Is It Friday Already?

I survived my week!  Sorry I didn't do much updating (other than posting a few Formspring answers), but I like having photos on the blog and I didn't have time to download them from my phone until today.  This will be a pretty long post, so grab something to drink and get in a comfy position.

Monday was pretty much a typical day until the evening.  After work and running I attended a Yelp Elite BBQ party at Radius.  Here was the menu:

Unfortunately, I got there 30 minutes after the event started, but in that short amount of time they had already run out of the pulled pork, brisket, corn bread, and most of the potato salad!  The wings were pretty tasty though and I liked the space and the owner's impassioned speech about his employees and using local ingredients, so I'd definitely try it again for a regular meal.

Tuesday was a little more of a challenge because I had to fit in a cross-training workout along with work and The Go-Go's concert later at The Fillmore.  I decided it would be easier to work out before work instead of running around like a crazy person after work, so I got up extra early to do my 50 minutes of cross-training at the gym (25 minutes elliptical, 15 minutes bike, 10 minutes stair climber in case you're interested).

I met my friends at The Fillmore later and we took a photo of the collage that turned out to be what was used on the awesome free poster that they gave away!  

Artwork by Jason Mecier

The collage was gorgeous as you can hopefully see.  (The iPhone just doesn't do it justice.)  The artist's name is Jason Mecier and you should check out his website to see some amazing work.  He's a mosaic artist and will make artwork out of anything.  This piece of artwork had everything:  tampon boxes, make-up containers, bandage boxes...the works.  Really beautiful.  The poster was cool, too, so I'm going to Cheap Pete's on Geary and get one of their white frames:

Anyway, The Go-Go's came on at 9 and played until 10:15.  They were as good as all the times I'd seen them in the past and everyone had a blast!  The band was tight, Belinda's voice was strong, and they were all getting along and having fun.

I was counting and the first show I saw was their last tour in the 80's with Jane at the Greek Theater.  Then I saw them twice in the 90's:  once at Shoreline Amphitheater with The B-52's and Psychedelic Furs and later at The Warfield.  Then I saw them a few years ago at The Independent on Divisadero.  

Here was the setlist from my trusty iPhone notepad:

Vacation

Tonight

How Much More

Get Up and Go

Mad About You (cover of Belinda's solo song)

Lust to Love

Mother's Little Helper (cover of The Rolling Stones song!)

Automatic

Fading Fast

Cool Jerk

Cool Places (cover of the song Jane sang with Sparks)

This Town

Unforgiven

Our Lips Are Sealed

Skidmarks on My Heart

We Got the Beat

Encore:

Beatnik Beach

Fun with Ropes

Head Over Heels

Wednesday I came home from work and prepared a huge pasta salad for our company picnic on Thursday.  There was a lot of chopping and dicing involved, but here was the finished product:

I must say that it turned out really well!  Pasta salad isn't that complicated, but I did use a recipe that I ended up tweaking.  For one, it called for 8 oz. of tomato sauce to be mixed with 8 oz. Italian dressing.  That sounded weird to me and it sounded weird to other people, too, so I just used 16 oz. of Italian dressing.  I also omitted the mushrooms and used a yellow pepper that I had on hand.  Whole wheat pasta would have made this even healthier, but I wasn't sure how that would go over at a company picnic.  

Speaking of healthy, I made these awesome (and relatively healthy) "no bake" cookies right after the pasta was done:

Just oats, maple syrup, cocoa, and peanut butter.  They satisfy my sweet tooth without making me feel guilty!

After making the pasta salad and the cookies, I went to a free yoga class at Lululemon on Union St.  It was from 7:30-8:30 and it was the first time I'd taken a yoga class from an instructor other than one at 24 Hour Fitness.  (Oh, except a couple of Bikram classes, but that's a whole other arena of yoga.)  It was crowded, but I felt great after class.  I might start going on Wednesdays after my runs since it's so convenient.

Yesterday was the first night that I stayed in all week and it was so nice!  We left our company picnic at Golden Gate Park around 2:30 and I drove up to the Beach Chalet to change into my running gear and do my 5 mile training run.  It was so great for a couple of reasons:

1.  I ditched the heart rate monitor and decided to rely on what felt right as an "easy" pace instead of relying on the monitor.   Runs were becoming less enjoyable and I felt that I was able to converse (the path wasn't crowded, so I talked to myself for a while to see if I could carry on a conversation and keep my breath) running at my regular easy pace.

2.  The route was one that I hadn't done in quite a while, so the variety made it more interesting.  I was running across from Ocean Beach, the path had small rolling hills and wasn't crowded, and the weather was nice and cool like I like it!  I have 7 miles to do on Saturday, so I might do this run with an additional 2 miles tacked on somewhere.

Tonight I'm still in a staying in mood and I need to rest up for the run tomorrow and all the other stuff I'm doing this weekend.  I'm going to put off making banana bread until tomorrow afternoon and read my new book from the library tonight and maybe watch the last episode of True Blood on my Netflix DVD.  

In addition to finishing my re-read of Harriet the Spy, I'm now reading Orange Is The New Black by Piper Kerman.  It's about a woman who did some drug trafficking for a girlfriend for a short time in her early 20's and then had to pay for the crime 10 years later when she was indicted and eventually sentenced to 15 months in a women's prison.  I just started it and I'm hooked!

How was your week??

XOXO