i'm alive, i swear! v3.0

I could tell you I've been busy, but that's only a partial truth. Somehow I manage to fill my time with mostly unproductive activities and I'm surprised at the end of almost every day thinking 'where has the day gone? Crap'. I haven't even uploaded pictures from the past few weeks onto my computer. Actually, I'm doing that right now. Because at this point, I'm not even sure what I have on my camera.

Want the skinny on my life? I'm working here and there at the restaurant. I'm job searching. I'm attempting to consistently run, which has proven a slight fail over the last few weeks (because I'm just so busy), but I really need to improve on that because this habit of not running and then running for a week before a race is going to get pretty old, pretty fast. I'm making a mess in my room like a college student, and sometimes cleaning it up. Yeah, my life is just that interesting.

And now for something completely different!

my fab parentals at their anniversary dinner at Volt a few weeks back

the other side of the table - me and my brother, and our complimentary muffins!

These pictures may or may not serve as a precursor for pictures to come this weekend. Thanksgiving tomorrow is at our house, and we'll have 29 people in attendance! My dad has been planning the menu for 3 weeks. We have family emails on almost a daily basis about it. I kid you not, people. His entire family will be in town, and I'm super stoked. In fact, instead of blogging I should really be getting ready for cooking palooza. We have to go out for our Starbucks first, though! I'm sure he'll come upstairs any minute and ask why I'm not ready. Maybe if I tell him I'm talking about him he won't mind so much? We'll see.

I'll try and remember to take pics of the copious amounts of food we will inevitably have tomorrow. I may not be able to restrain myself from eating it too fast, though. Just sayin'.

you know how you see yourself differently than the camera sees you?

I had no idea that's what I look like running.

This is why I hate candid photos.

"Oh, but they're so fun! They capture the moment as it was meant to be seen" blah blah blah.

Seriously guys, I look like I'm in pain.

So, of the two photos I found on the race website, this is the better of the two. I'm sharing it because ya know, this is my blog and I'm supposed to share things and whatever.

Last Sunday was the Rockville 10k/5k and I ran the 5k. It was an 8:30 start, which meant I had to be up at the butt crack of dawn (seriously. 6:45 is right about when the sun's coming up.). I got ready, grabbed a banana and some water, and the boyfriend and I headed up to the race. I was pretty nervous, but I always have that feeling when I'm woken up so friggin' early and expected to function pretty much right away. That, and I was freezing. Running outside when it's about 37* is not my idea of a good time. But I wanted that free t-shirt! Actually, I already had the free t-shirt. But I would have been a sap if I had picked up my race packet for the shirt and not run the race. Although who am I kidding, I actually wanted to run it. I did. I swear. It was just cold.

Overall the race wasn't so bad. I didn't look at the course map before heading over so I didn't know what to expect. I figured it would be a nice flat run, so I had run on flat roads leading up to the race. Race day? 3 hills. Awesomesauce. So I ended up walking about half of each hill, but other than that I ran the whole thing. Not too shabby, though I would have loved to run the entire thing. All in all, I was pretty happy with my time (41:14), given I walked part of the course.

Now I have a time to beat for the Santa Shuffle 5k, coming up on December 4, which I signed up for the day after the Rockville race. Because I'm hardcore like that.

it's just a grilled cheese and tomato soup kind of day.

I love soup. I wish I could eat a hot bowl of soup at any point in the year and really enjoy it, but I just can't if the day isn't right. I need a cold day. I need comfy shoes and a hoodie. I wouldn't say no to a blanket, either. Something about a great bowl of soup not only warms me physically, but emotionally as well. All is well with the world when you have soup.

Yesterday was a perfect soup day.

The boyfriend and I went for a nice long walk in a park yesterday afternoon. Towards the end of our walk I started talking about dinner. I can only go so long without talking about food, people. I pitched the idea of grilled cheese, since it's simple and deeeeeelicious. Oh, and it has cheese. We love cheese. Then the boyfriend said these magic words: "how about tomato soup?"

Grilled cheese + tomato soup = perfection.

Since I was on a bit of a cooking streak this past weekend, I decided that we wouldn't have just any old grilled cheese. Nope! It was going to be fancy. The end result? Homemade tomato soup and toasted fresh mozzarella, tomato and pesto (homemade, of course!) sandwiches on baguette. Pretty simple, very tasty. Want to see a picture? Of course you do:

I totally forgot to take pictures as I cooked, but I can tell you how I made the soup anyway. I was going off of memory from the tomato soup recipe I followed back in London (way back when) for my last dinner at Lauren's house.

Tomato Soup

~1 large + 1 small can canned tomatoes (I used fire-roasted)

2 stems of celery, chopped

1 medium onion

~1c carrot, chopped

2-3 cloves garlic

~1/2c chicken stock (beef or veggie might make more sense but chicken's what I had)

~1TBSP olive oil

Heat olive oil in a stock pot

Add garlic, saute for a couple minutes on medium heat

Add onion, carrot, celery, cook until soft (about 10 minutes)

Add chicken stock and tomatoes, cook for another 10-15min

Add salt and pepper, to taste

Remove from heat and use a blender to puree the ingredients into soup

Enjoy!

I could make an attempt to give you the recipe for the pesto, but it would be even more estimations than I gave you for the soup. But it's basically just garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese, pine nuts and basil thrown in the food processor. Maybe, if I love you enough, I'll remember to write things down (slash measure) next time I cook. That would be nice of me, wouldn't it?