The Last Few Weeks

Didya miss me? It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks, and the inlaws are on their way which means a flurry of activity involving dusters, brooms, and sponges. And we've been cleaning.

So what have you missed?

Well.....first there was Easter.

Our coworkers enjoyed these chickie cupcakes courtesy of Martha Stewart. Well, courtesy of me, but inspired by Martha Stewart. Because of Passover, I also made them Passover friendly by using flourless chocolate cupcakes as the base. BAD idea. BAD. Don't do it. Unless you like free forming crumbs of cupcakes into lumps because they completely fall apart when removing them from the pan.

Thatboy and I dyed eggs. And I'm hoping by showing this picture I can embarass Thatboy into getting rid of that shirt. I think he's had it since high school. I also think there are more holes in the back than in the front. At least I've stopped him from wearing it outside the house.

The finished project:

G Squared and his folks came down to San Diego for the weekend, so we met them for dinner in Mexico.

Just kidding. We went to Old Town because it was near the G's hotels. But close enough.

I ran another 5k. So far I'm doing great with my "race a month" plan! Even with some unexpected complications.

A couple weeks before the 15k I went on a long run and towards the end my knee starting bothering. Because I received my medical degree online, I decided to consult the internets to determine what was wrong with me. Based on the location of the pain, I self diagnosed myself with ITBS and began stretching and resting the muscle. I thought I was doing great, pain free for a couple of weeks. But after the 15k, I got the pain again. So I tried something new - KT tape. OMG I LOVE THIS STUFF! It makes my knee not hurt AT ALL. And it's cool looking, right?

And it worked great. I PRd this race!

And this is now Thatboy's favorite race. He wants me to run it every year. Because after the race? There's a beer garden! And every runner gets 2 free beers! And fabulous beers, supplied by Pizza Port. And running a 5k then downing 2 beers? Makes me a VERY fun Thatgirl. Just ask Thatbrother who got a drunk dial when I decided I wanted to talk to someone on our walk back to the car.


And then there's the news about my friend Michelle. For the past 11 months, she's been working on writing a book. And it's phenomenal. I've been reading her drafts along the way and telling her good things like "I want to punch the main character and the love interest;" "This is brilliant;" "I hate this entire paragraph;" "I love everything in this scene." And generally confusing her by using every theater term I can think of to describe a piece of writing. Luckily for me, she's a brilliant writer and even more luckily for me, she hasn't killed me yet. And I'm the not the only one who recognizes her talent, because this past week she signed with an agent to represent her book - and the two others that will be following it! Wanna hear a secret? There was more than one agent who was interested. Which isn't surprising to me. She's fabulous.

And UDubb? She's an Aunt! Her brother just had his first baby. A little girl! She's going to be such a fabulous Aunt.

This week has been especially anxious and trying in Thathouse, so Thatmom decided we all needed to relax, and the three of us went to see Kick Ass. Or as Thatmom calls it....Pick Ass. Because she's not great at hearing things over the phone. She admits to thinking that would be a really weird name for a movie.

We all enjoyed the movie. Thatmom enjoyed it more than she thought she would. I think she has a crush on the main character...which is good, because apparently he has a thing for older women. I liked the story line, and thought the battle choreography was great. I'm a sucker for superhero movies. The only thing I didn't love was the mouth on Hit Girl. Swearing tweens just don't do it for me.

And then of course, there's been the endless cleaning cleaning cleaning. But we're at the point now where just a couple last minute pick ups need to be done. Which is definitely a VAST improvement. I don't think our place has been overhauled to this extent since last year when the inlaws came to visit! So we've been doing quick and easy (and pretty healthy) dinners. But everyone gets sick of chicken all the time, and since we're so far from November, it's safe to pull out the turkey again. I love grabbing some turkey tenderloins at the store because they cook really quickly. And throw them in a brine the day before, and it's just like Thanksgiving. But a million times faster!

Turkey Brine

• 1 qt cold water
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1 tsp dried sage
• 1 tsp dried celery seed
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

1. Mix all ingredients and stir until salt is dissolved.
   
2. Place turkey in water and refrigerate overnight.
   
3. Remove tenderloins from brine and and rinse well.