Thanksgiving 2008

My entire family has much to be thankful for and if you are reading this--you are certainly included as someone dear who we are thankful for having in our lives. Myself and two good friends I often run with started off the holiday early by participating in Salem's 5 mile Wild Turkey race along with 992 other runners--what a great turn out for a Salem race. It was a great race day with weather in the mid 30s and sunny with very little wind (what kills me out here in New England is the wind). All three of us had great races and I was tickled pink to have finished in the top third with a time of 41:57 (8:24 pace). I ran this race last year (as my second race ever) in 50:25--I shaved 8 minutes and 44 seconds off my time!!!! Something tells me these huge improvements can't continue much longer:) It was also great having a volunteer I knew chear me on at the mile 3 marker and having the lead racers loop past the rest of us so that I could chear on my friend Jason who was quite close to the front---he managed to finish 28th. Oh course, I am always thankful for the wet kisses from Otis and congrats from Justin at the end of the race.



After the race, and some relaxing, everyone chipped in to cook a great dinner. We managed to cook the following:
-turkey breast on the grill (Justin of course)
-cheese tofu streudel (my racing gal pal is a veggetarian)
-green beans
-a huge salad with fennel and beets
-mashed potatoes with roasted garlic (not Thanksgiving without mashed taters!)
-whole wheat dinner rolls with cranberries and walnuts
-cranberry sauce, and

another friend joined us and brought dessert after visiting her nearby family
-pumpkin bread (like banana nut bread)
-pumpkin cranberry bars

We even somehow managed to get all the timing right which is my downfall!

We of course finished off the night with the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and Charlie Brown Mayflower story before snuggling up for well deserved sleep!!!

Finally, I'd like to add proof that running and sewing go together. I got an awesome athletic shirt with the "Wild Turkey" on it in a men's small which is well-way too big (why they don't give out smaller sizes at races is a whole other blog topic). Anyway, today will be spent at the sewing machine taking 4 inches out of the seams of the shirt!!!

New Find--Portsmouth fabric store

I traveled with Justin and my in-laws, Sandi and Daniel, today to the quaint town of Portsmouth New Hampshire. One of the first stores we walked by was Portsmouth fabric (www.portsmouthfabric.com) and I FELL IN LOVE. Even Justin immediately recognized a good fabric store and realizes the difficulty in finding them so he didn't mind me spending extra time trying to find that perfect combination of materials for a project. Needless to say I picked up enough fabirc for three projects--two for Christmas presents so everyone will just have to wait to see these creations:) The fabric is Amy Butler(amybutlerdesign.com) and I am already dreaming of other projects.

Breakheart 5K

Enjoyed a free, yup, free 5K (3.1 miles) race today in nearby Saugus, MA through Breakheart Reservation. It was a whopping 25 or so degrees and windy, but sunny and beautiful all along the course. In true family oriented turkey trot race fashion, there was no official time kept, but the clock read 26:10 (as did my trusty Garmin watch) when I crossed the finish--a personal best 5K time and a pace of 8:25. The second helf of the race was full of steep hills and resulted in me questioning the sanity of running 16 miles of hills in January!