Cookin'

In addition to just everyday stuff (like teaching and being a wife and mom), this last month and a half I...

• Ran 60 miles, including an almost 8 mile run this morning (7:82 miles - 10:37 pace), my longest run since San Francisco. 
• Cycled 68 miles

My artistic rendition of last weekend when Betty and I were driving over the Coronado Bridge to meet up with Mik for our bike ride.

Actual evidence that we were in Coronado last weekend...and in biking gear.

• Celebrated Walter's Birthday (early in the month!)
• Went to three SDSU basketball games

Turbo, Walter and I on the trolley going from a basketball game to a football game

• Went to three SDSU football games (one of the football games was on the same day as a basketball game. Yes, we went to both)

We are the masters of the 15 minute tailgate!*

• Revised a report written (by someone else) about a grant project I'd worked on a year ago so that it was readable and thus, publishable.
• Decided to keep teaching and not apply for a professional development position at the college where I teach. (That was the big decision I alluded to in an early November post).
• Cooked Thanksgiving Dinner for the family
• Presented at a research conference, which was held at The Disneyland Hotel.

Cali, Belle (the bookish version) and me...dinner at the Goofy Cafe. Cali thought it would be fun...

Walter joined me at the conference after it was over and we stayed an extra night...here he is eating a beignet for breakfast and trying to not get the powdered sugar all over himself...

• Saw Millie in a play...and had dinner beforehand with the Herd!

Candycanetini

• Fell woefully behind in grading papers
• Graded what felt like about a 1000 papers eventually 

Here's the stack of papers I meant to grade over Thanksgiving, but didn't...which made the week AFTER Thanksgiving...so much fun!

• Made Gumbo for DramaGirl's field hockey banquet potluck dinner.

Yum!

• Started drafting a second report (different topic this time)
• Made Rissotto for the English department pot luck (yesterday...sorry no photos), then came home and made two breakfast casseroles for Betty's Post-Run Birthday Breakfast this morning (yes, I was cooking at midnight last night!)
• Blogged...FOUR WHOLE TIMES....counting this one

Geez...no wonder the laundry doesn't get done! Also amazing is how creative I can be with coming up with ideas for dinner since I've gone to the grocery store only twice this month (not counting the times when I sent DG or Walter to the store to get something for me.)

At one point, a colleague, who knew that I'd been really busy, asked me if there was light at the end of the tunnel. I told him that I was confident that a tunnel existed SOMEWHERE, and I also believed that once I found the tunnel, there'd be light at the end of it.

In any event, I am here to report that I've found the tunnel, and yes there is light at the end of it, and yes, I can see the light. Thank goodness.

So, I'm still here...and blogging will again become something that I do semi-regularly. Until then, I leave you with this.

Christmas in SoCal babeee... I so want to drive by this at night and see what is UP with that screen in the back!

Wish Happy Birthday to Betty! She gets to move up an age-group this year and is so very, very, very happy about it!

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* I was posting updates about the sports-event Saturday on FB and Keith asked me to explain tailgating... so for Keith in Canada... In the US we meet in the parking lot before sporting events like football games to eat and drink before the game. This may be, in part, because food and beverages inside the stadiums are mediocre (in most places) at best and really ridiculously expensive at worst. Probably the word "tailgating" comes from some old-school notion about pulling up in a pickup truck before a game, pulling down the tailgate, and using it as a buffet line.