Thanksgiving: the aftermath

Long Weekend Recap


Hello there, faithful readers! I’m back after a long, relaxing weekend. I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving holiday with your families :)

My weekend was very quiet, which I guess was much needed. Wednesday night, J and I met up with a couple of friends for sushi at Origami in Minneapolis. We went there for J’s birthday back in September, and I was again very pleased with our food. It’s still a tad on the pricey side, but we had some awesome sushi.

Thursday morning, we got up and made our way to Lake Como for a Thanksgiving 5K. Last year, we went downtown for the Lifetime Fitness Turkey Day 5k, but wanted a less crowded experience this year, so we opted for the Lake Como run, which has around 700 participants vs. the 7,000ish that were at the Lifetime run. We were also enticed by the fact that a few of our friends were also doing the Lake Como run. This run is put on by Charities Challenge. I’m not really sure what this organization does (aside from collect the can goods we brought on race day), but smooth coordinating of races is not one if its strong suits. I expected that with less than 1,000 participants, everything would run like a well oiled machine, but that was really not the case. I think they were really working with what they had, but what they had was not much. Regardless, it felt good to be outside getting our bodies moving in the cold wind, and that in itself is a success.

J and I didn’t have any Thanksgiving plans, so after the race, we headed back home and lay like vegetables the rest of the day. We did make some appetizers to graze on throughout the day (bruchetta as well as hot artichoke dip), and then we had a very nice fancy meal of king crab, asparagus, homemade bread, and sparkling wine for dinner.

Friday was more of the same – lounging around, not doing much but stopping to eat every once in a while. We skipped the Black Friday tradition this year because we didn’t see anything we really wanted to buy.

Friday afternoon, we went to see a matinee presentation of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Great movie. Really fun, good story, awesome animation. Not for the littlest of kids though – I would suggest kids that are at least able to read at a fairly quick pace, as there were several parts in the movie where I heard a kid say, “What does it say?!” and then a mom shout/whispering the words on the screen to the kid. Also, since it is based on a Roald Dahl book, you must expect that the content is not cutesy like Disney.

I wish I had more to report on the weekend, but alas, Saturday and Sunday were filled with more lying around, watching tv, and eating. In that respect, it was a relief to get back to work today, just to be back out in the world.

Mississippi Ten Miler

An update, as promised on the MTM. I did not run this weekend after the 5K – and just to make sure I’m not misleading you, I did not, in fact, run the entire way. No, I jogged about the first half mile and then mostly walked the rest, with small spurts of jogging in between. But, I was sore as hell for the next two days, so I did not run again on Saturday. I do have a planned run for tomorrow, Tuesday, however and I WILL let you know how it goes…I pinky swear.

The License, The Ring, and The Stairs

After hearing about my weekend, none of us should be surprised at what was on the scale this morning. How about a 4 lb gain? Honestly, I think I’ve come out of other Thanksgivings much worse, but as we had no family obligations, and I should have been able to get right back on track, I feel particularly unhappy about this one. For further evidence of my fatness, I present for your consideration:

My driver’s license. You see, my birthday is in two weeks, and it happens that this year, my driver’s license is set to expire on my birthday. I should have gotten a new driver’s license when we bought the house and moved, but I put it off and put it off because I really like my driver’s license picture and I do not want to have it retaken. I had it taken right after we got married and I legally changed my name. It was the only time I was able to put my *real* weight on my license and not be ashamed of it. I look at that picture and see 150 lb me smiling very happily back. I do not want to replace that picture.

Then, there’s my wedding ring. J and I have been married for 3 and a half years, and then engaged for about a year and a half before that, so I’ve been wearing this ring for the last 5 years. Over the last year, I’ve been having some problems with my finger getting sore and itchy underneath my ring, something that never happened in the previous 4 years. It finally dawned on me what else has happened in the last year: I’ve gained 20 lbs! My ring is too tight!! Holy Freaking Shit. This is how much weight I’ve gained now. I’m so fat, that my RING doesn’t fit anymore. Nice.

Finally, there is The Stairs. Today I decided to go over to the YMCA and check out what they have to offer. I’m sort of waffling about joining up, you see. A choice that should be crystal clear to me as of this moment, and I’m waffling. But, I digress. So, I get to the Y, and am very disappointed to learn that I have to climb a flight of stairs to get to the membership desk. It really was more like 2 flights, but whatever. The point is, guess who was winded after climbing 2 flights of stairs? You got it: Me. Huffing and puffing like I want to blow the place down.

So, what’s the point? I don’t know. There is no point really. None of this leads me to a conclusion that I didn’t already know. …