All the things I love to do...

My parents arrived from France last monday night! It has been nice to have them and the kids are spending some time with their grandparents. For us it means a bit more time together to run, to mountain bike or even go out to the movies and dinner. Since I stopped working with my coach I didn't train every day this week tuesday and friday and sunday were off oops. However I need to figure out my schedule and my workouts. Yesterday B took me trail running. I was a bit anxious because last time we went together I found it very hard. All the hard work I put in last year in terms of training has paid off and I had a blast. I totally fell in love with everything. We ran 7M total and 2.5 were on the trails but those 25 min went by sooo fast. I was so focused on where to put my feet and taking in the scenery that I wasn't worried for once about my speed, that B had to wait for me etc... I was just in the moment! As soon as we hit the pavement all those worries came back. I'm hoping that I'll do a lot more trail running in the future! First I need to find a few girls who don't mind to get scratch up and dirty! One reason I stopped working with my coach is to have a bit more time for my home projects! I do tend to have a long list of them. B has no problem with me being so creative but he has one rule! You gotta finish a project before starting a new one. Since my free time is quite limited I have had a few projects waiting their turn patiently. The one that irritates B the most is the so called "vagina" chair named for its lovely shade of pink. He utterly despises the color and thus couldn't wait for me to get started on the slip cover. Since my parents are in town I hired my mom as a helping hand. I always do that to her! So we washed the fabric last night I know incredible I followed directions! It was dried and ready to go in the morning. I did read a few blog posts describing vaguely the steps to follow along with a few pictures. I decided that was enough to dive in myself. Some areas were a bit more dicey than others. The results is less than perfect but for my second slip cover ever it isn't too shabby. This is where it is at after working from 10:30-6:45pm with a 2H00 break at lunch. You can apreciate the difference between the pink color of the sitting pillow and the rest of the chair! We still have to trim the fabric at the seam, iron it and remove the basting thread. I hope to post pictures of it next week finished and back to its spot! I'm pretty pleased I have enough fabric to recover the IKEA chair as well. I am also a bit bummed because the white duck fabric is more see through than I expected! Especially since I bought the heavier weight! I'm hoping that a bright colored pillow will distract the eye! Then I will be allowed to purchase a bit of fabric to make two accent pillow and a bed throw. For a complete post let me put down the recipe of what I threw together for lunch! It is a morrocan/tunisian spin of the shepherd pie... - Ground beef - 1 egg - 1 cup Couscous - 5 yellow squash sliced - Cumin - Tumeric - Paprika - Balsamic vinegar - Olive oil - Cilantro In a bowl, mix the ground beef with the egg, the spices (cumin, paprica, tumeric) salt and pepper. For the spice mixture adjust for the flavor you like. I tend to use about 1tbsp of cumin, 1 tsp of paprica and 1tsp of tumeric. You can probably also add coriander etc... Cook in a pan and break it as you cook it. Slice the yellow squash marinade in olive oil 2tbsp and 2tbsp of balsamic vinegar, add some cumin to this as well. Sautee in a pan at high heat so the squash carmelize a bit. Cook the couscous, add bit of olive oil at the end. Once everything is cooked, in a low rim serving bowl put the meat at the bottom, then the squash and finish with the couscous. Decorate with some spices sprinkled over the couscous and some chopped cilantro.