Friday, May 18, 2012

Edmonton Spring Sprint - June 2, 2012

 The following is a message from my Mother regarding Edmonton's upcoming Spring Sprint Walk and Fun Run for the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada


It's too far for me to make it there for the weekend or I'd be going for the run, some food, fun and the great prizes I've been hearing about...


If you're within Canada but too far away to make it to Edmonton that weekend, the Spring Sprint is taking place in a number of cities across Canada through May and June - check out the list at the bottom of this post for a list of upcoming dates.

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Dear friends and family

As most of you know, last year at this time, our daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumour. As you can imagine this was one of the most difficult times of our lives. At first it was difficult to even comprehend (I found it easier to call it a growth in her head, rather than a brain tumour).

Lyndsy had brain surgery in Dresden, Germany in late August, 2011 and has made a remarkable recovery. We couldn't be happier. She is attending University and in fact at the end of April she competed in a 10 km run. 

Shortly after she was diagnosed last year,  I found out about a fundraising walk for the Brain Tumour Foundation called the "Spring Sprint".  I attended this walk last year, and as well Fred and I went to a support group meeting in Edmonton to learn as much as we could about this terrible disease. This past year I became involved with the Spring Sprint as a way to give back and help others. I am the Spring Sprint Coordinator. 

The walk will be held on June 2, 2012 in Hawrelak Park. It is a 2.5 km or 5 km walk around Hawrelak Park. Along with the walk there will be entertainment, door prizes, a silent auction (we have obtained some great prizes), and lunch. 

If you are able to participate - I encourage you to sign up.

To register or to donate directly to the Edmonton Spring Sprint (we have a goal of $75,000) please go to


Thank you.

Sincerely,


Sharon Schultz

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Sunday, May 6, 2012

Oberelbe-Marathon 10km

To parallel yesterday's race package pick-up Johannes was completely relaxed (almost bored?) and I was super pumped! Too bad we still had over an hour and a bus trip out to the start line to go after already driving the half hour from Freiberg into Dresden for the race...

The Finish Line was in the stadium behind us
We were both still a bit sleepy since my bed is tiny, it was noisy outside until about 5am and well, we had to get up early to be there on time. Perhaps the greatest disadvantage of a race that doesn't start and end at the same point is the logistics of getting to the start/from the finish if you come with a vehicle...

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Race Package Pick-up in Dresden

I was so excited about finally entering a race again that I'm surprised I didn't have this entry written and ready to publish much earlier. I'm sure I would have been sitting in front of my computer so I could tell you all about the race and my excitement the night before it if Johannes wasn't around to make the weekend even busier (and more fun too of course)! He's such a distraction sometimes...


Am I the only one excited about this race?

Last weekend we had such beautiful weather and although we got moving a bit late and spent a tiny bit more time in the sports store than we should have Johannes, Johanna and I had a wonderful time hanging out in Dresden Saturday afternoon and into the evening. 

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

A Crafter's Nightmare (but a Happy Runner)

After being up late into the night untangling this mess, I was still anxious to get a start on the project those bobbins had been set up for prior to being tossed into a bag for a week for 2 while I went ahead and made something else. Now that that's finished I wanted to go back and finish what I'd started. I didn't know that would be so complicated!


This definition of patient: " Bearing or enduring pain, difficulty, provocation, or annoyance with calmness"  describes how I handled this yesterday evening. I was very proud when it was finally all untangled!


I have good news too. 

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Hot Cross Cookies?

At home we always have Hot Cross Buns  around Easter and I definitely haven't seen any here anywhere. Apparently there's 'Easter Bread' but I haven't seen that either. Now, I know Easter's over, but I really missed having these and we ran out of time to try making them over the Easter weekend itself, so here it is now.

My friends and roommates I shared with had never seen/had a hot cross bun before and immediately referred to them as cookies, which is just as well since I deflated them just before putting them in the oven and they never recovered from it. I'm gradually improving my ability to work with yeast and the lesson I've learnt this time is: even if you read the word 'slash' in a recipe, they probably don't mean for you to take a knife to your nicely risen buns - the air goes out of them like a balloon that's been stabbed! 

Like I said, it's for the best no one knew hot cross buns so they couldn't know that they were supposed to be a bit lighter... Even so, they were still very tasty.

This recipe is adapted from The little loaf. She's hosting April's Fresh From the Oven Challenge. The challenge is to make Hot Cross Buns this month and that's what I did. Fresh From the Oven is a monthly baking challenge that I wanted to join earlier when I saw they were making bagels and croissants, but finally got around to it this time! Those goodies will have to be a project on my own some other day.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Running Plan: Monday, April 23 - Sunday, April 29

Only 1 week left until race day! I'm pretty excited, it's been a long time since I've been in a race and this one is supposed to be a beautiful run down the Elbe River into Dresden.


This Week:
Monday        30 minute run
Tuesday       35-45 minute run: 7.3 km in 48 min!
Wednesday  Running Group - Week 4: Pyramid Sprints and a few laps around the track barefoot; then Climbing!
Thursday     35-45 minute run

Sunday         10 km Race: Oberelbe-Marathon, Dresden


Saturday, April 21, 2012

Spring is in the Air


Finally, it seems like spring is actually here! I've been so excited seeing blossoms around town. Especially on the magnolia trees! There are at least 4 of them with in a few blocks of campus and I think it's the combination of the pastel-pink colour and the sheer size of the flowers that makes me feel so giddy.

I always enjoy seeing a little bit more open each time I go out for a run or in the case of this tree, when heading to the gym. Unfortunately this is something I don't do often enough to make it worth it these days. As soon as it was nice enough outside, I completely lost my motivation to go there to workout and I switched to running outside. As could be expected, I'm enjoying that a lot more than running on the spot in a sweaty room and have been exploring the area around the outside of the city a lot more lately. My routes keep changing and sometimes I just take a trip down the small streets heading out into the countryside, through the little villages and other days I'll head into the forest where things are just starting to turn green. I've been falling in love with running again and have been feeling a lot better lately because of it, both physically and mentally!

Friday, April 20, 2012

Monkey Bread Minis


Alright, these are already polished off so it's about time I finally got my post finished.

I've never had Monkey Bread in it's original form and correct me if I'm wrong, but these are just smaller - since they're baked in muffin tins instead of a bundt pan.

I think I've been missing out. I mean, it's like cinnamon rolls, but a bit more fun because you've got all these separate ball bits to pull off and nibble on. And the individual balls are like Tim Bits! Plus, while they're baking it's at least as enjoyable as when you get to eat them - the smell of the cinnamon sugar + pastry + a hint of maple syrup is to die for. 

This recipe was part of last week's challenge with the Gutsy Cooks Club and I was anticipating something good again. The tricky part was that I was already set on the suggested recipe before I realized that a food processor was the main tool used. Alright, I have an immersion blender and a hand mixer but my little student kitchen isn't equipped with a food processor (no idea where we'd put it if it was 1) in the budget and 2) something we thought we'd get enough use out of). Of course it's still possible to make these little guys, what did people do before all of these gadgets entered the kitchen. In my case, I went with the 2 knife pastry cutting method until I got a bit tired of it, then switched over to my hand mixer at a low speed. It seemed to work just fine.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Running Plan: Monday, April 16 - Sunday, April 22

This Week:

Monday        Gym Workout: 15 min. on the bike + strength training on the machines
Tuesday        35-45 minute run
Wednesday  Running Group: Sprinting Game + 30 min. run in the forest
Thursday     35-45 minute run 30 minute run 
Friday           7.5 km in 49.5 min - I really didn't plan to go that long or far but it felt so good!
Sunday         6.5 km run in 40 min! - That's even faster than last week!


Friday, April 13, 2012

A Rainbow on My Plate


If Cordon Bleu were actually blue, this would have made for an even more colourful meal than it already was.

Although I am late in posting this, I made it as my first challenge as part of the Gutsy Cooks Club put together by Monica of SweetBites. I joined  because I think it is awesome to be pushed to create dishes I might not have even thought to make otherwise. Every week there are a few suggestions and it looks like variety is also considered.

I would have been too intimidated to make chicken cordon bleu completely on my own, but it really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and I would definitely recommend it, if you haven't made it before! Although I would recommend making more than one at a time... However, I had one piece of chicken in the freezer and was cooking for one, so that's how I did it.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Is it Really so Dangerous Out There?

Not too long ago I ordered new running shoes for myself. Since the new season's shoes were coming out and they had so many shoes on sale on Amazon it took me quite a while to research and decide not only which shoes would be a good fit for me (pun intended), but then to determine if there was even a size and colour I wanted... In the end I ordered 2 pairs for almost exactly 100€ (=131.19 CAD at today's exchange rate) and felt like I got a pretty good deal. Although I did have to set the colour factor aside - not to say I don't think my shoes are pretty but they're a bit more white than I had hoped for and I know that won't last long!

The first pair to arrive was the cheaper of the 2. Also, lighter weight, less supportive and lower to the ground, but I won't get into that right now. All I will say is that I like them and although I started off using them for my shorter runs, I've already put 108.3km on them since I got them at the end of February.

As for the second pair, they came a few days later and since they were a smaller fit than expected they got sent back. So it was almost 2 weeks later that I had them in my hands and could start looking out for an appropriate run to take them on. Ideally, it couldn't be too long the first time and I wanted it to be fairly dry outside, especially since they're so white - I didn't want them to be wet and muddy after the first few kilometers!

After a pretty tough running workout yesterday, followed by a bit of climbing (combined with today's cooperative weather, of course), it seemed to be as good a day as any to take these shoes out for a spin.

Check out my shiny, spotlessly white new shoes!
Now I would have loved to be showing you this picture of my shoes while saying, "check it out, I finally took my new runners out on the road and it was awesome!"

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Running Plan: Monday, April 9 - Sunday, April 15

This Week: 

Monday         25 minute morning run - 4 km
Tuesday        35-45 minute run
Wednesday   Running Group Workout: Sprinting game and a jog in the forest
Thursday      35-45 minute run Still sore from yesterday - ran just over 4km, nice and easy
Friday           4.8 km jog into the forest with Johanna
Saturday      3.4 km in 22 min. - not bad
Sunday         6.5 km run in 40:26! For this distance, this is the fastest I've gone outside this year!


Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Word on Wednesday: Lauf(-) und Leckerei

As an addition to my blog, which so far receives posts at fairly irregular intervals, I'm starting a regular feature of a Word on Wednesday. The intent through this is to create educational posts based on a relevant word (or at least one with personal relevance). In the future, these will be English words and may come from anything I've found interesting. Although today's post is mostly for my readers who do not understand German, it will also serve as a light introduction to the Word on Wednesday posts by explaining all 3 words that make up the title of this blog: Lauf(-) und Leckerei.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Running Plan: Monday, April 2 - Sunday, April 8

Late again because I was away for the weekend, but here's the plan

This Week: 

Tuesday       35-45 minute run 
Wednesday  Running Group Workout: Timed 800m sprint + a few km in the woods
Thursday     35-45 minute run
Friday          4.8 km run in Eslarn - 33 min.
Sunday         11.3 km run  11.5 km run with Johannes - longest run this year!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Running Plan: Monday, March 26 - Sunday, April 1

A little late because I wasn't around much this weekend, but here's an update.

This Week:

Monday        Ran 10.5 km to make up for yesterday - I'm pleased with my time of 72 minutes
Tuesday        35-45 minute run
Wednesday  45 minute run from yesterday (6.5km)
Thursday      35-45 minute run
Friday           5.88 km run (yesterday's)
Saturday      4.2 km run - Bonus 
Sunday         9.7 km run - Bad estimation or a bad memory of the route I wanted to do - 8km run




Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Leek and Apple Soup

For some reason I have a big bag of apples that I haven't been eating very fast and was looking around for something to cook them into. I landed on and adapted this recipe for leek and apple soup (listed as Apfel-Porree-Suppe) on the Küchenlatein blog since it seemed like the perfect fit (although I'd have to make it again if I want to cook all my apples...). This blog not only has a huge variety within the over 1000 recipes in German, but there are almost 400 recipes in English as well.




There are a few 'firsts' to this post, the first of which being that I bought my first leek, ever. So, here's how I figured you'd prepare a leek to cook. It must have been close enough. However, for cooking into a soup next time I'd use smaller pieces (thinner or sliced lengthwise).

I do already use leek to make broth, but only when I buy those soup veggie packs that it's in. I'd never bought a leek on it's own before!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Running Plan: Monday, March 19 - Sunday, March 25

This Week:

Monday        4 km recovery run
Tuesday       35-45 minute run - Ran 7 km in 50 minutes
Wednesday  20 minute run (3.5 km)
Thursday     35-45 minute run - Ran 7 km in 50 minutes
Saturday     3.5 km run with Johannes
Sunday        9.7 km run (I'll probably round up to 10, but we'll see) - moved to Monday

*As always, I've left room for more!

Friday, March 16, 2012

Try going the other way

I mean it. This could mean doing something normal in a way you're not used to or just getting somewhere by literally going the other way. You'll see things differently. Maybe you'll notice something wonderful and if not, at least it'll help you appreciate or understand the old way more.

Here's what I saw when I ran the other way yesterday:

Please try not to focus on the big gangly tree that got in the way
and forgive my photography - I took this while running!

Here's what I wasn't prepared for

Walking up the staircase, I knew why I was there. I'd been there before and I'm not new at this either, but this was the first time it had worked out this way.

As I got closer, I was still alone and was starting to grow concerned. I didn't expect many people I knew but certainly wasn't thinking it would be this empty. I checked the time - I wasn't late. 

Knowing it had to be in one of two rooms, I heading for the closest first. Trying the handle - it rattles - locked! Not what I expected, but no problem, the next one's only a little further down the hall. This is the right day, isn't it? I check my phone again and confirm it.

So, still alone, I approach the next alternative. This time it creaks open and there I am catching the attention of all 6 people in the room. Oops, it looks like that's not what I was supposed to do. 

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Today's run in the sunshine: A mini photo run-along

I brought my camera along thinking that with the amount of sunshine today, it might be okay to head into the forest but after seeing how muddy the ground was along the side of the road I changed my mind. After seeing a few of the first flowers along the way, I thought I might still get a few spring time pictures (I'm hauling my camera around anyways) but I wasn't willing to stop running for them. Slowing down was okay, but not stopping! So here's a (very) brief tour of the landscape. At least you don't have to worry about keeping pace with me...

Just over 20 minutes from home and in the middle of nowhere.
 See the house up ahead? That's the turnaround point.

Have you ever had Couscous Poppers?


I hadn't either but now I'm a huge fan. What a great idea! Plus, they were simple and pretty quick to make.


Although you can see that they're gooey and cheesy when fresh and still warm, we also found them to be an awesome snack for a road trip and great with or without dip. When I first made them, I took them to a friend's place, reheated them a bit and served them with some creamy avacado sauce as a dip. They were a hit!



Monday, March 12, 2012

Running Plan: Monday, March 12 - Sunday, March 18

This week:

Monday          Gym Workout: 15 min. Stationary Bike + Weight Machines
Tuesday          40 minute run on the treadmill - but I made it 6.6 km
Wednesday     Bonus: 5 km recovery run (37 min.)
Thursday        Ran 50 min./ just over 7 km
Friday             Bonus: 3.6 km
Saturday        Bonus: 3.36 km - Just a little one on the way to the bakery!
Sunday           8km run - In the forest!

I'm leaving some space for some extra runs - I really enjoyed having those 4km runs thrown in in between last week and since the others still went well, why not?

Thursday, March 8, 2012

A Weekend in Berlin

So, I'm a little late getting this put together but I have been wanting to share a few things with you about my trip to Berlin with Mohammad the weekend before last.

First of all, for those who remember the movie Snakes on a Plane, here's an even wilder alternate:

    Snakes on a Plane                       Snacks on a Train
 (*Snakes on a Plane still source: http://weekinrewind.blogspot.com/2007/09/snakes-on-plane-movie-dvd-review-2006.html)
 The 2 pictures evoke the same level of scary, don't they? I mean it looks like the "Snakes..." guy wants to eat the snake, and the "Snacks..." guy is probably overwhelmed by all the snacks he has to eat!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Running Plan: Monday, March 5 - Sunday, March 11

A little late, but I thought I'd start posting the basics of my running plan at the beginning of each week.  I think of my running week as being Monday to Sunday though, since I plan to do my longer runs on Sundays and that's how I'll describe it here too.

This week: 
Monday             No run planned, but I ran my 4km route in just over 25 minutes
Tuesday            35 minutes run (done and I ran over 5km)
Wednesday  I threw in an extra 4km run (26min)
Thursday          35 minutes run: 5.8km on the treadmill (faster than my last treadmill run!)
Sunday              8km (this will be my longest run so far this year!) - ran it with Johannes in about 50 minutes!

I quite like going out for short runs like the 4km I did on Monday and might try doing more of those on my 'days off.' Alternatively, I might head to the gym to try working on my muscles on those days.

What a deal I got

Today I paid only 30€ for what appears to be a case of calcium. I'm used to buying those little boxes of Calcium tablets from the drugstore and all of a sudden I'm getting this bulky pack of fizzy/effervescent tablets (Brausetabletten) - I mean, there are actually only 100 of them but these things are so much bigger and are heavy enough that it felt like I was really committing myself to this way of taking calcium. So, I hope I like the taste more than I did with the Potassium ones they had me taking while in the hospital...

Why do I need so much calcium?

Friday, March 2, 2012

Reasons for Everything

1. Why I have a running schedule:

I may be motivated enough to go out running, but not every time! In this case, I probably wouldn't have done anything active yesterday if it weren't for a look at my schedule, quickly noticing that if I didn't make it out for a run, there'd be a 2 day gap. I couldn't let that happen!

The point of my running plan is not only to let me have daily, short-term goals to achieve - and therefore have the reward of coloring in that day (I remember seeing Mom do this with hers too), but to make sure that I'm on track to achieve some longer-term goal. For now that goal is the 10km run at the end of April.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Away for the weekend - more to come soon

I'm not taking a break, I'll be in Berlin for the weekend (leaving in a few hours actually so I'd better finish getting organized). Perhaps I'll be inspired while I'm there or at least come up with a few fun things to write about!

Either way, maybe I can keep you in suspense by letting you know of my plans to give you the details of the travel snacks I prepared...

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Non-stop!

The past couple runs I've gone on I've been able to do it without walking intervals but today I really didn't have to stop. Sunday traffic meant that I didn't even have to wait at lights or to cross the street, which is probably what made the difference in my time compared to yesterday but I don't care, that still means I ran constantly for 5km! And it was raining, so I ran without music... I'm lucky I went as early as I did though since just after I got home it started snow/raining like mad and it looks pretty windy out there now. I was pretty happy about getting out running that early anyways. It's been a goal of mine to get up earlier and go running right away so that I'm energized and can get more done during the day. So now all I have to do is keep it up and make it a habit!


Mmm... Lunch time and since I have a couple ripening avacados that I recently bought on sale I made this creamy avacado pasta sauce for probably the third time now. It's so tasty and quick!


This is my slightly adapted version of 15 Minute Creamy Avacado Pasta from Oh She Glows, a blog with lots of delicious and healthy vegan recipes (not that I plan to be vegan but she makes good stuff)!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

What a beautiful day!

And I started it with a 5km run (finally the full thing this time - it wasn't much of a difference but I felt like I was cheating a bit before). Now this doesn't mean that I got everything else done today that I wanted to but it's Saturday and it was nice out and that put me in a great mood!

I have to share a comment about this tea I'm drinking though. For some reason my little sister picked it out at Steeps to bring when she came to visit and man does it smell! I mean, really, like smoked ham or something. It put me off of trying at first because you really do not expect that from a tea but here I am drinking it again... Lapsang souchong is a black Chinese tea with a strong, crazy, smoky scent because the tea's leaves are smoked, over pine wood. And it's actually pretty good, but I think I'm still pretty timid about the amount of tea leaves I use for a pot. However, I wouldn't think of having it with something too sweet, but who knows maybe the contrast is delightful...

Yesterday's Ugly Weather

Apparently I didn't actually write this yesterday. Nothing too exciting, it was raining and so wet and ugly out that I didn't get out for a run. I did walk through the city to run some errands and came back with wet feet (I don't have rubber boots)...

Cooked: but it looks like I just tossed it on the floor
But I did try a new recipe! I don't think I'd ever actually cooked with Kale before and although I only had the frozen stuff around (because of my interesting attempts at 'green smoothies') I quite enjoyed the simplicity of this Kale and Carrot Bake. But it's really hard to go wrong with veggies, onion and garlic, isn't it?

 I always seem to have a hard time eating carrots before they start to go bad and was looking around for something I could eat with rice or couscous. This is perfect! I had the frozen Kale and although I wasn't sure if it would be quite the same with frozen over fresh, I thought I'd give it a go anyways. 

This is the "Oven Roasted Carrots and Kale" recipe according to askGeorgie.com, but to be honest I didn't measure anything - I was cooking veggies, how exact does it need to be?? It's the first time I've used this blog for recipes but it looks pretty awesome, with lots of healthy recipes and tons of nutrition advice.

After starting some spiced rice (this just means I threw a couple cloves, whole allspice and a piece of star anise into the pot while it cooked), I threw a handful of 'Kale ice cubes' into my casserole dish and put them  in the oven on low with the hope that they'd thaw enough by the time I finished chopping the other stuff.

To the other stuff: pretty simple - the last onion I had (it was small) and 3 or maybe 4... cloves of garlic plus a good handful of carrots, I'd guess 4 or 5 of the biggest ones in the bag. I'd been checking on the kale pretty often, anxiously stirring it around and hoping it'd thaw faster (next time I'd probably take it out a little earlier). I finally pulled it out of the oven (turning it up to 200°C), tossed everything else in the dish, drizzled it with olive oil and added a dash of salt and several grinds of pepper and stirred everything vigorously with a wooden spoon and waited... Although I guess I stirred it after about 10min. and maybe again once or twice. I was being cautious because the frozen kale was making a lot more moist than I think it would be with the fresh stuff.


It was ready about the time I finished my dishes (including those from lunch). Unlike in the recipe on askGeorgie.com the kale wasn't going to end up turning brown so I was checking for the carrots to be tender enough. Then I served it (to myself) in a bowl over the rice and I couldn't resist grating some parmesan and adding a few black olives. Other cheeses are good too, I tried some thinly sliced Emmantaler on my leftovers today! Oh and today I added a bit of lemon juice too. I didn't have fresh lemons but just squirted some on, definitely makes the flavours pop!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Laundry Day!

That means I'm now sitting beside a fully loaded laundry stand breathing in the delightfully fresh humidity wafting off my clothes, lucky me! I spent a lot of the rest of the day trying to organize things around here (especially paperwork).

Before I got to any of that though, I went for a 5km run! It was so sunny out too, which made it very enjoyable. Too bad the snow doesn't get cleared very often here, there are still lots of nasty, slushy patches on the sidewalks where the last bits of snow could have melted away in the warmth if they'd been a little bit shoveled...

Now that I've been running more, I've been getting excited about it and started looking for a shorter race around here to go in between now and the 10K at the end of April. It's just been so long since I've been in one and I guess I'm having a hard time waiting. I'm also going to have a hard time putting off buying new running shoes much longer. I've started looking at them online and reading reviews so pretty soon I'm going to give in.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Brown Smoothie

I am not going to share a picture of what I made for dinner. After getting into making smoothies lately I thought I'd give 'green smoothies' a try (adding spinach or kale) but it's impossible to find either of those vegetables fresh and I thought it couldn't hurt to get some frozen kale and try blending it in... It's not great since the veggie stuff doesn't get totally smooth and it end up kind of a brownish color with green flecks that I still have to chew a little. Plus, it just tastes a bit too healthy... I'll keep on the look out for spinach in the stores and try again some day. 

It's not as greasy as it appears here!
But the leftover soup I had for lunch looked good. Or at least I thought so when I made it and that's when I took this picture...

Grießnockerl or semolina dumpling soup (solid blobs of cream of wheat really). I needed a way to use up some of the broth I made last week and tossing in an onion and all the carrots that were still any good makes it pretty easy. Then I really just mix up the stuff that goes into the dumplings (semolina, milk, butter or oil, salt, an egg and just a touch of nutmeg and baking powder) in approximate amounts to make right consistency and drop a few spoonfuls into the pot. I might pay for my inexactness in the odd shape of them, as you can see from these but at least it doesn't affect the taste.

I went to the gym this evening - stationary bike for 20min. then did some strength training on the machines there.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Finally an Outdoor Run!

I really don't know how to get started but here goes... 

The plan is to write about running, food/tasty recipes and a bit about the handcrafts I'm into, which mostly includes knitting and bobbin-lace making (Klöppeln) these days (I'm not really experienced at either and I'm still at the very beginner stages in the lace making - however I think it's pretty nifty since I'd never even seen it before coming to Saxony and just had to get a better idea of how it's done).

My next running goal is the Oberelbe (Marathon) 10km in Dresden on April 29th. Since I joined the gym about a month ago and started getting into running again last week I'm still at the optimistic and very motivated phase. It really helps that I finally went for a run outside today. It warmed up a bit and I figured that that's as good of a reason as any to get away from the treadmill and test out the snow packed sidewalks. Plus I threw some potatoes in the oven beforehand so I was thinking about the delicious lunch waiting for me when I arrived back home! Maybe that's why I only ended up running 4.5km instead of my planned 5... I really didn't know how far I'd gone until I was back home though. 

Herring, tomatoes and oven roasted potatoes for lunch!

Current work in progress
Then I packed up my stuff and got ready to go to my lace-making class. I'm such a beginner so I'm still working on the basics stitches but maybe someday I'll get to make something more impressive. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, this is what it looks like (or at least based on the technique in this region):