I’m preparing Father’s Day dinner for Brian tonight since tomorrow night we’ll be at a cookout with my dad. So tonight, we are having slow-cooked barbecue pulled pork sandwiches, corn muffins, and homemade coleslaw. Dessert will be blackberry pie (not homemade, alas, but still pretty good).

Tomorrow morning I will get up early to make applewood smoked bacon, whole wheat pumpkin pancakes, and sliced cantaloupe melon. After that, I’m making two dips for the party: artichoke (at Brian’s request), and nacho bean dip. I’m also bringing some little Trader Joe’s appetizers I picked up yesterday: mini hot dogs in puff pastry, mmm.

So there’s gonna be some serious eating.

On that note, I’ve been running every day this week except Wednesday. This morning I was able to go by myself, which made it a whole lot easier. The route I’ve been doing is about 1.6 miles, with one uphill climb right in the middle, which I sprint. When we started on Monday I finished in 26 minutes. There was a lot of walking and complaining. This morning my time was 21 minutes. I actually ran at the beginning without stopping for what amounts to half the course, so 3/4 of a mile. Very proud of that, as my biggest hurdle is endurance. If I keep it up, I think in one week I will be able to run the whole distance without stopping. Though actually Brian is going to SF next week for four nights, which means I’ll have to run with the jogging stroller. That slows me down a lot, but then again, it’s also an effective handicapper. After running with that thing for a week, then running alone, I bet the course will feel incredibly easy. My goal is to do the loop twice: 3.2 miles. The equivalent of just over a 5k race.

Oh and my other goal is to lose ten to fifteen pounds. Yeah. We’ll see about that.