Monday, October 3, 2016

Shouldless Days: October

We are moving into the final quarter of the year, and as I've moved through the year, I've noticed that planning a "shouldless day" easily slips my mind and I end up feeling like I have to cram it in at the end of the month. So this month I decided to plan a shouldless day early in the month and I set aside this past Sunday. Here's how I filled the day!

I woke up without an alarm and had some coffee and oatmeal before heading out to meet 3 girlfriends at a local farmer's market. I usually go with my friend Courtney, but 2 other friends joined us this week which made it extra fun. I didn't take any pictures, but I sure brought home quite the haul - 3 different kinds of squash, a big bag of apple "2nds" (apples with some marks on them that still taste great!), some ground lamb and zucchini that I plan to use in this recipe that my friend Alli has raved about, a dozen farm-fresh eggs and some baked goods (a cinnamon roll and pumpkin bar) from a gluten free bakery.

After that, I headed home, loaded up my bike, and drove downtown to meet up with my friend Amber for a long bike ride on a new-to-us trail. We biked about 19 miles out to a cute town called Excelsior which is on the shore of a large lake called Lake Minnetonka. The first 8 miles of the trail were paved and then after that we biked along a tree-lined packed limestone trail. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day as the temperatures were in the low 70s and it was very sunny. We recently had a long stretch of cool, rainy weather so I was so thrilled that we had such nice weather for our bike ride!

Since it's been so rainy here lately, our leaves haven't changed as much as they normally would at this point, but we still saw some peaks of fall colors.



We stopped for lunch at a Mexican place in Excelsior as tacos and chips + guac sounded soooo good.  After refueling, we headed back home. When it was all said and done, we had biked just shy of 38 miles. My legs and booty were so glad to get off my bike!


When I got home, I walked into a house that smelled amazing as I had assembled this crockpot lentil stew recipe the day before and had popped it into the crockpot before leaving for my bike ride.


All I had to do was add the kale, parsley, and olive oil and it was ready to go.  I was still pretty full from the Mexican food so I let it simmer for awhile and laid down on the couch to read for awhile. Except the moment I laid down, Oscar jumped up on my chest for some cuddles. She doesn't do this very often so I held off on reading so I could focus on petting our sweet girl.


Once she had enough attention, I read a little bit of my latest read, The Expatriates, which I am really enjoying!


Then I enjoyed some soup with freshly-grated parmesan. I am trying to limit my dairy intake as I know my stomach is sensitive to it, but I could resist the salty goodness of parmesan on my soup!


While I ate dinner, I watched last week's episode of This is Us on my laptop.  I am really enjoying this show and am happy to hear that it's moving to 8pm CST. It was on at 9pm before and that's a bit too late for this granny!  Maybe I will actually be able to watch it live going forward!


After I finished that show, Phil got home from his mom's so we caught up on our days, watched the last episode of season 1 of Bloodline, and then it was off to bed!  I was definitely tired and ready for bed thanks to all the fresh air I got during the day!

What is the weather like in your neck of the woods?

14 comments:

katielookingforward said...

I watched both episodes of this is us with my bestie on saturday night. I actually prefer to watch new shows on the weekend, it gives me something to look forward to. Sunday evening I got a 1 hour bike ride in before the sunset, and it was so darn pretty.

Stephany said...

I still need to watch This Is Us! My mom and some friends have raved about it. And anything that has Milo Ventimiglia in it, I am HERE for. :)

Glad you had a wonderful shoudless day! Biking 38 miles, though, WHEW. You earned some couch time!

Marlys said...

It was a beautiful weekend, and we went on a slow, leisurely pontoon ride for the last time as next Saturday we are taking it off the lake for the season! Next goes the dock & lifts - the hardest part of fall is to see those things removed as we love everything lake oriented!
Your weekend sounded full and fun! You are so fortunate to have a Farmer's Market close, and sounds like it has everything!
Around here everyone mostly has gardens so Farmers Markets are few and far between. I love going to them when I visit others!

Nora said...

What a lovely day you had!

We have fall weather for sure, at least right now. It has been overcast since Thursday and while I know it's contributing to the cooler temps I'd love a sunny day! We had some drizzly weather on & off, too.

I am hoping to watch This Is Us second episode tonight after my workout & while D is at bowling :)

Carolina John said...

I think it was a year ago today that we were running the Twin Cities marathon! It's about to feel like fall here, I love October. No leaves are changing yet though. It's still in the 80's most days which is a bit on the hot side for me but overall it is much more pleasant now than it was even a few weeks ago. And just in time for this massive hurricane to hit the coast!

Jeanie said...

I'm loving your shouldless day! Sounds pretty perfect to me (especially the Oscar part -- she's so pretty!).

Raining, raining. Or gloomy, which is close to the same. It'll pass. We all know what's next!

Gracie said...

Right now I'm doing "shouldless five minute breaks" but soon this semester will be over!
A cold front came through last week so our fall weather is finally here: it even got under 70F overnight a few times. We needed the break: it was a terribly warm September.

Charbelle said...

Your bike ride sounds so amazing!!! The pictures are STUNNING!!!! It really is the most gorgeous time of year up there!!! I love your shouldless days posts!!!

Linda said...

Still a little humid but in the 80s instead of 100s! :D

Abby said...

What a glorious day! Lentil stew is in my menu this week! Yum! 2
What a beautiful bike ride!!! How fun!!

I am loving our weather. 54-60 all morning until about 8:30. Then 80's during the day. And cools off to 70s at night. I'll take it!!! Better than 100!

The Many Thoughts of a Reader said...

I think you do more on your shouldless days than I do on my busy days ha.

Amber said...

That sounds like such an awesome Shouldless day! I would love to live somewhere where I could go for long bike rides like that. I think biking to destinations for lunch or biking with a friend would make me enjoy biking so much more!!

As you know the weather is awful here, but it's good hunker down and read weather which is what I'll be doing this weekend :)

Jolene - EverydayFoodie said...

You had a really nice shouldless day :-) I'm so sad we have snow already - it came way earlier than usual, and the farmers' almanac is predicting a pretty brutal winter around these parts. We've had two nice winters in a row, so I guess it's time ... but still. Meh.

That's nice Oscar wanted some snuggles - you've got to take 'em when you can get 'em!

San said...

what a lovely fall day... although you did 'cram' a lot into your 'shouldless' day... ;) but as long it is all things you enjoy, it should be alright!