Roses and Thorns

In high school (and okay occasionally in college too) we would play a game called roses and thorns.  Basically the premise of the game is to say the rose of your day (or week or month or whatever) and then the contrasting thorn.  Roses are good things, while thorns are bad things.  And as Poison has assured us, every rose has it's thorn (or Miley Cyrus in her version...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqv9IyrcLfc).  Either way, for this blog that's what I'm going to do.  My roses and thorns for the last day in a half or so.

ROSE:
Dinner at the Caldwells.  I get probably a little too excited for dinner at the Caldwells, but that's only because every time I go the meal somehow manages to be better than the one before (Thanks Lilly!).  She really outdid herself this time with prosciutto wrapped shrimp and nectarines AND pineapple all on one shish-kabob and grilled to perfection (Thanks Sverre!).  Lots of delicious sides, and then to top it all off some super good fudgey brownies from the new Bromley Market near Peru, VT.  So good.

THORN:
I can't sleep past like 7.  So while sleeping over at the Caldwells (thanks Isabel for letting me use your bed) is a definite Rose, I really wish I could sleep in.

ROSE:
Breakfast.  We made waffles.  Enough said.

ROSE:
Strength.  I really like our new strength program.  It makes me feel really intense because its a lot of lifting really heavy things, while still looking good (naturally).

THORN:
Running time trial.  This was not that much fun for me.  It was supposed to be an 8.8 mile run (which in and of itself is a pretty long time), but then Erika and I got a little lost so we added some to that, and then I bonked a little bit (a lot a bit), but the Rose for this thorn is that I did in fact finish even if it wasn't my greatest showing.  Sometimes that's all you can ask your body to do in a race--finish!
 

I think I have about 3ish or maybe 4 miles left at this point. Not such a happy camper

Another Rose:  I have the best teammates ever!  Erika and Soph give me some wise words following the running time trial.  Loves of my life!

          Another Rose!  We all wore pink on accident one day, and I love pink!

ROSE:
Date night with Erika.  Dan (hi dan) and Soph made Soba noodles and dumplings together, which left Erika and I on our own.  We decided to whip up a little pizza with some pesto, arugula, italian sausage, peaches, and fresh mozzarella.  Yummy in my tummy.  We followed that up with some left over brownies and ice cream, then a showing of Snow White and the Huntsman.  I never knew that Snow White could be so dark!  But it was really good.

Our masterpiece!

This is another obvious Rose.  Erika working on some striding technique, while I got to hitch along for the ride.

THORN:
I woke up this morning and I am incredibly sore.  My hip flexors feel like rubber bands that are pulled just a little bit too tight and are about to snap.  So this leads me to my last...

ROSE:
It's a good thing we have an off day.  Erika and I have some intense baking planned (domestic divas), so our apartment will be smelling like yummy baked things.  We leave for Lake Placid for a week tomorrow so I guess I actually have one last Thorn...

Thorn:
Packing. Yuck.

But you can't end on a Thorn, so my actually last Rose

ROSE:
I have more roses than thorns!

Hugz and Kissez!