come up with three interesting facts about myself for a class I took back in May. It also made me realize that I am more likely to be the one asking questions when I meet new people. I usually don’t do much talking myself. I do more probing. Ha ha.

So… I think I should work on that – being able to talk about me, intelligently, that is.

Do you ever get the question, “What is your blog about?” How do you answer? Or if you don’t blog, are you prepared to answer when people ask you what your hobbies are?

*As a side note, I think it’s REALLY important to have an intro or “About” page on your blog. That’s the first thing I look for when I am checking out a new blog!