Monday, May 23, 2022

Weekly Round Up: It's Not All Bad

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week is rated M for "meh" but of course it wasn't all bad.


Eats

I had a single girl weekend while the men were away at Boy Scout camp.  My big experiment was a Pad Thai creation cobbled together from a bunch of different sources.   My end goal is to come up with something reminiscent of Costco's frozen pad thai.  I ended up with:

  • Regular spaghetti for noodles because that's how I roll.
  • Carrots, red pepper, edamame, and green onions for veggies
  • Eggs and soy curls for protein
  • And then the sauce recipe that I chose was a miss, so I won't link to it.  Even though it wasn't quite what I was looking for the leftovers have grown on me and I've been enjoying it for lunches.

 For family meals, my favorite dinner of the week was a tie.  Contender #1 is the copycat Chipotle burritos that we make pretty frequently served with fresh avocado.

 

Contender #2 was the ravioli that hubs made the one night...I really like it when someone else makes dinner.


Workouts

Running definitely gets the gold star for the thing that made me the happiest this week.

Monday: 4.25 miles outside!

Tuesday: 4.5 miles total: 1.25 miles warmup, three rounds of half mile fast/quarter mile recover, and 1 mile cool down.  After a few weeks of doing "fast" speed work, my goal for this workout was to find a "middle gear" speed.  I struggled in the first interval at going slower than "balls to the wall" but soon found my grove.  Next week I'll kick this up to four rounds.

Wednesday: off!

Thursday: 4.5 miles total with six round of 0.15 miles fast/0.2 recover.  My body caught on that I had increased the distance for my all out effort workout and I felt like I brushed right at the upper limit of my fitness.  I made it but it was really hard.  I'll be staying with the same workout next week as there is no way that I'll be able to increase the distance yet.  I also cannot comprehend that the end game of this is to be able to hold the effort for somewhere between 8 to 9 minutes for my one mile race next month...that's just crazy talk!

Friday: holy heatwave!  When I said that the plan was to run on the treadmill 1-2 days a week this summer I was not counting on the weather help me stick to the plan.  5 miles inside and I was very glad to be there.

Saturday: holy heatwave day 2!  I took it to the treadmill for 10k.  Call me crazy but...I think I might want to start running further for my long runs even through I don't need to right now????  I'm not sure what that looks like yet, right now it's just an idea.

Sunday: by rights it was a rest day but also by rights I felt like doing "something".  One of the lessons that I learned from my running streak last winter is that running just one mile feels really good, but guess what I haven't done a one mile run since then.  I can't change the past but I changed the present and laced up for a mile.

Watching

Sigh, I finished season 6 of Outlander.  Yes the season was a little heavy on the flashbacks but once the story got going it got going and it ended on a nice cliffhanger. 

For movies, I rewatched an AFI Top 100 favorite, The Apartment.  I can't remember the last time that I saw this but I was way overdue for a rewatch.  This movie is near flawless.



Reading

I finished A Flicker in the Dark and just for the record I was wrong that I'd guessed who the bad guy was early on.  I'm over half way through the next thriller on this list which is Unmissing by Minka Kent.  What's a girl to do when she's living her dream life and her husband's first wife who has been missing and presumed dead for 10 years knocks on the door?  I kind of think I have the mystery figured out for this one as well but we'll see.

I've got 99 problems but not being able to find anything to read isn't likely to be one of them for a good long while.  Sarah's Bookshelves released her summer reading list last week and that should keep me busy for a good long while.

Werk

I am all kinds of confused.  The Universe seems to be saying "stay where you are".

  • I didn't make it to the second round of interviews with either Bachelor #2 or Bachelor #3.
  • I don't have any new prospects in the hopper.
  • But now my day job is getting interesting?  I'm being trained for some additional responsibilities, which are interesting and nice phat resume bullet points.
Staying on in this job isn't the worst thing in the world since the longer I'm here the better it looks and also it gets me closer to my first shot of company stock (which will be a cash bonus since the company is going private).  It's just that there are more interesting places to work, and a few things going on that are making me raise my eyebrows.  So the search continues....

14 comments:

  1. So sorry about the Bachelors #2 and #3, Birchie. They both looked quite promising. But you always said that your current job isn't the worst, so at least it's not a tragedy. Wishing you all the best with the ongoing search!

    Well done on your interval training, especially the Thursday workout! That is exactly how it is supposed to feel!! Perfect. Keep it up and you will surprise yourself next month. I'm quite looking forward to this sub-9 mile!

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    1. Thanks Catrina! I'm scared/looking forward to Thursday for a repeat of the all out effort.

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  2. Glad running got a gold star this week! Speed work is fun, right? I'm also looking forward to hearing about the mile race.
    In case you need MORE to read, Modern Mrs. Darcy also released her summer reading guide. I haven't looked at either one of them yet, although soon I'll be looking for new books since I finally finished my 900 pound one.
    Your current job sounds good for now! More responsibilities, more resume points... things could be worse.

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    1. Yes, as you know speed work is a ton of fun. I haven't looked at MMD's list since I'm happily swamped right now...it really does seem like there are a ton of good books right now.

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  3. I'm sorry to hear about the job issues. Maybe it is just your destiny to stay where you are, especially if they are giving you more responsibilities.

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    1. Eh, it is what it is. Believe me that I'm very grateful for the job, but on any given day the average is about an hour of good stuff, 5 minutes of bad stuff, and the rest of the day is painfully boring. I feel like I'm getting less intelligent by the day. I hope that it's not my destiny to stay here!

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  4. Sorry about your work stuff.
    But on the upside, that is a lot of running! Wow! Great job!

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    1. Thanks Nicole. It is what it is and it will work itself out. I'm trying to make the most of everything else.

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  5. I'd (already) forgotten about your 1-mile training plan. I need to get back in a speedwork "routine," so I did some speed bursts yesterday morning while I was enjoying my early run. I was technically running with a friend, but we decided to start and stop together and do our own thing in the middle...if that makes sense.

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  6. Job situation are weird sometimes, right? You definitely had a lot going on lately... hopefully it just means everything is working out for the best? Great week of running, girl!

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    1. Yes it's very weird and hopefully things are working out for the best. Thank goodness for running!

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  7. Sigh. I was hoping for something from the Bachelors. Ah, well - it sounds like the Universe is saying stay put for now. At least it sounds tolerable... for the present? You keep reminding me that I need to try soy curls, darn it! I don't think they are at my grocery but I know they are at my co-op.
    I always wonder - do you enjoy your solo weekends without the kids and the spouse? They seem to happen relatively frequently in spring/summer, so I am hoping you do! (I guess you do have the dog, right? :>)

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    1. That's a great question! I lived alone all of my adult life until I met my husband in my late 30's, so the solo weekends feel like a funny throwback to those days. I don't mind being alone but given the choice I'd rather be with my family. The dog pretty much sleeps for the entire time;-)

      Yes get some soy curls ASAP! They're so easy to cook and delicious.

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