Birthday Pie

As mentioned in my post from last week, my birthday was Thursday.  My extended family came over on Saturday to celebrate. Nothing like running a 5k and then rushing home to clean your house for company! 😉

Lucky for me, my husband is the family cook, so dinner was his problem.  I asked for and received chicken piccatta.  It was delicious, as always!

However, while my husband may be the cook, I am the baker, and for my birthday, I wanted an apple pie.  My mother-in-law offered to pick one up at a bakery in town, but there was no way I was going to eat anyone’s pie other than my own on my birthday!  😛

I couldn’t decide if I wanted a simple double-crust apple pie (I love crust) or a streusel topping (I love streusel topping).  So, at the last minute, I decided to do both!  I filled up the pie plate with the apple/spice mixture, topped it with streusel—and then I covered the whole thing with another crust!  Egads, what a caloric monster. 😉 But it was worth every bite.

DS#1 and I split the last piece on Sunday.  On Monday, I woke up kind of sad that there was no more pie.  Then I remembered that there had been a little leftover apple filling and a small bit of unbaked crust left.  I realized this as I was putting together my tuna fish lunch (I work from home on Mondays, so it’s the one day I allow myself to eat my beloved—but smelly—tuna fish).  I took out the leftover crust and filling and within a few minutes, I had put this together.

The only question was how long to bake it.  A normal pie takes about an hour, so I put it in for half an hour to start.  Forty turned out to be the magic number to get it nice and hot and browned, and when it was done, I was pretty proud of myself.

Ask me how good it was.  Go ahead, ask me!!  It was damn good!!  And the best part—I finished it 10 minutes before the kids got off the bus, so it was all mine!!!! (If you don’t have kids, you will probably think I’m a terribly selfish mom, but if you have kids, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I haven’t had a dessert to myself in about 10 years. And I live for dessert!!)

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So, for those keeping track at home, that was three days in a row that I had pie, lol.  I could easily go 28 days in a row with pie (I’ve mentioned before that I once made a pie a week for six weeks straight), so I think I’ve done well stopping at three. 😉 I actually managed to stay the same when I weighed myself on Monday, so that means I’m hopefully finding a good balance between eating and exercising.  Still, knowing I had all that pie did motivate me to continue with my running. I even ran the dreaded intervals on Monday.

Not bad, but I was really tired and not feeling it as much that morning.  I also chose to shorten my warm up and cool-down runs because I was short on time.  The downside to the school year starting is that I have to take the kids to school on Mondays, and that shortens the time I have available to run before I get settled into working at my home office. I can’t run before they go to school, because obviously I can’t leave them home alone.  However…that will all change next week, thanks to the birthday present my family chipped in to help me purchase:

Yes, I bought a treadmill!  It’s used, from my coworker, but for $100, I couldn’t pass it up.  My mom, sister and husband all contributed funds so that I could buy it.  I know treadmills get a bad rap, and rightfully so, since running outside is almost always more fun, but I have been really struggling with getting my runs in now that school and hockey are starting.  My husband works nights most of the time, so this allows me to run even when the kids are home.  Plus, it will help avoid the scariness of running on icy roads this winter.  I’m very excited about my new treadmill!

Also excited about it is DS#1.  I mentioned last week that he is serious about training for a 10k in the spring, and he was thrilled to know he could train all winter long.  LOL, he’s already calling it “our” treadmill. 😉  And actually, he was the first one to use it! We got it Saturday, but my husband didn’t get it fully set up in time for my Monday run, so when he finally got the legs on and the extension cord in place, it was Tuesday.  I let DS#1 test it out, because I knew it would make him feel good. It was fun to watch him.

You might notice from the pictures that it’s not in our house—it’s in the barn!  I could’ve squeezed it into the home office/kids’ playroom, but I decided I didn’t need the extra clutter, so it went into the barn.  No, our barn isn’t heated, and I may change my mind come January (LOL), but for now, I don’t mind running in the cold. At least in the barn, there’s no ice or wind!  Now I just need to figure out how to set up my laptop out there so I can stream some videos or something.  I’m sure I’ll figure it out!

Less than two weeks until the Free Press Marathon relay—I got my bib number today.  So exciting!!

Thanks for reading!