Comments (36) People have been randomly congratulating me all day at work. The first time it happened, I thought, “Oh my gosh… do I look pregnant?!” But then I did some talking around and found out an announcement was made about me at the board of directors meeting yesterday, and it’s been trickled down to the masses.
Sorry to be vague, but I cannot share the announcement. Just that I hope it pans out to something. Fingers crossed!
Yikes. Scary pic!
Awhile ago, Erin was telling me about this Butternut Squash Lasagna recipe she saw on the Paleo Table (the blogger borrowed the recipe from here), a blog that focuses on Paleolithic cooking. From wikipedia, a Paleolithic diet consists consists mainly of fish, grass-fed pasture raised meats, vegetables, fruit, roots, and nuts, and excludes grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils.
It’s interesting, thinking about the Paleolithic diet compared to the vegan one I (mostly) follow. I try to eat a lot of veggies and fruit, but not fish or meat. I also avoid dairy. But definitely not grains and legumes! In fact, the fake meat sausage we substituted in for the sausage in this recipe has vital wheat gluten as the fifth ingredient. It’s interesting how many different food lifestyles (“diets”) there are out there.
Do you know anyone who follows the Paleolithic diet?
Anyway, we finally made this recipe this weekend. Holy cow, it was amazing. I wasn’t sure what to expect… but all the different ingredients went together so well.
You basically take your favorite tomato sauce and puree it with some roasted red peppers, olive oil and basil. That is the base. Then you layer the sliced butternut squash.
Put the sauteed “sausage,” onion and garlic mix on top of that,
Then another layer of sauce.
Repeat each layer one more time and bake! Super simple.
It totally fell apart when we took it out of the dish, but Steven thought maybe layering the squash would help with that (the recipe said not to layer it).
Yum yum yum. It was just so savory and good. It got a bit crispy on top, and I liked that little crunch in some of the bites!
What do you guys think of today’s festive attire?
Much better than last year (see below)? Ha ha ha!
Do you have any cheesy festive attire? Funny earrings? Pins? A shirt that lights up?
We did a Skype Date yesterday with Gina and Steve (and Luca!!!) to exchange gifts. Don’t worry… I won’t bombard you with screenshots… except for this cute one of Luca opening his gift from us!
Anyway, I actually wore that cheesy cat shirt for our Skype date. When my grandma bought me that shirt at Kohl’s way back in the day my mom said I wouldn’t wear it more than once (in my life) so I have to make sure I wear it at least once a year. Ha.
Gina got me the beautiful infinity scarf I have on in the first photo! I’ve been wanting one for awhile. I said to Steven last night, “I’ve been wanting an infinity scarf forever!” And he was like, “Really. Forever. Since you were born?!” And I said, “No, since [insert favorite coworker‘s name here] came in to the office wearing one a few months ago.” Ha ha.
The infinity scarf makes the awful cat holiday skirt almost bearable!
Because it covers it up! Ha ha ha.
Okay. I am really tired today. Hence all the “ha ha ha”s. I was so pumped yesterday night I couldn’t sleep. Does that happen to anyone else?
I have to show you guys the schweet bracelet from Gina and Steve. I am a total sentimental fool, and love jewelry, so… it’s just perfect. It says NYC and 26.2 on the top and 11-6-11 and 4:41:04 on the bottom! I don’t want to ever take it off… but apparently you aren’t supposed to shower with it on.
Look, I lied! A few pics from our date. Luca (too cute):
I like to imagine that he could see us. And that he recognizes us.
Birthday Cupcake(s) for Steven (his birthday is 12/22):
Gina and Steve wearing the aprons we sent them:
As a thank you to my readers, I am doing one giveaway a week until Christmas. This is the final giveaway, giveaway #5! The giveaways all reflected different interests of mine, and this one is… photography!
You all know how much I love photography… and not that I am that talented at it, but that I love to take photos and plaster them all over my home and at work (photo evidence here). It just makes me happy to glance around in be surrounded by photos of good memories and people I love.
We have a few traditional frames in our home, but we use many other things to display photos – magnets, magnetic frames, a folding photo frame, a memory board, and pins. This giveaway will be for a few things that you can use to display your favorite photos, including:
Photography Giveaway Rules
Day 785 | December 12, 2011: 4 m run (easy)
38°F in December? That’s tee and arm warmer weather! This run felt fabulous. Probably because I hadn’t exercised since Saturday morning! But I was really in the zone and never looked at my pace at all.
Distance: 4.0 | Start Temp: 38° | End Temp: 39° | Time: 37:26 | Avg Pace: 9:21
Day 786 | December 13, 2011: 4 m run (easy)
Another perfect running night! Well, weather-wise. I felt a bit out of breath and had a short, yet intense stomach cramp at mile 2. But a great run overall. I like to imagine myself running fast on the 5K course when I am running in the dark. Maybe it’s a bit early for that visualization exercise?
Distance: 4.0 | Start Temp: 41° | End Temp: 39° | Time: 38:13 | Avg Pace: 9:33
Day 787 | December 14, 2011: 5 m run (easy w/5×10-15 sec strides) + strength class
Ugh, this run was not as stellar as the past two. It wasn’t hard, but running never clicked. And I felt so irritated – with my hair, the wind, the puddles, the stomach cramps that keep popping up… this run was a mental struggle. I did the strides starting at mile 3, with 1 minute of rest between each set. They were fun, and I remembered to focus on my form and feeling light on my feet. I was happy when the run was over though!
Distance: 5.0 | Start Temp: 46° | End Temp: 48° | Time: 47:54 | Avg Pace: 9:35
In the evening I went to my strength class – more boxing (fun!!!) and more dumbbell workouts. Brian announced that there will be a pushup challenge in the end of January. Hmm… doubt I will do any good at that!
Day 788 | December 15, 2011: rest
Day 789 | December 16, 2011: strength + 4 m run (easy)
Brian came over in the morning and we did a bar workout. The toughest move was rolling the bar across the floor while on my knees (kind of like a pushup) then coming back up – I worked parts of my stomach I didn’t even know I had!
Brian was really encouraging about my weight loss progress (I received a few comments on my weight this week) and we set up a weight point to recheck my body fat. That would be great if I actually made some improvements there!
During lunch I ran 4 miles easy. It definitely felt better than Wednesday! I wonder if I overdressed though – or wore the wrong colors. I was in all black (capris and under armour) and I got pretty hot in the sun! And I was a bit out of breath. Not sure if that was the cold air or me running too fast… or me being out of shape.
Distance: 4.0 | Start Temp: 31° | End Temp: 32° | Time: 36:34 | Avg Pace: 9:08
Day 790 | December 17, 2011: cross
One hour on the bike trainer in the am. I kept changing the speed up and down to make it interesting.
Day 791 | December 18, 2011: 9 m run (last 5:00 min @ MP)
I ran 9 slow, cautious miles. A lot of the sidewalks had thin snow and ice on them and that makes me so nervous! So I ran in the street. Which also makes me nervous. Ha ha. The run went well though. I felt pretty good. I had a slight ache in my inside right ankle for a bit in the begining, but that went away. I hope that’s not turning in to something! I noticed it was sore when I woke up.
I ran the last 5 minutes at marathon pace (between 9:00-9:10, hit 8:54 for the average) and I was surprised how run and refreshing I found that after running so slowly!
Distance: 9.0 | Start Temp: 20° | End Temp: 25° | Time: 1:33:51 | Avg Pace: 10:22
Week Summary: 26.0 miles
Yikes! No workout related pictures this week. But here is me (+Steven, not pictured) visiting Jen (one of my workout buddies!) and Kent and Ayla Rose, their newborn, Saturday! Ayla was born on November 22nd. I haven’t held a baby that tiny in so long! She was just precious.
I love hearing birth stories. I find it so fascinating what the (female) human body is capable of! And Jen has an amazing story. She said she might be guest posting about it on another blog in the future, so I will have to link to it then!
Not really. Anyone besides Steven know where those lyrics are from?
I woke up this morning to, you guessed it, SNOW!!!
View from my desk at home
I kept seeing all of these articles online about how we may not have a white Christmas, and the lack of snow is hurting business… what do you guys think? Is having a white Christmas important to you? (I’d be curious to hear from my warm-weather readers!)
All I know is that this morning I decided to move my 9-miler to tomorrow and get on the bike trainer instead. I am such a klutz… I do not need to be out there running in the snow when I have the option of running tomorrow when it might not be as slippery!
The winner of the Season of Giving Giveaway #4: Media is #10, martymankins. Marty, please send me your mailing address as well as your (<$20 for one year) magazine choice at kilax@ilaxstudio.com and I will send the goodies your way!
Stay tuned for the final Season of Giving Giveaway #5 on Monday the 19th!
Did you believe in Santa when you were growing up? When did you stop believing? How did you find out he wasn’t real?
If you have kids, what will you tell them about Santa?
Of course, I thought of this because we started watching Miracle on 34th Street last night, and in the movie, the little girl does not believe in Santa (at first).
I remember thinking Santa was real when I was growing up. But I don’t remember when I found out he wasn’t. I was a pretty naive kid so it probably took me a long time to figure it out. Maybe when I was 8ish? From someone at school? Who knows! I don’t think one of my siblings told me.
Speaking of siblings, my older brother made me this nice video with a special message from Santa just for me! We thought it was pretty funny so we had to make a few more videos last night, like this one for Steven, and this one for Data.
I got an email from Danskin the other day advertising early bird prices for the triathlon next summer. I saw it and immediately deleted it, thinking “I need to take it easy in 2012.” (I did the run portion of the relay this year with Erin and her friend Claudia).
I should have looked at the email closer.
The person who organized our teams last summer forwarded the email with this message:
BE SURE TO TAKE A LOOK AT THE PICTURE ON THE FAR RIGHT (in the original e-mail from Danskin)!!
Yeah. Totally overlooked that.
That’s me on the left (looking quite chubby!), Claudia in the middle in my bathrobe, and Erin on the right. Ha ha ha.
I’ve expressed my love for maps here before. One of my favorite books is Transit Maps of the World – I just love flipping through it and deciphering the maps, especially if it’s a city I’ve visited! There are so many styles of maps and so many different ways of communicating – I just love taking it all in.
Well, someone knows me very well (Erin!) and gave me these super cool stylized transit maps for Christmas! When I opened these I immediately got giddy and had to start figuring out which cities they were.
The back left one was easy. I had to get hints from Erin to figure out the other two. Sad sad sad! Let’s just say my brain was mushy on Sunday?
Do you know which cities they represent? (you can click the picture to see it larger)
Of course, I had to bug Steven to help me put the artwork up right away! It was easy deciding where to put them – we have some skinny empty wall space upstairs around our linen closet:
So we put the two horizontal ones between the linen closet and Data’s room (the laundry room) and the vertical one between the linen closet and guest bathroom door:
I love the way it looks!
Does anyone else geek out over maps like I do?
Hi! I'm Kim, a 34-year-old living in Chicagoland with my husband, Steven, and our cats, Khali, Apollo, and Starbuck. I work in the design industry (architecture), follow a vegan lifestyle, am addicted to running, and am an ACE certified personal trainer (working at Essential Fitness, LLC ("Efit"))! I write about a variety of topics, and consider this a "life" blog - a place I can share anything that's on my mind. Please visit the "About" page to get a better idea of who I am! :-)
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