Half Mara FTW

Sunday is the day of the Reading Half Marathon.  Since the beginning of the year we have been following a schedule to get us ready for this event.  It's been very challenging sometimes (snow and mud) and incredible in other ways (he has lost over half a stone just from the running).  Our speed, has in the past been real slow.  A 10 min/mile would have been a real good day, with slower being a regular occurrence.  This week we even knocked a few 8:30 min/miles!  I managed a 7:15min/mile, but it was very downhill, ha!

Since we're running together we won't be playing tunes during the race, but many have got me through some reluctant runs over the last few months.  It's a selection that is fast paced and generally cheery.  All over the genres, they're not important, if a cheesy track gets you up that hill, you'll take it.  Added some from friends and look forward to taking them all out on runs after the race.  Yes, even after all my whining, am actually super keen to remain running at this faster pace and these longer distances.  Who would have thought.

Children's Party

Being three is awesome!

Tonight's theme was inspired by my friend Stella, who treated herself to Jelly & Ice cream this week to help her get over a twisted ankle.  Best medication ever.

She suggested this theme, and I thought YES just based on the jelly and ice cream.  It then struck me that children don't tend to have formal dinner parties with three courses (weird, right?!) so let's see what ingenuity he can come up with.

Stella is someone I know originally from a messageboard, and, when you meet people on the net you make up a picture of them.  I thought she would have funky blonde spiked hair - I dunno why - and IRL she has flowing brunette locks.  Shows what I know.  Thanks Stells, this one's for "yuo".

Burrrns night

Well, we have to celebrate Robbie Burns on this important day that celebrates, ummm, a long dead poet?

Hubbie loves haggis, but I have requested that he tones it down a bit and that it isn't the main course.  He loves my whiny challenges.

For music, I am putting together a selection of Scottish bands.


Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!

Apres ski

Today the UK is - as we are shocked every year to be - at a standstill because of the snow.  Don't get me wrong, it's awesome.  Not only pretty but meaning one needs to work from home.

Wintastic!

Tonight we are going to embrace the best thing about snow.  No, not snowmen, snow ball fights or snow angels.  Skiing!  Tonight is apres ski.

The food will keep us warm and fat laden enough for a fictional eight hours of skiing tomorrow.

Oh and the music...

Come Back to Texas

Unfathomable that we didn't do a Texas theme after our awesome holiday last year.  What a missed opportunity and how we are leaping onto it today!

Not sure it suits this January weather, with its snow warnings, but whatevs.

Food will be recipes from Home Sick Texan (the glossy recipe book is one of our favourites) and the music is from Wikipedia's extensive (?) list of bands from Texas.  It's a crappy list, but a start point.  Turns out that's all sorts of genres coming out of this state from Beyonce to Meatloaf.

2012 Retrospective

2012 eh?  What was all that about?

As is traditional (ahem, maybe done once), we're gonna do a round up of a selection of tunes from the various themes for the year and he's choosing his favourite dishes to make again.

An up and down year.  Much in the way of Britishness with the Jubilee and the Olympics, which was fun and people were happy.  Loved the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

Started a degree with the Open Uni and met some great new student friends - especially Avril, who is my secret twin.  Went to Scotland twice and saw the lovely Bel.  Lex saves me from a darktime with wig wearing and geekie films, along with the awesome Tori and Sarah.  Love them!  More please in 2013.

Had an amazing Texan holiday, Barcelona, Euro Disney... Work stuff was meh (thankfully into a new year away from that).  Overall the year gets a B-.  The year was generally not stand out memorable, but the Texas holiday raised it out of mediocrity.  Oh we must return.

And in December we discovered the lure of online gaming in D&D Online.

Geekery

This year's theme for Christmas is Geekery.  We have had a year of lots of geeky things with me becoming oh so techie with my studying as well as some fabulous shows.

Tonight is a wonderful celebration of the food and music of the world of geek.  I couldn't choose a sensible three courses, there's so much inspiration out there and mad thoughts of my own.  So there's sort of endless courses.  It's also our fake Christmas Eve tonight (we are away for real Christmas) so eating and drinking and relaxing will be very high up the agenda for days.  Yippee!

That's our Christmas tree in the picture.  It's very geeky.  It has a tardis plushie, some iPhone ornaments (you can see the Facebook one, there's also Pinterest, Twitter, Google+ and a cute Instagram one).  A family of robots. A teenage mutant ninga turtle (crocheted) and some Mario mushrooms.  A felt stuffed pacman chases some ghosts around the bottom of the tree; the minx.  A lego bauble.  A pantone bauble.  And some comic characters (Wolverine pictured) including the Green Arrow who I keep calling the Green Lantern as they're the 'same thing' because it's very funny to annoy my hubbie.

My favourite is the most obscure: a mini version of Jayne's hat from Firefly.