Racing and crafting

Things have been a little different at my job lately, my partner at night moved to day shift on another floor and in order to have coverage on more days they asked if I would work 5 eight hour shifts per week or 11p-7a Monday-Friday so that is what I have been doing lately.  I had already signed up for the Kaiser Permanente 5K race in Atlanta for Thursday Sept, 13 so I asked if I could just come in a little late that night.  So I came home Thursday morning, slept a bit and off to Atlanta I went. 

 

We got there super early to make sure we could get parking since the race was going to be so large.  It was a warm day but there was a nice breeze and we checked out the Expo and hung out listening to the music until Jason's Deli arrived with our box lunches.  We chowed down and then walked back through the Expo again to see what else had been put up since before.  I met my new boyfriend, Mr. Broccoli.  Then we warmed up with the group exercise.

 

This was a HUGE race, when we lined up you couldn't see the front or the back of the swarm of people.  The race started at Turner field, made a loop around the capitol and then ended back at Turner.

 

It was slow getting started due to the sheer number of people that were participating, however it started to open up a little into the race.  We finished in 35:45 which was pretty good, I have not run in 4 weeks, yikes!  The marathon training burned me out from running so I decided to drop it.  I think I may do another half though, I enjoyed that length and the training was not nearly so time consuming.  

 

The sunset was beautiful at the end, we grabbed our t-shirts and headed out, stopped for a delicious milkshake on the way home.  I stopped by the house showered up and headed to work.  Running this race definitely has me wanting to do more 5Ks!

I made Arnetra's baby Zachariah a present the other day and took it to her at work.  I used the caps off of vials from work that I had saved for a long time and never knew what to do with them to cover the frame.  I made the background with fabric and cut out of scrapbook paper the moon and caterpillar.

Homemade detergent and more zucchini

 

I got both of these ideas/recipes from Pinterest.  Above are Zucchini "tots" or bites,  I have linked to the recipe.  They are very easy to make and Clay really loved these, in fact I think that I will be making another batch tomorrow.

 

I am giving the homemade laundry detergent a try as well.  I got this recipe from HERE. I made up a batch tonight and will give it a try tomorrow and will update this post with my thoughts on it below.  The cost of the ingredients above was less than $8 and will make many gallons of detergent since it uses only as much as 3tbsp of each per gallon.  I am excited about this.

Review:  I use an HE front-loading washer  and was excited and apprehensive to try out a load.  Good news!  Everything turned out perfectly fine, not noticeable suds.  As others mentioned on the linked website it does not leave clothes with a particular scent other than clean.  I even added a little tea tree oil to mine since I typically added it to my laundry anyway to help combat musty odors thanks to GA humidity.  This is awesome!  The $8 I spent yesterday should do our laundry for 2 for a year or more.  

Zucchini gets my vote!

 

Not sure what inspired me today but I felt like baking a little something.  I saw this recipe for Zucchini Lemon Bread a few days ago and had the link pulled up on my computer and finally put myself into gear today.   I made a few small changes based on what I had on hand.  I subbed some apple banana sauce since I didn't have plain apple sauce, I also didn't have quite enough so I added 2tsps of coconut oil.  I didn't have wheat flour so I used all purpose plus 2tbsp flax meal.  I didn't have buttermilk to I used the recommended amount of milk plus 1.5tsp white vinegar.  I also didn't have white sugar so I used 1/3cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup splenda.  I think I also added an extra 1/2 cup of zucchini too.  This bread is super dense and moist and I really liked it sprinkled with a bit of cinnamon.