Public Libraries

Can I just say, I love my public library. Even though my beloved Roseville library is currently under construction and I have to go to its temporary location, I still love it. Actually, the temporary location is closer to me than the permanent location, so it's kind of a plus that they had to move over here for a year. There's nothing like free internet and free books.

Did you know that the Roseville branch of the Ramsey County Library system is the busiest public library in the state? It is. So not only do I love it, but apparently everyone else loves it too. And really, what's not to love? There's free internet. Thousands of books at my disposal to check out. A dvd rental selection that's rather large. A coffee shop. Too many perks to even list.

So I guess this is a big giant "Thank you" to my public library. If I wasn't unemployed, I probably wouldn't have fallen so in love with my library. So "THANKS" for all of the free services!

Running Clinic

Who knew Running Clinic was going to be so much fun?! Not me! The meeting tonight is our sixth meeting, meaning I'm half way done with the class and half way to my goal of running 10 miles. These first six weeks have gone by so fast that I know October 4th will be here in no time.

Last weekend we ran 6.2 miles (accomplished in 64 minutes in dreadfully humid weather). This weekend... 7 miles! This will be the first time I've ever ran past the 6.5 mile mark, so hopefully it all goes well. I wish I was going to be in town so that I could run with all of my new running friends, but I'll be home Blue Earth running on my own.

Last night we ran 8 hills. Not only am able to run more hills each week, but the time it takes me to tackle hill is getting faster. The first time I ran hills - 91 seconds to tackle the hill. Last night - 85 seconds. That's almost 10 seconds faster. And I was able to run up the hill 8 times, 85 seconds each time. Consistency is key!!!

The best part about running clinic... all of the new friends (Giselle, Celeste, AJ, Anmol, Julia). [Side note: Tracy, you're the best and I would really struggle without you.] I really thought that I was going to be the slowest person there and the most inexperienced. As it turns out, I'm one of the faster runners and have a decent amount of "running" knowledge already. I can't wait to learn more and make more friends.

And really, I can't wait for all of us to cross the finish line on October 4th!!!

Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes

This recipe makes a lot of cupcakes! I made almost 4 dozen cupcakes from this recipe. My bowl of batter was so very close to overflowing. It was quite interesting mixing the final few ingredients into the batter. I was very close to making a huge mess in my kitchen.

Martha suggests making your own vanilla frosting. Instead, I purchased fluffy white frosting and also used some chocolate fudge frosting. I think I liked the fluffy white frosting more, but who can turn down chocolate frosted buttermilk cupcakes? No one that I know of.

Since I got so many cupcakes from this recipe, I decided to freeze some of them. We'll see how well they thaw when I decide to remove them from the freezer. For whatever reason, these cupcakes seemed a bit on the dry side. So I really hope they aren't even more dry tasting when I thaw the frozen ones. I don't know if I mis-measured some of the dry ingredients but they just didn't seem as moist as I was hoping they would be. They were still good, just a little dry.

They were a huge hit with some of my former co-workers. I baked the batch the day before we met up for a happy hour. So not only do they miss me and my excellent "work" skills, but now they really miss me because they got a taste of the yummy cupcakes they don't get to eat. :)

Other than the chocolate chip cupcakes, these have been my favorite. Very classic recipe.

Dreaded Hills

Hills. To run them, can't really be described. I thought that I knew what it would be like to run up and down hills as a workout but they were so different than what I was expecting. I thought that I would hate them more than I actually do. Believe me, I don't love them by a long shot but they aren't as killer as I thought they would be.

Hills are very deceiving. You see it in front of you as you stand at the bottom and look up. Then you pump yourself up and tell yourself that you can tackle it. Then you're actually running up the hill and you get about half way up and want to stop. Once you're at the top, you're just huffing and puffing. The last thing you want to do is run back down and do it all over again. But as you're slowly running down to the bottom, you almost forget how painful it was running to the top. Then you do it all over again.

Today, Tracy and I ran up the horrible hill near my apartment. We decided to run hills in the morning since it's going to be 90 degrees today. So rather than run hills with our running clinic friends at 6pm when it's super hot outside, we decided to get them out of the way this morning while it was "cool". It felt like it was 100+ degrees outside while we were running. I checked the weather when we got back to my apartment, it was only 77 degrees.

So we get to the bottom of the hill (we did a 12 minute warm up run prior to arriving at the bottom of the hill). It didn't look that bad. It looked better than the Randolph hill we run with the running clinic group. Our goal, 2 sets of 4 hills (total of 8 hills). We'd previously ran 6 hills and 7 hills, so we figured why not just add one more. Big mistake! We ran the first hill and thought that we were going to die. We slowly jogged back down and got pumped to run up again. By the time we made it to the top the second time, we really thought we were going to die.

After finally catching our breath and we're back at the bottom, we're deciding how many hills we're actually going to run given that 2 hills have totally wiped us out, this girl comes up and completely charges the hill. I mean, she's sprinting. Obviously we couldn't let her just show us how it's done. So we buck up and start the insanity again.

Needless to say, we only managed 4 hills before jogging home. (And the last hill wasn't even the complete hill, we didn't go all the way down to the bottom before turning around to come back up.)

Raspberry Marble Cheesecakes

Creamy. Smooth. Delicious. These are some yummy cupcakes. These are also some pain-in-the-ass cupcakes to make. Although super good to eat, I probably won't make them again unless I really like the person who requests them.

I had way more cream cheese batter than I had crumbly graham cracker crust (you bake the graham cracker crust first, let cool, then fill with the cream cheese batter). There would have been an easy way to remedy this situation, just make some more graham cracker crust. But by the time I realized how short I was on crust, I just couldn't be bothered to make more. I was already 34 cupcakes in and the water bath was driving me crazy, so I just threw out the rest of the batter and called it good.

One problem, I don't think the water bath went far enough up the cupcake tin (3/4 of the way up the cupcake tin, as recommended by Martha) because the cupcakes didn't quite set-up as well as I would have liked. After they were cooled and refrigerated, they definitely needed to be eaten with a spoon instead of just by peeling away the paper liner. They were baked, just a little on the creamy side.

In regards to the water bath issue... you try and find a pan that is big enough to fit a cupcake tin in it plus water. I had to purchase a turkey roasting pan (thankfully it was on clearance at Target), which still wasn't quite the right size but I didn't know what else I was going to use. Once the first pan was baked, I had to figure out a way to un-wedge the cupcake tin from the water bath so that I could cool the cupcakes and get my next batch baking. I ran out of patience by the time the third batch was baking - hence me throwing away the extra batter instead of making more crust.

Next up: Yellow Buttermilk. I think these are going to be dangerously good.