thrilling weekend highlights

How about a cocktail to kick off the weekend?

Anthony’s secret (or maybe not secret, since I publish this on the blog waaaay too often) second job is being a personal bartender for me and my family. On Friday I was craving something in the ginger-rosemary category, and he whipped up these bourbon-based beauties!

I don’t even know what was in them, but it was nice and strong. We barely made it through a single glass of wine after!

Oh yeah, the food. My mom donated all of her produce before she and my dad left on a month-long vacation… so I had about 10 lbs of tomatoes to use up.

I threw the tomatoes in the slow cooker with some other stuff (using this recipe for inspiration) and in ONLY 18 hours, our homemade pasta sauce was ready!

We topped the pasta with pork/beef meatballs I made Friday evening. The pasta sauce took a lot of time, but everything else about this pasta was pretty quick!

Perfect Friday meal… because we were fueling up for a BIG Saturday run. At 4:35 we were awake — and by 6, we were at the start of the week’s PR Bandit’s meetup. Nashville Running Company’s new west-side store!

It was a special route that was designed by the store and the Nashville Striders. They had awesome support for us along the way — check out this homemade Gatorade cup holder!

I stuck with the group for the first 9.5 miles as we crossed town to the east-side Nashville Running Co. Then, I turned back for Part II!

I covered miles 10-14 solo (Anthony turned around and headed out for the last 2 miles home around at 10.5), At mile 14, I ran into another group member and we tackled the last 4-5 miles together. So nice to have some company, even if I felt a bit like death!

We wanted to hit 19, but decided 18.69 was juuuuust fine when we reached the end of the route.

Minus a few muggy miles on some main roads toward the end, I felt pretty good for most of this run. PLUS there were bananas, bagels, and more Gatorade at the end of the run! Thanks for the special treatment, Striders!

After the long run, I took an ice bath and an epic nap. Then we painted our living room for 7 hours and framed a bunch of artwork. #housework4life

And now I’m trying out a new bread recipe! More thrilling weekend highlights coming at ya tomorrow. Have a restful Sunday!

• Do you have to hit whole miles, or are you okay with ending your Garmin on a random decimal?
• Pasta sauce: homemade or canned?
• If you could have a different job, what would it be?