ilaxSTUDIO

Three unrelated questions

By kilax, October 3, 2018 7:23 am

These are polls, so if you’re viewing in email you may have to click through to see them!

UPDATE – my blog randomly closed all the original polls, so I added second ones if you want to vote. UPDATED AGAIN, they shut themselves off again, so I give up!

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I’ve been thinking a lot about this last question. I lead very structured classes – my rhythm is predictable and I tell my class what we’re going to do and count the reps. Maybe some people want more spontaneity/surprise? “I know I said ten burpees but we’re doing fifteen!” <— Eww

Health + Fitness, Life

It’s here!

Comments (16)

By kilax, October 2, 2018 6:18 am

Yay! Data’s portrait that snis ordered from dimdi* arrived a lot sooner than I expected! What a great Monday surprise. I love it and was so excited to hang it last night! Thank you, Snistina!

Dimdi based her painting on this photo of Data from when he was two or three, and added his bowtie and changed his tail, per our request.

After Data died, I was looking through his old photos and it became extremely apparent how much weight he’d lost and how unhealthy he was compared to when he was a young lad. Some weight loss is natural for older cats, but his was extreme. Seeing that made me feel better, like we made the right decision to say goodbye when we did. It also made me feel better when people commented on that too – that he didn’t look as healthy as he used to. We knew he was unhealthy, but it wasn’t so starkly obvious living with him declining a bit day by day, as it was seeing those photos. Anyway. I was hoping I wouldn’t talk about this as much in October, as it’s been four weeks, but here I am, still talking about it!!! I guess I need to.

I love having Data and Snow in the kitchen/dining room with us. That’s a good spot for Data, as he’d always jump up on project peninsula**, even though he wasn’t supposed to. Starbuck has become fond of counter surfing lately. Steven said she got on the counter and walked on to the cutting board while he was using it to make dinner last night. Oh, kitties. You little turds.

One last thing – Khali wants to show you her “I’m a lady” pose:

Just kidding. Don’t tell her I posted that here. She’s very proper and wouldn’t be happy.

*Do I still have to say stuff is not sponsored? This is not sponsored.
**That’s what we call that surface, because when we do projects, that’s where all the tools end up, sigh (I moved some to take that photo). Steven used to call it project island, but I pointed out it’s NOT an island, so it became project peninsula.

Life

VEGAN CAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comments (16)

By kilax, October 1, 2018 6:25 am

We had a fun and productive weekend! Yay!

FRIDAY!

On Friday we took a lovely nap after work with the babies,

then went on a walk in our local forest preserve.

We received these cute custom ornaments from my second cousin Denise on Friday! I put magnets on the back so I can enjoy them until we have a Christmas tree (and you know they are going to be on my fridge all year long).

Dinner was a Boca “turkey” burger (are these new? or had I just not seen them before? I really like them!), while we watched the HORRIBLE movie, Rumor Has It. Horrible. So. Bad. Icky. I don’t really care for Jennifer Aniston, so that didn’t help.

SATURDAY!

I forced myself to sleep in Saturday (meaning, not getting up when my body wanted to at 4:00, and again at 5:00), since we had plans to go out that night. I thought I had all this time before teaching (and did things like write a blog post and buy our A Star is Born tickets), then had a blog issue and was all of a sudden scrambling to get out the door! Oops!

I taught Fitness Boxing then did my speedwork for the week. Yay for doing it on its own, and not making it part of my Sunday long run because I’m lazy!

We watched part of season 2 of The Good Place with lunch, then I organized and tidied up the house a bit.

In the evening we went to Milwaukee with Bobbi and John. We took them to one of our favorite restaurants, the Palomino Bar, which has vegan versions of many of the dishes. We got fried pickles to share, and I got the hot fried chicken. Bobbi and John really liked their dishes, and it made me happy they did! (I never know when I take someone to a place where I like the vegan food and they order meat dishes.)

Once we decided to go to the Palomino Bar earlier in the week, I had been thinking about how I was going to get a slice of their vegan cake. I was suspicious when I walked in Saturday and the dessert cooler wasn’t there. The waiter confirmed they no longer have their vegan cake (they’d have it brought in, but not sell enough before it went bad). NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Steven was sweet and looked up a local ice cream place that had vegan options, Babe’s Ice Cream, and lo and behold, when I walked in the door I saw THIS SIGN:

I got so excited, I jumped inside and said (okay, yelled) “VEGAN CAKE!!!” really loud and about gave the server a heart attack. I really freaked her out. And felt bad. But also, very happy they had vegan cake. Sorry, lady – I was genuinely excited.

So I had a small slice of cake, and part of an ice cream sandwich, and some of Steven’s ice cream. The cake wasn’t as good as what they had (brought-in) to the Palomino Bar, but it was nice to have that option.

After that we checked out the “Kwaktoberfest” at Cafe Hollander. It’s was a Belgian twist on Oktoberfest, so… can I say that I went to my first Oktoberfest, or not? Ha. Either way, we tried a few of the beers and hung out, and had a good time chatting and joking. At one point, I was laughing so hard at Bobbi and John’s Super Trooper 2 impersonation that my face hurt!

We had such a fun night out! It was great to catch up, and drink a little, and be a bit goofy. And I love going to Milwaukee. It’s so easy to get around, and park, etc. Although, it did rain the entire ride home, like the last time we went to Milwaukee with Bobbi and John!

SUNDAY!

Being up late + drinking = I needed to get a bit more sleep on Saturday night. I got just under 8 hours and woke up too late to do a long run, so did a quick ride on my bike, ran errands, ate lunch and finished season 2 of The Good Place with Steven, then hung up some fall decorations, and did a few tidying up chores before we went toaster oven shopping.

I added the pumpkin banner and lights. My snis helped me pick them out (we were in separate Targets at the same time)!

Steven added this paper towel roll, battery organizer, and bag holder to our linen closet! These things were just loose on the shelves in there before. Yay for more organized shelf space!

I was pretty pooped when we got home. I did some food prep, blog stuff, sous chefing, and Sunday evening chores and that was it. We started watching Phantom Thread, but ugh, not sure I am going to be able to finish that one! Too slow for me.

RANDOM CAT PICS!

Steven sent me this picture of the cats Saturday morning, saying “that squirrel thinks he’s their friend.”