Cookies, cookies, cookies!

Friday I came home hungry after having no dinner and meeting up with the girls for dessert at 5pm (hey, that's what happens when work holiday parties make you rearrange your fun time plans). And what did I find? A fabulous package full of cookies! Who needs dinner when you have your second dessert from a fellow cookie exchanger? So, what did I find? Not one, not two, but FOUR different kinds of cookies from Erin in Virginia at Pastry Brush.

Enclosed were: Italian Fig Spirals (quite impressive looking), mint choc chip cookies, mexican wedding cakes and my favorite of the bunch, oatmeal raisin with cinnamon chips. I'm glad I participated in this fun exchange. It's fun to send and receive a little bit of holiday cheer to and from people you've never met. Speaking of holiday cheer, I'm now watching Love Actually on the couch with a glass of red wine. How sad is it that Sarah and Carl never actually get together? Very sad, in my opinion.

Saturday, I did my first long training run for the Whidbey Island Marathon in March. It was half snowing/half raining and I was supposed to run for two hours. I armed myself with my ipod, my fav running shirt (a red Adidas number that has hand covers and a hood), a small bottle of powerade and water mixed, a mini luna bar and a little bit of hope that I had the energy to run that long.

As usual, I don't bail on something I've committed to, so this run was no different. I arrived home tired, but not super sore. I stretched and made some blueberry waffles and eggs to celebrate. I'm excited about this training plan. It's one from Amby Burfoot that I used to train for my very first marathon (Portland Marathon 2006) and it was fabulous. Hard to imagine, but my time (3:49) was the best of the three I've run so far, so I'm going back to reverting to the plan that worked.

They've called for snow in the Willamette Valley, but we have yet to see much of anything that is willing to stick, although temps threaten to be in the teens this week, so we'll see. I did however, see some beautiful scenes on my drive to my grandma's house on Saturday afternoon.