While I have been regaling you with tales of getting fat and then thin again, life has been marching on as usual. I’m sure you’ve missed my normal blathering entries and photos from Project 365, so today this is what I bring you! Before launching into all that though, I just want to say a huge and sincere thank you for all of the kind and supportive words you have all shared on the last few entries. Publishing all that made me anxious and self-conscious as all hell, but it is worth it a thousand times over if my experience can inspire even one other person out there. Look at how fat I was, people! If I could get off my butt and accomplish my fitness goals, I know that you can, too. Just give some thought to what you want to do, find out the steps you’ll need to take, and get started today! Why not, right? Don’t wait.

So, anyway! Life!

The past two weekends I’ve gone out to a forest preserve to go trail running early in the morning. I usually go on Sundays so this has come to be known as “church.” Running through the woods for an hour or more, just me and the trees and the fungus and the dragonflies and bees and squirrels and the unidentified but much larger-sounding forest animals — this is an activity far superior to church, in my humble (and not religious) opinion.

I do occasionally trip over a tree root and fall on my face — this past Sunday I did that twice and actually managed to scrape my leg up the second time — and I usually get dive-bombed by giant flying insects, but these Sunday trail runs are quickly becoming one of the highlights of my week.

Off the trails, I’ve been trying out a new pair of Nike Free running shoes — you know, the ones that are designed to give the benefits of barefoot running without one having to actually run barefoot? Those. Bonus: they are pretty.

I’m also continuing to enjoy the weekly harvest from my CSA farm, which has lately included the most delicious carrots and cucumbers and squash. Which reminds me: must pack up some carrots for tomorrow’s lunch. Mmmm. Lunch.

This is the incredibly busy part of the summer: I’m caught in the overlap between my two summer teaching assignments, working my way through very intensive summer mini-semester courses that have huge daily workloads compressed into a very fast schedule. It can be exhausting but the time just flies by and so far I’ve been managing to have something of a life outside of work, too.

This weekend I had my guy friend over and we made pizza together. It’s funny, we could have just as easily made two pizzas, one with cheese — as I hear is popular among Kids These Days — but he insisted that there must be only one pizza: a pizza achieved through negotiation and compromise.

The One True Pizza:

I’m not sure how much compromise two people can really have when one is vegan and one isn’t, though, you know? In this situation, it kind of seems like compromise equates to me having things my way. I think it might behoove me to remember that isn’t always the case. But that’s a discussion for another time, I think. Suffice it to say that I have been out of the relationship scene for so long that I think I need to remind myself how to be something other than just Me, Myself, Alone.

In other random news, I finally made it up to the house with the bicycle fence on a sunny day, with camera in hand, and arrived to find no cars parked in front of it. This meant I could finally photograph the whole thing! Check out how fantastic it is:

One day I’d really like to copy this idea. Bicycles are one of my favorite machines — like typewriters, I think they’re beautiful in both their looks and their functions.

And finally, in case you needed to see my little dog flirting with you:

“Heyyy, ladies! How YOU doin’?”