September 27, 2010

Last posting in September, funny how the months just keep flying by.  Jo and I enjoyed a nice quiet week without any major turmoil at work or home.  Jo was in town for the entire week and concentrated on reducing the level of email in her inbox.  I concentrated on continuing to develop what my new role is going to entail.  For the weekend, we started it off by taking advantage of our last week of summer hours at work by using our Friday afternoon to get many of the weekend chores done.  This included the grocery shopping, a stop at Panera Bread, the weekly trek to Home Depot, and spreading the compost pile out on the garden for the winter.  This left us some time on Saturday to make a stop at Clyde's to pick up fresh apple cider and cider donuts for Sunday morning (the donuts) and the week (the cider).  Then after stopping to purchase a few other needs we hopped on our bikes to enjoy lunch at a deli in Waterford - When Pigs Fly.  It was a turkey club for me - finally, I've been trying to have a club sandwich for a month - and a grilled turkey and cheese for Jo.  The afternoon consisted of getting the grass mowed and then enjoying our books and the lovely warm weather until dinner.  Since we had the evening free we decided to splurge on dinner and made a delicious repast of filet mignon, mashed potatoes (using the recently harvested spuds), a green bean casserole (yep, the beans from the garden), home made dinner rolls, and a peach cobbler with ice cream to top it off.  We were stuffed, but pleasantly so.  After it got dark we hauled out the telescope to see Jupiter and its moons.  It was amazing since four of the moons were all in a row.  Although we weren't able to see the red spot on Jupiter, presumably because it is turned the wrong way.  Also, checked out the craters on our moon which was almost full.  All great viewing especially considering we were using a telescope from the 70's sold by Sears. 

Sunday after yoga we enjoyed the donuts from our purchase on Saturday - which is a great way to celebrate after yoga, nothing is better than fresh cider and donuts!  The rest of the day was taken up with pursuing either reading or napping.  Dinner was another extravaganza as Jo wanted to make butternut squash and apple soup - very good - and we added rolls similar to those found at Red Lobster.  Needless to say after all the meals this weekend, we will need to be concentrating on our diets this week.

Then it was off to sleep to prepare for another exciting week of work - yipee??  Notice you get a lot of details on our meals.  Either I'm channeling Lawrence Saunders or I'm always hungry.

September 20, 2010

These posts seem to mostly be written on Monday's lately than over the weekend.  Guess the weekends have just been too busy.  This weekend it was time for our annual trip to Philadelphia to visit friends and participate in the Philadelphia Distance Run.  The Distance Run is a half-marathon that Jo and I have run in for over 20 years and is a key motivator every summer to increase our running mileage.  Hence all the descriptions over the last few weeks of being out for a long run.  All in the name of training.  We had a great run although the weather was slightly warmer than ideal.  We managed to come across the finish line together and upright which is all we usually shoot for.  The training over the summer certainly helped although we were both sore later and through today.  Thought you might want to see the before and after photos, so here they are. In case you can't tell - the after photos is where we have our finisher medals and we look like the only thing holding us up is the fact we are leaning together.

To back up to the beginning of the weekend, we hopped into the car on Friday and enjoyed the usual traffic thrills in navigating I-95 through Connecticut and around New York city to New Jersery.  We spent Friday evening with our friends Holly and Paul.  Holly is recently retired from Merck - not through her choice, but as a result of one of the countless pharmaceutical company restructurings all the rage now - while Paul is over at BMS.  So we had many of the major pharma companies represented.  Holly is enjoying her "retirement" and is working as a fitness trainer which plays to her interest in staying in shape and her outgoing nature.  Her only advice to us was to question why we keep running.  Apparently, running as an aerobic event isn't high on Holly's training list.  We had a wonderful dinner in nearby Flemington, NJ and spent most of the time catching up on each other's lives.  Saturday morning after a short tune up run for us we headed over to Peddler's Village to buy Jo's favorite caramel corn - yes we had to go all the way to Pennsylvania to buy popcorn with heated sugar and nuts.  But it keeps Jo happy and as every husband in the world knows - that is a good thing.

We then headed to downtown Philadelphia to check-in for the race and do some shopping at the running expo.  Unfortunately, besides getting some running socks, none of the clothes really excited us this year.  Dinner was at our favorite pizza restaurant, Pizzacata, in the "Olde Towne" (I might have added the e's to make it sound more colonial) area of Philadelphia.  One of the hard things for both of us to see as we walked around Philly was  that the old Rohm and Haas building now has a big Dow sign on it.  Kind of sad to see your first company disappear that way.  Wonder what Otto Haas thinks of the changes (he's in the big chemistry lab in the sky in case you weren't fluent with the Haas history).  After dinner it was back to the hotel to rest up, watch a movie, read our books, and get our pre-race sleep.

Sunday morning was a beautiful day, if too hot, with a starting race temperature of 63 degrees.  I already filled you in on the race details, so after the race we headed back to our hotel for a quick shower before tackling the cramp inducing 4 hour drive home in the car.  It is really interesting to unfold yourself after running 13 miles and then sitting in a car for 3-4 hours, especially for the driver.  Amazing what parts don't want to bend anymore.

Just so you know we do have some life during the actual week and don't just live for the weekends - which we honestly mostly do - we went to work, ran and lifted after work, and enjoyed one of our last clam strip dinners before the clam shacks close for the winter.  Until next week.

September 13, 2010

I'm a day late since I had difficulties logging into my blog yesterday.  For those that plan their entire Sunday around reading this blog, 1) sorry and 2) get a life.  We had a nice short work week last week although Jo did have to travel to NY for one day.  But fortunately it was an in-and-out trip so we didn't miss any quality snuggling time at night.  We will actually have to work all five days this week which could be a struggle.

For the weekend, I got the emission tested on our Jeep on Friday and then it was home to grass mowing.  We rented a movie for the weekend - Taking of Pelham 123 - which was good to watch.  The bonus material on what they had to do to film in the NY subway was also very interesting, especially how many tracks are underneath NY.  Saturday it was up for a longish run - only 8-9 miles, the gym, the grocery store, and the bank.  All the usual weekend chores.  Then home to catch the WI football game during lunch - they won, YEAH.  After the Wisconsin win we headed out to Clyde's Cider mill to pick up our first gallon of fresh apple cider for the year along with a dozen cider donuts.  Then home to some office chores before making a Mexican extravaganza for dinner along with frozen strawberry margaritas.  The margaritas were delicious although made with a wee bit too much tequila.  We had rented another movie - It's Complicated - which wasn't as good, so maybe it was good that we were too tipsy to care. 

It was up on Sunday morning for a run and yoga.  After which we enjoyed our donuts (not the whole dozen, although I did eat 6 over the course of Sunday - not good for the waist line, but good for the soul) and cider.  Then to work some of that off, we headed out to the garden to harvest our second to last crop for the year - potatoes (the last one is the sweet potatoes).  Had a pretty good yield although we are still not producing the giant Idaho potato variety.  Might be our soil, could be us - we'll go with the soil.  Then we both spent the afternoon with our noses buried in books until dinner and bedtime.  Jo is reading through the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy and I'm just having fun with my usual spy/mystery/WWII novels. 

That's it for the week.

September 6, 2010

Happy Labor Day and in honor of the day we did as little labor as possible.  Although the garden did need harvesting as we collected more beans, cucumbers and tomatoes.  The lima beans also were ready for picking and we enjoyed them for dinner tonight.  The garden is winding down for the year and we will probably only harvest another tomato or two along with the potatoes and sweet potatoes at this point.  This was our most successful year so far and helped us feel the effort we have spent over the last few years was worthwhile.  We are already starting to think about what to plant next year.

Moving backward in time, we decided to extend the holiday weekend and headed off to the Midwest to see family on Wednesday last week.  Each of us went to visit our respective sisters after landing in Chicago.  Jo headed to Madison to see her sister, Kathy, while I trundled off to downtown Chicago for time with my sister, Cheryl.  We both had a great time and fortunately the return flights all worked and we met up in Chicago's Ohare for our return to CT.  The weather was lovely in Chicago with a cool front coming through that made the early morning runs very pleasant - especially as for one of them I completed a 13 mile run.  Unfortunately, I needed to run a lot since I ate way too much - but as you can't get a good deep dish pizza on the East Coast, I dug into a Chicago style stuffed pizza one night.  I got to see my sister in action at her job at Macy's.  It was fun to see her dealing with customers and handling all the technology involved in a large department store; plus she can actually fold clothing without a table in front of her - something I'm unable to accomplish without adding more wrinkles than if I just threw the clothing into a heap.  One of the days, while my sister was at work I caught up with my college roommate, John, and his family.  We spent the entire time just sitting and chatting about our families, work, live, aches and pains (it is what old men do at our age) and naturally, retirement.  As we only get to see each other once every 2 or 3 years it was really nice to have the time to see how well his family is doing.

Jo meanwhile enjoyed catching up with her sister and the fun events in Madison - and since she had the camera the photo montage for the week is all captured there.  The annual "Taste of Madison" was going on during her visit and she particularly felt the all things cheese booth was a fitting commentary on living in WI.  Although you certainly might wonder why you need to fry a cheese curd, but it does seems we fry everything these days.  The rest of the weekend consisted of shopping, catching up, and a watching a couple of movies with her sister.

We were both sad to be heading home but work does call and at least one of us has to have a job to keep paying for the weekend get-aways.  But at least the upcoming week is a short one!