A Sunnier Version of Sweden

I got up early this morning, before Justin and the kids, to get started on my recipe for the week! I love the weekend mornings when I have an hour or two to myself, enjoying the quiet of the house but knowing my family is all around me. This particular April morning, I also woke up to a couple of inches of snow on the deck and more falling from the sky, with the wind whipping it all over the yard and the nature preserve behind us. In what has come to feel like an endless winter, we're predicted to have snow through Monday morning for anywhere from 5" to 14", depending on which forecast you look at. I won't be able to get my long run in this weekend, but in the spirit of always having a Plan B, I picked up my new bike trainer set from the local bike shop yesterday, so I'll try to get that set up and go for an alternate workout, instead. I might even try to do some yoga in my new workout room! The projects around the house are really coming along, with several o...

I'm back from my 20 mile run today - solo, laps around the neighborhood, 20 mile run. For the first time in a long time, I had looked forward to this run in some ways, rather than dreading a long run needed to get me prepared for a race. Since moving to Wisconsin, every single run has been solo, unless you count the handful of treadmill runs where there was a random stranger next to me. I don't count those, though, because mentally and socially, I was still alone. After so many years of having the comfort of knowing there would always be a friend with whom to make it (or suffer) through the miles, it's been a pretty big shift for me to go it alone. I had a pretty good run today; nothing spectacular, certainly not fast, but mostly steady with only a little bit of stopping and starting when the standard knee pain began. What is markedly different today though, is the feeling that, for the first time in six months, I feel like we may finally be turning the corner on winter...

I'm still on track! Two new recipes this week, though one is what I'll call a "swing" recipe, as I made it Saturday but we ate it Sunday. Totally giving myself credit for that one in week 9. First up: Italian Potato-Pasta Soup with Greens for a meatless Friday night meal. Only hiccup: we didn't have it on Friday, because we ended up running errands and going out to dinner. It was still a good Saturday night dinner, though! As has become standard, step 1: gather ingredients. Isn't that fennel and kale beautiful?! I had shopped at our local Festival Foods instead of Walmart sine I was there for Caroline's Girl Scout cookie booth, and their produce section was seductive. Plus, fennel! I've never even heard of it, much less used it in a recipe before. Love this trying new recipes thing. The recipe said one hour for required time, but I've learned that's usually a strong underestimate for the way I cook. I think the difference is in the pr...

Nothing like a good bit of work travel to put a little bit of stress on the ability to keep up with resolutions. For the recipe from a couple of weeks ago, I needed something easy that would work for a weeknight dinner as I was headed out for the entire weekend for a work function. No leisurely cooking in my future in week 9! Enter, Macaroni and Beef Casserole , promising 30 minutes to get dinner on the table. Pasta; beef; cheese. How could I go wrong? Pretty simple stuff, with some dicing and prepping but nothing crazy. Vegetables in the skillet first, add the meat, brown until done. The learning opportunity for me in this recipe: making the cheese sauce! I think the key piece was to control the heat and not let anything scorch on the bottom of the pan, then let the cheese melt slowly after it was off the burner. before adding the cheese Since I was in such a hurry to get dinner on the table that night, I got a picture of the final product but nothing on the plate! Every...

It's weird when you have a work trip over a weekend... it's also weird (at least to me) when a work trip destination is Las Vegas. When two weirds collide you have... my NASCAR weekend in Las Vegas. (NASCAR probably counts as a third weird, but then I would've ended up in a vortex from which there's no escape, and I don't have time or energy for that right now. We'll keep it to two weirds.) As part of my company's corporate contract with NASCAR, we sponsor a driver and car in return for a lot of brand exposure and all kinds of perks associated with race weekends. Since the sponsorship is also part and parcel to a Kroger partnership, I had the opportunity to spend most of the first weekend in March in Las Vegas, with our Kroger merchants, and attending my first NASCAR race! No matter how you slice it, the West is a long way away. On the 5am flight out of Appleton, through Chicago, and four hours to Las Vegas, it was a very early Friday - and a tight fit, ...

It's been a busy two weeks - no more than usual, but maybe a little bit more stressful with so much change going on at work. I've got plenty of things to update on my blog, but have either lacked the time, the energy or both to put them in writing. Over the last couple of weeks I've kept cooking, I've been out to Las Vegas and back for work, we've had a spelling bee, a school play, and various other excitements around the house. I'll get caught up a bit, starting today - I've been using Sundays to write my blog posts for the week, scheduling them to publish throughout the week, but I'll probably begin rethinking that as I try to be opportunistic in finding time to write vs. carving out a set hour or two each week. So this post is as much for me as for anyone else; a reminder that I committed to blogging again and an extension of grace for not necessarily being right on top of everything that happens, exactly when it happens. "I express my pa...

Weirdly, the "I can't believe you were able to get that!" has been the most common reaction to my new favorite car accessory: It's been years since I had a personalized plate; way back when I was still in the Army and had Texas as my home of record, I was the proud owner of the USMA 97 plate that my parents had secured when I was just a cadet. I've driven a company car for so long, I haven't had much opportunity to think about a personalized plate. Moving to Wisconsin, though, where the population is small relative to other places I've lived and where off the top of my head I couldn't think of many graduates who call it home, I thought it might be worth a try. And BOOM! Success!! Whether in Wisconsin or elsewhere, every day, in every way - BEAT NAVY!