Oct 24 update

185.

Sorry, I've been slacking badly on updates.

Tim went out of town from Fri-Mon and couldn't run Thursday either. I lifted weights on Wed, played basketball Thurs, lifted weights on Friday, and carried Ben 3/4 of a mile for what turned out to be a very scary Haunted Hike on Saturday.

On Sunday, Mom and John came over for John's birthday. I've been dying to cook some good food for awhile, and here's what I made.

Sunday's Provencal menu

• spinach quiche
  
• goat cheese toasts, aoili toasts
  
• mesclun salad with mustard vinaigrette
  
• baguettes with aoili or herbed butter (fresh rosemary, fresh basil, fresh parsley, fresh garlic, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, mmmmmmm!)
  
• potatoes au gratin
  
• ratatouille (minus the eggplant)
  
• Provencal chicken
  
• pork loin stuffed and crusted with cherries and bread crumbs, cooked in rose wine with anise seeds
  
• chocolate cake - well, Anna and Mommy made that!
  
• French rose and red wine, Cotes du Luberon, Cotes du Rhone, and one Moulin a Vent.

Yum! Everything was great.

I really didn't feel like running on Monday, and fortunately they needed another guy to play basketball at the last minute. I had an awesome game, hitting a ton of shots, which is rare. I played bball again on Tuesday, not as well.

So, as far as food...I ate way too much of Sunday night's yummy dinner. Then a little too much of the leftovers on Monday. Today is my birthday and I treated myself to a sausage-egg-cheese biscuit for breakfast, but didn't eat lunch. Tonight we are going to Gino's East for stuffed pizza and Oberweis for ice cream sundaes (I love turtle sundaes).

So I missed my birthday goal by 5 lbs. I'll set a new goal of losing 8 lbs by Thanksgiving - that's 2 lbs per week. So I'm shooting for 177 by November 22. I've been keeping up with the exercise but not eating as well, so post-birthday, I'm going to watch what I eat more carefully.

- schneid