Weekly Round Up: The Best Time to Plant a Tree

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we did a lot of hiking which lead to a lot of eating. 

Let's Start with Puppy Pictures

Someone loves fall.

 

Knock wood [pun intended] we're seeing a decrease in furniture chewing.  Her counter surfing game is still strong, though there were no big capers this week.

Eventually this phase will pass and in the meantime I was able to get a couple of quick pictures before doing the corrective action, which is to ask her to "come" or "sit"==>get her to stop doing the "bad" thing by asking her to do a "good" thing.  We also shut her out of the kitchen when we're doing longer cooking projects in order to remove the temptation/decrease the odds of Counter Surfing Success.

 

Eats

Let's start with the Quickie Meal of the Week.  I'd gotten the squiggly noodles from Trader Joe's a while back and one day this week I finally broke them out for lunch.  They were fine on their own, but I wanted to step them up a bit.  I did a sweep of the freezer, and found that Past Me had stocked up some "stepping up" accessories.

You're looking at a bowl with the squiggly noodles, Trader Joe's meatless beef bulgogi, frozen broccoli, and some mushrooms that I'd sauteed in a little oil and salt and then frozen for those times when I just want to add a handful of mushrooms to something.  I topped the bowl with a spoonful of chili crisp and repeated a few days in a row.

Next up: the Hubs and I went on a hiking spree this weekend.  On Saturday we went on what we assumed would be a three-ish mile hike and but ended up being a 6+ mile hike thanks to some trail closures and associated reroutings.  The hike ended at Seriously Past Lunch O'Clock.

We surveyed our lunch options but were too hangry to pick a cute little local place out in hiking country.  Our eyes both popped on Sheetz at the same time and the decision was made.  If you're not familiar, Sheetz is a gas station chain with incredibly good fast food.

We pulled in and Hubs stopped to get gas before lunch, and I was scrolling Instagram as one does.  Of course a video of Recipe Rebel's chocolate cheesecake popped up in my feed.  I showed it to Hubs when he got back in the car and I swear we were both staring at my phone with our mouths hanging open.  We went in and got food, and after we were both feeling somewhat back to normal, I drilled into the recipe details.  Two hour baking time plus a recommended overnight chilling time...this was not something that we were going to just casually whip up.  I ran the details by Hubs, and he shrugged and said "well you know what they say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the second best time is now".  So after we got back home I went by the store to get the ingredients and got the goods in the oven.

I think this is a "one and done" for this recipe only because I like cheesecake bars better - less fussy and quicker to make.  

While I browsing the Recipe Rebel site, I also took note of her pot roast recipe and decided that would be a great thing for Sunday dinner.  Sure enough, it was.  The only thing that I changed was to add mushrooms, since everyone in our house likes mushrooms.  I agree with her raves about this recipe having the best gravy.

A final note on food is for me to "tell you that I took these pictures on the night of time change without telling you that I took these pictures on the night of the time change" - the Shadow of the Phone is a reality for all dinner photos this time of year.

Workouts

Another weekend of gorgeous weather==>another weekend of hiking!

On Saturday the Hubs and I headed out in the country to an "I've heard of that but I've never been there" location: The Holden Arboretum.  

Attraction #1: the observation tower because when you have the chance to start a hike by going up and down a structure with 200 steps, of course you should.   It was too hard to get a pic of the tower from up close since it blends in well with the surrounding trees, but here is a peak at the top of the tower from later in our hike.

And here (plus the pic at the top of the post) is what we saw from the top of the tower:

Attraction #2: the canopy walk, which is actually a giant suspension bridge.  Is it even a hike if you don't climb a big tower and go on a suspension bridge?

Attraction #3: All the Hiking.  There was a trail closure and a lot of rerouting, so we ended up with a lot more than we bargained for.  Lots of steps, lots of up and downs, and man I was so hungry...how could I possibly be that hungry so early in the day?

Oh.  It wasn't early in the day.  When your planned three mile/one hour hike is actually six miles and three hours, you do work up an appetite.

On Sunday we took Doggo and met up with SIL #3 and her dog for a hike closer to home.

There were lots more stairs, a waterfall, and a stream.  It was our first time taking Doggo close to water (apart from baths and the kiddie pool at doggy daycare), and it turns out that we have a Water Dog.  She and her cousin dog ran through the stream like maniacs.

 

Watching

On Halloween we juggled trick o' treat duties and Doggo's dislike of strangers knocking on our door.  Afterwards we kicked back on the couch and tucked into a seasonally appropriate movie(s).  Huh you're wondering, what movie let alone movies are these people watching on a weeknight?

Great question, and they way to fit two movies into one weeknight and still get to bed by ten is to watch the OG Frankenstein (one hour and ten minutes) and Bride of Frankenstein (one hour and 15 minutes).  Hubs was interested because he recently came across an article about sequels that are better than the original movies.

If you've even gotten confused on whether Frankenstein is the scientist or the monster, the title Bride of Frankenstein is to blame!  By rights the movie should be called The Bride of Frankenstein's Monster, but that doesn't fit as well on a movie marque.  At any rate, the movies are great fun.

Reading

I still haven't settled on a book.  I finally picked up the next book in the Dover series (a spoof of the Great British detective novels which I first read when I was 12 and have read many, many times since).  For half a second I thought that I was going to get into I Hope This Finds You Well, which is a workplace email gone wrong caper, but at 9% in I was already feeling the strain of " a wildly funny and comic workplace novel", so I abandoned it.  Hey I've been in a reading slump before I will be in one again...I know from experience that the Right Book will find me and break the cycle.

What's Next

I'm hoping to squeeze in one more hiking adventure before winter sets in...and I have a Plan B just in case the weather doesn't go my way.  Stay tuned!

See you next week!