What a Weekend!

Before I get to the meat and potatoes of this blog (yum!), I have to share something with you......I have three followers!  How cool is that?  There are people out there who actually made the conscious effort and have enough interest in what I write to push that little button and follow me.  Yipee!

This weekend was honestly fantabulous.  And....it isn't over yet.  I'm off tomorrow for the Veterans' Day holiday.  Yay!

Yesterday started with a bike ride from my house to meet up with the best running group ever, the Breakfast Club Runners.  I was going towards all the runners on the bike path, so it was great to meet up with a group, slow down and chat, speed up to the next group, chat, and so on.

The only problem was.....I had no way to get to breakfast.  No...I was not about to ride my bike to Jersey, on highways and all that nonsense.  I suck on the bike.  I belong on a bike path, and only on small, back roads.  Nothing busy.

Luckily, Frank came to the rescue, and put my bike in his car.  Yay! 

After breakfast, I went to Bacon Fest at the Easton Farmers' Market.  I tried a cinnamon bun with bacon in it.  It was decent, but nothing I'd write home about.  I bought some spaghetti squash, some acorn squash, some pears and a loaf of bread from my favorite bakery, The Flour Shop.  They have the awesomest breads and pastries.  Seriously.  They know what they are doing. 

I had originally planned to ride back home from Bacon Fest, but my backpack was super-loaded, so Frank brought me (and my bike) home.  I know.....not terribly bad-ass, but since my back is about the only part of my body feeling good, I didn't want to mess that up.

Today, I got up bright and early, and went with Kimberly to the South Mountain 5k/10 Miler.  No sillies, I didn't run!  We volunteered!  (On a side note, this time last year, we were running in our first Tough Mudder!  Holy moly, where did this past year go???)

Here we are, under the pavilion, taking a break from handing out race shirts.  After we finished here, we manned a water stop at mile 3/7 of the 10 Miler.  I never realized how wet you can get working at a water stop....that stuff splashes everywhere when a runner is trying to take it out of your hand.

After our volunteering efforts, we headed to Riverview Park to check out the storm damage.  We started out at the halfway point of the hilly loop, and walked it in the opposite direction of what we normal go.  (You know, change of pace and all that.)

We ventured down a decent slope, went around a bend, and came upon this:

These trees were decently passable; we only had to climb around a little bit.

We carried on, and most of the path was fairly clear.  Even with the downed trees, there was still room on the sides to go around everything.

 (The picture below is of the same trees above, I just thought they looked so cool.)

We came across this super scary looking bug.  I have no clue what it is.  Chris said it is a cricket-spider, but I've never heard of such a thing.  I just hope I never see another one of these again.

Things were decent, until we went up the super big hill (usually the very last long downhill if you're doing the hilly loop in the normal fashion).

It didn't look too bad from a distance....

But upon closer inspection, things got more difficult.

Of course, we didn't let a few sticks stop us!

Towards the end of our jaunt, on the clear part of the hilly loop (which is actually on a road), we saw some deer.  If you look VERY closely, in the center of this pic, you can kind of see one of the deer.

Oh, and this weekend, I went on a minor cooking storm.  Things I have made the past two days:

Acorn Squash: Trim off stem and cut the squash in half.  Scoop out the grossness.  Spray with cooking spray, and liberally sprinkle seasoning salt on the cut side.  Place cut side down on baking sheet, and roast in oven (350 - 400) until it becomes soft.  You can either scoop out the yummy goodness and eat just that, or eat the skin as well.

Apple Cranberry Baked Oatmeal: (This link will only work if you have a Taste of Home log in ID, so I'm also posting the recipe here.)  Please note that I sometimes use dried cranberries instead of raisins.  In either case, I do NOT soak them.  I also omit the salt, the butter and the walnuts, but that's just me.

Ingredients

1/2 cup raisins

1 1/2 cups boiling water

2 cups oats

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups fat-free milk

1 medium apple, peeled and finely chopped

1 Tbs butter, melted

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Places raisins in a small bowl.  Cover with boiling water; let stand for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, pie spice and salt.  Stir in the milk, apple and butter.  Let stand for 5 minutes.  Drain raisins; stir into oat mixture.

Transfer to an 8-in squaare baking dish coated with cooking spray.  Sprinkle with walnuts.  Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 30-35 minutes.  6 Servings.

Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken

Spaghetti Squash: Nuke for a couple of minutes.  Scoop out the nastiness.  Place cut side down and roast in a shallow pan with water until soft.  Prob around a 350 degree oven.  Use a fork to scrape away the "spaghetti" strands.  Serve w/ Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken.

Banana Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars

Chicken Salad (with Greek yogurt instead of mayo....mayo makes me ill): No recipe, look below in comments for how I made it.  Next time, I'll probably mess around more with the yogurt, like add lemon juice or something.

This is all stuff I have made so I can pack my lunches and breakfasts ahead of time.  I do so much better when I can grab and go!

I just realized.....I guess I can't claim I don't cook.  ;)

Finally, a question for you all.  I had someone comment on my previous blog that they couldn't see my pics.  There was a link for them, but the link took them nowhere.  Does anyone else have this problem?  I've uploaded the pics differently in this blog, so hopefully, everything works!