Athens Weekend

So, this weekend was also fabulous, since I'm trying to schedule seeing everyone in while I'm still in the proper country/vicinity to see them.

Friday was dinner in Columbus with my two favorite law school students Emily and Jesse. :) No photos, since Jes hasn't posted them, but we had a lovely night eating Italian food, drinking white wine sangria, and catching up on each other's lives since graduation.

Saturday, I took off for Nelsonville to spend the rest of the weekend with Jon and friends. The two highlights of the day were Jay's birthday party (sorry! no photos!) and Jon's and my run around Dow Lake at my favorite Stroud's Run State Park. I left Mr. Garmin in Athens (it's going to be a long few days without him), so no map/details, but we did a 7-mile loop, pictured on the map below:

Lakeview Trail
I was really surprised by how hard the run was for me—I probably drove Jon nuts because I ran really slow and even stopped to walk for around a mile. He's a trooper. He even ran ahead (mostly bc he's faster) and thus was responsible for being the one to find out if there were any muddy spots or spider webs in our way. Here are a few cell phone photos from the run:






The trail wasn't stellar, and that night I started seeing red bumps on my legs and was convinced that I had somehow contracted poison ivy/oak/sumac from the run. But, to my surprise, it kept spreading the whole weekend all over my whole body (with Jon TOTALLY unaffected) so that Monday morning I looked like I had the plague and went to see my doctor. Nope, no poison anything, just a super allergic reaction to the antibiotics I'd been put on last week. Apparently I'm now allergic to Bactrim and other sulfa-based drugs. Now that I know this, I'm learning that it's a pretty common allergy. Now I'm on weight gain-inducing steroids and a different antibiotic.

Sunday, we met Judith, the professor from the France trip, for brunch at the local favorite Jana's—a tiny restaurant in The Plains that serves organic/sustainable/local food. I had the "veggie mash" with homefries:

YUM.
Afterward, Ike came over to the house and the three of us went out to shoot at paper targets in the woods. This was my first time shooting at an actual target so I was inordinately excited that I hit the paper at all... and accidentally hit and broke the top wire line one time as well. Didn't know that could happen!


I don't really smoke pipes, but the photo does have a nice effect, does it not
See! This is one clip (9 bullets). Go me!
That night, Jon and I went on a hot date to see The Switch, which turned out to be a better version of J-Lo's The Back-Up Plan (which we hated). We even stayed around after and played some video games: air hockey, skee ball, basketball, "bowling," zombie-killing... I always enjoy when we get to do "first-date"-y type stuff since we really never did at the beginning of our relationship/getting to know each other phase since we were in separate towns.
Look! From real guns, to fake guns!
All in all, it was a perfect weekend. Got to see a lot of my friends and spend plenty of quality time with the boy. We even got to cook dinner together on Sunday before the movie. I hadn't really realized how much I'd missed doing that together! :) Finally, Monday (after the doctor's appointment), I had the chance to run a few errands in Athens and to send my transcripts to my potential grad schools. Emory's application goes live tomorrow... I can't wait! Then, I got home just in time to take my mama out for dinner for her birthday... and learn, after the fact, that there are 14.5pts (?!?!?!) in a 12oz. frozen margarita. Sad fact of the day.

Happy Birthday, Mama!
Now the week feels like it's really started and I'm off to Shred tonight and potentially Zumba. I'm not too optimistic about tomorrow's weigh-in with my dip in activity this past week and the addition of the steroids, but we'll see!


Oh and in other news, I've started reading Eat, Pray, Love. I (occasionally) am one of the "must-read-book-before-movie" -type people, and in this case, I definitely am. I was really resistant to reading this book for a long time, since I'm apparently a snob and shun huge bestsellers (Remember The DaVinci Code? Never read it.) But, the movie trailer looks really good (I LOVE Julia Roberts) and I've heard that only people who've read the book like the movie... So, here I am, loving every anecdote of this book. Can't wait to get to the other countries!
It's TOTALLY different from the last book I read, The Outlander. Another really good read. One of my student's in Paris was reading a book in this series and I spotted it in Chicago while Jared and I were looking for books for our bus ride home. This one's a mix of time-travel (non-hokey) and historical romance. Almost a fantasy book, only no magic and witches and such. It's about an English woman from 1945 who goes back to Scotland in 1743. I really enjoyed it. I'm a bit behind on my 52 books/year goal, but hopefully that'll pick up once i start taking the bus everyday in France!

On that note, what are you all up to? Reading anything good? Do anything fun this weekend?

Starting the Spring with a bang!

This weekend was jam-packed with non-running, largely non-WW friendly events.

1. I presented at my first professional conference with what I feel was much success. Benefit of specializing in French: all receptions include my favorite (again, largely non-WW friendly) things: wine, cheese, and bread. Mmm. There will be much running today, tomorrow, and Wednesday before our Thursday weigh-in.

2. We went to our first Spring barbecue! Our friends Liz and Bill (and their roommate Greg) just rented a new house further out in the country and they had everyone over for a fabulous barbecue. Everything individually was really healthy, but strung together it all left Jon and I in a food coma. Here's my contribution: Pico de Gallo. It was a huge hit! No leftovers! I love Spring and Summer time cooking because everything is so fresh and light. Liz made an amazing vegan Strawberry cake and I'll post her recipe when I get it--it was so rich and strawberry-tastic. Love it!


Recipe for my Pico de Gallo:
-5 medium sized tomatoes (seeds removed and diced)
-1 medium white onion (diced)
-1 jalapeño pepper (seeds removed and diced)
-1 avocado (diced)
-2 tbsp lime juice
-Cilantro (diced, enough to taste)
-Salt (to taste)
To make, just mix everything in a bowl and serve with chips--it was super easy and very light. I can't wait to make it again once tomato season really starts!

Here's a quick shot of all our contributions together... Well, without cake or burgers and dogs. Yum!


3. Last big weekend event: Jon took me shooting for the first time. :) I'd never been and we've been meaning to go out in the backyard (that's at least several acres, it's safe, promise!) and shoot, but we've never done it. Well, last night we did. I'll be honest, I was a bit nervous at first, but, after that initial shot, it was a lot of fun. We didn't have any milk jugs or cartons to shoot at, so last night was really just to get a feel for the recoil and everything. I'm really looking forward to our next endeavor. And, let's be honest, it's hard not to look like a badass when you're firing a gun:


Alrighty, well off to class! More on tonight's anticipated run later :)