The Perfect Scoop

Ahh, new year, new postings...

The holidays were busy. I went home for Christmas, stopping in Nashville to pick up a friend (for the sake of incrimination, I will hereon refer to her as "Thelma"). Brought Chloe along for the trip thinking that drugs would prevent a repeat of what happened the last time we both stopped at Thelma's place. Although uneventful at her place, Chloe did throw a fit inside my new vehicle when I left her alone while I dined with friends. She flipped her food and water dish and kicked litter all over the back floor. When I returned, she jumped into my lap and started crying--with real tears. Have NEVER seen a cat do this before. Broke my heart. Later, I wondered if perhaps the tears were fake...she knew I'd be ticked about the mess she made, so maybe she flicked water in her face to make me think she had tears...even so, it worked. I let her sit in my lap as I followed Thelma back to her place for the night.

Stayed home a few days, drove back here, hosted my parents for the evening before they continued to Chicago to visit my brother. Then I hosted Thelma for our annual Colts-Titans event. That was Saturday, and I'm STILL recovering. Not sure how to even tell this story so I'll just list our events: (1) dinner and (too many) drinks at St. Elmo's, (2) more drinks at Nicky Blaine's, (3) cab ride home, (4) call maintenance to break into my apartment [forgot that I left my keys with a valet]...HANGOVER the next morning, but we repeat the events with a Bloody Mary brunch, lounging at Champp's for football before meeting friends for dinner and drinks at The Weber Grill...then the game...then more beer at another bar for post-game interviews, a shake run at Steak & Shake, home...it's taken almost 48 hours to recover from all of this. And SURPRISE!! My parents are returning here a day early...this will be interesting for sure.

And now I return to work tomorrow...back to the old routine of early mornings and early bedtimes...except I'm adding a dash of activity because mini-marathon training begins next week. Time to gear up for that!

Alas, this time I hope to blog about my training in a different manner. Now that I have a past experience behind me, I can see that I set my training accomplishment expectations too high last time. This time I'll be easier on myself--and my body. I'm using Dawn Dais's "The Non Runner's Marathon Guide for Women" as my handbook for all things training. My YMCA training starts next week, and I've registered for the training races and the mini itself. Dad's taking me out for new running shoes this week, and I've got all of my outdoor walking gear clean, folded, and ready for use. I hope to give weekly updates to my training in this blog, along with my new hobby, pretending that I am my own Gourmet Superstar!!

Another friend got me hooked on creating my own sorbet...she's busy crafting her own creations as she builds her recipe portfolio for gourmet gelato. After spending the weekend with her before Thanksgiving, I was inspired to follow my own pursuits. And lucky, lucky me...the T&S family bought me the Cuisinart model for Christmas!!! So excited to get started...so I hope to blog about these culinary attempts along with insight and fodder about my own participation in a Gourmet Cooking Club.

Another year for reflection...it's strange, as I know I wasn't happy this past year, but now that the year is complete, I don't feel as if it was all that bad...I feel like I'm still making small gains and am closer to figuring it out. I hope to be more diligent with the postings so that at the end of 2008, I have more details to review.