What Happens When I Sleep Through My Morning-Run Alarm and Decide to Work from Home

I have been having a very odd couple of weeks where I just literally canNOT wake up before 7AM, which is very odd for me. I'm usually awake, of my body's own volition around 5AM. Which thus allows me time to run, work (non-grad school job), shower and play with my dog (not a euphamism...sorry...bad joke) all before my usual 9AM graduate school work-day start.  Sometimes I even get laundry and/or dishes and/or vacuuming done too. I'm a morning person. Until 2 weeks ago. When I stopped being a morning person. I don't like sleeping in this late. I feel lazy and unaccomplished. So when I slept through my 5AM...and 5:15...and 5:30...and 5:45AM alarms this morning (I mean I slept through my alarms, as in did not even consciously flit my eyes open to drowsily peer at the alarm clock blaring at me, slept through my alarms), and woke up at the late late time of 6:47AM...I decided my run would wait for warmer hours and I would just get some school work done. 45 minutes of that, and a pot of coffee later, I decided it was time to make sunflower butter. Totally normal behavior...yeah.

I didn't follow any real recipe, but instead dumped 4/3C (I actually thought it was 1 C and I was using 1/4 C measuring cup, but my only-one-pot-of-coffee brain forgot that the 1/4 C measure was in the dish rack) of roasted unsalted sunflower seeds into my food processor, turned it on, brewed another pot of coffee, and watched. The sunflowers seed flaked apart like a cornmeal, then ever so slowly began to oil up and almost melt together. I added in a dash of salt, a pinch of cinnamon, and a drop each of honey and olive oil. It's pretty delicious. I don't think I'll ever buy nut butters from the store again.

When that was finished, I decided to give a go at a pie recipe a friend had shared a week or 2 ago. The original recipe is found here: Mocha Silk Pie. I made a few alterations. For starters, I cut the recipe in half. Except for the nuts in the crust (but I used walnuts instead of pecans - I forgot to buy pecans at the store) and the kahlua - I used the full amounts of each of those with half the rest of everything else. Oh and I used 2 ounces of chocolate instead of the halved quantity (1.5 oz) for the filling. But basically this is the most delicious creation that has ever graced the face of this planet.

The crust ingredients: finely chopped walnuts, grated chocolate, brown sugar, and a touch of kahlua

That same crust, mushed together into a pie dish

The start of the filling: butter, sugar, instant coffee granules

Blending up the filling with another bit of Kahlua...yummm Kahlua 

Beating in one egg at a time, 5 minutes a piece. Trust me, it's worth the energy

The finished project. I ate the remaining chocolate or else I might've added some chocolate curls on top.

An Ode to Vera

One year ago today, I was scrolling around Facebook during a break between classes (there's a good chance it was in the middle of a class...) and the local favorite animal shelter Animal House had just posted a picture of a brand new puppy - Eden. I jogged over to the shelter over lunch and met this little 18 pound mini-lab look-alike. She was so shy! She just stared at me from across the room while I sat on the floor. After a few minutes of this, she tentatively creeped over towards me, sniffed my hand and crawled into my lap. That was about it for me. I was dating this guy at the time, and things were getting pretty serious between us - serious enough that I had to wait for little Eden, soon to become Vera, to meet his dog, Abbeygale, before making any decisions. But I knew right away that I was going to take her. I adopted her 3 days later, and I have never looked back.

I can always count on her to want to be over-top excited for a run, and her least favorite thing is when she sees me lacing up my trail shoes at 5AM, because that usually means she doesn't get to come along. She seriously has the Stoke. Within days of her adoption, she'd already summited Horsetooth Rock twice and hiked/ran a few miles on Towers (a true FCTR dog from the start).

She ran her first, well only, race on Halloween this year, and even let me dress her up as a bumble bee for the event. And she kicked butt (we won our - my - age group). I've been taking it slow'ish with her in terms of building up her running mileage, but she's gone as far as 11.5 miles with me in a single clip. I have high hopes for her being a true ultra-runner dog one day.

And she is the ultimate road trip companion. Except she doesn't hold up her end of the conversation all that well and prefers to sit on the plastic center console instead of the big front seat that's usually open to her (well that part is just weird). She listens great though! But in our year together so far, she has been all over the state of CO, through Arizona and Utah, and back and forth to NJ for Christmas. She's been from the Grand Canyon to the Appalachian Trail and back. There aren't even all that many people who can brag about that!

Vera loves to road trip in very uncomfortable looking positions

She also is a great camper. Her first camping trip was a mini-backpacking foray around Grey Rock, where we camped in pretty darn cold temperatures. She was quite the trooper, and cuddled up warmly against my then boyfriend to keep him warm (his sleeping bag was wayyyy too light-weight for an early spring camping trip). Since then, she's become quite the pro, though she gets a bit iffy on actually eating food when we're out in the woods. Trying to dig chipmunks out of their holes, as seen below, occupies a much more prominent spot in her mind than hunger.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying here, is a Happy Vera Day to my favorite puppy Vera!

Stranger Interactions

Yesterday, I took a break from working mid-way through the morning to walk a few blocks away and grab a coffee. Oh who am I kidding, it was less than an hour after I got to my desk at the early ealry hour 11:30AM. I threw on my 2012 Blue Sky Marathon hat, permanently dirt-stained pink puffy vest, and grabbed my travel mug.

As I trotted across the street to the sidewalk, a guy did the same, from the opposite direction, on the other side of the street as me. Wearing an orange puffy vest. And a 2011 Blue Sky Marathon hat. And Carharts. That last part isn't totally relevant, but in my mind, the wearing of Carharts signals you as a specific type of person who tries to pose as a respectable employee (he was coming from the direction of the physiology building, so I'm guessing a professor or researcher?) but bounces out of work suspiciously early each Friday to backpack, rock climb, or mountain bike all weekend.

Our eyes locked for a second from across the street, and we exchanged a knowing smile and nod, before continuing on our own ways. 

Back on The Wall

And no I don't mean the Pink Floyd album (although my dog is named after a Pink Floyd song, and by way of the transient property, also after the singer Vera Lynn). I got home from my 10 hour day at school (14 hour working day by the time 7PM rolled around - Mondays are brutal for me) and, for a change, didn't really want to run. I wanted to climb. I haven't touched a climbing wall in any real capacity since August. The last time I went, I was climbing at a reasonably non-embarrassing level and bouldering at a non-embarrassing level. I suck, but at least I used to suck at not-quite-beginner climbs with a semblance of grace.

But since all I've done in the past few months has been running, with an occasional day when I remember that maybe a few push-ups wouldn't be a terrible idea, I've lost any and all upper body strength I once possessed, and with it so went any semblance of that feeling of oneness and smooth muscle control one might theoretically experience on a well-executed climbing route.

Instead, I felt like one of those gawky and spazzy teenagers who shoot up 6 inches overnight and forget how to coordinatedly utilize their limbs. There was nothing sexy, or talented or smooth in my climbing last night. And sure, it'll come back in part if I can manage to climb consistently. But I also don't really care a whole lot. In a world of go-go-go, where I literally have a 3 month calendar spread of to-do note sticky notes up on my bedroom wall (2 jobs, volunteer work, 5 grad level classes, research, and 2 undergrad level classes necessitate that type of organization), climbing is an outlet where those concerns cease to exist. When my feet and hands cling tenuously to the pitiful jugs that I need to use in order to grip the wall these days, my mind blanks out entirely, except for the thought of what my next climbing move is. For me at least, climbing is an entirely brain-consuming activity that allows no room or space to think of other commitments. And I think that's something that we all could use a bit more of in our hectic and crazy lives.