Exercise Night 2

We had another good time with Steve and Charlene tonight. We ran at Umstead.

Charlene and Youngin ran/walked three miles. Steve and I ran/walked five miles in just over 45 minutes.

I'm definitely becoming a fan of the run/walk approach. It really cuts down on the stress on my legs, for one thing. Also, it's easier to think about running for two minutes at a time (what we're doing right now) than it is to think about a forty five minute run. Third, I think it's easier to increase mileage without burning out this way.

Saturday aMusings

McDonald's breakfast, garage sale, walking the neighborhood, 4 loads of laundry including duvet set and mattress pad, organizing workspace, rearranging closets, filling our new recycling cart with old magazines and paper, cleaning out the fridge, hanging laundry on the clothesline, chatting with old friends, ironing, attempting to catch our new neighbors to walk over to goodberry's for ice cream, reading on a blanket at the park....

Hope, Audacity and Violent Tendencies

Yesterday morning, looking out the window while eating breakfast, we noticed some birds and rabbits as usual. Then, one rabbit stopped at the impatiens which I had planted a few weeks ago, blinked slowly a few times, started nibbling on a bloom, and ate the entire pinky-purple flower! I couldn't believe my eyes! Rushing over to look closer, I banged on the window, hooted and hollered, but Peter Cottontail just blithely continued his leisurely dining experience. ARGH! Who knew my base instincts, repressed anger, aggressive streak could be triggered by a fur ball?!

(Troy, of course, thought the whole episode was hilarious)

Muesday or better yet, Tonday

is Monday and Tuesday combined into one hectic, chart-packed, people-jammed, problem-laden Ton(of work)day. Holidays are great but the post-freeday workload can be daunting. There's a secret part of me that enjoys the challenge, but not everyday. I keep saying I'm going to email and invite Obama to hang out with me in the trenches. Today would have been a good one for him to see.

Exercise Night

We went over to Umstead this evening with Steve and Charlene and had a great time. Steve and I ran (and walked) four miles and the ladies covered three. We're hoping to make it a weekly event. I think it will be a great way for everyone to break up their normal gym/exercise routine and get some good miles in!

NOTE: I was really amazed with Youngin's photo of the magnolia blossom in the last post! Isn't it excellent?

Our Magnolia's Bloom

HAPPY BIRTHDAY #3, BEAUTIFUL MINZIE !!!!!

Running Plans

Youngin and I have started to get serious about training for this fall's marathon relay. Youngin will be running about 3.5 miles and I'll be running 7+ miles. I'm in a summer session of PE at NCSU, which includes some running and general fitness workouts. Youngin is continuing her typical workout and adding running to it.

I have more of a running background (cross country and track in high school) but I'm in terrible aerobic condition. Youngin has avoided running as an exercise, but she's in better aerobic condition.

Since we've run together, I'm convinced that Youngin's natural gait is the reason she's never enjoyed running. We've started to talk and read a lot about what makes our running stride efficient and comfortable. I think the first thing Youngin will work on is reducing her heel strike. If she runs naturally, her heel strikes the ground rather hard and creates a braking action each time she takes a step. Obviously this slows her down and makes running less enjoyable. In the effort to help Youngin improve her technique I've discovered that I have a tendency to overstride while running. I'll be working on this as well.

We've enjoyed walking in our neighborhood a lot since we've been here. With a little distance planning using Google Maps, we're ready to speed it up a little.

Toddy Cold Brew

Troy got this unique coffee brewing system as a birthday gift from Younguk and Hyesoo. We tried it out a little while ago but haven't posted pictures until now. It makes very smooth, non-acidic tasting coffee. The resulting 6 cups of concentrated coffee can be kept refrigerated for up to 14 days, readily available to be consumed at a moment's notice with hot water added to taste.

Step 1: Gather ingredients of 1 pound of coarsely ground coffee and 9 cups of fresh water.

Step 2: After inserting the plug at the bottom of the white reservoir, add 2 cups of water

Step 3: Add 1/2 pound of coffee

Step 4: Gently pour 5 cups of water over the grounds in circular movements
Step 5: Add remaining 1/2 pound of coffee
Step 6: Wait 5 minutes

Step 7: Slowly add more 2 cups of water, then press down gently with a spoon

Step 8: Cold brew for 12 hours (in our case, overnight)

Step 9: Remove stopper and place white reservoir onto the glass decanter. Allow all concentrated coffee to drip. Yields 6 cups. Add hot water to dilute and enjoy! YUM!

Step 10: See post for Monday, May 18.

Hall of Fame Candidate?

If there is a Urinal Hall of Fame somewhere, this masterpiece should be inducted. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't really do it justice, but I call it the "Can't Miss" Model.

Location:
Broughton Hall, 4th Floor
NC State Mechanical Engineering Building

Back!

We're back, have the van unloaded and are ready to head out to work and school tomorrow!

We had a great time. Thanks everybody!

Outliers on ESPN

Wait! Who says ESPN can't be intelligent? Ok, intelligent may be an overstatement but Bill Simmons and the author of Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell) exchange some thoughts here.

Weekend III - Mushrooms

Yellow Sponge.

Team effort.

Fashionista accessorizes with organic theme.

We had a lot of fun this weekend mushroom hunting. For anyone unfamiliar with wild mushrooms, we were looking for morel mushrooms. And we had what was probably the best weekend of mushroom hunting we have ever had. Even though my oldest sister and dad had already picked 500+, we still found an additional 1000!! Usually we eat them all, but there were just too many this year!

She's got good morels.

And we found some BIG ones too! We found about a dozen this size.

Checking out the fence row where Eddie found this mushroom.

Weekend II

Morning in the mountains. Driving into WV from Staunton, VA. We drove over to Franklin, WV and saw Raymond. Then through Moorefield, where we stopped and saw Rob and Sharon for a couple minutes. Eventually we arrived in Paw Paw, where we stopped and saw the Paw Paw Tunnel (below) along the old canal. (Here's a link to photos from my 90+ bile ride along the canal tow path between Paw Paw and Harper's Ferry - 2006.

After the night in Paw Paw with Larry & Roylene, we headed up to Uniontown, PA to see Darrell and Ruth as well as the place where Grandpa Gilmore was raised. Below is a photo of a steam locomotive we saw steaming across a bridge and into the station in downtown Cumberland, MD.

After PA, we headed to Mara's in Wadsworth.

Weekend

We've had an exciting weekend with family. We spent Wednesday night in Staunton, VA. Thursday we drove up through some remote parts of WV to Paw Paw. Uniontown, PA and Wadsworth, OH were our destinations on Friday.

Yesterday we arrived at my parent's place. We spent a good part of the day hunting morel mushrooms. Hopefully we'll have more details and a few photos up soon!

Grilled Pizza

DONE!

Hard to believe another semester is over, but it is. I feel great about all but one of my classes. We'll soon see how that one turned out.

Right now I'm looking forward to catching up on a couple (hopefully very minor) chores around the house, reading some interesting stuff I haven't been able to get to, and generally relaxing for a couple days.

We're also excited about heading to Ohio and Chicago soon!

Fry-day

We enjoyed our company last night. Nice to catch up and hear about some others we know.
Troy has been surviving his finals week... today's being the last. Hopefully his brain won't be too fried to enjoy the weekend!