Random Bits

Just an FYI to my readers: I still have not found a way to make money blogging about running. But I'm still looking and searching. If I find out, you'll be the first to know! Of course, if we're all doing the same thing, we'll probably just end up making money off of each other... which would just recirculate among our little community. Hmmm.

Can I continue complaining about this getting dark at 5pm business? It really sucks. I start panicking about my evening runs when I see the sun go down around 4:30pm. It's really sad.

Tomorrow night, my Mr. Right comes home from Boston! He's been away since Sunday on a business trip. We did long distance for over a year (cross country) but since we've been married we're like two peas in a pod. We're like inseparable. (And grossing out some friends in the process.) I can't believe I put up with long distance dating for that long!

Speaking of business trips, my trip to NYC next week got canceled. Thanks to the economic downturn, not only did my department have to give back $13MM dollars (that would be 13 million) all travel has been suspended. Usually, in my R&D new product development group, we're given more money than we know what to do with. This month, they asked for money back. This is baaad news. And no travel! I have to cancel all my restaurant reservations now. Boo.

So excited about my run with Dean Karnazes tomorrow night with the Fleet Feet Berkeley store team. I saw that there's about 26 other runners that have RSVP'd but I heard they are expecting more. AND, I am going to try my best to get a photo with him. Oh and get my book signed. Ok, I'm going to try!! I don't want to seem like an obsessed fan or anything...

And, one more random bit... I totally get excited when I get a real word like "ankle" when you get those word verification for Blogger. Maybe because on average, I have to type in the "word" like two or three times before I get it right. I don't like those, to tell you the truth!!

Diets Stink

Why are diets so hard? Since my commitment to cut out sugar and white flour (see post on 9/15), I have fallen off the wagon so many times, I've lost count. It's been only 8 days! Just to give you an example, I failed yesterday after visiting the Miette Confiserie (fancy bakery in SF) due to their chocolate bundt cake (I was bringing the deesert for my book club last night). Which really was worth the calories. And today, I failed because of the leftover pizza in the work kitchen area. Damn those lunch meetings and left overs. I not only ate the leftover pizza, which is forbidden on my diet but I ate 3 slices. That's like 15 Weight Watchers points (at least!) and would have to run at least 12 miles to burn those off. And I'm not even running today! I should have ate my lunch on time then I would have eaten the chicken salad that I brought from home. Then, I may not have been tempted. Ok, I can start over again. I promise to eat the salad for dinner...

Icebox Cake

I don't bake often. To tell the truth, I hardly ever bake. But, for my friend's birthday this weekend, I decided to "bake" the easiest cake ever: the icebox cake from Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village, NY. When my husband and I were dating long distance (before we got married) we used to go check out all the Manhattan bakeries. For a year and a half we dated long distance... he lived in Northern California and I was in NYC. We had our favorite baked goods from various places but the icebox cake from Magnolia Bakery was one of our favorites. (Their banana pudding is another greatest hit from there. My favorite cupcakes came from Billy's in Chelsea and Sweet Sugar Sunshine in Lower East Side.) Anyway, when I came to visit him out in California, he would often make THE icebox cake from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook recipe that he found on the Oprah.com site. It's a very easy no-bake recipe that I often said I wanted try. I finally was motivated to "bake" this cake! I was a bit worried about how it turn out but it turned out great!! My girlfriends all asked me if D had made the cake (since they know I don't bake) and all wanted the easy recipe. Gosh, it's a good thing I got some this weekend since I plan to cut out sugar from my diet going forward...

And, thank you for the encouragement on my decision to focus on the half marathon! You guys are great!! :-)

Weekend Update

This is the first weekend in a long time that I didn't run AT ALL! No run Saturday or Sunday. And it really felt terrible. I really wanted to but there were too many things going on! On top of that, I ate badly all weekend. There was my bridal shower on Saturday and Sunday was a pure eating fest with friends and family. Apparently, I have an eating disorder, too. I like to "order this and this and this". Get it?? Ha!

My shower was really fun. Very low key and simple, no games and there was alcohol involved. It was just the way I wanted it. Really, no games! There was white sangria, virgin red sangria, margaritas (with blenders in tow) and my favorite, the melinni. It's like a belinni but made instead with melon juice and champagne. The special melon juice was straight from Palencia Restaurant in San Francisco. They have the most amazing brunch cocktails at Palencia. My friends know the owner of the restaurant and he did a huge favor by providing the juice for the cocktail. The shower cake was provided none other than my own fiancee!! As some of you know we've had quite an issue with the wedding cake. It's all squared away now but at one point, we considered making our own. Especially after we had the ice box cake from Magnolia Bakery in the West Village in NYC. For those of you who are not familiar with this delicious treat, ice box cake is basically chocolate wafers layered with freshed sweetened whipped cream. YUM! I loved the ice box cake so much I told him we had to fly in the cake for the wedding. That was a very costly and outrageous option so D said that he would try to find the recipe and make it, himself. He's quite the whiz in the kitchen and definitely is much more proficient in the kitchen than me! Anyway, he found the recipe via Oprah.com and made the cake. It's lot easier than it looks. I told him it's crazy to make our own cake for the wedding and jokingly told him he was more than welcome to make my shower cake. And he agreed! So the night before the shower, he made 3 cakes, enough for 30+ women. The cake was a total hit. More brownie points for my D with my friends and family. I got some great gifts from my registry, lots of risque lingerie (that was really too embarrassing to open in front of D's mom) and one real whip. Yes, a real cropping whip. Um. I also got some pink handcuffs, too. It was just a great time spent with some of my favorite friends and family on both my side and D's...

So anyway, to salvage a bad eating weekend, I'm planning on running 12 miles today after work... Which will be in about an hour! Good thing it's nice and cool today. High of 72 degrees in Sunnyvale. Yay.

Blackout

So, I'm trying a new look here. It's a bit more "cutesy" than "sporty" but the little birdie was so cute, I just had to have it. Maybe I can ask for a running bird, instead. Haha.

I'm glad to hear that other women find Angelina hot, too. ;-)

And, yes, I am running a marathon 5 days before my wedding! And, yes, I still don't have a cake. But hopefully, more updates to come after the weekend.

It's super hot today and there's a blackout in my neighborhood. I'm typing by candle light, actually. It's a bit of a paradox, typing on my laptop by candle light. Hmmm. Anyway, I wanted to go run at the gym again but apparently the entire area is dark. No electricity = no treadmill. And the gym is a quarter of a mile away. Darn. Maybe I should go run over there and see... BRB.

"Wanted", Nike+ Issue & Wedding Talk

So I watched "Wanted" tonight and it wasn't the best action flick ever but definitely entertaining. I really was on the edge of my seat! And, Angelina Jolie is friggin HOT in this movie. It's really not fair how pretty and sexy she is. Seriously, I love D but if she ever wanted me, I may have to switch teams. Ok, kidding. Really! All kidding aside, I had a good time tonight, especially because I got to escape the heat (high of 102 degrees!) for a little bit and spend time with my BFF (maid of honor).

There's something wrong with my Nike+... The LCD screen seems to have broken segments and looks like there are these squiggly lines on the left side of the screen. Kinda reminiscent of a Etch Sketch drawing by a 2 year old. :-( I honestly don't even know how I got those lines. It was fine during the duration of the run but then when I looked down to take off the watch, I noticed the lines. I'm going to take it back to 24 Hour Fitness tomorrow, where I bought my Nike+. Good thing I still have the receipt and it's within 30 days. I don't think I should have any problems exchanging the product. But I am keeping my fingers crossed. Maybe this could fix the calibration issue I've been having since I bought it (by replacing it with a new one)!!

On the wedding front, I can't believe there's 29 days to go until the BIG DAY. There's still SO much to do. I have to finalize favors, head count, programs, menu, find wedding shoes, bridesmaid gifts (which I have NO CLUE what to get) and most importantly, NO WEDDING CAKE. D and I have gone to several wedding cake tastings and we have yet to find a cake maker that we both like. The wedding cake topic has been the biggest issue to date and something we've actually argued over! *sigh* Not sure what to do at this point. We've agreed to disagree but that still leaves us with NO cake! We have two runner ups one that we each both like. A cake maker in Redwood City that bakes out of her house (a pastry chef, working mom, that made us huge sample cakes for free) and a bakery in Cupertino that Apple (yes, the iPod maker) often orders cakes from. I love the home cake maker because of her soft white cake with custard filling and fresh raspberries but D loves the Viennese style cakes (bakery in Cupertino) with mousse fillings. We both want our cakes and eat it, too, and that's where our stand-off is at currently. We really need to resolve this ASAP and come to a compromise somewhere...

Happy Birthday D!

Happy belated 4th of July! I had a really great celebration with my fiance up in Sonoma this weekend for the holiday. It's also his birthday today so we had a good reason for a mini-get away. I booked the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn from a great deal on Travelzoo a little while back and I've been really looking forward to staying here. I knew someone who got married here once and after I saw the photos from the website, I just had to stay here at least once. And I'm so glad we did. We drove up Thursday afternoon after work and really enjoyed ourselves. The service at the Fairmont in Sonoma is fantastic. (I should really Yelp this hotel!) The staff in general were very happy and attentive, which is really a great combination. We had dinner at Sante the first night and very wine-country worthy and definitely lived up to it's hype! Now that I've been away from Manhattan for good 3 months, I've been craving restaurants of this caliber. Too bad Sonoma is so far away... I guess I need to scope out more restaurants like this in San Francisco. Anyway, I highly recommend Sante! On Friday, we got a couples massage treatment at the Fairmont spa and hello, it was again, amazing. We've stayed at fancy hotels and received spa treatments but the couples massage at the Fairmont at Sonoma was very memorable. The "Bathing Ritual" is quite fun, if not good for the body. We celebrated Independence Day by having dinner at the General's Daughter and watching the spectacular fireworks that put many other Bay Area fireworks to shame! (Apparently, they also have a parade in the morning, but we completely missed it!) Not only were the fireworks quite diverse in type but the length was really amazing for a small town fireworks! I think it went on for at least 20 minutes, if not 30! I really can't recall because by this time, I had about 4 glasses of delicious wine from the open bar. Yes, you heard me, open bar. I was quite impressed with their all-inclusive July 4th Annual BBQ at General's Daughter. There was live music, too, which really made the mood quite festive. As you can imagine, I was in no shape to run Saturday morning... Too much wine = painful hangover. On our way back, we stopped by the Napa Premium Outlets and did some more damage to the wallet. Me, mostly at the BCBG and Barney's Outlet and D at Perry Ellis and Kenneth Cole stores. We even had a quite evening by watching WALL-E. Which I highly highly recommend. And today, we celebrated D's birthday with both his family and mine. And I gave him his presents... one of which was the NIke+ SportBand. He wasn't as thrilled about this new device as I was. But then, he only started running because of me. Once he sees how it works, I'm sure he'll love it! I think...