It's starting!

Fall doesn't officially start until Saturday, but along the Mississippi River, the fall colors are really starting to accelerate. I have been watching the sumac leaves change very gradually, and in the last week or so, they've really started to resemble the colors of Fruit Stripe Gum. Does anyone besides me remember that stuff? Red, yellow, green.

Right!?

This morning was dark, dark, dark. I tried to snap some more photos of the sumac, but they are all feeble and blurry because I didn't want to use a flash.

But here's one more leaf picture, just for good measure. Because it's Wednesday? If you are new to Miles and Laurel, you should know right away that I'm deeply fond of fall leaves.

 

Consider this the first installment of many-many leaf-related thoughts yet to come.

I resolve...

...to use our mantel more. (If that's not a cue that a terribly dramatic post is about to unfold, I'm not sure what else I need to do.)

And yes, I just had to look up its proper spelling of mantel. That just shows how underused this piece of real estate in our home is!

Sure, it holds our TV. And a music box that plays "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" when you twist it up, a gift from my grandparents from a long, long time ago. (I love that music box.) And last winter, it held a basket of scented pinecones.

But as I learn more about how I'd like to decorate my home, I need to really get the proper mileage out of this mantel. I've been chopping away at paper with a pair of scissors for another craft project anyway (more details on this later, perhaps) and got this brainstorm yesterday. It took all of five minutes!

I have to concede that it must not have been too helpful, because the Broncos lost their football game last night. But I would like to swap out this message regularly! Even before the holidays come around and I can deck the mantel with stockings, garland, leaves, gourds, etc., the possibilities are endless:

• GO TWINS!
• GO ROCKY TOP!
• GOOD LUCK!
• HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
• HAPPY WEDNESDAY!
• NO CAVITIES!

Honestly, even though I was the one who made the sign, it still brought me a little cheer when I opened the front door after work that day. It's the little things.

What three-word pep talk would you most like to see on the mantel?

Marvelous Monday: Week 38

This week is starting out in a marvelous way, especially because I haven't had to google "my dog ate part of a baseball" yet in Week 38.  Sigh. Wish is fine. I don't know how we're going to make our home baseball-free, but it's going to happen.

Anyway, here are five more marvelous tidbits:

1) Josh and I have stocked up on a bunch of soup staples, and as I was browsing recipes over the weekend, I realized I had every ingredient except sweet potatoes already on hand for a crockpot soup recipe. (I love when that happens, mostly because I'm not too many years removed from having to go to the store and buy every single ingredient for a recipe whenever I wanted to cook.) Eight hours later: Jamaican Pumpkin Soup! Like the author says, it is really good with a little drizzle of whipping cream.

Other recipes last week: the black bean dip from yesterday, which I will definitely make for parties (or for myself) many times in the future, and another pumpkin-black bean soup. This week I will work on the Moosewood vegetarian chili that we love. (We eat a lot of soup in the fall.)

Also, can you tell I am trying to go to the grocery store only once this week?

2) Reading report: I am wrapping up The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang. She writes about her family's experience, from their journey from Laos to a refugee camp in Thailand to arriving in the United States (St. Paul, actually) several years later. The Twin Cities has the second-highest Hmong population in the U.S., and I wish I had read this book a long time ago, because I am learning so much. I recommend it to anyone.

Next up: Gone Girl is waiting for me at the library!

3) There are exciting things coming up this week: Twin Cities Marathon prep with my committee, dinner with a friend, a possible trip to a museum and another race this weekend. Also, all of this is happening with the backdrop of fall, which I love!

4) There's a lot that will happen between now and Halloween (going to Montreal, running a marathon, etc.), but the seasonal switch has me considering what I might do for Halloween: for the Gray Ghost 5K, for the home, and, um, for the dog.

5) After a long time resisting it, I have officially leapt onto the Greek yogurt bandwagon. (Just what you were coming to Miles and Laurel to read, right?)  I love Chobani with fruit! I love the protein! That's all.

What is marvelous about today for you, Reader? What are you reading and cooking? Can you predict when I'll settle down about fall's arrival?

Weekends with Wish

A Keeshond like Wish is known for being a family dog who loves to hang out with his people, and we love relaxing with him at home, especially on the weekends. He definitely naps more than we do, but he also likes to see what we're doing and be part of the group (especially when it involves grilling, cooking, opening bags of food or eating).

(Also, remember when I said I'd only blog about Wish once per week? Sara makes fun of me every time I break that rule, which I admit has become often. Sorry, Readers.)

Anyway, on Saturday, I tried a black bean dip recipe for the big, epic Tennessee versus Florida football game, and he eagerly supervised to make sure we were eating our snack neatly:

RUDE OF YOU TO NOT SHARE.

Alas, later that night, the game unfortunately went terribly far out of Tennessee's favor. While Josh and I were cringing, I looked over at Wish, who had decided he couldn't even bear to watch anymore:

After a leisurely walk this morning (+5) he found out that today was Get Wish's Nails Clipped Day (-100!!). He did not love this experience, but he got through it and his nails are much nicer. (And it was over so quickly that I only had a chance to grab him a new toy - read on - and didn't get to thoroughly peruse the pet Halloween costumes!) On the car ride home, he was all smiles.

IT'S OVER!

Later, when he was snoozing, we played with his funny little mullet ear fur (-2, if he would've been awake).

The day also included another long walk...and a new squeaky football! (+100)

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

He hasn't even torn it apart yet, so it has lasted at least five hours (another +50).

Hope your weekend included some time to kick back, too, Reader. Did you watch football this weekend? Do you support Halloween costumes for animals, or do you think they're ridiculous? (Hint: I think you probably know my answer.) And what are you looking forward to this week?

Bear Water Run recap

I wrote a big old preview of this race yesterday and decided to save it for today's recap instead. Read on for everything you ever wanted to know about my feelings on the Bear Water Run!

I'd been excited all week for this event, which is put on by the White Bear Lake Lions Club and offers a 10- or 20-mile distance. A lot of people approach it as more of a run than a race, though: it's always held three weeks before Twin Cities Marathon, so most people are running their last 20-miler before Twin Cities on this weekend anyway and so you get a nice crowd of fall marathoners.

More signs of fall

Do you ever have those memories of events that you only remember as fun and nice and you block out anything that wasn't fun and nice? That's how I feel about this race. I've run it twice before, once on my own and once with Molly, who I missed this year! It's lowkey but always draws a good crowd, is well-run, and offers a change of scenery (on a beautiful course, no less). It's usually the time of year when the weather turns wonderful, and I always picture this race as peaceful and beautiful and fun, thus completely forgetting about the running-20-miles part. I really like this one.

This weekend, my marathon training plan had called for 14 miles of the long run done at marathon goal pace. This is tougher than a normal long run, which you'd ideally run considerably slower than your goal pace, so I tried to find a half-marathon or longer on the race calendar. It's easier to practice racing in a race setting than all by your lonesome! I leapt at the chance to run Bear Water. My plan: 3 miles easy, 14 miles at goal pace, 3 miles "cooldown" to round out 20 miles.

Other basic details: Weather was perfect again, with temps in the low 50s. Breakfast: my fall pre-long run breakfast: oatmeal with peanut butter. Outfit: tank top, shorts, sun glasses, visor. (There needs to be a less-weird word for visor.) I arrived with just enough time to get to the check-in area, pick up my number, go back to my car to grab race stuff, and make it back to the starting line.

The first 14 miles or so went by really quickly. The course is two loops, essentially circling White Bear Lake, and the hills are pretty rolling (a detail I'd apparently forgotten). There are great cheer zones at the water stops, which are stationed every two miles. Those are always run by school or community groups and are always themed: this year included zombies, '80s and pool party/under the sea.

(By the way, the whole morning was a little extra-fun this year because I had just read Through No Fault of My Own: A Girl's Diary of Life on Summit Avenue During the Jazz Age - which, if you didn't already catch me raving about it in a previous post, is wonderful. Anyway, the girl in the title is Coco, and Coco's family summered on White Bear Lake in the 1920s, so I daydreamed a little about that in different parts of the race.)

I settled into my goal marathon pace three miles into the first loop and actually kept purposely slowing myself down to keep myself on pace. I felt great but knew it was a long workout, and I didn't want to get mentally tricked by running too hard to close the first loop with a big, long second loop waiting on the other side. The second loop definitely did get tougher, but I stayed on my goal pace and finished the 14-mile workout with an average about 10 seconds per mile faster than what I'd been aiming for. Hooray!

The last three miles were no joke, though. Luckily, I had a water stop to look forward to at Mile 18, and then it was an "eight-laps-around-the-track-left" kind of countdown that went by fairly quickly.  I crossed the finish line feeling pretty good.

Hi! All done.

Then I almost immediately saw my friend Meghan, who was there cheering for her husband. I got into the food line and remembered that this race includes jumbo pickle spears in their selection. (Yum. Don't knock it til you've tried it!)

I walked past one of White Bear Lake's beaches on the way back to my car, and the temperatures had warmed enough so there were a few people sitting on the sand. Minnesota in September can be so wonderful.

So there you have it! I can't believe I only have two more long, long runs before I start my three-week taper. I told Molly last night that even though my marathon falls several weeks after the big Midwest marathons (Twin Cities and Chicago), I kind of love training for a marathon later in October because I get to run all the way through the best weeks of fall in the Twin Cities. If today was any indication, I think those weeks are right around the corner.