Holiday Shopping and a Cookbook Dinner

This is my last weekend home until 2011. So, I need to get a lot done today. Good thing I actually did!

The day started a little lazy as neither Jay or I set an alarm (we still were both up by 9 a.m.). We leisurely ate breakfast and perused the internet before he and our roommate Mary began studying and I got ready for a massive amount of errands.

And my preferred method of transportation, the Metro. Only problem, one of my errands required me to go to Clarendon, which means I had to switch lines. No problem, except on the weekends Metro tends to do a lot of track work. Thankfully I had Harry Potter to accompany me since I missed every train I needed to ride!!!

This sign is just for fun. It is located in the Rosslyn Station and always makes me laugh. Even by rail, Virginia wants to welcome you!!!

So the first errand that took me to Clarendon was to pick up a race shirt for next weekend when I am running the Celtic Solstice 5 mile Run in Baltimore. Besides the fact that I am running with my high school friends, each race participant get a Brooks Premium Long Sleeve Running Shirt. Cool right? and definitely worth the registration fee (which was less than the shirt) and the hour it took me to get over there. The blue one on the left is for next weekends 5 mile race and the red one on the right is for tomorrow's 10k race.

Just look how nice the Brook's shirt is for next weekend!!! (On left front, on right back)

After my venture to the Orange line, I came back to Pentagon City to go shopping for my mom. My 90 year old Grandfather broke his hip a few weeks ago. Since my mom acts as a care taker she asked me to do some of her Christmas Shopping. I was thrilled, I mean who doesn't like spending someone else's money. Plus, I got to shop for my older brother's wife and my younger brother's girl friend. This meant only one thing, Forever 21!!! I just hope they like their presents!!! And I may have bought myself something (with my money). I finally found cheap plain shirts!

After my adventure, my hip was hurting, so I spent some quality time doing some yoga, stretching and foam rolling.

And then, it was time to make dinner.

Now, I know y'all have seen this Cookbook on this blog before. I think it may be my new favorite. As I mentioned in my post Rachael Ray's 37 Minute Meal, Tina at Carrots 'N' Cake is doing a Cookbook Challenge till the end of the year and since I picked up Rachael Ray's new Look and Cook Cookbook at the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show, I thought I would participate.

Tonight, I made her Turkey Meatloaf Burger. It was sooo good and pretty simple, so simple I don't think the following photos need any words!

Well, except for the salad we made... The salad featured below is Romain lettuce, with the chopped apple, onion and celery and mozzarella cheese on top.

This mean was sooo good and so filling. I hope tomorrow I can tell you it was a great pre-race meal! We had too much pasta recently for me to make the usual pre-race dinner.

Um, yeah, I cleaned my plate! And, of course I had my usual beer. Tonight I had Sam Adam's Old Fezziwig Ale. It was pretty tasty, but no Blue Moon.

Do you have any pre-race traditions? What are they?