March, in like a lamb and out like a lion

Did you find all your Easter eggs last Sunday?

We didn't, because we woke up to layer of wet snow!

Snow - then church, followed by tasty brunch at June's with friends.  Our same Christmas routine.  We are so blessed to have great friends, full healthy lives, and good food to enjoy.  D is also a local celebrity at June's, and he's never left without a hug from June herself.  The fantastic holiday buffet and festive atmosphere are tops and we passed three easy hours enjoying the company of our friends, (who we don't see often enough, despite the fact they live close by, that happens too often, doesn't it?) totally impervious to the bustle of others out for Easter brunch.  Afterwards, D and I returned home to our latest project:

We took a gamble on Veranda Charm and won!

That's our living room, re-painted (well, the half above the paneling) from an oatmeal/porridge/okayu color to that calming pale gray/blue Veranda Charm.  I was worried that the color would be too dark in a north-facing room, and our marriage too tested by a DIY, but we finished the whole thing in about 90 minutes.  Thank you, tiny living.  We both feel soothed by the color and I refer to it as our "spa room" now.  Not a bad under-$50 project.  Under $30 had we not bought rollers, sponges, brushes and masking tape, drop cloth etc.  We had fun and amazingly no horrible paint accidents (one flip flop may have been accidentally veranda-charmed, but it will live to see another foot, so that doesn't count).  

You can see D re-attaching our coat hooks in the photo, and please ignore the mess on the left as it waits to be re-placed once the paint dries.  D's new rule for tiny living is "nothing in the house that's not beautiful or useful" which he thinks is SO FUNNY.  I am sure he gleaned it from a baitclick solely to pester me when I come home with bags of sale candy, boxes of pens, nests of yarn, pounds of tea.   Don't get him started on the over-stuffed shoe crate either.  He just doesn't understand that some running shoes have sentimental value, before working themselves down the hierarchy to retire as lawn-mowing attire.  

Speaking of which, it's almost lawn-mowing season, isn't it?  Though March ended with snow, April has been breezy and mild, and the grass, the few blades of it left among the dandelion/poison ivy farm, creeps steadily upward.  Nugget loves the scent of springtime and as part of her pre-dawn toilette she tells the whole block exactly how much. 

We look forward to our next 10K and I have toned down my mileage respectively.  I am a busy bunny at work and with knitting and sometimes, at the end of my day (which starts very early) I just need to go home and not run.  Most days I do, but I'm getting better about tossing out garbage miles and replacing with other things that grownups do, like work, study independently, further my career, steward the profession, you get it.  I really don't need to do everything everyday, do I?

Cutie among the fruities....pattern not my own - Henri from Ravelry

This weekend we'll run I'm sure, and we caught the spring itch to paint the kitchen now!  It's nice to have this little home that we can revamp in a matter of hours.  I'm very task-oriented (in small chunks, puhleeze) so a room at a time suits me just fine.  

I'm getting excited for our upcoming TX trip and for morel season.  D already spotted mushroom hunters in the woods yesterday - no fungi however.  My gut and the lack of may-apples tell me it is just a few weeks too soon...though tomorrow I want to check on our secret spots from last year.  Not that I found any mushrooms, but it's never too early to oversee my terroir.  

Happy weekend!

See?  I put all that yarn to good use!  This guy also from a Ravelry pattern.

Christmas time and other favorite things

We've had some lovely days here...

 

 
...and done some Christmas preparation at Fulk's Tree Farm where I caught this 4-footer white pine, last Saturday after we ran the muddy North Ridge in Weston:

 

And Nugget even followed the rules, as much as she would've liked to become one of Santa's Lil' Helpers:

 
The tree lights sure brighten the entire tiny house:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!

I've been indulging in the Acorn TV subscription free trial on Amazon now that we cancelled Netflix...does anyone else watch Doc Martin and imagine living in his perfect village?  I sure do...though I'd rather he not be my GP!  The way I see it, trade the Missouri River for the cliffs of Cornwall, and there you are, Leavenworth is Kansas' version of Portwenn.
 
Among other unbearable quaintnesses, we've a tea shop walking distance from home, next to a knitting shop, yoga studio, various restaurants and bars, and cupcake shop.  How this small town supports such enterprises is a mystery to me, but I won't complain.  D and I support local shops frequently, and hope lots of others do too.  We don't just buy twee nonsense in town -- our title company is downtown, our major appliances all came from Dolsberry Appliance and local contractors did all the work on our house, apart from the 150 feet of privacy fence that D built by hand in 2 weeks, after work and on weekends.
 
Last week, after our office Christmas party at Ten Penny restaurant, some galpal workmates and I walked a few blocks to The Queen's Pantry as we delayed our return to the office...how had I missed this wonderful place before?

The entryway is full of delicate china tea sets, displayed amid all sorts of treats and sweets from the UK.  Further back, an entire wall of shelves houses large jars of tea, with canister samples for sniffing each and every blend (which I did, tyvm). There is of course a corner set aside with Styrofoam cups and thermos for tasting the day's featured tea.  Boxed teas are available too, and just about any tea-cessory you'd like - cozies, towels, balls, jams, marmalades, tea cakes, fruit slices, sugar tongs.  I even spied Marmite and Colman's mustard for those of us who prefer our treats savory. 

The teas are grouped by red/black/white/green with some set-aside novelty blends featuring additions like marshmallow and chocolate chips...which I really don't like in my tea at all, but might tickle the palate for others.

Can we take a moment to talk about tea?

I have lots, of all sorts.  My ol' reliables are Yorkshire Gold, Darjeeling and Lady Grey.  I like spiced teas in the colder months, like Twining's Christmas Tea and of course Constant Comment.  Green tea is nice at work late in the afternoon when I wish to avoid too much caffeine.  I've convinced myself that it aids digestion, and it reminds me of all the time I spent in Japan and Korea years ago.

Lately I've been warding off the evening chill with the tisanes I just purchased from Queen's Pantry.  My favorites are Lemon Souffle Rooibos (creamy and lemony just as it's named) and a highly aromatic Men's Herbal Brew (yeah, yeah, so maybe I call it Men's Urkelgrue) which tastes mostly of anise, lemongrass, ginger with a pleasant cardamom (or pepper?) bite, nestled in a base of rooibos as well.  Isn't it funny and sad that after all these years I can pretty much quote every episode of the Office by heart?

And here is me not starting down the path of discussing gender-specific tea (fairly, they do sell a Women's Herbal Brew) so all you SJW can have a nice cuppa and calm down right about now!

I've enjoyed red teas for years and the new ones I picked up are pleasant excursions from the typical vanilla-dominated blends.  The rooibos are not truly teas, and have no caffeine, so I allow myself to drink these teas by the pot!

Only 938709858364+ more teas remaining from Queen's Pantry for me to try...


A tea Snellen!  I love it so much I can't bear to use it as a tea towel yet!

Though I haven't visited the Leavenworth Yoga Co-op or yarn shop (for fear of overdosing on downward dogs and skeins of merino) we've ordered cakes from Karma Cakes on several occasions.  I declare them the best bakery in town and at reasonable prices, too.  You can't go wrong with a bake shop that decorates freshly-baked cupcakes with not just homemade frostings but cookies and candies too.

If you don't have a local tea shop, feel free to support mine and order online!

After all these tea parties I've been having, D and I cure our cabin fever and run the trails in Wyandotte County Park weekly as we prepare for the Psycho Wyco.  It's lovely to run in the chilly rain and just yesterday in the late afternoon, after work, I tested out some more variations of my winter gear plan.  I wore shorts (yes! this was a good move), my old trail shoes, a base-layer long sleeve shirt with zippered collar, a looser, fleecier middle layer with thumb-holes, and a light zippered jacket.  For 40 degrees in mild rain and minor winds, with the addition of a hat (the one I'm wearing in my tree-catching picture) it was perfect.  We ran one of the hilliest and muddiest segments of the race path yesterday and I could moderate my temperature well with zipping/unzipping/donning/doffing.  Learning has occurred!

Today we are off of work for the rest of the day and planning to run some errands before heading to midnight mass.  I'm not sure where we will run today.  D got called in to work at 1 am this morning and so I'm trying hard not to wake him. 

Tomorrow is Christmas brunch out with friends. 

It's a lovely day here, as long as I stay away from streaming news and thinking about work too much.

The sadness of the whole world weighs heavily, but Christmas gives us all hope that maybe this won't always be so.  I'm ever thankful for the blessings in my life and I wish the same to you.

A Merry Christmas to you and yours!


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Taos trip

Ah, Sunday night.

After what seems endless days of driving from San Antonio to El Paso, up to Taos and back, it's nice to be home.  Sundays are always a little unsatisfying, what with the start of the work week looming overhead, but today it just feels good to unpack and settle in and attend to this neglected little piece of the interwebs.

Now that we've visited Taos twice, what strikes me most about the town is that it's not quite what it seems.  It's a ski town where the world-class skiing feels nicely accidental.  The ramshackle Taos appearance merely gilds a thicker, richer, creamier underbelly.  The best food is at the meekest of restaurants, the breathtaking mountain scenes surround shanty-lined roads, and the ski resort is gimmick-free as the snow speaks for itself.

For us, the snow and quick 6 hour trip to Taos Ski Valley bring us back each year.  I'd probably return to visit even if I wasn't a skier, as I really do like the whole place, the package deal: the mountains and river gorge, the Taoseno pottery and crafts, the incomparable food, the working farms, the history of Taos Pueblo, even the exorbitantly priced photography, snooty baristas, and shacks and trailers that belie the tourister's influx of money that keeps Taos afloat. 

I prefer the slower-paced, non-commercialized feel to Taos over the cutesy shopping towne appearance of Keystone or Breckenridge.  Yes, there is an adobe McDonald's to match the adobe Walmart, all hidden among garish t-shirt and souvenir shops, but the overwhelming feeling I have when visiting is that the soul of the city has little to do with the ski slopes, its most widely-known resource.  

Sunshine and snow...ahhhh!

 We ate Thanksgiving dinner at Doc Martin's restaurant of the Taos Inn.  We ate a quick lunch here last year, and thought we'd try out its special holiday menu.  Passable for the price, I'd say.  We each had the turkey dinner which was both as comforting and inspiring as a traditional family Thanksgiving meal, meaning very much so (comforting) and not at all (inspiring).  The green beans were cooked perfectly to my taste, but I barely remember the other parts of the entree (wild rice stuffing?, mashed potatoes?, cranberry sauce?, turkey?) so I assume they were decent but not spectacular.  Nugs enjoyed leftovers with wild abandon.

For the remainder of our meals we visited some old favorites and of course added new restaurants to our rotation.  Yes, we ate breakfast at Taos Diner (I) and bison burgers at 5 Star Burgers.  Caffeine as usual came from Elevation Coffee where we like to look at the photograph of the moon over the Chugach Range, even if the coffee is a little weak and the staff a little stuffy.  

Sometimes I think we ski just to cultivate an appetite, and luckily we did just this because we happened on El Taoseno Restaurant last night -- another part of Taos where nothing is what it seems.  You may just have the best meal of your life, here in the non-trendy part of town, in what looks to be an old bowling alley or community center with a pot-holed parking lot to match the decor and charm inside.  The dining room was packed with tourists and locals (far more of the latter) but it's a place for everyone as long as you like wonderful service (yes), reasonable prices (even better), and delicious home-style New Mexican cuisine (and how!).  D would pout, refuse to read this post and likely move far away if I failed to mention the chips and salsa (oh the salsa!), his tasty smothered burrito (with green chiles, though ask for "Christmas" if you like both green and red), and my perfectly cooked plate of fajitas.  Fajita assembly is an art and this was just the right assortment of accoutrements, in just the right amounts.  As a finishing touch, sopapillas arrive swiftly, still piping hot, with a squeeze bottle of honey.  Our drinks never ran dry, and the wait staff, though busy- no table was ever empty- could not have been more kindly.  I wish we'd eaten Thanksgiving dinner here, where the pilgrim hat decorations still cover the walls and await next year's meal and where Taos once again surprises with where its finest things lie. 

Twenty miles from town, the ski area itself has a small base village with just a few stores, cafes and a convenience mart to accompany the accommodations, but no one goes there just to shop or be seen.  I don't even know who stays there, since we stay closer to town and the people we've met always "have a place" in Taos, somewhere.

For an opening weekend, the snow and weather are the best we've skied in years, anywhere.  In my experience, the rigor of terrain in Taos is matched best by Alyeska, though with bright sunshine and temps in the high 20s and low 30s the similarity to Alaska goes no further.

D's picture of me, but it was too cold to wait and pose~

 If you've persevered to this point and are wondering why all this nonsense appears in a running-themed blog, I'm about to tell you.  I ran this morning at 7000+ feet elevation (how was that ever no big deal in my college days?!) straight from sea level a few days earlier.  I read somewhere it takes two weeks to acclimate but I reasoned that any "elevation training" at all would aid my 3500' elevation half marathon next weekend.  We'll see!  This morning was chilly and bright yet I felt so great for getting a few miles in that I won't even share my shabby pace with you.  My legs were a little tired from skiing, but the run was a shake-out and my quads were happy to be less abused than they were from the slopes.  My lungs felt great and I did some laps through residential areas, my course determined by the paths leading away from any unfamiliar, unfenced dogs.

Quads = D-E-D.  Serious time.

So overall I'm at a C+ for my half-marathon training.  I'll take it; that's a fair price for a memorable weekend with D, in the snow and sun, with the enigma of Taos to entertain and satiate us, and keep us keen to return soon.

A blessed belated Thanksgiving to all, I hope your weekend was wonderful and filled with good memories and maybe even a few miles.

For some reason I think "action photo" means "pretend to tie a ski boot."  No, there aren't any laces.  Not since the 19th century I believe.  Sigh.

P.S. The chickens did fine while we were gone :)

Thanksgiving month begins...!

No one doesn't like Thanksgiving.

Smiling after a thankful breakfast at Taos Diner

In addition to this being a wonderful holiday on its own merits, I assume that I must've been conceived (ick!) around now, so it's really almost my embryonic birthday!

First baby picture

We just have so darn much to be thankful for this year, even as we look to the challenges ahead.

Last year I held my first grown-up Thanksgiving, no more nachos-are-just-as-symbolic-as-turkey and yes, I made more food than 10 guests could ever consume, so we checked the block of celebrating in the proper American tradition. We definitely don't own 10 chairs so I assume like any horrible hostess that I asked the guests to BYOC, or maybe we had a couch-and-coffee table affair?

Either way, I'm still recovering from the Thanksgiving 2012 cooking fest. I loved it. I loved it so much, but I don't have the time this year as I won't be back home until the day beforehand. This is a letdown for D but also an excuse for us to go out for Thanksgiving this year. I will possibly be even more thankful that I don't have the mountain of dishwashing homework :).

I hope to spend the holiday with at least some of the same friends as last year. I am so thankful that many of the people who have blessed my life are close enough for us to have dinner together this year and even far more often than once a year. And together we can toast to those who are far away or no longer here at all.

I'm compensating for gluttony with 2 pre-Thanksgiving 10K Turkey Trots and we hope to hit the slopes in NM for a day or two. Now, what to do about the delicious food in Taos and D's favorite, breakfast at Taos Diner?

What will you do?  Here's a poll... 

My goal is to run 100 miles in November, please join me!  97 more to go...