The Accidental Boilermaker

Setting: our bedroom, about 6:00am Me: (standing at the foot of our bed, gently shaking Nate's toes to wake him up.) Hey, it's time to get up. Nate: (incomprehensible mumbling.) Did you wake up on a whole number? Me: What do you mean a whole number? Nate: (more mumbling.) You know, like 40, 50, 60. Me: Nate, that doesn't make any sense. But by that point, he had already fallen back asleep. When I mentioned the conversation with him later, Nate had no memory of anything having to do with whole numbers. Who knows what he was dreaming about.

We were in Michigan for Sondra and Alaric's wedding. It was a blast! Then we got to spend some time with Pat and Paul and that was equally fun. the bride and groom me and nate lots of fun dancing

I went to the annual meeting for the Indiana Society of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehab in Indy today. Overall, it was pretty good and I learned alot. And I won a model heart in a raffle! My favorite presentation was about congestive heart failure and patients who get ventricular assist devices . It was interesting because it really addressed the concerns staff might have about getting a patient with a VAD and the speaker stressed how these patients really are no different than any other patient in cardiac rehab. They can exercise and they greatly benefit from exercise. I personally haven't ever worked with a VAD patient however.

We had a venison tenderloin for dinner tonight with oven roasted asparagus. The venison was a little bit of an adventure. I spent quite awhile last night searching for a recipe that was both simple and didn't require a trip to the grocery store. I found this recipe - Grilled Hoisin Marinated Venison Loin - and surprising had most the ingredients except for the hoisin sauce. So I searched for a substitute for that and you know what, it turned out really good!

I hate it when a recipe calls for a relatively small amount of an fairly obscure ingredient - for example, coconut. You buy the coconut and make the recipe, but you don't want the rest of the bag to go to waste. So what do you do? Spend Saturday afternoon making coconut themed treats. Even after all that baking, there's still a little left. Chocolate dipped coconut macaroons and chewy coconut granola bars .

Before I got all muddy.

Running this trail race was probably one of the craziest things I've done. We jumped over logs, climbed up embankments. The course consisted of mud, mud, sand and more mud. But it was a ton of fun too.

It felt like summer today. In fact I got a little sun this afternoon running. Nate and I made a special dinner tonight - caramelized onion baked potatoes and rib-eye steaks (I forgot to buy a veggie at Target). We also had a fairly good cabernet sauvignon. Then we took ride to see where my race starts on Saturday and he showed me where he did his practice crit racing. Those curves do look tricky.