10 Mile Run, Famous Pizza and Slime

So yesterday morning I did something I rarely do on a random weekday – I ran 10 miles.

My long run routine naturally fell on Saturday mornings because that was the day I had the most time to devote to a run lasting longer than 45- 60 minutes. Not to mention, when I first started incorporating the concept of the long run, I couldn’t run much more than that anyway.

I sometimes forget that I now work for myself and can be a bit more flexible with my weekday morning routine depending upon the day.

I hold myself to basically the same morning schedule of getting up early to blog and run before the rest of the world is up and functioning.

I like getting my weekday workouts quickly out-of-the-way early but for some reason yesterday, I decided it was OK to change it up a bit and I am so glad that I did.

The weather was beautiful, my new sneakers felt great and those 10 miles went by in a flash. Ha, I say that now but we all know 10 miles, even at an easy effort, is still an accomplishment.

Another change to routine this week was Tuesday night’s dinner.

I really do try to cook dinner 5 to 6 nights a week. I may not be cooking up a creative storm lately, but meals out, especially during the week, do not occur often.

On Tuesday, however, in between afterschool activities, pizza at a local favorite of ours became dinner.

If you notice on the above menu, Chef’s has been featured on Food Network. I believe it was the show, “Best Thing I Ever Ate”.

Adam Gertler, originally from Long Island, made Chef’s world-famous by speaking of their spinach pie.

Every time I go to Chef’s for pizza though, I aim for the vegetable pizza on the whole wheat crust.

When my son was little, as in the toddler years, the two of us used to have lunch at Chef’s several days a week after his Gymboree classes.

As he caught on to my pizza of choice, and as he learned to talk, he started ordering my pizza for me.

He would ask the man behind the counter for the, “Set-ables Pizza”. Nothing cuter than a toddler’s version of the English language.

My “Set-ables” slice the other night was divine. As always.

It was a nice break from the cooking and cleaning of the kitchen as well. I really do try to make as many meals at home as I can but sometimes I do realize that a few slices of pizza out probably doesn’t cost much more than making our dinner at home.

With the amount of produce I consume combined with purchasing the high quality meat and poultry for my son, groceries aren’t all that cheap these days.

You like my rationalizing this week, don’t you? It’s like I am giving us all a free pass to start dining out more often.

I have even been letting the boy purchase lunch more often from the school cafeteria. Not even because I am the school’s Nutrition Representative.

It actually costs me much less to have him buy lunch than it does for me to buy all of the ingredients that go into making him sandwiches and sending the snacks.

Our school serves a balanced plate daily including veggie burgers, lean turkey, baked not fried foods, whole grains, salads and fruits.

School lunches, at least in our district, are truly of decent quality.  No “pink slime” to be found.

The only place we should see slime is in the green form on Nickelodeon.

If you grew up watch Nick like I did, you may be excited to see that a book containing interviews with our favorite cast members from the classic shows has been released this week.

You Can’t Do That On Television, Double Dare, Clarissa Explains It All, Hey Dude….ah, the memories.

It is almost Friday friends, hang in there and have a great day!

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I NEED TO KNOW:

How often do you eat out during the week?

What foods make up the bulk of your grocery shopping must-haves?

Favorite Nickelodeon show growing up? You Can’t Do That On Television. And Double Dare.  And Today’s Special. And Pinwheel, And Out-Of-Control. And Nick Rocks. And so many more that I can’t list them all.