Carbo Loading at the Village Bakery

With my next marathon less than two weeks away, it's time to start thinking about carbo loading to avoid bonking and the Village Bakery in Lake Placid has plenty of carbohydrates to choose from.

The Village Bakery bakes fresh Italian loaves, French baguettes, boules and petit pans daily.

There is a weekly bread schedule with specialty loaves on certain days. My favorite day would be Saturday because of the tasty focaccia and olive bread that comes out of the oven.

♥ Olive You! ♥

It's not just bread, there is an assortment of muffins, turnovers, and chocolate croissants available too. I cannot tell a lie, even if I wasn't about to run 26.2 miles, I'd still find myself at the bottom of Mill Hill at the Village Bakery. Who can resist fresh baked goods?

Eek! The First Sound of Winter

The seasons have changed.

I'm not talking about seeing the first snowfall accumulation on Friday and hearing my husband rustle around in his ski pants at 5:00 am the next morning to ski up the Toll Road before work. The sound of winter is a noise that wakes me from a sound sleep at 3:30 am and makes me lose sleep. The noise of mice scurrying in our bedroom ceiling. It happened. Last night.

In bed I feared the worst and could not fall back asleep. Thoughts ran through my head. Could this little animal gnaw through the ceiling and fall on me while I sleep? I haven't seen any droppings and the fun size Snickers haven't been touched, maybe I'm just hearing things.

Just when I convinced myself that it must have been the wind against the window, I heard some more scurrying. I let out an Eek! and quickly covered my head with the covers and nudged my husband who simply rolled over and said, "There's nothing I can do right now." Geez, thanks for comforting me. At least I had the cat on the other side to protect me.

There you have it folks, the first sound of Winter. Tonight after work I will buy some peppermint oil and cotton balls and madly place them around the house because apparently mice hate the smell. I will also start researching how to shoot mice with a gun that I don't yet own. As for Drew, you better believe he'll be setting the traps with peanut butter.

Equine Center aka Bomb Shelter

When I first moved to the area almost a decade ago, I had this sweet deal through work and paid only $100 a month to live in this little apartment on the old Lake Placid Club property.

When I wasn't surrounded by snow drifts in the winter, you could see that I lived in the middle of a parking area for the tennis courts. During the day, when I was actually inside (rare), the door would get knocked on asking if I was the Tennis Pro. At night, I would wake up to the sound of cars slowly driving in and parking. I started to recognize the cars that were either doing drug deals or parking to make out. My cinder block apartment never really felt like home and my friends referred to it as the "Bomb Shelter."

Turns out the "Bomb Shelter" is now surrounded by horses.

The Equine Center now has a location here and they offer horseback riding, carriage and sleigh rides. As my dedicated readers know, I have a problem with motion sickness so I will not provide you with a review of the horseback riding. I shall leave that to someone else.

No offense horsies, but I sure am glad I don't live in the "Bomb Shelter" anymore. I hope you enjoy the teenage face suckers more than I did.

Help Stop Hunger?

How can I "Help Stop Hunger" when there isn't any candy for me to buy to end my own personal hunger?

Friday's Flight of Stairs

This post is another little glimpse into our home renovation progress for friends and family that won't be visiting our stairwell along the Ausable anytime soon. Oh, and I can't forget the maniacs out there like me that spend hours looking these silly things up on the internet. I thought I'd share with you our latest house project, painted and stenciled stairs.

Years ago, even before moving, I had ripped out a page from Country Home Magazine and kept it in a folder. Turns out, my sister tore out the same picture for me. I never knew if we'd have stairs some day, let alone ones we could paint as beautiful as these stairs I drooled over in a magazine.

Turns out we ended up with a narrow painted grey stairwell that was sandwiched in by lovely wood panelling. We ripped down the faux wood (correction, Drew ripped it down), and went to work on new walls. It's been a long process, but I was patient waiting to get up close and personal with the stairs.

Before

AND

After

So, there you have it, our flight of stairs painted in green with a stencil on the risers. Does this mean I can finally recycle that magazine picture?

We have one more day of driving the cats insane by locking them up and sealing the stairs with a polyurethane. Yeah, that's fun. Um, not. Oh well, Happy Friday!

p.s. If anyone out there would like our extra gallon of Louisville Mint Julep floor paint, let me know!

It's Nana Time!

Over the years, I have picked up the nickname, Nana. Yes, as in the old lady Grandma kind of way. As the seasons change and darkness creeps in on us, the Nana in me is more noticeable. I like to go to bed early, before all my television shows even start.

Just now, I ignored my phone ringing downstairs because it was 9:00 pm. Most friends and family know I'm pretty much not available to talk at that hour. However, I listened to my voice mail and it went something like this: "Hi Nana. It's 8:59 and I thought I'd be safe calling you before nine, but I guess not. I'll just have to catch up with you tomorrow to coordinate our run together."

This made me laugh because she is a new friend and has caught on rather quickly to my habits. Her five year old daughter lasts longer than me at parties. Do you think I can use the last month of marathon training as an excuse because I need to rest my muscles and sleep should be a priority?

When Drew asked why I was laughing at my message, I filled him in and he proceeded to laugh along. I decided to come clean about what caught my eye on the bulletin board at the bank this afternoon. There was a flyer that said: "Do you like to eat? Do you like to play bingo?" YES, YES, I DO!!! Before copying the information down, I noticed the fine print welcoming me to a night of socializing at the senior citizen home.

Yup, that's me, Nana along the Ausable. Good Night!