Progress reports: finished!

It's been a busy few days.....
Thursday night I made cod and fennel stew. I wasn't so sure about the fennel because I absolutely hate the taste of licorice and as I was cutting it up, I was worried that it was going to taste like crap. But I was surprised - once it was cooked, it just tasted like mutant celery. I wasn't a huge fan of the stew but it used up the cod that had been in the freezer plus it gave me an opportunity to try fennel. I don't know if I will use fennel again, but at least I know now where to get it.
Friday was a busy day. I was down to my last few progress reports but I had to go into town to do a few errands in the morning: a piece for the dog leash at Rona, pop was on sale at Zellers, I needed some things for the BBQ at Loblaws and I wanted to investigate arm warmers. Arm warmers are another piece of cycling equipment that I thought was completely ridiculous until I discovered how useful they were. For example, a morning ride - the temperature starts out cool, but heats up over the course of the ride. A jacket is really bulky to deal with after you take it off; arm warmers will keep you warm when it's cool and then when it gets too hot, you can take them off and easily put them in your jersey pocket. However, as good an idea as they are, they're damn expensive, as in $35-45 for small pieces of spandex. I almost bought some at Sports Experts, but ever since they've started giving their employees commission, they jump you the second you walk in the store and they hover until you buy something. It's really pushy and I don't like that kind of pressure. And of course, as I was looking at the arm warmers, an employee came up and tried to "help" me, but it ended up driving me out of the store. I may purchase some at a later date, but it likely won't be at Sports Experts.
Friday afternoon, I finished the last of my progress reports. In total, after 81 evaluations, I figured I probably wrote about 30 000 words (average of 180 words/paragraph x2 paragraphs per student). That's like 120 pages, double-spaced. Insane. I was relieved to finally send off the last batch of them. When Chris got home, he had a short football practice in La Baie, so I decided to do my run there. I ran along the river for a while, which was a nice mix of terrain (pavement, gravel and grass). I found running on the grass really nice and it seemed like a lot less effort. After I did the whole path, end to end, I looped through the city and down to the waterfront path along the bay. I couldn't believe how quickly 11km flew by. Towards the end, I was so energized that I decided to tackle a long hill on the way back to the practice field and I actually enjoyed it. It was one of the best runs I've ever had.
Friday night was a BBQ at my friend's house. Nothing fancy, just a bunch of girls hanging out and talking. Unfortunately, I ended up staying out way too late and it was close to 2 when I got home. I had to be up at 7 for Gazelles, but I figured 5 hours of sleep was manageable. But I couldn't get to sleep. I saw 3, 4, 5 o'clock go by and I think I got about 2 hours sleep total. So when the alarm went off, I was in no condition to go on a ride bike, let alone one through the park. (For those of you who don't know, "the park" is the Parc des Laurentides, basically what fills in the gap between Quebec City and Saguenay, and it's quite mountainous.) 60km through extremely hilly terrain on 2 hours sleep did not seem like a good idea. So I went back to bed. I think it was the right decision, but I really wish I could have gone because the weather was beautiful today. In the future, I'm going to have to be more careful about Friday night events - I need a self-imposed curfew or something to make sure I get enough sleep before my bike rides.
This morning (late morning, really) we went to check out the community garage sale. We didn't find anything of interest, probably because we got there a little late, but we did buy hotdogs and lemonade. In the afternoon, we sat outside reading for a bit, then we tossed the football around for a while. I did some laundry but I was getting bored. As I mentioned, the weather was really nice today, warm and sunny, so we decided to go the Parc Riviere du Moulin. There, you can rent canoes and kayaks and you can paddle down the river to some waterfalls and back. It's a really cheap activity, $4 for the two of us, and it was a fun way to kill an hour or so. However, after all this time outside, I got really sunburnt. I didn't notice until I changed out of my tank top, but man, am I red. Personally, I really hate sunscreen, but with my complexion, I really do need it. So I think I'll buy the spray-on kind and hopefully I'll actually use it.
Speaking of kayaking, there's a triathlon at the beginning of September in Ottawa where instead of swimming, you can kayak/canoe for 4km. It's an intriguing idea, especially since I'm not a good swimmer. The only real drawback is that I would need a kayak, but then I realized that since I'm a MEC member, I can rent equipment from them. And luckily enough, there's a MEC in Ottawa. But of course, I'd still need to practise beforehand (season pass at Riviere du Moulin?) and I'd somehow have to transport the kayak from MEC to the race site and back, but I might be able to make it work. Any thoughts?
For dinner, I made a pasta dish out of my vegetarian cookbook, Farfalle with Parmesan, Lemon and Pine Nuts. It's exactly what is sounds like. I made a "sauce" with fresh parsley, olive oil, lemon rind and lemon juice, then when the pasta (bowties) was ready, I mixed it with the sauce plus some of the cooking water, a bunch of parmesan and the pine nuts. I'm really happy with how it turned out - it tasted like something you might find in a restaurant, so it's definitely on my list to make again sometime.
And finally, an update on my Amazon/UPS saga. I checked the status of my order this morning, the one they told me was supposed to arrive Friday/Monday, and apparently it's being returned to the sender. This, after I've spoken with them almost everyday this week, trying to figure out how to get this package into my possession. UPS's customer service department wasn't open so I called Amazon. Long story short, I have to re-place my order. I'm not thrilled about it but she did give me a $10 credit, so it could be worse. Hopefully, it'll arrive sooner rather than later, because I really want my Indian cookbook. Anyways, I hope this is the end of the saga and I will let you know when I actually have the books physically in my hands.