Motivation Monday: Just Put Your Shoes On

source: 1 

My high school cross country coach was a saint. Five days a week he corralled 20 TEENAGE GIRLS and somehow motivated them to go running. 20 girls with boy problems, girls with girl problems, girls with money problems, college problems, eating problems, health problems. 20 girls with synchronized cramps and in turn, synchronized whining about why they didn't want to practice that day. And 5 days a week, sometimes 20 times a day, he patiently responded with, "Well, just put your shoes on and go stretch and if you want to go home after that, then go home." Rarely did someone actually go home after stretching.

Getting motivated to train last week was hard. Things have been super stressful at work and on top of that I was coming down with tonsillitis for the last half of the week. As a result, I skipped one of my easy 3 mile runs and I only made it to mile 11 out of my long 16 mile run scheduled for Saturday. In fact, I probably wouldn't have made it on any of my runs last week if it wasn't for Ryan reminding me that I would feel better after I ran or that he believed I could do it.

Which brings me to my point. If you're training for something or just trying to get back in shape, I don't think there is anything more important than having a coach or someone to help motivate you, especially on the days when you just want to curl up on the couch and sleep after work. Whether it's your significant other, a friend, family member, or an online community like the group of ladies over at Tone It Up, it makes all the difference if you have someone telling you to just put your shoes on.

So. Go put your shoes on. :)

3/11/13 - 3/17/13 Health and Fitness Stats:

• ran 4 days for a total of 24 miles
• walked 1.65 miles after my long run Saturday
• average pace: 11'67" per mile
• only 600 calories over my calorie budget - best week yet!

Traditional Irish Soda Bread

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Whether your're celebrating it with Guinness, whiskey or wine, I thought I'd share a recipe that will go with any St. Patrick's Day-themed meal you're having, even if it's just a liquid one. ;)

I grew up in a very Irish American family. After all, my last name is Kennedy, my first name is Celtic for "The Strong" and I was born with Catholic guilt in my veins. When I was a kid, my mom used to make Irish Soda Bread with us for St. Patrick's Day and at my insistence, it had to be green. So the leprechauns would recognize it, obviously. 

Traditional Irish Soda Bread is a St. Patrick's Day staple for me and is far more basic that 95% of the recipes you'll find when you Google it. It requires 4 simple ingredients: all-purpose or wheat flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. And if you make the SanBriego version, it requires a special fifth ingredient: green food coloring.

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose or wheat flour (I used all-purpose) 
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 2 1/2 cups of buttermilk
• 15 drops of green food coloring

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

2. Lightly grease and flour a 8" round cake pan.

3. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in 2-2 1/2 cups of buttermilk and finally, the food coloring.

4. Flour your hands and the kneading surface and lightly knead the dough for a couple of minutes.

5. Form the dough into the cake pan and cut a cross on top with a knife. Make sure to cut the cross all the way through to the bottom of the pan, not just on the surface of the dough. 

6. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 400 degrees for an additional 30-35 minutes. 

A lot of recipes will suggest adding currants, raisins or orange zest to your bread. Traditional Irish Soda Bread doesn't contain any of these things, but it probably wasn't green either. :) Enjoy a slice with melted butter or serve it as a side to some Shepherd's Pie like we did last night. Sláinte!

Aloha Friday!

source: 1

Unfortunately for me, I will not be celebrating this Friday with a beer... or any alcohol for that matter. What I had hoped were allergy symptoms are really just plain old sick symptoms. It should be fun attempting my 16-miler tomorrow with a fever. #notgonnahappen

It has been a pretty foggy, dreary week here in San Diego. I can't even tell you how badly I want it to just be summer when it's warm and sunny all the time! We haven't even made it through April Showers, May Gray or June Gloom yet, so I'm just going to have to hang in there and be grateful for the cool training weather.

1. Happy month anniversary to this little blog! I had the nice anniversary surprise of being awarded a Liebster by Rosy at A Joyful Kind of Life. Thanks, Rosy!

2. Bye bye Google Reader and GFC! I feel bad for all the bloggers who spent so much time building up their GFC count, but I do love the format of bloglovin'. You can follow SanBriego.com on bloglovin' here.

3. Daylight Savings. Having the extra sun at night (especially with all the fog taking up the mornings) has been wonderful. With my fever last night, the only motivation I had to run was the fact that Ryan and the dogs were going to be waiting for me at a froyo place in Little Italy. After work I ran 4 miles to them, we ordered, ate, and walked back all before the sunset. Evening walks to Little Italy haven't been possible in months and oh, how I've missed them.

4. The sunglasses that I bought on etsy didn't turn out to be what I was hoping for after all. But these TOMS are pretty close. In fact, there are like 10 pairs of TOMS sunglasses that I'm tempted to buy.

5. St. Patrick's day is this weekend! Having grown up with a lot of Irish Catholic traditions, this holiday is always a fun one for me. I'm on the hunt for a good Irish Soda Bread recipe to go with my Shepherd's Pie.

Tin Play Launch Party

When I first met the good-looking, tattooed gentleman pictured above, he was standing in roughly the same spot asking me to see some ID. It was 2009 and I was spending the summer in San Diego "working on my master's thesis" and sleeping on the living room floor of what would eventually be my home for 2 years. But I didn't know that back then, nor did I know how many hours I would log in that bar, or how I would meet some of my best friends there, or that I would move next door to it three years later. All I knew was that I wanted a Coors Light, because at that point, I don't think I had ever had craft beer.

Chad commented on my Connecticut ID and told me that he was from the east coast as well. Over the course of the night, we chatted about the neighborhood and ourselves and I learned that he was working on patenting a product he'd invented with his business partner. He told me all about the products, which were bar tools, and explained how they would be used and how he imagined them finding a place in the market. It was the first time I had ever met someone doing something like that, inventing a product and taking it through the patent stage to market, and all I could think was how it sounded like too much work for too high a risk. I wished him luck, completely unaware how many more times I would order drinks from him and talk to him about the business over the coming years.

Which is why I could not be more excited that last night Ryan and I had the chance to head downtown to La Puerta and finally celebrate the launch of Tin Play, the products that Chad had co-invented way back when. I have to say: I am so proud of him. Chad's a really great guy and he worked so hard to take something from concept to finished product. He took a huge risk in investing so much in his idea and it has come back to reward him in a big way. More importantly, even though it took a long time, years even, he stuck with it. Very few people have that type of perseverance and it always inspires me when I see it.

So the next time you go to a bar that uses Tin Play flair products to make your drink, you'll know where they came from! And soon enough, you will see them everywhere. Because that is the result of Chad and Jeremy's hard work. The question is: what ideas or goals do you have that you've put off because of a fear of failure or because of  how intimidating they seemed? A year from now, will you wish you'd started them today?

Happy Adoption Day, Brewer!

Exactly one year and two days ago, a shy, gentle little stray pup found his way into our home forever. But our story together starts about a month before that, in February of 2012. After getting picked up by animal control in San Bernadino, this stray had four days to get adopted or face euthanasia. Luckily for him, he had a cute face that won over the hearts of a dozen animal rescue workers who pooled their resources together to pull him out of the high-kill Devore shelter and transport him all the way down to a foster home in San Diego. He was a little over 20lbs underweight when he arrived and his foster parents slowly started nursing him back to health through mange and fleas and a few wounds from his life as a stray.

After several weeks in their care, they posted his photo and story on Craigslist. At that point, I was obsessively searching for a dog. Having lost my furry best friend of 11 years, Coal, to cancer that past January, two months proved too much time for me to be without a pup. But finding the right dog was a PROCESS. And there were a few missteps. I fostered an 11-week-old puppy for a night, thinking that I wanted to raise my next dog from puppyhood. Many sleepless hours later, I knew that a puppy wasn't the quite the right fit. I met a few adult dogs off Craigslist and PetFinder, but I didn't really connect with any of them. That's when I saw Brewer, who back then was named Charlie. The moment I saw his picture, I knew.

Brewer's foster mom (who happened to leave 5 blocks away!) left him with us for a few hours for a trial run later that night. Ryan and I took him on a walk around the neighborhood and we were surprised by how well he did on the leash. He was calm and sweet and reserved, but friendly. When his foster mom came to pick him up, she was shocked to hear that he hadn't whined or freaked out when she left - we were the first people he'd been alone with that he'd seemed to like. I told her I wanted to adopt him and me and Ryan headed to PetSmart to pick up his things.



The night before Brewer came home for good is a great memory. We stayed home drinking Bud Light Limes and brainstorming up a name for him. 'Ranger' and 'Sawyer' were both on the list, but we weren't sold. By Saturday, the day I was going to pick Brewer up and bring him home, we still didn't have a name. Ryan went to work and we texted suggestions back and forth all morning. The name 'Brewer' came to me out of nowhere and just as I was texting it to Ryan, a text message from him appeared on my screen: "What about Brewer?" I couldn't have been more shocked or more convinced that we had named him.

Brewer's first month at home wasn't exactly smooth sailing. His health still wasn't great: he was 15lbs underweight and had giardia. When he finally let me touch his stomach, I discovered that the shelter had left his stitches in after he was neutered and the skin around them was infected and scarred. He also had terrible, terrible separation anxiety. One day I came home on my lunch break to find that he had eaten the doorframe and clawed his way through the stucco wall next to the front door. I was still living with one of my best friends at the time and he owned the house. I called Ryan shaking when I found Brewer amidst the debris and he rushed right over from work because I was too scared to go upstairs and see if there was damage elsewhere. Luckily, there wasn't. It wasn't the best start. But I had faith.



Now I can't believe it's been over a year since we've had Brewer in our lives! He's healthy and happy and really bonding with his new little brother, Banjo. He is endlessly gentle with other dogs and people, especially kids. In the year since he came home, he's gotten all the way up to a healthy 50lbs, gotten a yard of his very own, traveled with us to Big Sur, and been the main attraction at every dog-friendly bar we go to. I still get choked up every time I think about what his life must have been like before we got him and how grateful I am for the people who work to rescue dogs like him every day. I can't wait to get home and give him a (belated) adoption day hug. :)

Do you have rescue dogs? I'd love to know your rescue story!