Five Things Friday: just five things I’m thinking about or things that made my week, or things that I otherwise feel like sharing.
This has been another busy week for me. Besides the usual holiday craziness, I had a gazillion other things on my to-do list. I had a two-day in-person project meeting at work, for which I worked late on Monday to work on a presentation. We also had a group dinner on Tuesday night, which was fun but made for a really long day. The meeting was great though and I was pretty pleased that my new (interim) supervisor joined the meeting for almost all day on Tuesday. He’s a biologist and doesn’t know much about the work that the physical scientists in our group do but I really appreciated that he showed up and was interested in our work. He asked some really good questions.
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We also finally sold our VW Jetta this week and it made me a little bit melancholy (even though I am not a car person). Weird, but I always struggle a little bit with change and letting go.
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This morning, I participated in our end-of-the-year Baking Championship Holiday Party at work. At first, I didn’t want to go (because it’s Friday and I usually don’t work on Fridays), but then I also wanted to continue with my theme of “showing up and participating more at work”, so I baked Vanillekipferl the night before and entered into the bake-off competition. Well, and what do you know? My Vanillekipferl won first place! :) (I am only a little bit surprised though because they really are THAT good. You should bake them sometime.)
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Earlier this evening, I went to a ” CIM first-timer celebration” at our local Fleet Feet to celebrate our accomplishments from last weekend. I was hoping to see my coach to thank her (and the whole coaching team) in person for all the incredible work and support during these last 5 months, but unfortunately, she wasn’t there. It was still a nice time. I got some CIM swag and it was nice to talk to some of the other finishers about their experiences! It’s been another goal for me this year to go out more and meet people and joining this training program was a great opportunity for me to meet other runners.
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I finally determined the winner of the gift card for the end-of-NaBloPoMo giveaway. I apologize for the delay! To be transparent, I included 17 comments by individual participants in the drawing and the random number generator spit out the number 8.
The 8th comment on my post was from Tobia and I’ll be sending her a gift card of her choice (Starbucks or Amazon)*. Congratulations to you, Tobia! You’ve been such an integral part of NaBloPoMo these last few years and I am so happy you won! Keep an eye out for an email!
And with that, I am off to keep on working on my to-do list. This weekend will still be very busy.
Happy Weekend, friends.
*This giveaway is not sponsored or paid for. The gift card was purchased with my own money.
Lisa’s Yarns
December 14, 2024 at 12:42 pmI’ve been waiting for a post about the race! Congrats on running a sub-4 marathon! That is something I was never able to accomplish – the closest I got was 4:02. But I am so happy for you! I tracked you that day and you ran such a strong race. That is cool that you trained with a group – I did not realize that! I loved training with a group!
And congrats on your bake off win, too! What a week for you!
J
December 14, 2024 at 1:00 pmI’m going to make some fudge for a friend for Christmas, and I feel like it looks a little blah in the box by itself, so I think I’m going to make your cookies to go in there as well, they look amazing and just like the kind of thing I enjoy. And if the’re award winners, then I absolutely need to give them a try!
Congrats to Tobia! I’m glad she won, she was the QUEEN of commenting this year.
Kyria @ Travel Spot
December 14, 2024 at 5:20 pmThat is good that you are getting out more and are joining up with the group! I know you were talking about finding it hard to meet people, so hopefully you met some good kindred spirits! Also congrats on finishing, and so strong too! Nice work.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
December 15, 2024 at 1:16 amOh my gosh I cannot believe you won the baking competition. Amazing! But entering with Vanillekipferl does that. They are THAT good.
Also… I won. What a surprise. I had not even hoped for that. I am not sure if I which gift card I would like. I need to think of it. Thank you so so much.
On another note: how great for you to get out and try to get to know new people. It is so so hard. Findig new friends as an adult is such a challenge specially not having kids were you automatically get to know a ton of people and your chances of finding some like minded one are increasing.
Nicole MacPherson
December 15, 2024 at 7:22 amYay for winning the baking contest! I’m not surprised, though!
Alexandra
December 15, 2024 at 11:58 amCongrats on winning the Bake-Off, that’s fantastic. I have to bake something for the family gathering over Christmas, I have yet to decide on what to do and take. Oh, and congrats to Tobia, well deserved.
Elisabeth
December 15, 2024 at 12:24 pmYay! You know I ADORE the GBBO, so I feel like now that you’ve tackled the marathon your next goal should be to go on a baking reality show :)
Those cookies do look amazing!!