My first Full Circle Farm CSA box
Today at work I picked up my first Full Circle Farm CSA box. I peeked in at work but I didn’t really dig in until I got home. I am so excited by all the fruit and vegetable goodness! I used the Flickr note feature to itemize everything in the last photo. Immediately after the photo session I devoured a mango. So yummy! I’m looking forward to eating the blue potatoes and finding out what one does with parsnips. Fortunately the newsletter that came in the box has a bunch of recipes including one for “Glazed Parsnips & Celery.”
What I did on my Spring Break vacation
- I did not check any luggage on any of the 5 legs of my trip. I rock. My new pack rocks too.
- I spent an evening in Vancouver with my sister shopping for her birthday present and eating Thai food.
- I went bridesmaid dress shopping with Angie and Jess. We didn’t find anything we liked in the stores so we’re thinking of going with “The Chloe” from Ann Taylor in cornflower blue with a midnight sash.
- I ran all around Ottawa with my Mom running errands and getting her ready for my parents’ upcoming trip to Africa.
- I ate a yummy vegetarian lunch at The Green Door.
- I ran into Leslie, a teammate from my Waterloo basketball days, at The Green Door. We seem to have a habit of running into each other in the month of March!
- I had a great chat on the phone with Heather Murray in Switzerland.
- I watched CBC’s daily coverage of the Commonwealth Games.
- I took several afternoon naps.
- I watched the World Figure Skating Championships on TV with my Mom.
- I went 0 for 5 playing “Rrroll Up the Rim to Win” at Tim Hortons.
- I ran 8 miles outside on a lovely Victoria spring day.
Half-marathon training – Week 12 – Longest run ever
I’ve just returned to Seattle from Spring Break. I’ll post more about Spring Break later but for now I’ll concentrate on how pleased I am that I managed to stick with my training schedule while on vacation. This required more treadmill running than I’d have liked because it was colder in Ottawa than I’d anticipated (or hoped) and I’m used to being spoiled by West Coast weather.
My week 12 total mileage was 24 miles (4.5+3+4.5+8+4) which is 38.6 km! I moved my Sunday long run of 8 miles to Saturday. This may be a permanent change since I like doing the long run immediately following Friday’s rest day. I’m pretty sure that 8 miles (12.9 km) is the longest run I’ve even done in one shot. That’s a milestone for me. At the end of the run I even felt like I could have kept going which is a big confidence boost as the actual race is only 41 days away.
Half-marathon training – Week 11 – Step-back week
I’m currently enjoying Spring Break in Ottawa and well into training week 12 but I figure I better make my week 11 post before I forget what I did last week!
Week 11 corresponded to the UDub winter quarter exam week and even though I didn’t have any exams I changed my schedule a bit and made it a step-back week. I ran a total of only 14 miles (4.5+4.5+5). My Wednesday cross training was a rare trip to the gym where I did some time on an elliptical machine and then some weight training. I really wish I could fit more weight training into my regular routine. I missed Saturday’s workout because I spent the day flying between Vancouver and Ottawa. Then on Sunday I ran my 5 mile “long run” on the treadmill in my parent’s basement. I’m not a huge fan of running on treadmills but it did keep perfect pace for me (12 min/mile) and I didn’t have to brave the Ottawa March weather!
Spring Break Packing
I’ve been talking a big talk about learning how to pack light (both on my blog here and here and in person) and today it was time for action. Earlier this week I used my REI member refund to purchase a REI Lookout pack. It met my requirements of being at least 40L and fairly light. It is slightly larger than the Air Canada carry-on limit but I don’t think it’s too big that it will be a problem.
I’m leaving tomorrow for a Vancouver/Ottawa/Victoria Spring Break trip so this afternoon I layed out everything I’m brining with me and packed it in my new bag and a computer bag. I was somewhat conservative in how much I’m bringing home but I don’t think I’m missing anything major (except a razor of course). The pack is pretty full but it’s not bursting at the seams. Here are the before and after shots. If you click on the photo and go to flickr you’ll see that I got a little carried away with the “notes” feature!
Including Spring Break I have seven trips planned for this spring and summer. I’ve organized all the travel arrangements into plastic sleeves and because I love being so organized I’ve also posted a photo of them!
Icosahedrons and another mosaic
Here’s a simple icosahedron made using the snapology methodology. In the past I have made much more complicated models using this system but I like the icosahedron because I can whip one up pretty quickly and still feel as though I’ve accomplished something. That’s probably why I have a whole collection of them in different colours!
I’ve also created a second origami photo mosaic. This one is organized in roughly in terms of complexity. It’s best viewed at large size so click on the photo to go to flickr. I feel as though this should be the cover of a high school geometry text book or at least be a poster hanging in a math classroom somewhere!
Half-marathon training – Week 10 – Triple sport Saturday
Week 10 started out a little rough as I came down with a head cold a few hours after last Sunday’s long run. I ended up staying home on Monday and Tuesday (with the exception of Monday night’s rockin’ Bon Jovi concert) getting over the cold. So I moved Tuesday’s run to Wednesday and skipped Wednesday’s usual cross training swim. That’s the first time I’ve missed a workout since week 2. So for week 10 I ran a total of 19 miles (4+4+4+7).
I have to admit that my 7 mile run this morning was a little tough. That’s probably because yesterday I ran 4 miles then had softball and ultimate practices – it was a triple sport Saturday. I guess this will continue to be a problem as starting in a few weeks I’ll be playing softball once a week and ultimate twice a week. I may have to do some reorganizing of the training schedule but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to work it out.
A series of curlers
The origami just keeps on coming! Here are a series of polyhedra I made using the Curler Units designed by Herman Van Goubergen. From left to right we have a Cuboctahedron, a Small Rhombicuboctahedron and a Icosidodecahedron. All three models were made out of post-it notes which I find to be ideal for the curler units.
Six Intersecting Squares
Here are two views of one of my recently made origami models: Six Intersecting Squares (pdf instructions) designed by Jorge C. Lucero. It’s very remenicient of the Five Intersecting Tetrahedra I’ve made several times before. The points of the five intersecting tetrahedra make a dodecahedron. I haven’t quite figured out what the points of this model form. In the spirit of full disclosure I will mention that since the model requires you to start with rectangles that are 1:2.2 I had to measure 4cm off of my 15×15cm origami sheets. I don’t usually like to measure and cut but it’s a cool looking model so I figured it was worth it.
Origami photo mosaic
Yesterday I came across a photo mosaic maker at fd’s Flickr Toys. I figured my square origami images would be perfect for this sort of thing and I really like the result. There’s always room for improvement though. My current ideas are to replace the four photos in the bottom left with new photos of more traditional polyhedra. I’m also thinking of ordering the photos in the mosaic by some measure of complexity (number of faces? units?) but maybe the more random (currently its chronological) ordering is best. I like the contrast of having one photo with a green background although I do have an identical model made in colour I could photograph against a white background. We’ll see where this goes …
