SATM Challenge, Week Four

I am going to cheat a little bit on this one. This past Monday and Tuesday saw no remarkable novelty activity, but this past Saturday and the one prior to it were each special. On August 30, I participated in my first 5K race. My school's musical theater department held a Run4theArts 5K race and Kevin and Catherine (in her stroller) and I participated.  I hadn't planned on running, but as I was walking, I realized I didn't want to waste this opportunity to 1) do my best and 2) check something off my bucket list. Secretly, I also just didn't want to be dead last. I picked up the pace after a half-mile or so and proceeded to (mostly) run the rest of it. I'm not a runner, nor was I in any sort of shape for running this much, but I felt exhilarated to cross the finish line. I came in 12/17 in my age group and 51/103 overall. Had Catherine had an official number, she would've placed first in her age group. I look forward to racing again soon!

This past Saturday I made a very simple and very tasty spaghetti sauce from scratch--I'm talking from like actual tomatoes. I'd never done that before, nor had I ever blanched tomatoes or made a flavored oil. I found peeling blanched tomatoes to be an oddly satisfying thing (along with peeling chickpeas for hummus). I also made a Smitten Kitchen recipe, which I'd been wanting to try again since the lemon bar disaster of 2012. This was another tiny step in becoming a more confident and creative home cook. My next cooking challenge will probably come from a new cooking blog I'm just now learning about called How Sweet Eats. Pretty much everything on her blog looks amazing and it comes highly recommended from my friends Nathan and Samantha.