Three things Thursday

Three nice things about Thursday, besides the fact that the UT-Florida game is now the day after tomorrow:

1) It was pretty and chilly this morning. I went sleeveless on my run and definitely could have used at least short sleeves. The leaves along the river are definitely changing. And the clouds were amazing!

2) I had a conference call today for my volunteer committee, and I called in for it while I was home on my lunch break. I sat on the floor with Wish during the call and took notes. (Best conference call conditions ever!) I got up to walk around a little bit midway through, and when I came back, it was clear that Wish had been covering for me just fine while I was away from my notebook:

3) I have a new soup recipe on the stove as I type: apple-butternut squash soup from Martha Stewing Living. Martha calls it a Thanksgiving-worthy soup, and while I'm not quite ready for November yet, I'm excited all the same. I'll provide a full review soon.

If I could provide a bonus nice-thing-about-Thursday, it's that I saw that I'm #2 on the library list for Gone Girl now.

What was nice about your Thursday, Reader? Are you full-speed into fall recipes the way I appear to be? Have you switched your summer wardrobe out yet? I haven't, and even though the sun warms the city up into the 70s by the end of the day, it's leaving me downright flummoxed on these cool mornings. I need my sweaters, pronto!

Notes on the run

Sometimes in marathon training the runs can definitely get rote. But other times - whether it's a full moon, a seasonal change or something unidentifiable - things get a little out of the ordinary, making for livelier-than-usual morning miles. It's good to take note of those runs, to remember that you can be traveling the same clusters of roads day after day but still be keeping your eyes open (literally and figuratively) to see new things. Today's run felt like that.

Notes from today's run:

1. Wildlife sighting: two raccoons lumbering across Summit Avenue. Ew.
2. Earlier in the month, I totally goofed and bought the wrong size of running shoes. (After years of running in the same style of shoe in a size 8, my feet have magically and mysteriously become an 8.5 in the last year, so my mistake was buying the 8 on auto-pilot.) Anyway, I remedied the mistake by fetching a new pair of shoes last night in the right size, and a run goes so much better when you wear the correct shoe size!
3. I looked at the radar, left the house expecting rain, and kept waiting for the ominous skies to open up. No rain ever fell. Yippee! (I'm seeing that it doesn't take much for me to describe something as "lively.")
4. I saw a very impressive toilet paper job on one of the neighborhood trees. I'm talking TP draped way, way up a maple tree, and I have no idea how high school kids managed this. As an aside, my childhood home was TP'd when I was in high school. (This was a pretty common activity in the suburbs and seems to be less frequent in the city.) When I was cleaning it up the next day, I threw a rake straight up into the air to catch some of the way-up-high paper and it obviously came straight down and nearly landed on my skyward-looking face. So continued my long-standing streak of common sense-related mishaps.

Also, remember the running buddy who I was so excited about yesterday? Yeah, he bailed already! The alarm went off this morning at 5:30, I started getting ready for the run, and Wish poked his head out into the hallway to see what was happening. I grabbed the leash and jingled my keys, the surefire signals that we were about to go outside for a fun adventure. He took one look and hightailed it back into our room, where I found him curled up next to Josh's head on his pillow. Hmph! I guess he may not be a morning runner after all.

The earth moving around

The earth has been turning on its axis lately, so it should come as no surprise that I've been noticing the sunsets and sunrises. Fortunately, I recovered from the weeklong rebellion I went through after the Boundary Waters trip when I stomped my foot (inwardly) and thought no sunrise or sunset could ever compare to what I saw up there. Seriously! I don't think I took one sun-related photo for a full week.

It may be true that the sky feels bigger up north, but the urban sunrises and sunsets are still good. This month the timing has shifted quickly, and I'm usually finishing up my miles for the day with rays of early sunlight instead of full-blast sun at 5:15 a.m. (or whatever it used to be). (I maintain that the only nice thing about the decrease in daylight is that it boosts the number of sunrises and sunsets I see.)

Also, one of my favorite effects of this blog is that more than one of you text me when there are good sunrises or sunsets or clouds that I should be watching. I can't have my eye on the skies all the time, after all, so I love the help from M&L readers.

Anyway, last night I was walking Wish around town and we saw a really nice sunset:

And this morning on my run, I watched the sky turn from gentle peach to blazing orange. Ahh!

I liked this silhouette of the tree hanging against the orange sky:

And then I came home and took a picture of my dog, because two of the miles I ran this morning were with him! It was the first time we've gone running together in a long time. Wish did well running with a leash, I had an extra pep in my step because I had a new early-morning running buddy, and we're both in luck because I have more a.m. miles coming up this week.

This picture has nothing to do with sunrises and sunsets, by the way. I was just proud of him and wished to commemorate our second run together via photo.

Good pup.

Marvelous Monday: Week 37

It's Marvelous Monday! Here we go:

1) My long run yesterday was marvelous because I discovered a new trail!  I wrote on Saturday that before that race I had never been on the running paths at Harriet Island, just over the river from downtown St. Paul. My curiosity was piqued. When I was planning my route online yesterday morning, I tried seeing where I could go if I continued on the paths along the river. It turns out that the Harriet Island-Lilydale trail connects to the Big Rivers Regional Trail in the Dakota County park system, which takes a runner or cyclist all the way to Fort Snelling (and links up to the side of the Mississippi River to which I was trying to get back).

It was awesome. This is kind of a funny analogy to use, particularly because I'm not a big video game player, but finding this trail was like unlocking a new level with tons of cool features to explore. For all the miles I've run on the river road, I should clarify, I've never known how to connect to Fort Snelling. Now I do!

The other perk is that the Big Rivers Regional Trail is just a lovely trail to discover. Every few minutes, I'd come across a sign with really interesting information about the geological or cultural history of where I was running. Obviously, I completely loved this trail and will return to it in the future. It'd be a great bike loop for a fall weekend, too.

2) Hello, Rocky Top win over the weekend! They're 2-0. Big game next week when Florida comes to town (Tennessee's town, not mine) for the SEC opener.

3) My household has been all about the soups lately. Last week we were all about this tomato chickpea pesto soup recipe I clipped from an old Runner's World article. Over the weekend, the crockpot churned out squash stew. (High marks to both recipes, by the way.) This week, I'm planning a black bean and pumpkin soup project. Is soup my favorite category of food? It might be.

4) My brother brought me cookies yesterday! They are the classic chocolate chip, with Andes mints chopped up in place of chocolate. Yum.

5) At the library over the weekend, I stumbled across a book I've had on my list for a long time: Through No Fault of My Own: A Girl's Diary of Life on Summit Avenue in the Jazz Age. which takes place in St. Paul (in case you don't live in Minnesota and the Summit Avenue reference didn't connect). I'm about halfway through - it's really short - and it is absolutely wonderful. Its title stems from the passages detailing the mischief Coco gets into, with many of them beginning "I am in deep trouble through no fault of my own." I very highly recommend this one. It's a hoot.

Hey! What's marvelous about your day, Reader? What are you reading? What are you cooking? Did you make any discoveries this weekend?

Stockpiling pesto

Yesterday after the race I had a practically gleeful morning prowling around town. I picked up some new food for Wish, stopped by the coffee shop for a beverage, swung by the farmer's market for a bushel of basil and some sweet corn, and visited the library to browse. It was the best kind of errand-running in that every errand was something fun. Does that ever happen?

Anyway, back to that bushel of basil. It wasn't quite a bushel, but I did buy a bunch of, well, bunches.

You guys know I had pesto on the brain - more specifically, stretching fresh pesto as far into the fall as possible.

I've been hearing from friends and family about this whole freezing-the-pesto project. I've never tried it, but I would love to have this garden-(or farm)-fresh basil thing available in the kitchen whenever I want! Making a big batch of pesto in the summer is also on my 101 list, so I figured this was as good a year as any to launch this project.

I started with this, which is about one-fourth of my total basil purchase:

You make pesto with your favorite recipe - some combination of pine nuts, olive oil, and garlic. It usually includes parmesan cheese, but my internet research suggested that I leave it out because it doesn't freeze well. You're apparently supposed to add it in when you're cooking with the frozen pesto. (Do you like how I'm writing things like "apparently" and "suggested"? Clearly, I have no idea what I'm talking about.)

I worked in small batches, making about five ice cubes' worth of pesto at a time. It fades from bright green to a darker shade pretty quickly, hence the batch on the right looking kind of funky. Study the stuff on the left instead, okay?

And now the trays are safely in the freezer, ready for use down the road. My research indicates that I have three months to use it all. Is that a challenge? I'm ready to tackle it!

(I'll provide a Part II review when I actually cook with the frozen pesto. Fingers crossed.)