The race is in two days and it's been raining almost non-stop this week! I did manage a couple of runs outside, and I was very bundled up. I've been watching the predictions, and so far it's supposed to be overcast and cold, but hopefully the rain won't come until after the race. Either which way, I'm getting excited/nervous about it. I'm looking forward to it very much though. I have most of my stuff laid out to pack and I'll get my running belt ready tomorrow morning before we leave. Next time I do one in the Spring or Fall!

Almost Ready

I've been training for the upcoming half-marathon and I think I'm almost ready. I've been slowly increasing my long runs up to 12 miles last weekend. Keeping up three shorter runs during the week. Then instead of running and working out yesterday I felt like being a blob and came home and opened a bottle of wine instead :-/ Well, instead of letting it get me down, I changed my running schedule around this week and ran on a Friday night for my last short run and now I'll be doing my long run on Sunday. It's not too bad to do that one week before the race. First, I'm doing only approximately 7 miles for my long run since I'm supposed to cut back the week before. And two, the race is on a Sunday so my schedule is just off one week earlier. But the bad thing is that I really like doing my long run early Saturday so I start of my weekend feeling like I've accomplished something. Oh well. At least I didn't give up, I adapted!

Getting Things in Order

Today is my last day off of work from the holidays. My work is great in that they give us a week and a half of paid vacation over the holidays. I added four days to that to get just over two weeks off! It's been nice though. I've got back into the swing of things with running and bike riding. I've read quite a lot of books. Scheduled the things I need to do. Brewed a new batch of beer and bottled another (Belguim and peach wheat) and ordered supplies for two more. And I just downloaded a new accounting package and I'm going to get that set up and start from January 1st. So, everything I really wanted to accomplish at home I did. And now tonight I will get everything ready to go back to work tomorrow and hope I can learn to get up a couple of hours earlier than I have been so I can continue to run in the mornings!

Done!

It's just about noon on Christmas eve and I'm finally caught up with everything that I need to. All of the gifts have been purchased and wrapped (except for wrapping some small stocking stuffers that I do when I put those together), food purchased and even Cinnabons bought! I did my 3.67 mile run early this morning and the only thing really missing is doing my weight workout at the gym. But, I think I'll do some sit-ups here this afternoon and maybe some legs exercises, so that should be okay. All gifts that I was making I finished yesterday as well. So now I have all of the ingredients out to make a batch of Belgium ale. As it's boiling, I'll try to finish a book that I've been reading for the last few days and just relax!

Catch up!

It seems like Christmas is far enough away that I'll get everything done that I want to, but then when I realize it's less than 2 weeks and I still have a full week of work, plus my anniversary, my daughter's birthday, and of course my exercising (I have to at least keep up the minimum or I'll be really cranky). So I'm not sure how much time I really will have and I hate trying to finish things at the last minute. That said, I did manage to run over 7 miles this morning and make a nice breakfast before sitting here at my computer, catching up on emails and post, and trying hard to knit fast! I also have ingredients for a new Belgium ale I want to make, but I forgot to do the yeaster starter. So I guess I'll do that maybe mid-next week and brew one of days I'm off. We'll see. I also have the peach wheat ale that has been in the carboy for two weeks that I'm going to take a reading on today as well. It might be another week before bottling, but since it's for my daughter's birthday I want to bottle is as soon as possible! That's about it for now. A lot going on, not a lot of free time!

Books and Movies

I've been reading a lot of books, including the "Twilight" series. I'm about 3/4 done with the last book and then last night we all decided to go see the movie. Blah. And yes, I should have known because the books are for young adults, so the movie was going to follow that as well (he's so beautiful, why does he like me, we can't kiss), but it also had really bad special effects. Oh well. I still will finish the series. But I can't wait to read the next Cassie Palmer series book by Karen Chance - but that doesn't come out until next April. In the mean time I've organized all of my books upstairs that I want to read, and put them in piles of series, romances, and books my husband would like me to read. I say I'm going to finish a lot of those before I buy any new ones (especially series), but I've already ordered a few more!!

More beer & knitting!

It's been a bit since I posted. Still brewing beer and really enjoying it. We did our own Hefeweizen recipe and it's almost gone! We have a new hazelnut brown that we did for Jim's birthday that we should be able to bottle next week and the week after we should be able to bottle the chocolate hazelnut porter from B3 (Jamil's recipe). After that, I have all of the ingredients for Dee's birthday peach wheat beer. Then we have the yeast for another Hefeweizen and a belgium beer ( still need to figure out the receipe for that, but it's best to buy the yeast at the store instead of having it shipped). I've also been working on baby sweaters and Christmas gifts. I finished both of the sweaters, but still working on all of the Christmas gifts. I know it seems far away, but when working on knitting gifts it seems really close!