Apple storage; Back to school; Interval training

Back in October, many of my weekends were spent harvesting our apples.  On October 20, I was reaching my limit of APPLE processing!  For others who preserve anything, I know you know the feeling of: 'Limit-Reached.'

Some time was spent researching different ways to process and preserve apples, and one site suggested an intriguing method.  Namely, the best of the best apples, blemish free, were individually wrapped in newspaper and then stored in our root cellar.  

Fast-forward two months to last night, I grabbed a few from the top layer; they were pretty much as crisp and juicy as freshly picked!  

Our root cellar stays right around 40 degrees F, so this specimen was also perfectly chilled.  Chopped up and mixed together with some light greek (vanilla) yogurt and PB2 powder -- you can bet it was a great lil' evening snack.  CONCLUSION: definitely going to keep this method and will continually track monthly progress to see how long these apples remain stored in good condition.

"Mrs. S, we're twinning today!"

It was back to work today after the nice, lengthy holiday break.  A handful of absences (staff and students alike) were observed; the crud-bugs of cold-n-flu season have been around our area over the entire break.  Ughers!  I kept my hand-sanitizer readily available in the pocket of my vest -- no lie!  lol.  I can just fathom all the bugs floating around with the ultimate goal of wiping us (ie: me) out for the weekend.  Nope-nope....not gonna happen!

Today is always the toughest day of the school year, IMO.  After almost 2 weeks of "their own schedules" - OY! It's not uncommon to see dragging feet from the teens (specially when the same is true for many of the adults in the building 😂), but... today was pretty darn good!  Only a little bit of extra patience and grace was needed.  This teaching thing really has some perks and is a pretty good gig.

No quilting on the docket today, but definitely stayed true to the training log...

Today's run was some Interval Training;  5x5:00 @ 10K pace (roughly 9:30/mile pace).
"Being back" (running) feels great, really!  The mental anguish of knowing I was completely back to square one in September actually wasn't that big of a concern because....well... MINDSET!  Speed/pace/times -- all were kept in perspective of 100% beginning stage versus where I left off waaaay back in 2013.  I can't even really say WHY I got back into running.  The whole fitness shift started in August after returning from my FL vacation visiting sis;  and it started with nutrition.  I simply wanted to eat better to feel better.  Anyone who knows anything about fitness and nutrition knows the saying, "you cannot outrun a bad diet."  Being empty-nesters now, it was MUCH easier to manage nutrition, and (not meaning to flex here) the first 10 lbs melted off without any extreme effort; nutrition and lots of walking with Bailee-girl, essentially.
I guess the running just started happening on its own once I dropped those pounds, and then a colleague of mine (also a former athlete, now busy teacher-mom) joined me in a pact of being accountability partners.  Then... race websites were perused... a local-ish race was bookmarked... a certain half-marathon registration link was followed one night when I was in an up-beat, awesome mood, and... v'iola!  Race-date placed on the calendar, training plans set up in the NRC app, and.... there ya have it. And here we are.

And THIS girl has been on most of my runs.  She is my other accountability partner!  Truly, a woman-runner's best friend!!!!!!! 💗🐶🏃.  Can't imagine these runs without her, as I've said before. But I'm not sure about the meteorologists up here;  ummmm, this picture does NOT portray "18 and mostly sunny".  

...and a good day, t'was

Happy Thursday!  Make it a great day 🙌