7/31-8-2

I have been blessed this summer with lots of adventure even when I am home. Living with Liz and Garett has truly been a joy.

The three of us get along very well and help each other out on a regular basis. It was my turn to do the weekly menu and shopping. We find it to be very helpful to create a weekly menu and create our shopping list based off the meals we’ve picked. It helps us to not over spend and/or waste food. We decided Monday to have Milka and Jaimie over for dinner. I took leftover veggies from the fridge to make the veggie stew with beans and vegetable stock. Milka brought an amazing crusty bread and Jaimie brought delightful peanut butter almond milk ice cream for dessert. It was a great ladies’ night as we talked about upcoming adventures. Jaimie will be moving to Thailand in October, I cannot wait to go visit her. If you want to follow her adventure there, check out her stunning blog. https://sonderlust.blog. Milka and Michael leave Thursday to go to glacier National Park. They will be camping the entire time. If there are two people who can camp for ten plus days it’s them. For my past birthday Jaimie gifted me a beautiful amber rock and we decided as friends to start bringing it on our adventures. Once the trip is over we pass it to the next friend. I started out with it on my adventure out East. Milka is taking

it to Glacier and then Jaimie will be taking it to Thailand until we come and visit her. Our version of the traveling pants. I began my running schedule this week for a long- distance run in October. I am contemplating between doing another half and save the full for 2018 or running the whole thing in October. I will gage my body as I continue to train. I want to push myself but avoid an injury. I woke early on Tuesday morning and worked out with Milka. We did body weight exercises to strengthen our muscles. I lost muscle during my last running schedule. I am hoping to reduce the amount of muscle I lose during this training by continuing to lift weights once or twice a week. I will also continue to do yoga once a week and ride my bicycle regularly. My schedule will be posted in the exercise log. Wednesday was a much-needed day of cleaning. I was finally able to finish the laundry, do some vacuuming, dusting and organizing. I decided after getting my work done I felt the urge to use my gift card to the Gap. I highly recommend the Gap this week for sale items, the sale mark down is 53%. They have a variety of sizes still and have several racks to peruse through. Due to the current flowy style, the sizes tend to run a bit larger. While I was there I found the perfect black dress to wear to an upcoming family wedding. The best part was discovering the dresses name is April and had the perfect clearance price of $15. I do believe it was made just for me. I did find another dress reduced to $13 dollars that is very cute. It was a very successful day shopping. The day finished with a delicious beast burger (vegan patty) and baked Brussel sprouts. If you have never baked sprouts in the oven I highly recommend it. By baking them the bitterness goes away and the flavor comes out. Remove the outer leafy layer, Cut the fresh sprouts in half, add EVOO, salt and pepper. Bake at 350 for about thirty minutes, checking to make sure they are done. I will end this by adding a link to the recipe that includes a short video if you want a closer look.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/67952/roasted-brussels-sprouts/.

"Best wishes and best dishes" as Ms. Dean would say. Love, April