Blogging buddies

Janet, Keith and me

One of the best things about blogging is meeting new people who share your interests. And one of the people I've most enjoyed getting to know in the past year is Keith Cartmell. (See his blog here.) Keith's posts often make me smile so I was excited to learn he and his wife would be visiting Nova Scotia this month. I got to know Keith through my friend Janet, who I also met through blogging. (Her blog is here.) It turns out we all like to like to write, cook, drink wine and stay active (running, cycling, whatever) so we have tonnes to talk about.

We three along with our spouses met up for supper last night at Janet's house. What a terrific evening! Janet and her husband prepared a fabulous dinner of scallops (to start) and salmon on the BBQ. Husband and I contributed an arugula salad with pears, walnuts and blue cheese and a decadent rum-soaked cake with whipped cream. Needless to say, we ate very well indeed. And talk - my goodness, did we talk - like long lost friends - about running, writing, food, politics - essentially, all the things we blog about. It was great fun.

We got together again this morning at Crescent Beach for a mellow 5k run/walk. I forgot to take my phone with me so you'll just have to take my word for it when I say it was lovely, despite being cool and misty. Here's an picture of Crescent Beach from a couple of years ago to give you the idea. It's a truly spectacular place to run.

I spent the rest of the weekend doing a 16k long run, cooking, shopping for shoes (I got some fun little booties for walking to work), riding my motorcycle, and taking a few photos. The theme for my photo group this week was black & white photography. Here are some of the shots I took over the past couple of days:

In short, it was a mellow weekend - which is a good thing because life has been just a tad stressful lately. Once again, I find myself puzzling over what I want to be when I grow up. (Will I ever figure it out? I'm 52, after all!) And Husband and I have been struggling with whether or not to put the country house on the market this fall. We love the house, but it seems downright silly to spend so much of our income maintaining two properties. On the other hand, neither one of us wants to give up the country life. Hopefully, things will become clearer over the winter. In the meantime, I plan to nestle in and savour whatever time we have left here.

Speaking of savouring, I had a pretty decent long run yesterday. My legs felt a bit tight from hill training Wednesday evening so I opted for an easy route along the river to Peace Park, then upriver to the footbridge and back. It felt great visiting the Park since it's one of my favourite places and I hadn't been there in months. As I was leaving, I ran into a couple of friends from community theatre days - almost 30 years ago!! (Yikes! Where has the time gone?) Seeing them reminded me of all the fun we had together. Community theatre is something I'd like to do again one day.

It's time now to sign off and get ready for the long week ahead. There's a fire in the fireplace to ward off the autumn chill in the air tonight. I'm disappointed summer is over so soon but the cooler temperatures should make it easier to tackle projects. For starters, I have to get my Rum Runners Relay team organized since the race is only three weeks away. After that, there's the little matter of prepping for a fall half marathon (What?!?!) More on that next time... :-)

Happy running and writing friends!

Another award! How nice.

So one of my favourite bloggers, the Blonde, nominated me for the Liebster Blog award a couple of days ago. I'm very honoured to have made it to her favourite blogger list once again and pleased to pay it forward by nominating five of my own favourite bloggers as recipients of the award: Keith, Janet, Jay, Brent and Beth.

According to the Blonde,  Liebster Blog award recipients should share 5 random facts about themselves and answer 5 questions.

5 Random Fact

1. I'm a cat person. (No great surprise there if you've ever read my blog.)

2. I'd rather spend money on art than furniture.

3. The biggest drawer in my dresser is reserved for running gear.

4. I didn't start running until I was 40 but still hope to be running in 40 years' time. (A girl can dream can't she?)

5. I wear black and grey suits to work nearly every day. (I know, boring. But I hate shopping too much to do anything about it.)

Questions

1. What is your mantra or motivational quote?  "Despair is a sin" or "I get to run when so many others don't."

2. What is the next big goal on your list?  My next big  non-running goal is to finish my novel. My running goal is to finish the Bluenose International Marathon in a personal best time.

3. What is your favourite place in the world and why?  Risser's Beach because I feel more myself there than any other place on the planet.

4. What's the best way to spend a recovery day?  Good question that I find hard to answer because I nearly always spend recovery days working. If I didn't have to work, I like to think I'd spend them reading, writing and cooking.

5. If you could travel and run a race anywhere, where would it be?  Another tough question. There are lots of places I'd like to visit but, to run a marathon, I'd have to say New York. Or Dublin. Or maybe Edinburgh. Or Athens. sigh. Nope, I can't decide.

Now, please go check out The Blonde Runs along with these five blogs:

Keith's Odyssey to Planet Fitness
Janet's Journal
Herd in the 'Hood
Relentless Forward Motion
Shut Up and Run