Easter Recap
After two years of COVID Easters with just the four of us (2020 here and 2021 here) all of the in-town family came over to our house for our traditional Easter brunch.
- Ham from hubs
- Mini quiches from me. This is my go-to recipe, but I use 1.5 cups of regular milk instead of evaporated milk and 6 slices of bacon in place of the veggies and since we had the whole tribe I doubled the recipe on top of that.
- French toast casserole and a fruit tray from SIL#3
- Cheesy potatoes from SIL #4
- Mimosas from an adult nephew and his girlfriend
I also made the epic lemon blueberry tart that we made last year - no we don't *need* it with all of the other food but we sure want it.
We also celebrated a Very Special Birthday. The youngest (or oldest depending on how you look at it) member of our family turned 10. The official story is that stepdog's birthday is on Easter, so it's a double duty holiday for us. It was a day full of her favorite things: w-a-l-k-s, being the center of attention at a family party, guarding the ham, and protecting us from a vicious squirrel attack.
Workouts and the Announcement of a Big Fat Hairy Running Goal
I was pretty tired after last week's race so I took it on the easy side during the week. On Saturday I bagged my last long run of this half marathon training cycle, which was a mere 8 miles. It was alright. Not fabulous but it got done. Half marathon #9 is next weekend and I haven't decided if I'm looking forward to it or dreading it.
I've been in a running rut and going through the motions for a while and now I'm ready to make a move and start working toward something again. Once the half is in the bag I'm going to take after my Big Fat Hairy Longtime Running Goal of running a sub 9 minute mile. You know, the thing that I've wanted for years that I've just never found the time to train for. There is a one mile race in my area in late June, which gives me a good bit of time to go after it.
My mile PR from 2020 is 9:08, last year my fastest mile was 9:25, and my fastest 2022 mile so far was 10:55 on New Year's Day so yes I have been going in the wrong direction on the speed but there is nowhere to go but up. Next week I'll start figuring out what "fast" is for me right now and how to get from where I am to where I want to be. If nothing else it's fun to have a goal again.
Watching
From the treadmill, I am deep into season 6 of Outlander. So far I feel like this is kind of a "filler" season with lots of flashbacks and not a lot of story yet, but hey it's Outlander so we'll take it.
On the AFI Top 100 side of things, I heard the Unspooled podcast for Sullivan's Travels this week and found the time to rewatch the movie. It was on my "I've seen it but it's been too long and I don't really remember it" list.
It's about a Big Deal Hollywood Director who is famous for making fluffy comedies but wants to make a Big Important Drama called "O Brother Where Art Thou". And yes it's an inside joke that the Coen brothers later used the title. Finally cleared to make his dream project, the director goes undercover as a hobo so that he can see what the world is really like and gets more than he bargains for.
The Unspooled take is that they love Preston Sturges (the writer/director) but they're not sold on this particular movie being on the AFI list. Their #1 complaint is that there is something inherently condescending about rich people trying to show how rough poor people have it and Hollywood insiders complaining about Hollywood. I agree 100% - this movie falls somewhere on the OK-to-good scale for me. I also think that it benefits from the Veronica Lake Effect, which is that every Veronica Lake movie is a good movie by definition because it has Veronica Lake in it - yeah she was more than just a hairstyle. I don't think that this is a bad movie at all, but if I were up to me I'd swap it for This Gun for Hire (Veronica Lake + a better movie to start with).
For family movie night, we kicked it back to the 80s for Revenge of the Nerds
Was that puzzle hard? It looks kind of tricky. That blueberry dessert looks really delicious. I bet it would be much loved in this house. Perhaps I should try it! Good luck with your goal - it's so refreshing to have a big goal in mind!
ReplyDeleteOh Nicole you HAVE to make the blueberry lemon tart. It looks fancy but it's pretty easy and it tastes incredible. The dark patches in the puzzle were tricky because it was a few hundred pieces that looked similar but I got 'er done.
DeleteYou are right, there's a huge chunk of that puzzle missing. The building on the left and that huge, greenish space in front of the diner that gives it a more forlorn and lonely feeling. Ah well.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE your new running goal!! You can do this, Birchie. And it will make you speedier for races, too. Once you get used to a sub-9 pace, it will stick with you. What's your plan? My guess is that you will have do to speed intervals and hill repeats, all good stuff. You will enjoy this.
Good luck on your half-marathon!! Looking forward to the recap!
Yes it's time. Step 1: run sub 9. Step 2: get used to it.
DeleteI loved reading your recap this morning! For folks who don't know what we're talking about, Catrina ran an ultra marathon last weekend. Check out her recap here: https://www.keeponrunning.net/the-two-oceans-ultra/
Haha, thank you, Birchie, for the shout-out!
DeleteI love how our Easter brunch has become all carbs all the time. Someone brought a vegetable plate and I don't think a single tomato was taken. Ha!
ReplyDeleteI'm very impressed that you watch so many movies. I haven't watched a movie in...a year? I honestly can't remember what I last watched. It just seems like such a feat to me.
Veggie plates are for AFTER the holidays!!!!
DeleteWhat you feel about my movie watching is what I feel about the number of books that you read. If we added all of my books and movies together I think you'd still be in the lead.
Ooh! I'm excited about your running goal. The thing I love about speed work is, if you just put in the work you'll see results. It's really satisfying. I'm interested to follow along on this journey!
ReplyDeleteYour Easter sounds really nice. It was nice to get back to normal- I remember after Easter 2020 my daughter said "this was a really disappointing Easter." SIGH! I tried hard to make this Easter a fun one.
Thanks Jenny! While the adults made the best of the pandemic holidays, I think that the boys thought that it was just plain weird that we put in effort instead of just spending the day playing video games.
DeleteYour Easter dinner sounds quite delish! That blueberry dessert looks killer ;-) That's exciting for your sub-9 goal! I've been considering if I should bring back my weekly 1-minute time trials. I did those in May last year, for four weeks and it made for a short and sweet little burst of speedwork each week.
ReplyDeleteI remember your mile trials! That's pure beast to run a mile at all out effort every week.
DeleteWow, that tart looks and sounds delicious!
ReplyDeleteAnd that puzzle looks SO HARD. So many dark and similar colors!
It's not keto but the tart is amazing and lives up to the hype.
DeleteNice job on the puzzle. I always think it's a blessing when you don't make it to the next round of interviews or get the job. That means it wasn't a fit and you didn't want to work there anyway. The right job will totally want you!
ReplyDeleteFor real. It's exactly like dating when you're just not that in to someone and they break up with you instead of you having to break up with them;-)
DeleteYay! running goals, a fun family gathering, a doggie birthday... and a quiet week at work. Sounds like a winner to me! I am checking out the tart recipe - more for my mom, but goodness it sounds wonderful.
ReplyDeleteBummer on the no-jobs-movement part of the post, but... it was also a holiday week/weekend for so many. Fingers crossed something bubbles up soon.
The tart is really pretty easy but the results are impressive. I hope that your mom likes it!
DeleteI look forward to reading a race recap about your half! Your Easter food looks delicious. Especially those quiches! I think that's a great goal and you will surprise yourself :)
ReplyDeleteLisa, I don't know how close your weather was to mine but you have all of my respect for your full marathon yesterday!!! You are a beast!
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