An Indian Summer

Let's hope I didn't go and jinx it; Mother Earth, I mean that only with the most respect! 

It appears that Anchorage is receiving quite the wonderful indian summer with September temps hovering among the high 60's and low 70's!  And I can't say I could be any more appreciative.  It's so gorgeous!

I hope any readers not from here are enjoying lovely weather, also.  If not, I'm thinking of you in spirit :)

This weekend MEH and I were jam packed with funness on our minds.  We went to Michelle and Brian's for a pizza party on Friday night.  Holy funness!  Brian and his chef friend (I'm sure at the behest of Michelle, but I can't say that for sure) made the pizza dough and sauce vegan (woo!) and we brought our toppings accordingly.  Much fun was had by all in attendance, MEH made some new friends, and we all shared in some tasty beverages.

Look at al those fixin's!

We had a stellar time picking out all of the toppings, but I was equally in love with the huge mound o-dough going on in the kitchen

Even after we were done for the night, Brian said it would make 20 pizzas.  mmmm Carb.

I even got to take some home.  You can see some intense chef action on on the right side of the photo:

And the table was so pretty - with flowers and compostable plates, even!

Yay for composting!

And just before we left, I got really excited because I was introduced to their new, state of the art wine opener:

Clearly, I'm joking on this whole state of the art mumbo; but it is really cool!

On Saturday I made my way down to my favorite little cafe for some breakfast and reading to catch up for BadAss Girls Book Club.  If anyone is interested in what we're reading, check out the last post, Fair As Folk, for what we are on to!  I got the Vegan Huevos Rancheros

Instead of eggs, they do a rice and beans mix with grilled tofu, avocado wedge, corn tortillas, vegan sour cream, and their amazing really amazing ranchero sauce. 

MEH and I didn't feel like doing much other than basking in the sun, so I pulled out the dough Michelle and Brian gave us and made some more pizzas!

No cheese needed here!

Verdict:  The dough was perfect.  I really need to get this recipe from Brian or Michelle so I can copy cat it come winter time!  It rose just enough, wasn't too sweet or to plain; just right in every way!  Thanks for the fun, guys!

Yesterday we visited some friends out of town with the pooches after I went for a good workout.  I've been so lazy since we came back from Hawaii.  I just haven't been able to get my cardio mojo back.  I love cardio!  And now it seems I've become a weights junkie.  Nothing wrong with that, but I do long for the days of 40 minute cardio routines . . . ahhhh. 

This weekend looked like this:

21 minutes on the elliptical, changing directions every 3 minutes.

chest press super setted with flys @ 12lbs for 4 reps

shoulder press super setted with biceip curls @ 12 lbs for 3 reps

lat pull down @ 40lbs until fatigue

arm raises side and front and forward super setted @ 5lbs for 4 reps

CORE!

leg raises holding a 12lb ball over chest x 15

arm raises with legs contracted in the air (okay, here's the vision:  raise legs up to the sky, contract your quads, heels reaching to the sky; lower the ball behind your head on the ground, then bring it back above your chest) x 15

Combo of those two together x 10

Russian Curls x 25 with 12lb weight ball

plank, 1 minute

Repeat

Run @ 7.5 mph (which really is about as fast as I'm going to go for a long period of time at this point; I'm slow, as I've discussed, but am working on that) for 5 mins.

All told, it takes less than an hour, which I appreciate given my schedule. 

Have you gotten into any ruts? Workouts?  Work? 

So we went out of town with the pooches, came back, and I relaxed on the deck to read some more of the Swayn Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova.  I'm almost done!  And I don't want to give anything away should my fellow BABC friends be reading . . . but I'm getting impatient!  I mean, the book is 550 pages long and I'm still not feeling like I know what's going on! I'm totally digging this book, but I hope she wraps it up here soon!!

Do you get impatient with long books, or do you relish in it?

VeggieMama also came over for a visit.  I love our chats - especially when they involve hours in the sunshine - and it's been awhile since she's been to my house.  She even got to see the results of my new experiment:  Vegan Peach Bread. Holy Mother Load. And it's this simple:

- Garden variety bread dough - I just used our leftover pizza dough
- 3 peaches, sliced
- 2tsp agave
-1 tsp cinnamon
- bake at 400 for about 35 minutes
1.  Let the dough rise for a good 30 minutes after pulling it out of the refrigerator. 
2.  Grease your pan, dump (this really is about the action I used here) the dough into the pan, spread evenly enough to put peaches in the middle.
3.  Put peaches in the middle, fold dough over enough to cover all of the peaches.
4.  Put the rest of the peaches on top
5. Put in the oven
6. About halfway through, take it out, drizzle agave and cinnamon over the top, put back in the oven
7. Show to VeggieMama that you can bake!
8.  Eat!

As you can see, I got impatient.

Verdict: Holy crap. I'll just leave it at that.

Any new creations in your neck of the woods?

So the other reason I'm impatient to finish The Swan Thieves is because I finally got ahold of a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma and am totally stoked to start it! I've heard it's good from vegans and non-vegans alike. but have yet to crack it open.

Any input from the peanut gallery?

Mantra of the Day:  I am a good person.  We've been over this one; VeggieMama used it on our run in the Alaska Run for Women.  Ever have those days where you feel like a bad person for thinking something?  Well, I have lately.  I get that we all have our hangups and issues and "judgy bia" moments, as DMsS puts it, but more often than not, talking them to death makes me feel worse.  So while I'm certainly not perfect, and I certainly am not innocent of passing judgment, I certainly feel like I've been courting my "bia" nature more than necessary recently.  So if you ever feel bogged down by your own voices, remind yourself that more often than not, you are (probably) a good person. :)

Question of Gratitude Who, or what, are you thankful for today?:  I'm thankful for my car.  Go figure.  Anyone who knew me more than a year ago must get a kick out of that one.  Backstory:  I didn't have a car until about a year ago.  I took the bus daily.  Often times at least 3 times a day to get to where I wanted or needed to be. I bussed my way through college while working 2-3 jobs at a time, 7 days a week at times. I took rides from friends or borrowed a car when available. Oy.  So I'm not stranger to public transportation.  But don't you know that as soon as I got a vehicle I abandoned my bus riding ways and moved straight to singular transportation.  Well recently MEH and I both had car trouble at the same time and we are down to one car between us.  I have resorted to taking the bus so MEH need not get out of bed 3 hours earlier (I work early, he doesnt).  I don't mind it, really, I missed the bus in a strange, perverse way.  But now that I have commitments outside of the busline, I appreciate my good friend Lady (I named her Lady), or The Yacuza Cruiza since it looks like a mob car, in a totally new way.  Thank you, Lady, and MEH (for buying he for me, what a guy), for getting me from A to B (C, D, E) every day. 
(Side note, check out this cool car I saw this weekend!)

HA!

Happy Monday, everyone!