I'm a triathlete.

Last weekend I raced in my very first triathlon. Micah and I have been talking about doing a Tri for probably close to 2 years. So, when I wrote my 30 by 30 list (aka 30 things I want to do before turning 30), a tri was one of the things on that list. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what motivated me to want to do it. I suppose it was one of those strength tests just to see if I could. But, more than that I really enjoy the feeling of working towards something. Of making a fitness schedule and sticking to it. Of crossing off the days until the "big day." Of the excited, butterflies-in-your-stomach energy that comes right before the race.

Triathlon Breakdown: 400 meter swim, 11 mile bike, 3.1 mile run.

Finish Goal: 1 hour, 45 minutes

The weekend of the triathlon was also the weekend before our 3-year anniversary, so we decided to make a trip of it. To Pleasanton - where everyone wants to spend their anniversary.

The weather was HOT. And, I loved it! Living in San Francisco definitely makes me miss summer, so I soaked up every minute of being able to wear dresses and not have to tote along a sweater or jacket.

I could barely sleep the night before the Tri. I felt so anxious about the whole thing. I kept playing through possible scenarios, such as being attacked by some under water creature in the lake or having my bike tire pop (one of these is infinitely more likely than the other, but both seemed highly plausible at 3am). Finally morning came and we loaded up for the park. Seeing the sunrise over the lake was definitely a perk of having to get up so early.

(Top Right: Before picture; Bottom Right: After picture)

The lake seemed so oddly calm compared to the nervous energy pumping through my body. It didn't help that the race started in waves and the beginners were the last wave to go. Almost immediately after getting in the water, I thought to myself that there was no way I was going to be able to even finish the swim portion let alone the other two parts. I had not anticipated that the open water swim was going to be so hard and yet I (pun intended) felt like a fish out of water. But, I just kept swimming even though I had to keep my head above water. It was slower, but I made it.

The bike ride was my favorite leg. For the most part it was a pretty flat course. It had great views of the lake and a couple vineyards too. We made up some time on the ride; passing people gave me little bursts of energy.

Lastly, there was the run. I will never be a runner. I hate running so much. I dreaded it through our training schedule and I was dreading having to run it after swim and bike workouts put together. I'm not a fast runner, and I'm okay with that. I just wanted to complete the run to finish the race. But all the dread did not prepare me for the race course itself, which happened to be a trail run...with hills and then some more hills. It was brutal. But reaching that finish line never felt so good. All I can say is never underestimate the power of positive thinking ("I can do this"); that, and of course, huge incentives ("When I finish, I'm eating the biggest breakfast of my life!")

Final Race Time: 1 hour, 38 minutes

Did I mention it was hot in Pleasanton?

It was.

After finishing we went back to the hotel to rest a little, but then got increasingly hungry so quickly located some greasy breakfast food (and just as I promised myself, I ate a lot it).

We lounged around most of the afternoon, hitting up the hotel pool, me enjoying the hot sun while I could. We had already decided to celebrate our anniversary that night, so we did a little wine tasting a Wente Vineyards and then out to dinner at Oasis Grille and Bar.

Happy Anniversary Babe!

On Sunday, before heading back to the city, we stopped by another winery, Thomas Coyne. We sat out on a picnic bench, looking out over the vineyards. These last three years have been filled with lots of changes, and I'm so thankful that I have such an incredibly loving and supportive best friend and husband to "do life" with. Here's to many more happy anniversaries!

Cheers!

Walking the Bridge.

This weekend Micah's cousin came to visit us. As always, when we have visitors, we get to enjoy some of the more "traditional" SF sites. And of course, the most iconic of those sites is the Golden Gate Bridge. This is fine by me, because it gives me an excuse to take more pictures of my favorite bridge.

We only walked about half of the bridge. We were on a time restraint with a flight to catch.

And, wow, I had forgotten how frightening it is out there, wind blowing, cars zooming by you, great heights and monumental threats of falls. Oh, and the bridge physically shaking.

But, goodness. It is beautiful.

Lazy Pancakes.

What do you get when you combine a hankering for pancakes and the epitome of laziness?

Batter Blaster, that's what you get!

REVIEW:

• Pros: Easy, pancakes are light and fluffy, almost no clean up!
• Cons: Perhaps one of the more disgusting things a person could consume, takes a little bit of time to get used to flipping them, pancakes not very substantial (i.e. you'll be hungry in an hour).

p.s. I bought a new app (it's called Diptic) that lets me make collages and I love it!

who needs to eat on their birthday?

Last Sunday was Micah's birthday and to celebrate I planned a trip to Alameda Island to visit St. George Spirits, a fancy pants distillery almost in our backyard. And, well, the trip did not go exactly as planned, but we still had a lot of fun and I think you could call his birthday festivities a success.

We started out the day with a trip to the gym. I know, right. The gym? We are at the beginning of our sprint triathlon training and neither of us wanted to skip the workout. Anyway, we did a short swim and a short run and then bussed it across town to catch the ferry to Alameda. The plan was to get over there and have brunch, but I had sorely miscalculated the distances to the restaurant we were going to go to and then back to the distillery. We tried to call a taxi, but that did not work. So, here we are, having each eaten a banana and an energy bar, hungry post workout, and there was no food in sight. We didn't have much of an option than to walk over to the distillery that was about 1 mile away.

Lo and behold, we get close and spot an ice cream truck. Perfect!

Chips and ice cream, that will hold you over for about 10 minutes.

The distillery has an amazing view, looking across the bay, of San Francisco.

The tour was fun and informative. Not to mention it's just pretty plain cool to see the inside of the old hangar that now houses the distillery.

Every distillery has a shark, right?

St. George Spirits got their's from a company that makes the prototypes of animatronics. This shark was the mold for the one created for the movie the Deep Blue Sea.

And then we got to the tasting. I'll admit it probably would have been a little more enjoyable had we had food before the tasting. But, we went slow, enjoying ourselves, and drank lots of water too. All the beverages we tasted we're fabulous. The two we enjoyed the most (and bought bottles of to take home) were Buddha's hand (a citrus-y infused vodka) and a coffee liqueur that uses coffee beans from local roasters (it is insanely yummy).

Afterwards, we walked the mile+ back to the ferry, made our way back to SF, and immediately bought food (real food) to eat. Hey, we got to eat an actual meal before 5pm, I'll count that as a success?

We then went home and got ready to have some friends over for cake and ice cream. I made a cake (which I maintain is an essential part of every birthday). Unfortunately my mad decorating skills could not mask the not-so-moist-cake. I blame the recipe, I shouldn't have tested out a new recipe...

Happy Birthday Micah!

a quilt in progress, part 2.

I did some more work on my quilt this weekend. After cutting out all those squares, I needed to cut them into triangles. It was monotonous work, but thankfully it didn't take too long to accomplish. Again, it came in handy to have my trusty rotary cutter and cutting mat.

The basic gist is that all those triangle pieces will get sown together in a pinwheel shape.

See all those triangle pieces. I'm pretty excited about them.

One of the things that I've already learned about quilting is that the whole process is an exercise in patience. Each phase of quilting (so far) hasn't been difficult in the technique required, it just takes time and patience to measure and cut and measure and cut. I like that there is a rhythm to it, even if it is slightly mechanical. I also like the idea of little pieces being used to create something big and purposeful.

North Beach food tour.

Friday I had a staff retreat at work. It started off with tea and light snacks and from there moved full throttle into an afternoon of overindulgence at various eateries in North Beach (Little Italy). I really enjoy the occasional day when I get to be a tourist in my own city,

Our North Beach food tour started at Caffe Roma. And according to our tour guide, San Francisco is the capitol of coffee...although I'm pretty sure that there are a number of other places that would disagree with that statement, particularly places like Ethiopia (where coffee was born).

Anyway, we got the opportunity to get up close and personal with Caffe Roma's coffee roaster, while our guide talked about the roasting process and his uppity (I can point that out, because I have them too) views of coffee and how long beans are good for, etc. It was an interesting experience as the whole time I was thinking about a documentary I recently re-watched called Black Gold (which I would highly recommend by the way). The documentary explains the coffee trade and the ways in which commodity prices, international trade agreements, and the mega large coffee buyers in essence make sure coffee farmers never receive a fair, living wage in exchange for their product. Its basic premise supports the consumption of fair trade products. Which is a great place to start thinking about change, but in my opinion not a place to stop (not that you really asked for my opinion).

Moving along....

Next we strolled through Washington Square, past St. Peter and Paul Cathedral, over to Liguria Bakery; they've been around since 1911. They had already sold out and closed up for the day. Supposedly they sell out every day around 10:30am! But, luckily, our tour guide has the hook up and had some secret key to allow us to get to taste the wonderful goodness that is their foccaccia bread.

SO GOOD! We had the mushroom and pizza kinds, and both were phenomenal!

Next up on our culinary tour, was another bakery. We got to go behind the scenes and get up close and personal with one of the largest ovens I've ever seen. I'm sure it was some kind of health/sanitary hazard to have us back there, but it was interesting none the less. That is until the oven got turned on and in a matter of minutes became about 150 degrees back there.

After inhaling too many carbs to count, we made our way over to Z. Cioccolato. We got to see them made some fudge and they gave us some samples too. Unfortunately, I've never been a fan of fudge. In fact, I think it's disgrace to the candy/sweets realm. The consistency is just disgusting and the taste is downright overwhelming. So instead I took a picture of all the taffy they had, wish we had gotten samples of this instead!

The only natural thing to do when you've had nothing of real substance is to get a fish taco, which is exactly what we did. The guide took us to Nico's Tacos. It was a nice to have a bit of protein. And, I do mean a bit. I could have easily eaten about 5 of these.

The show stopper of the day though was by far the cannolis. Umm, hello, I have been missing out on this for years! The place is Victoria Pastry Co. and they literally make the cannoli when you order it. It is fresh my friends. Crispy shell with sweat pastry cream and chocolate chips and dusted with powdered sugar. Unbelievable! This culinary indulgence was worth enduring enjoying the whole tour.

And once you've eaten four pieces of foccaccia bread, one piece of sourdough, one biscotti, one fish taco, one blessed cannoli, and 3 mini slices of bread dipped in local olive oils, there will still be room for pizza.

There will always be room for pizza.

Especially, pizza that has sauce that is as good as the one pictured above from Cinecitta.

a quilt in progress, part 1

A little over a month ago I finished writing up a 30 by 30 list, that is, 30 things that I want to do/accomplish/experience before I turn 30. As of right now, I have yet to mark anything off my list, but this past weekend I started one of them. One of the things on my list is to make a quilt. I've been interested in quilting for over a year, but until recently I just couldn't muster up the courage to dive in.

The weekend before last my parents were in town. I took my mom to the big (and I mean 4-stories big) fabric store downtown. It's a bit overwhelming and intimidating when you're flying solo, but having my mom there was much more reassuring. She's experienced in sewing herself, so it was helpful to have her lend her expertise. Plus it's just more fun to fabric shop with another person, to get their opinion, to have another perspective.

She helped me pick out and limit down the fabrics I chose to make my very first quilt. And here they are!

I decided for my first quilt to do something slightly smaller in scale, so I chose to do a lap quilt for my living room. The color scheme in the room isn't that well defined, but there are some oranges/rusts, golds, tans, and blues. So those are the colors that I tried to keep in mind when picking out fabric.

The quilt pattern I chose is a pretty basic pinwheel design. So my first step was to cut 80 squares, which I will then cut into triangles. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't take me longer to cut out all the squares. Having the mat, ruler, and rotary cuter were lifesavers. I can guarantee that if I had had to cut those pieces by hand with a pair of scissors, my quilting hobby would have ended in a matter of minutes.

My next step is to cut all these squares in half to make 160 triangles. But then comes the fun part of designing the pinwheels and creating different color combinations.