For my friends with four-legged friends

I haven't figured out my training plan for the next 7 weeks yet, so in the meantime here is a post for my friends with four-legged friends.

Meet Molly Waffles:

Unfortunately we are lowly renters and do not have a yard.  When we go for walks, Molly Waffles has the luxury of either my husband or myself following her around and picking up her droppings with fun pastel-colored plastic baggies.  She's got quite the life.

These baggies used to be just under $5.00/36 at Target but as of Thursday they are now $6.24 (or $0.17/bag)

But wait, here's a fun discovery!

While shopping for one of my 397 friends who had babies this year, I came across these dog bags...in the baby section of Target.

 Baby bags on the left; Dog bags on the right

Oh look at that, they are IDENTICAL.  The difference?  The "Munchkin" bags are $4.09/36 bags (that's $0.11/bag).  That's right.  The bags are the exact same, yet when marketed to dog owners they cost $2.15 more per package compared with when marketed to baby owners.

So if you buy these fun little bags for your furry friend, get them in the baby section and save yourself some money.  Pretty awesome, I know.

Also, on a related note, while at Petco I learned that you can buy nail polish for your dog.  That's not really Molly's style, but if you have a fashionable dog - take note.

I bet this post blew your mind.

Time for me to go sulk about the weekend being over.  Mine consisted of a 3 mile run, a 6 mile hike, some serious apartment-cleaning, and baking banana bread.


How was your weekend?

My Whirlwind West Coast Weekend

Thanks for your feedback on my last long run in my last post.

I stuck with the 8 miles (instead of 10) for my last long run, which I was able to squeeze in Monday night...after a long day.  My Monday involved sleeping on a 5ish hour flight from San Francisco, landing in Philadelphia at 7am, freshening up in the airport bathroom, then driving straight to work.  After work we picked up our pup from our friends' house, had a snack, unpacked, then headed out on my run.

I ran 8 miles at a 10:43 average pace.  It felt comfortable and my heart rate was insanely low for that pace.  I attribute it to temps in the 70s and running in the dark.

Back to my weekend.
It was awesome! We spent Friday morning through Sunday night in Oregon for a friend's wedding.

Aside from some delayed flight drama getting off the East Coast Thursday night, it was great.  We found out Thursday afternoon that our flight that evening was delayed... due to severe thunderstorms and flooding that morning?  Kinda B.S. if you ask me.  Despite our flight being delayed by 3 hours, we still needed to arrive at the airport 2 hours before our original flight time.  Yep, that's 5 hours of airport fun.

The highlight there was watching some pilots take photos of themselves playing in the Aviation Play Station.

Anyway.  After an unnecessarily long and painful phone call with the airline that afternoon we were able to reschedule that night's connecting flight that we were now going to miss because of the delay.  We got one for the crack of dawn the next morning, still getting us to Oregon by 8am.  This also meant calling the hotel to change our reservation from 3 nights to 2.  I had the pleasure of having my first nap/sleep in an airport!

Spending 1am - 6am in the San Francisco airport was thrilling.  I did appreciate my early morning coffee and chocolate croissant from Boudin.

After an uneventful 6:30am flight and arriving to the hotel, we found our friends who saved us mini boxes of cereal from breakfast.  One of our friends was about to go for a run, so Dan and I dropped our stuff in our room, changed, and found the running path.

We ran 5.6 miles along the Willamette River.  The hotel was conveniently located right on the river near tons of running/biking paths, including the Alton Baker park which is home to Pre's Trail.

Next we grabbed lunch then prepared for an all-afternoon float down the McKenzie River.  It was unseasonably warm in Oregon...highs in the 90s.  So it was perfect for a float.  The water was quite cold though!  It was an ordeal blowing up all the tubes...there were 28 of us.  Other important preparations included divvying up the cases of quality beer including Keystone Light, PBR, and Coors Light into a dozen or so mesh bags to be tied to several of the tubes.

I wish we bought a waterproof disposable camera because it was so beautiful!  I will have to settle for finding some pictures online:

[source]
I like mountains.

We used floats that look exactly like these (and this might even be the place we got in the water):

[source]

Our float took about 4 hours including a long pit stop at Shotgun Island.

Saturday night the bride and groom hosted a cocktail/ hors d'oeuvres party.  Unfortunately we were pooped since we had been up all day so we didn't stay that long, then we walked 2.5 miles back to our hotel.

Saturday we went to an Oregon Ducks game!  Those are some serious football fans.  It was fun being a football game with such a big fan base especially since my college had no big sports.

We only stayed for the first half, at which point the score was 34 Oregon - 0 Nevada, before we walked about 2.5 miles back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.

This is like a huge fenced in bike parking lot.  This picture is only a small fraction of the bikes people rode to the game.  I was impressed with how many people rode their bikes and by how bike-friendly Eugene is.

Eugene has bike lanes!  REAL bike lanes, not a shoulder on the side of the road.

The bike lane is not just used by tight-shorts-wearing cyclists, people with big ol' baskets on the front of their bike and swoopy handles use the lane too.

The wedding and reception were outside and the grounds were beautiful!  And they had cupcakes for their wedding cake.

cinnamon cupcake.

Sunday morning I squeezed in a 3 mile run before breakfast.  I enjoyed running along the river and the path has frequent mile markers and signs pointing you to other nearby attractions.

 I like mountains

After breakfast we walked around Eugene for a while before we had to go to the airport.

 Can you find a doughnut on the menu with a dirty name?

 I made a friend at the doughnut shop.

At the airport. Did I mention that I like mountains.?

The End.

PS: After my 10+ day absence from blogging, I may wow you with a second post within the next 24 hours.

Weekend Highlights

Friday night we drove up to NY to see my parents this weekend.

 Enjoying some fresh air in the rain while stopped in traffic.

Saturday morning we went to the city's Public Market, and ran into 3 people we went to school with!  Had coffee, ate an empanada.

Looked at produce:

Went to a yarn store and touched lots of yarn.  I want to pick up knitting again, but need to find the right project.

Molly ran around, chased some tennis balls, then enjoyed some lawn-time in my parents' backyard.

After dinner, we went and got some frozen custard.  Mmmm, vanilla with rainbow sprinkles. (Amazed I couldn't find a picture online of vanilla with rainbow sprinkles in a dish).

(source)

Then played Euchre.  I have not met anyone in NJ who knows how to play euchre!

 Bonus points if you can tell me what's weird about this picture.

Sunday we went out for breakfast at a favorite place where I had eggs benedict with tomato and avocado.  Of course it was awesome since it had avocado.

Then I sampled tons of olive oil and vinegar.

 (Picture from a store email)

After trying so many interesting kinds of balsamic vinegar (coconut, dark chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, honeyed ginger) and oils (squash seed oil, basil, lime, herbes de Provence, Tuscan garden).

I bought a bottle of the Tuscan Garden which is made with oregano, rosemary, sage, and garlic.  While there were so many crazy kinds, this seemed like a more versatile ones to have at home.  The chocolate was pretty good but I don't know how often I'd use it and it only came in big bottles.

Molly checked the forecast to see if the rain would let up for us to pack up the car:

 No signs of letting up.  

So we drove 6.5 hours home in the rain.  But not before swinging through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru. 

 Molly requested a kibble latte, but they were all out.