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Weekend To Do List

It's going to be a sunny, quiet, but busy weekend at the Craven home this weekend. Quite a few things will be happening, but plenty of relaxation and fun will be as well! On the agenda for the next couple of days:

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I'll be teaching 2 yoga classes on Saturday morning, and hopefully attending one myself on Sunday at the Shala. Yoga is such an important part of my weekends these days, and it feels so strange to go a full weekend without attending a class!

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The local wholesale bead store is having their annual sale, and I plan to attend on Saturday to see what new products they have in stock and what awesome deals I can score. Love it!

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I've got tentative plans to finally see Inception with a friend and see what everyone's been talking about! One of my coworkers tried to talk to me about it today, and I had to stop him before he spoiled anything. It'll be nice to finally know what everyone is talking about!

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I'll be participating in another team triathlon on Sunday morning with two of my coworkers. This will be my second year competing in this triathlon, and I was on the winning team in my division last year - I won't lie, I'm hoping for a repeat. We'll see!

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Sunday will mark the grand opening of the first cupcake boutique in Spokane at the Garland Street Fair. The shop is owned by a friend of mine, and I can't wait to go eat their delicious red velvet cupcakes and show some support for a locally-owned and -operated bakery!

Breakfast of Champions

Or at least of Becca. For this morning at least. I guess at this point I'm technically a champion of something, at least.

2 large eggs scrambled, a piece of whole wheat toast with peanut butter, and a small glass of juice (apple juice in this case, since Matt always has a bunch left over from home-brewing apple cider). Protein, carbs, and sugar, yum yum!

I actually made it to yoga this morning! Today was the first yoga class that I'd gone to since I jacked up my hand over the 4th of July - put a nice little crack in proximal phalanx - and it was pretty rough, honestly. I can tell that I'm out of shape and definitely have some work to do to get my hamstrings back to the shape they were in before I stopped, but I genuinely missed the feeling of shaky muscles on the way to work in the morning. Some things running just can't do for you!

I think yoga is the only thing that will actually have me ready to leave the house at 5:45am (relatively) happily!

Races of Sorts

Yesterday I participated in my second triathlon ever, and it was awesome! I didn't do the whole thing myself - I don't have a bike and would be terrible at biking even if I did, and the last time I swam without pool noodles was more than 10 years ago. If you're considering a triathlon but feeling shaky on one or more of the events, then I highly suggest getting a couple of friends together and doing a triathlon relay style!

So anyway, yesterday two of my awesome coworkers joined me at the Coeur d'Alene Triathlon to go the (olympic) distance and see how we measured up against other Inland Northwest ladies. And let me tell you, we measured up pretty darn well! Especially considering my training was limited to a 12k run on Tuesday... and that's really about it... I was super happy with my 10k time of 47:01 (7:34 miles on average). Our team as a whole finished with a stellar time of 2:36:41 - which means that Team Are We There Yet? finished FIRST among the women's relay teams! I'm excited to see what the medal is going to look like - we didn't think we'd won, so we didn't stick around for the awards ceremony - and hopefully we'll get them sent to us soon!

So far I'm two-for-two on triathlon team entries (my first one last year was a sprint triathlon with two friends and we won the corporate cup relay division), so I guess I'm going to have to keep this up! The same team I competed with yesterday is already 99% committed to doing the Troika triathlon - a half Ironman - next August, so watch out for us to own that triathlon, too!

I'll be participating in a sprint triathlon next weekend with another set of coworkers - I'm hoping we take first in that one, too! They're so fun, and such a nice break from the traditional running races. See you at WunderWoman if you're heading out there next weekend!

Volleyball and Cauliflower

Last weekend, I discovered that I should have made learning a new sport a goal on my 101 list! I got invited to play in an annual volleyball tournament in Spokane, which just so happened to be my first experience EVER playing any sort of organized volleyball. My teammates were great, and didn't care that I had no idea what I was doing... and by the end of the day they'd taught me to bump, hit, rotate, and serve. I figured my chances of learning to play volleyball were basically over after college ended and people stopped asking me to be on rec teams, but now I can say that I know how to play (though I'm far from either being good or being an expert!) a new sport.

Also, I wish there were pictures of me showing up for the first game and being tossed the ball and told to serve - total deer in headlights moment! The rest of the team had no idea that I didn't know what to do at that point - I believe my serve was basically the same as my tennis serve... just without a racket. And it was about as successful as a tennis serve without a racket, too! :)

I have been working on a few things off the actual goal list instead of just lamenting about things I should have put on it, though. Most of that work has been in the form of cooking - specifically making some new recipes out of the Joy of Cooking cookbook that's been collecting dust on my kitchen counter since I graduated from college! This week I've made a couple new recipes, and have a few more in the works for later.

I've been eating this cheese quiche (with steamed broccoli added in as the recipe suggested) for breakfast for the past few days. It's cheesy and egg-y and delicious. I used 1% milk instead of the heavy cream the recipe called for, and I think it turned out great. I have felt bad for my coworkers during morning meetings though - reheated steamed broccoli is not the most appetizing smell to fill a meeting room with!

I also had my first adventure with mashed cauliflower... which was tasty, but doesn't quite fall into the "success" category yet. I basically tried every kitchen appliance I have (except my food processor, which the recipe said to use) to get this stuff to mash, and it wasn't having it! I think the combo of using 1% milk instead of cream (great for quiches, not mashed veggies apparently!) and not steaming the cauliflower long enough before attempting to mash it were the culprits. It still tasted buttery and delicious, but the texture left something to be desired.

The mashed cauliflower was a side dish to go with some baked tofu in a chile-lime marinade, and a spinach salad with cucumber, avocado, yellow bell pepper, and drizzle of balsamic vinegar. It sure did make a pretty plate!

First Goal Accomplished!

On July 16, 2010, I accomplished my first goal off of my 101 in 1001 list. Holla! And I wasn't even (really) trying (yet)!

I opened my Etsy store a while ago by posting 12 items that I'd made over the course of a few weeks. Featuring crappy photography, a lack-luster selection of products, and a temporarily one-handed shop girl (my right hand was in a splint for a couple of weeks... long story), I really didn't expect too much from this first venture into the world of online craft-selling. So imagine my surprise when I received an email on Friday afternoon stating that $30 had been transferred to my PayPal account for two necklaces! Now I've got them all packaged up for their journey to Canada - and my little store front has been updated to say that I've made two sales. Yes!

Now that I've got two working hands again, I plan to put in a bit more effort (and elbow grease on the photography side) to make things a bit more... professional looking. Ha! But until then, my goal of "selling something on etsy.com" has been entirely completed. Bring on the rest of the list!

Sophia necklace in white

Cassandra necklace in white