Aqueduct

I finished week 1 of my couch to 5 k. While surfing around my knittingblogs yesterday, I saw that friend Julia at Moth Haven signed up for a 5k in Boston this September. This is the Susan G. Koman Race for A Cure - and I immediately joined her group Spun to Run (get it, knitters, spun … ). My personal fundraising goal is $500.00 and while I usually don’t solicite for these types of things, I am going to ask readers of this blog to think about looking under their couch cushions and donating a buck or two. It all adds up, right?

You can donate by clicking on the button below, and I’ll add the button to my sidebar one of these days.

I updated my reading list on the lower right hand corner of the site. You can tell that it is summer by the titles I’ve added. I have no beach time planned in July, but you’d never know it from the books I picked.

Remember last winter when I did the 100 mile challenge? Well, I have identified a trend and my mid-life quest continues. On the eve of my 38th birthday, I completed a high ropes course without crying, and two weekends ago, I managed to not puke during a 90 minute hot yoga flow class in Boston. The next day, I jumped at the opportunity to hoist the main sail on a schooner trip through Gloucester harbor.

My next challenge is a bit less exciting, but just as demanding. I’m doing the Cool Running Couch to 5k plan - as delivered through this amazing podcast. I have one more run tonight to be through week one, and then will start week 2 tomorrow.

Unfortunately, my dear, protective husband has forbidden me from undertaking my next challenge till the kids graduate from college, but I guess that means I have 15 years to prepare to learn how to surf.

Happy Independence Day Everyone!

Ali, the top chef over at cleaner plate club tagged me for a meme, and so in keeping with the food theme, here are 5 things about me, the culinary edition.

1 - I don’t like mushrooms. I am really good at picking them out of dishes, but I did go through a period of time where I told the waitstaff I was alergic to them, to impress upon them that a mushroom shouldn’t even share the same air with my plate. Last night, I tried to get my 5 year old to try something on the table besides her beloved chicken wings with duck sauce, I even promised her I would eat a muchroom if she did, but alas, she failed to take me up on the offer.

2 - I love and miss seafood. Raw, steamed, grilled, baked in the oven or in seaweed at the beach, I love seafood - but I’m alergic to oysters. I found this out on my first valentine’s day date with my (now) husband. Unfortunately for him, I found this out after he paid the bill. The longer story is much funnier, but you’ll have to buy me a sushi role to hear it.

3 - It is hard to live with carnivores. If it didn’t roam the earth, darling DH doesn’t have room for it on his plate. The sounds of teeth on bones echos through our dining room as I’m constantly casting off my naugthy bits of beef to the ravenous horde. You’d think my husband’s family descended from a tribe of lions instead of generations of Ivy League educated humans.

4 - Until two years ago, I was not capable of eating any food with a hot pepper based spice (I could do wasabi for some reason - mustard based). Then one day, on a whim, I put one slice of a jalapeno pepper on a plate of roased veggies and my tongue exploded. Suddeny I was craving spicy, I suddenly got Indian and Thai cuisine. Life was now in color.

5. At the end of every Grateful Dead show, I roamed the parking lot looking for a “kind veggie bagel” a bagel with a thin smear of cream cheese, cukembers and sprouts, maybe onions and tomato. It was the perfect food to eat while wandering the lot looking for the perfect hair hand or beaded earings. The coolness of the cukember combined with the sweet cream cheese, softened my throat after a night of being in a smokey arena, and the bagel gave me energy for at least an hour of dancing in the drum circle back at the camp site.

I am going to tag Greg, and hope he’ll tell us five things he loves to cook …

Boston.com has a link up today featuring what they call cheap houses, houses under 300K in the Boston area. The first house they show is a 3 bed, 1.5 bath, with 1,400 sq. Listed at $299,900

For well under $250K, you can move into this home on my street, the house has 5 Bed, 2 Bath, 3,820 Sq. Ft. on 0.22 Acres, with views of Mt. Greylock, walk to school and town. That is also one of the most expensive houses for sale in town. This one, for $175 may be one of my favorites right now.

We have high speed internet access, independent coffee shops, a thriving art scene, a growing economy and great restaurants near by. We don’t have any traffic to speak of, crime is fairly low, and the sunsets are spectacular. We also have a growing number of tech jobs that we can’t fill locally.

I have a dream that our town, the birthplace of Susan B. Anthony, will someday become a haven for lesbian couples with children, that I’ll see rainbow bumper stickers on the back of subaru wagons lining the streets, but I would image that more straight couples would be welcome here as well.

How much house are you getting for your dollar? What kind of life would you live if you weren’t working just to pay your mortgage?

“I hereby announce the formation of WEstern MAssachusetts Total Territorial Equity Regiment.
That’s right: WE MATTER”

Mortar Bend has a great post up about living in the hinterlands of Massachusetts, you can read it here.

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Chris Brogan - one of my new blog crushes - has a post up today about a DIY autobiography kit. He encouraged his readers to post this form, fill it out, and then leave a comment back. Feel free to read his page, swipe the list and leave me a comment if you are so inspired.

A Quick Sketch Biography of Amy

The thing most people know me for is my job - I tend to be a bit evangelical about the power of the internet to bridge divides and nurture community.

The people I associate the most with are migratory - people who have never left their hometown scare me.

People who have influenced my life are… my family and former teachers, I can’t think of a major professional influence up until my current boss.

One challenge I took on and overcame was… I wasn’t working in a field I wanted to be in, so I took a year off to retrain myself for the career I wanted, not the career I had.

My early years, before you probably got to know me were spent trying to find a way to reconcile my penchant for being outrageous with my deep seeded need to be accepted.

You might not know this, but I am adopted.

I’m passionate about my children, my marriage and not living life by default.

In the next year or two, I hope to climb to the top of Mt. Greylock.

My Podcast Playlist is a bit eclectic

• Accident Hash - A Boston based music show playing “podsafe” music. I liken it to college radio for the 30something set
• Cast On - A knitting podcast, which doesn’t do it justice in any way, good music, good stories and some yarn talk thrown in.
• Fit-Pod - workout mixes
• Jaybird’s Endless Boundaries - Used to be just a phish podcast, now mostly jam bands
• Looking Out The Window - The stories behind the songs
• Managing The Gray - New Media Marketing
• MCLA Podcast - my podcast for the college
• Nugcast - More jam bands
• The Dead Show - A weekly hour of the best live Grateful Dead music
• This American Life - you know that quirky NPR show

Most of the new music shows I’ll enjoy, but not really pay attention to. Every once in a while, a song will grab hold of me. Last year, around this time, I heard Noam Weinstein’s “When I Get My Shit Together” on Cast On and that became our family anthem for the summer, my children loved singing along (yes, I am the worst mommy ever). This past spring, it was Black Lab’s “Mine Again” which I still listen to frequently, but I mistakenly bought the album and not just the single on I-Tunes, and found the rest of the album wasn’t up to the same standard.

Just a few days ago, I was listening to Nugscast and was blown away by a song called “How Glad I Am” by the Grayboy Allstars. This is a poppy love song, which isn’t usually my thing, but the song has a hook, the singing is fantastic and it just may be the best single of 2007.

If you’ve got a buck, download the song and tell me what you think (or you can listen for free by downloading the podcast - http://www.nugs.net/nugscast/070418.aspx)

Up until I saw this ad, I considered Bill Richardson an “also ran” candidate.

Now I wonder if after Obama and Hillary finish tackling each other, an actual qualified candidate like Richardson might be the democrat’s best hope.

Good Luck to Chris Trembly, a city councelor and local businesman who will be opening a new pizza joint downtown. Chris, I can’t wait to try your local veggie pizza, good luck!

Greg Roach, a fellow North County Blogger and husband to a new knitting friend, has an article in today’s Transcript about life behind the service door. Other than Greg’s amazing dip at a recent knit nite, I’ve yet to experience his cooking, but now I’m even more eager to see his craftsmanship.

Good job Greg.

Hi Sock Pal, I really appreciate you being so considerate, and I’m sure my “whatever you want” instructions are probably driving you crazy. I knit for a sock pal once who had very, very specific instructions, down to the shades of which colors were acceptable and which weren’t, and I remember feeling like the point of the sock swap wasn’t to get custom made socks, it was to get a surprise. But maybe my laize faire attitude is driving you as crazy as her wish list made me?

So I present you with two options:

A)I live in a very big old house in western Massachusetts, we keep our heat at 58 degrees in the winter and I’ve been known to sleep in wool socks. My most basic wish would be for warm, wool socks. I also wear my wool socks with my snowshoeing boots, and on my nightly hikes inside my sneakers. So a sturdy pair of winter socks would be fantastic.

B) I work in a building with phenomenal heating and can’t wear my socks to work or else I’ll sweat all day. A thin, lacy trouser sock would be a pleasure to wear during the day. I tend to wear a lot of black or dark blue slacks, so most colors would do, I’m ok having my socks show when I wear my Dansko clogs.

Does that help?