Last weekend I had a cooking class for four hours Sunday, so Dad agreed to come down this weekend to celebrate Father's Day. Friday night we all took it easy. Julien and I snuck out a bit early from work so that we could buy some groceries for dinner, and Julien prepared jumbalaya as a treat for all of us. We had a pretty relaxed evening and ( Read more... )

My 5k race time from last week was 29:11, a 9:07 pace. Seeing as my previous pace has always been 10:00, I'm super pleased with this improvement. Of course my rank puts it in perspective -- I finished 259 out of 699, but then again, the average time was over 36 minutes. I'd post a photo but a) you have to buy them, and I'm a cheapskate, and more ( Read more... )

The rain finally let up to reveal a spectacularly summery weekend. We've been drowning in sunshine and basking in temperatures in the 80s. Yesterday we celebrated by taking my bike to a local shop to get its front tire replaced. I really like the guy at that shop -- they do all of the service stuff for free, so buying a $30 tire meant that he ( Read more... )

We actually managed to get to bed at a reasonable time last night. I've found that if I target a particular time, I usually manage to get to sleep within an hour of that, so I aimed for 10:30 and indeed we went to sleep around 11:30. Perfect -- I have to get up at 7:30 for Saturday ballet class. I was determined to finally ride my bike over ( Read more... )

Julien was in Arizona for a conference Wednesday and Thursday (and should be arriving home any moment now). I have to confess that I went a bit crazy, me-style. What shenanigans did I get myself up to? Well Wednesday I decided to follow his injunction to "eat the strawberries" my making strawberry shortcake. I deliberately skipped dinner and ( Read more... )

We had a fun and relaxing weekend, and probably spent over 20 hours sleeping. I have no clue why I've been so exhausted lately, but it sure does feel good to catch up... from whatever it was ( Read more... )

I find myself increasingly enjoying Roger Ebert's movie reviews. I find his prose and style engaging and refreshing, and I often agree with his film assessments so reading him is useful for picking movies to see, as well. I found his relatively recent review of "The White Ribbon" (which I haven't seen and probably won't) quite eloquent in ( Read more... )

I'm in Santa Clara visiting Mom for 10 days. I took the shuttle down on Friday (they only had an a.m. flight available) and have really been enjoying Vida's cube. Not only does she having a docking station that fits my laptop, she has the most amazing headset ever. I can actually hear when people talk during meetings!! I also got to meet a ( Read more... )

Yesterday we went to Macy's to cash in some wedding gift cards and to take advantage of their 25% off sale at the same time. We bought new down pillows (desperately needed for months now and well worth the cost), another baking mat (the first one was so useful), cookie cutters (after the unattractive gingerbread I made last week), and a crepe pan ( Read more... )

Last night we were witnesses to a slap bet. For those of you not in the know, a slap bet is a bet wherein the penalty of losing is getting slapped by the other party. You have to know our friends to understand the attraction -- suffice to say that Julien and I are quite content to be always observers and never participants ( Read more... )