Weekly Round Up: All the Christmas Cookies and the Return of the Five Mile Race

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition, I got an amazing Christmas present (I picked it out myself!) and many Christmas cookies were eaten.

Weekly Round Up: Something for Everyone

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we tried a new dinner recipe and a new s'mores cookie recipe, a cybersecurity attack brought my family closer together, I got my booster, and we're watching Christmas movies.  There is truly something for everyone in this post.

Weekly Round Up: Grocery Store Sushi

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.

Weekly Round Up: Tales from the Streak

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.

Weekly Roundup: Thanksgiving, a Tale of Two 5k's, and THE ROOM

 

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we celebrated Thanksgiving, I ran two 5k's and started a run streak, and we had the Ultimate Cinematic Experience.  Move over AFI Top 100, there's a new kid in town.

Weekly Round Up: Climbing High

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition the stepsons and I had a weekend on our own, I'm getting "high" in my workouts, and I've now seen 98 of the AFI Top 100 movies (no need for a separate post this week).

Weekly Roundup Part 2 of 2: Three Hour Movies and Spoilers

I thought that seeing A Clockwork Orange would be the last obstacle toward seeing all of the AFI Top 100 movies.  There aren't any other Big Hairy Movies that I'm scared of on the list.

But like a classic monster movie it's a case of conquering one monster only to find another one taking its place...my obstacle now is The Attack of the Three Hour Movies.  I fought hard and made it through a record 6 movies this week with 6 left to go...but man oh man they're all long suckers.

Weekly Roundup Part 1 of 2: Costco Food Reviews and a Race

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we tried a few new-to-us Costco products, I had a good race experience, and a food crisis came to an end.

It's Been A Year: The 4th Annual Weekly Eats Edition

 

It's the fourth anniversary of the first weekly eats post and time to celebrate "Birchwood New Year".  Let's take a look back at this year's Best of the Best.

Weekly Round Up Part 2 of 2: This week's AFI top 100 movies

Friends, I have now seem 88 of the AFI top 100 movies including a whopping three of the movies that were on my "I haven't seen this and I never want to" list.

Weekly Round Up Part 1 of 2: a new lunch and a race

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.

Weekly Round Up Part 2 of 2: this week's AFI movies

The good news: I've now seen 83 of the AFI top 100 movies, which brings my "grade" to a solid B.  My new goal is to bring my score into the mid 90s and lock down the A.

The bad news: I feel like I'm getting to the point of diminishing returns with this project.  I saw five movies that I hadn't seen before and of those two were good and three were pretty slow going.

Weekly Round Up Part 1 of 2: a bunch of new recipes!

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  I watched a ton of AFI Top 100 movies this week, which will get their own post tomorrow.  When I wasn't parked in front of the TV I managed to try several new recipes and got back to the run.

Weekly Round Up Part 2 of 2: a lot of AFI movies

Continuing on from last time, I knocked back a whopping four more movies on the AFI Top 100 list last week.   My "grade" is up to a 78 so I'm rocking a C+.  While I haven't loved every single movie, I am very happy with most of them and it's a nice shakeup to trying to find something on Netflix.

Weekly Round Up Part 1 of 2: Half Marathon #8

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week was Too Big For One Post, so I'm going to break it into a two-parter.  Today I'm going to tell you about food and half marathon #8 and I'll pop back in a day or so to tell you about a bunch of movies.

Weekly Round Up: Buffaloed

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I made buffalo tofu for the first time, really kicked my strength training up, saw another one of the AFI top 100 movies, and listened to an incredible audio book.

Weekly Roundup: Fancy Ramen

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I made fancy ramen and watched another winner on the AFI top 100 list

Weekly Roundup: Never Say Never

 

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I made my favorite frosted sugar cookies and watched a ton of movies, including the one that I said I would never, ever watch.

Back to Work!

All good things must come to an end...I am no longer FUNemployed.

A Tour of My Great Grandmother's 1910 Fannie Farmer Cookbook

Today we're going to take a walk back in time and take a look at my Great Grandmother's Fannie Farmer cookbook.  My Great Grandmother passed away in 1977 when I was two, but I do have very slight memories of her.  My mother (her granddaughter-in-law) adored her and often went to visit and cooked lunch for her at her house.  The paperwork inside the book dates from 1910 to 1976.

Weekly Roundup: The Slowest Half

 

A weekly roundup: the slowest half, movies, and a podcast.

Twenty Questions!

TGIF!  For today's post, I sampled a bunch of twenty questions posts and put together my own list.

Two Old Books That I Love and Two New Books That I Love

 

One of my favorite sources for reading ideas is the Sarah's Bookshelf podcast.  On each episode, Sarah asks her guest for:

• Two old books that they love
• Two new books that they love
• A book that they didn't love
• An upcoming release that they are excited about
• The last five star book that they read

I'm going to be a pretend guest on Sarah's podcast and give you my answers.

Whazzup Wednesday

 

Happy 🐪🐪🐪 Day! Here's what's going down in Birchwood Land.

My Two Cents: the AFI 100 List

 

I really enjoyed Grace's post One of my "Just for Fun" Goals.  She is working her way through the American Film Institute's 100 Years 100 Movies List.  She included this link to the AFI's checklist that you can click through to find out how many of these movies you've seen.

It turns out that I've seen 68 of the 100 movies, but as I got to thinking about it, I realized that there is a lot more to this list than what I've seen vs what I haven't seen.  It's how I feel about the movies.

Working with a Sports Dietitian: It was Good and It Was Also Really Bad

 

This summer I did something that I've been thinking about doing for years: I worked with a sports dietitian for a month.  

So what was it like and how did it turn out?  Quite the mixed bag.  On the plus side, I solved my #1 food issue.  On the negative side, it's kind of a Thomas Edison thing where I discovered a few more of the 10,000 things that don't work, and feel like I still have 9,996 things that don't work left to discover. 

I passed the CPP (Certified Payroll Professional) Exam Today!

Warning: The following content is intended only for people who have taken or are planning to take the CPP exam.

In other words, this is going to be the world's most boring post ever.  It's even more boring than my post about passing the CPA exam - don't say that I didn't warn you!  I'm writing this for the same reason that I wrote about the CPA exam: I really wanted to hear the deets from someone who had been through the process, and I didn't find a lot out there on the internets.  CPP is a tough google since it also stands for Certified Protection Professional and Certified Professional Photographer, so let me clarify that we're talking about the American Payroll Association's Certified Payroll Professional exam.  I took and passed the test today on my first attempt.

Along the way I tried four different exam prep programs: Momentrix, PayTrain, Practical CPP, and Payroll Source, and I'm going to tell you ever last detail of what I thought about those.  The TL&DR summary: 

• Don't bother with Momentrix
• PayTrain is really nice and really expensive but I don't feel that it was complete.  I did 90% of my studying in PayTrain but I'm not sure if I would have passed the exam if it been my only resource.
  
• Practical CPP was a bit too indepth and scared me BUT the I felt that it boosted my knowledge and there was one question on the exam that was about material that I learned from Practical CPP.  And the price is quite reasonable.
• The Payroll Source was excellent, and the practice questions were very similar to what was on the exam.  One question was identical!  I wish I'd known about it sooner than one week before the exam;-)  And there's a 30 day free trial...sheesh I really wish I would have known this sooner than one week before the exam.
• P.S. although not a study resource, I also took one of the APA's knowledge assessment tests one week before the exam and failed it miserably...I do not recommend taking the knowledge assessment tests because I didn't feel that the questions represented what was on the exam and it really messed with me!
  

Let's Catch Up: Movies and TV Lately

A quick look at what we've been watching recently.

Let's Catch Up: Food Lately

 

 

Best new recipe, a leftover chain reaction, our favorite family dinner, homemade pizza, and a last minute potluck dessert...a few of the things that we've had lately in addition to our normal fare of mac n'cheese.

Let's Catch Up: Books Lately

I've been having the best luck with books lately.  Here's what I've read since my last weekly post.

Let's Catch Up: What's Up With My Job

And we're back!

We have so much to catch up on: food, running, movies, books, vacation, working with a dietitian...I have a ton of stuff to unpack on the blog.  I guess I'll start with the biggest news item: for the next two weeks I am FUNemployed!  I'm starting a new job at the end of this month.  Yes another one.  I've been quite the job hopper this summer.

I need a minute!

 

Oops, I did not mean to ghost on the blog.  Adjusting to my new job is taking a hot minute and nothing very amazing is happening with our meals.  But I thought I'd pop in and at least shoot the breeze and tell you about a couple of TV and book things.

Weekly Eats: Supersized

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I did something that I've been talking about doing for a long time and my breakfasts are being supersized as a result.

Weekly Whatever: Recovery

 

Another wazzup post as I get my bearings in the new world.

Weekly Whatever: 30 Hours to Go!!!

 

This isn't really an eats post, it's not really a workout post, we're in total wazzup territory.

Weekly Eats: And Then I Quit

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we winged it for meals, I had a breakfast disappointment, I started listening to a podcast called "And Then I Quit", on the job front I had two misses and an unexpected hit...and then I quit!!!!!

Weekly Eats: More of the Same

 

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  I tried a new dinner out on the fam, had more adventures running in the heat, and had a wonderful job interview that I am trying not to get too excited about but I am really excited about.

Weekly Eats: Boucing Back

 

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I'm still employed, I made it through a summer long run, and I'm starting to think about cooking again.

Weekly Sw-Eats

 

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's combo weekly sweats/weekly eats edition there is nothing super genius to tell you about food, I did a mile trial, watched a fun movie, and my job situation continues to escalate.

Weekly Eats: Unmasked

 

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition the masks came off and my sister-in-law and I went to a meat market.

Weekly Eats: Things to Tell You

 

A weekly round up: eats, watches, reads, and life stuff.

Weekly Eats: Short n'Sweet

 

A weekly roundup: eats, watches, and reads.  This is going to be another abbreviated post, because guess what...I worked a lot this week.

Weekly Sweats: I Can Have Nice Things

 

In this week's news I ran 27 miles, did my strength workouts, and splurged on a new Garmin.

Weekly Easts: Quickie

 

What do you do when you enjoy blogging about what you eat, watch, and read but you're in a busy phase at work?  You blog about it anyway!  Just quickly and in short format.

Weekly Eats: All It Takes is One

 

A weekly round up: eats, watches, and reads.  This started as an uninspiring food week, but then we stumbled on an incredible chicken recipe that I am going to tell you about and strongly suggest that you make for yourself.  Every meal doesn't have to be a star...all it takes is one.  In other news I kicked a so-so book out of my life and was rewarded by finding another incredible read.

Weekly Sweats: The Return of the 10 Mile Race

 

In this week's edition, I ran 27 miles, got my strength workouts in, and returned to one of my all time favorite races.

Weekly Eats: Real Men Eat Quiche

 

A weekly roundup: eats, watches, and reads.  The big news item of this week is that real men eat quiche!!!

Weekly Sweats: It's Good to be Wrong

 

In this week's recap I have 22 miles, 2 strength workouts, 1 vaccine hangover, and the delightful discovery that hydration packs are awesome to tell you about.

Weekly Eats: Third Breakfast

 

A weekly round up: eats, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we found a solution for Easter leftovers, I've started eating three breakfasts, and I've got two good books to talk about.

Weekly Sweats: Predictable

 

A tale of 25 miles, two very satisfying strength workouts, and a predictably bad long run.

Weekly Eats: Firing on All Four Cylinders

 

 

A weekly roundup: eats, watches, and reads.  Before we go any further, I need to warn you that this is going to be a loooong post.  There are plenty of weeks where all I have to say is "hi we had mac n'cheese for dinner seven nights in a row and watched a movie bye" but this was not one of those weeks.  I made pizza for the first time in forever, we had a nice Easter dinner topped off by an incredible dessert, my two favorite TV shows on earth are back, and I read a book that's going to stay with me for a while.

Weekly Sweats: A Great Week

 

This week was a phenomenal week in fitness for two reasons: it was my first week of run/strength coaching AND my favorite running fuel finally came out with gels.  22 miles of running, one half-hearted strength workout on my own and the best strength workout that I've had in a long time with my coach.

Weekly Eats: Tacos and Snark

 

A weekly roundup: eats, watches, and reads.  There's nothing really new to see here on the food front but I have a snarky movie review and a good book to make up for it.

Weekly Sweats: The End of the Solo Act

 

In this week's edition: 28 miles, some random body weight strength work here and there, and the end of my solo act.

Weekly Eats: 101 Days

A weekly round up: eats, watches, and reads. Vaccine Edition.

Weekly Sweats: Not a Lot

 

This week's edition: 19.25 miles, two strength workouts, two race recaps, and one unbelievable update.

Weekly Eats: Another One Bites the Dust

 

A weekly round up: eats, watches, and reads.  This week I kicked a "diet" food out of my life in place of the real thing, learned that a freezer experiment paid off, and found a yummy new runner's snack.

Weekly Sweats: Cliffhanger!

 

This week's highlights: an estimated 30-ish miles, two strength workouts, and one cliffhanger.