I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a fun holiday weekend! It was different this year, with the mandates against gathering, but we managed to have a pleasant week. Before I get to that, here’s how my workouts went:
Monday: Walk 4 miles + Track Intervals
Tuesday: Walk 4 miles, 25-minute Beginner Bike Workout
Wednesday: Walk 4 miles, 30-miute Bike Interval workout + Strength
Thursday: Walk 1 mile, otherwise rest
Friday: Walk 1 mile, Treadmill 4 miles
Saturday: Walk 4 miles, Heavy Strength, Bike Intervals
Sunday: Walk 4 miles, Trail Run 5 miles
I celebrated the solstice by beating the sun to my favorite Oval Office. The world would be a better place if everyone visited this one on the regular. Endorphins do a body and soul good!
We had to shorten a couple of our walks this week, because winter arrived with a vengeance. Single digits is not my idea of fun walking weather, and it’s downright dangerous for Ozzy.
Easing into cycling. While I used to attend 2 studio spin classes every week and ride my road bike all summer long, over the past year I’d gotten away from cycling. My maiden rides on my new bike felt hard, although I love LOVE it. It has a nice, smooth, solid ride and it’s totally silent. Definitely need to awaken those long-dormant cycling muscles.
Christmas Star. It was not visible here on the night of the solstice, no thanks to heavy overcast but we did see it the next evening. Of course I failed to take a pic.
Christmas Eve. Since it was just the four of us this year, we opted for take-out. We all agreed we’d get something from P.F. Chang’s and placed an order at 4:30, anticipating a substantial wait. The wait in fact was 2 hours. Yowza. But we sucked it up and waited. When 6:30 approached we headed over for curbside pickup. At least 50 cars waited in the parking lot, including two police squads. That should have been our first red flag. As we sat there no orders ever came out. They did not answer their phone. The Caveman went in to retrieve our food and was met by two police officers at the pickup desk, who said they were waaay behind on food orders and it’d be another 2+ hours until we could hope to see our order. Can you imagine?? Apparently a riot had broken out and the freaking police had to break the news to keep the peace. Ha! We cancelled and picked up pizza on the way home. Note to self: No more Christmas Eve takeout and I’m already planning to cook at home on New Year’s Eve.
Christmas Day. This went much more smoothly since I was stubborn and insisted on cooking the whole Christmas dinner for just us four. The Christmas ham and everything else came out amazing and it was really nice to spend time with our little family.
Gluten-free Gingerbread Biscotti for the win!
Baking with the kids. While I used to be an enthusiastic holiday baker, being gluten-free doesn’t agree with baking so much. This year my girls were up for baking, which thrilled me.
These red velvet numbers had white chocolate chips and a cream-cheese filling. Woof!
They each made a cookie recipe of their choice while I conjured up some gluten-free Gingerbread Biscotti, that turned out amazing. I’m not sure if anyone is interested in the recipe now that Christmas is in the rearview mirror but I’d be happy to share if you are.
Ozzy very dutifully supervised the gingerbread house construction.
Family visits from a distance. I hadn’t seen my mom since her birthday back in September so we did a drive-by visit. We also stopped at the cemetery to visit my dad’s grave.
Watching
We finished Shtisel and loved it. We watched George Clooney’s new movie Midnight Sky and I’m sorry but we turned it off. What a snore. We also watched Enola Holmes, which was pretty good.
How was your week? Did you see the Christmas Star? What are you watching?
I’m linking up with Kim and Deborah for the Weekly Run Down. Join us!
Yikes on the Christmas Eve brawl at P.F. Chiang’s! We got take-out pizza, but the little place we ordered from was not overwhelmed, so it went smoothly. I love the photos of your Oval Office. You are working harder than the occupier of the other one. 😉 I’m done with baking for a while, but am looking forward to making New Year’s Day soup with our ham bone.
I guess I shouldn’t laugh about the riot at PF Changs, but isn’t that just a sign of the times? Wow. People are crazy. Glad you had a good backup plan. Your cookies look great! RA is not happy with all the sugar I’ve been eating.
We also turned off Midnight Sky. It was awful.
Wow, that take-out situation sounds like such a disaster! We were debating getting carry out on NYE but now I’ll be rethinking that. Glad you were able to find some gluten free recipes to make!
Wowza on the PF Changs indeed! Since Christmas isn’t a big deal for us, I just cooked a regular meal. I guess we’re lucky! Got some pick up sushi today and that was fine, too.
I definitely wouldn’t take Bandit out in the single digits. Teens is about as low as he’ll go, and even that has to be sunny & no wind (like today, only Mr. Judy walked him while I ran).
Too bad about Midnight Sky. That’s still in our queue. We watched the Wilds on Amazon Prime & liked it. Started Away on Netflix, which Mr. Judy has watched, but I haven’t. And watched more movies than normal.
Glad you’re enjoying your bike! I haven’t been able to squeeze in a cycle this week, but I plan to be back at it next week.
I’m glad you had a nice Christmas with your family. My kids were never very enthusiastic bakers, but the older daughter now is making fancy cut-out cookies almost on the weekly. She has a lot of artistic talent, so it’s fun to see her creations…though I feel guilty biting into them LOL We’re feasting (alone) on NYE as well.
I had ridden a bike in a few years and then I got on, boy was it hard. You’ll be killing it before you know it.
I haven’t been watching any movies.
So far on Netflix – Emily in Paris, Dead to Me, Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias, Broadchurch. Nothing that great…mostly ight stuff except for the last one which is a murder mystery.
We had a similar incident happen w a Cinco de Mayo order minus the brawl and the police.People are just nuts sometimes! I am glad you are enjoying the bike. I am always amazed by how different bike shape and running shape are. That’s one of things I loved about doing Sprint Tri races it kind of forced me into both all the time. I also thought that new Clooney movie looked boring
Ooh la la! The red velvet cookies look delicious. I cut way back on the Christmas baking and only made things that I knew the whole family would eat since I’m determined to come out of quarantine at the same weight that I went in. I can’t tell when season 3 of Shtisel is coming out but I know it’s got to be soon. I’ve been on a cycle of doing jigsaw puzzles while “watching” the Crown. It’s such a slow going show that I can’t watch it without doing something else at the same time, yet for some reason I can’t stop watching it…I midway through the last season so the madness is almost over.
Yikes about the Christmas Eve dinner debacle! We had a similar experience with Cheesecake Factory for Mother’s Day dinner earlier this year. No police presence, but they were way behind on orders and we ended up canceling. I think that sometimes the restaurants don’t realize the high demand they will have on the holidays. Glad to hear that Christmas dinner went much better!
Those red velvet cookies look absolutely delicious!
Wow that situation at PF Chang sounds just insane…and oh so 2020!
That gingerbread biscotti looks so good! I always make a coffee-cashew biscotti as part of our cookie line-up. I may need your recipe to add to the future collection.
Those red velvet cookies look very tasty!
That’s a crazy story about P.F. Chang’s..oh my! We did take out for Christmas Day that we picked up a few days before and it was made to be re-heated. It was good! I’ve been happy to be able to support our local restaurants that are offering this and haven’t encountered any crazy delays! At least there was back-up pizza as an option!
No Christmas Star here either. Too overcast and when it finally cleared up later in the week, I couldn’t find it. That’s crazy for PF CHangs. Why have people lost their ever loving minds? A friend had the same – less the police – for Boston Market.
Sous chef Ozzy, adorable as always
Oh wow about the dinner from PF Chang. Glad at least you had some pizza. Now I am in the mood for it too. I did not see the Christmas Star because I didn’t know about it. Somehow I missed it on the news/social media. Yikes! Currently watching Selena and am liking it.
That’s crazy about that PF Chang orders! I made spaghetti and my family chuckled at that suggestion. But when I mentioned there was garlic bread and “special” pasta sauce involved they were happy about it 🙂
We didn’t see the star – it was too low on the horizon here to view in a built-up suburban area, and cloudy too. Grrr. Well done on a great week and love all the baking. Mr Liz did a turkey dinner for just us two and it was amazing! Of course we then had the exact same on Boxing Day and he’s still having leftovers tonight! Happy New Year!
Awww! It sounds like a nice week.
We always get Chinese takeout on Christmas Eve, but it’s from a small local place and even this year, we didn’t have any trouble. That’s crazy PF Chang’s got so overwhelmed! Although now I would love some Mongolian Beef.
We watched Midnight Sky. It was… artsy? And sad. I didn’t hate it but it was definitely not what I imagined. We also saw WW84, and the Richard Jewell movie. Oh, and I did The Flight Attendant, too.