My 10th Veg-iversary

My next few posts might be a little out of order, time-wise, but this is the order I feel like writing about things in, so hopefully you'll bear with me.

This past weekend I marked the 10th anniversary of my becoming a vegetarian by having a vegetarian potluck picnic out in a plaza by our apartment.  Here are the stars of the show:

Israeli salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, red peppers, and parsley).

Fruit salad (kiwis, pineapple, grapes, and nectarines).

Caprese salad (tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, drizzled with balsamic glaze).

 Guacamole.

Banana bread.

Zucchini cakes.

Key lime cookies.

Pasta salad number 1.

Quinoa salad with tomatoes.

French bread and cheese.

Bruschetta ingredients.

Pasta salad number 2.

Peanut butter chocolate ice cream.

It was great to have my friends celebrate with me and eat so much delicious food.  It made me want to have a veg-iversary every year!

Half marathon training is going well.  Yesterday my best friend and I ran 11.5 miles, which was a distance record for both of us.  We won't run that much again until the actual half marathon, which is in less than 2 weeks!  I got a blister on my toe, but other than that the run was really successful.  We ran along the Emerald Necklace, which is a string of pretty green areas with nice trails to run on.  We ran all the way from the beginning to Jamaica Pond and back.  The weather was perfect for running, and we were really proud of ourselves.  I'm excited for the half marathon!

Classes have started again, and so far, mostly so good.  I'm really excited about a couple of them, and I think I'm going to learn a lot of new things.  This is the first time I've ever taken any sort of economics, and the class I'm taking is not introductory level.  It should be a good challenge!

I'm going to go do laundry now.  I really need to get more running shorts.  Actually, I guess sooner than I'd like it will be pants season :(

Continuing with the updates

I left off with my family vacation in Maine at the beginning of August.  This post has a lot of pictures, since I really enjoy taking pictures in Maine.  This is the house we were staying in:

We've gone to Maine every year, but this was the first time we'd stayed in this cottage.  It was nice, and it had a great view.  My dad really liked how the trees framed the view from the front porch:

Check out that sunset!  Also, check out this delicious pizza, with Maine blueberries, gorgonzola cheese, and walnuts on the side.  Probably this is the most delicious pizza in the world:

We got this pizza for me and my fiance, and we went with my parents to a lobster place so that they could get lobster.  We ate our food in the lobster dining area, and it had this beautiful view:

Also, my dad and I did our annual kayak race.  Here's a picture of us practicing for it earlier in the week:

Don't we look cool?  The race went well.  We got 18th place out of more than 30 boats, with no serious mishaps.  Overall, Maine was great.  My parents, brother, and I were there for the first part of the week, then our family friend came up from Boston for a day, and then my brother went home and my fiance came up for the weekend.  We had a lot of ice cream, went to a movie, took some relaxing naps, and read books on the porch.

I'm still very excited about my new bike.  And now I'm going to babysit, so I'll continue with this later.  Have a good day!

Caroline's bicycle emporium!

It's been ages since I last posted, but my latest news is that I got a new bike!  Currently I am in possession of 3, yes 3, bikes!  I'm calling it Caroline's bicycle emporium, and here's a picture:

And here's the star of the show, my new bike:

I sold my "old" bike on Craigslist (the person didn't want to take it home today in the rain, so he's coming to pick it up on Thursday if the weather is nicer, which is why I still have it) and my fiance found this new one at a yard sale around the corner from us.  It's probably 15 years newer, and much fancier and nicer.  It's lighter and shinier and the gear shifters are on the brakes instead of on the down tube, which makes it easier to shift.  And thanks to my serious bargaining skills, I managed to buy the new one for the same price I sold the old one for!  So basically a free upgrade, and everyone's happy.  And now I will be so fast!

In other news, I can't believe I haven't posted since my triathlon.  It went great, and I got 3rd place in my age group, and first place for women in the swim, second to only one guy!  Here I am getting numbered:

I definitely want to do another triathlon, but my schedule has turned out to be so busy since this one that I don't think I'm going to have time to do another one this summer, at least before it becomes wetsuit season (and I don't plan on buying a wetsuit anytime soon).  I'll probably try to do some more next summer, packed in between the 7 or so weddings that we're going to.  And with my new bike, I should be even better!

I remember what I've done and what I want to write about in my blog by looking through the pictures I've taken.  Here are some of those things:

-One of my close friends visited in July, and we went to the Boston Public Library.  It's a cool place to check out if you're visiting Boston.  There are two parts, the old part and the new part, and they're both really impressive, with an atrium in the middle with a fountain.
-Later that week, my lab went to see the Hubble 3D Imax.  I highly recommend it, if you can stomach Imax movies.  Personally, I don't think I've ever met an Imax movie that I didn't like.
-The next weekend I went to visit my fiance in New York City.  We stayed with two different couples that we're friends with, and saw the Broadway show American Idiot.  The performance was really good, but it didn't have much of a plot, to say the least.  But the singing was good, and we had front row seats thanks to winning the rush ticket lottery (you still have to pay for the tickets, but they're much cheaper and usually for excellent seats).  We also had a celebrity spotting - we saw Jennifer Garner at Chelsea Market!

Yes, that's my shoulder making a cameo on the right.
-We went to Minneapolis to visit my fiance's family.  While we were there, we checked out the new Twins stadium by biking there to watch a game.  Minneapolis has these cute bike paths with mini signs for stop and yield and such.  We had a really nice visit, and enjoyed this sign a lot:

The next week was my family vacation, but it's time to go to bed now, so I'll finish updating in a later post.  Good night, and leave me a comment!

It's been rainy here in Boston...

Last Saturday I went up to Peabody to do a day of Habitat for Humanity.  As we were driving back, it started raining really hard, and the roads were flooding.  We were in an SUV, but by the time we got back to drop some people off in the dorms, the water was so high that the car stalled!  We had to get out and push it!  Here's a picture from after we got it to a parking lot on higher ground:

After the build day, my fiance and I went with my friend's boyfriend to watch her play in the pit orchestra for a high school level production of The Producers.  It was a great show, especially considering the ages of the actors.  The next morning, we had blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and we marveled at the oddity that is this blueberry:

It has 2 stems!  One coming out of each end!  Incredible!  Well, I thought so, anyway.  It's life and glory ended in the usual way that blueberries go, which is to say it was eaten.  I can't personally vouch for its taste, but the rest of the batch was delicious. 

Less than 4 days till my triathlon!  I'm very excited!  Perhaps I should be practicing my biking more, but I did get a fancy new pair of shorts for the bike/run and tinted goggles for the swim.  I checked the results from last year, and there were only 3 participants in my age/gender category.  I hope it's the same this year, since the top 3 get awards :)  We'll see.

Good night!

Happy 4th of July!

Some friends and I went out for brunch (pictured below), and then some other friends and I went to watch the fireworks. The Boston Pops play a concert before the fireworks, and hundreds of thousands of people show up to listen and watch. The fireworks show was great, as usual. From brunch, banana chocolate chip pancakes with patriotic sprinkles:

A cool shot of a pretty evening sky:

My best picture of fireworks:

I think these fireworks look like jellyfish:

And that's it for tonight!  A post of mostly pictures.  Wish me luck with sleeping in this heat!

Yesterday I biked to Salem

My cousin, her husband, and their 2 adorable kids live in Salem, and they were having a backyard party sort of thing yesterday with a bunch of their friends and their friends' kids.  I had been meaning to visit, and what better day than a day when they would feed me and I'd get to play outside with a bunch of cute kids?  Biking there was easier said than done, though.  It should have been about 18.5 miles, but considering how much I got lost, it was probably at least 20.  Every few miles, I'd have to call my fiance, tell him where I was, and ask for the next step so that I could get back onto the directions I'd written out beforehand.  I don't know if it's a Massachusetts thing or what, but there are an incredible number of intersections where none of the roads are labeled, or only one is, and you get to play the game of guessing what road you're on or crossing.  But in the end, I made it to Salem safe and sound, and just in time to put in my order for a veggie burger on their new grill :)

I hung around for the whole afternoon, including a brief rain shower.  I got to hold my 3-month-old first-cousin-once-removed for a good amount of the time, and he is so cute and snuggly!  On the down side, he did spit up on me at one point.  His older brother is 2 years old, and similarly adorable.  Unlike the stereotypical terrible twos, he was friendly, well-behaved, and excited to play with me.  I also got to see my cousins' new house, which they moved into less than 6 months ago.  It has some fun 1950's decor, which I like because I've been watching Mad Men.  Unfortunately, they don't have period furniture.  Well, one step at a time.

Getting home was much less of an adventure because I decided to take the commuter rail.  It's really convenient, even with a bike, since they have slot sorts of things to slide bikes into, and straps to secure them.

I figure this bike ride was good for me, though, since I've signed up for a triathlon that's coming up in less than 3 weeks.  I somewhat spontaneously joined the Triathlon Club here, and I've been to a couple of their swim practices now.  With my running for my half marathon in September, I should be ok to make it through a triathlon in 3 weeks, even if I don't leave my competitors in the dust.  I'm actually just planning to finish :)

On a surprising note, my research has been going a bit better lately.  In fact, we might even get to put some of it in the Science Museum!  I don't know how certain that is, so I won't describe it too much now, but I'm very excited and hopeful!

Leave me some comments if  you're still reading!  Good night!

I haven't posted in a while

It's been a while, but things are going well.  A lot has happened since I last wrote, including the end of crew and classes, the 5 Boro Bike Tour, an OK Go concert, 2 weddings, a weekend at the Cape, a trip to Vermont, and oh yeah, getting engaged!  That's right, my boyfriend (now fiance!) and I got engaged about 3 weeks ago!  We're starting to plan a wedding for next summer, and it's a lot more work than we thought it would be.  But don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a wedding blog.

I just got back from running 7 miles in preparation for the half marathon that my friend and I are doing at the end of September.  Now that crew is over, I am partly luxuriating in and partly lamenting the freedom/burden of determining my own workouts every day.  To counteract my occasional indecisiveness, I'm considering joining the triathlon team.  If you don't know me from real life, it might help to know that I've been swimming for my whole life, I bike everywhere I go, and clearly I run at least somewhat.  So triathlons are not completely out of the blue.  I went to my first triathlon swim practice yesterday, and it was a fun and interesting experience.  Unlike normal swimming, triathlon involves more than just swimming as fast as you can by yourself.  In the case of this practice, that meant practicing swimming in formation to take advantage of drafting off of other swimmers.  We also practiced coming around from behind and passing the rest of the formation.  I'd never done anything like that before, and it was fun!  I also felt hardcore when we were swimming in the diamond formation and to pass people we had to break through the front of the diamond.  So that's my athletics update.

My fiance (!) and I made blueberry muffins last night because blueberries were on an excellent sale at the grocery store (buy 1 container, get 2 free!).  They turned out delicious, even though we substituted applesauce for some of the butter. 

One of my friends offered to take engagement photos for us, so last week we went around Boston and Cambridge and took some pictures.  She's a really talented photographer, and we had a great time.  In the end, we ended up with some professional-quality shots, which you can bet will be on our wedding website!  Here's one, just for fun:

Ok, so even after all that time, I don't feel like writing any more, plus I could really use a shower after running.  I hope you enjoyed the update!