It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood...

It started out raining and gray, but it got better later on. After I got up in the morning, I got on the internet. I went from one thing to another, and before I knew it, a couple of hours had passed. The interwebs sure can be a serious time suck! In order to do what I set out to do for this year, which was to spend less time on the computer and more time running and doing social things, I peeled myself away from the computer and put on my running clothes. Then we looked outside and noticed it was gray and wet. Oh well, at least it wasn't hot, right? So off we drove to the coast of Encinitas to run our usual route. The roads were wet but I liked the smell of the fresh rain. I ran relaxed and felt very good. Of course, I brought my camera with me. :) I took so many good photos that could represent TODAY for my Project 365, but I chose this one because *I* stuck to my goals and went out running today, and I'm proud of that. The photo is at Swamis, where we usually stop to take in the breathtaking views and run the stairs to the beach. I stopped to take a photo of this scene, because how could I not? I know I'm blessed to live here and run here. I ran all the way up right past the Self Realization Center. Their usual sign was replaced by this: At Swamis, I love to look at the tile design on this very cool memorial: A long-armed self portrait: We have a lot of long-arm photos from when we don't bring our tripod. I should make some layouts about long-armed photos, with a bunch of them splattered on the page. :) The skies were still kind of gray, depending on which direction you looked. But the way the sun was peeking out and hitting the water was just right. After our run, we drove to Bongiornos to enjoy our first pizza lunch of the new year. I was good and had a salad first: then only ONE slice of pizza: Todd and I made a new dish tonight, a recipe from Cooking Light called Smoky Meatballs in Serrano Ham-Tomato Sauce. We made it in our new red dutch oven. It was a lot of work (about 2 hours worth, including simmering time) but the flavor wasn't as rich as we had hoped it would be. Perhaps it will be better tomorrow as a leftover. I took a couple of pics but that was after I had uploaded the previous pics from today already, so I'll add the photo next time I blog. Here's the photo: