The 100th Post

Apparently this is the 100th post I've put on this blog. I found out by accident when I went to add this one, but I decided it was neat enough to mention it.

So, the real title of this post would have been "Snowshoeing"

A few weeks ago a friend took me snowshoeing. Basically it's just like winter snow hiking made easier by walking with big, flat things strapped to your feet. People who take snowshoeing seriously are probably irate with that definition. Oh well.

Snow shoes are usually ridiculously expensive, but Mendards had some on sale for $50 so I grabbed a pair. They even came with ski poles (which might be more aptly called snow shoe poles in this situation, but are essentially the same thing). I took them out once a couple weeks ago, but didn't go very far and I hadn't had a chance to since. Then we got six inches of fresh snow and had a warm, non-windy weekend. I went to Seven Mile Creek and did some hiking. It was a great day for it. There weren't very many people out there. The temperature was perfect. I had my ipod, and there was lots of snow to tromp through. On my whole hike I only even saw two other sets of people and it wasn't until the very end of my hike.

My friend Dan wanted to see a picture of me in the shoes. I figured I could throw it on here so other people could make fun of it too. 

I went for probably a four to five mile hike. It was fun except for the last half mile when I realized I was developing a pretty nice blister on one foot. I climbed a few monster hills and slid down some others. I even tried to run in the shoes a bit for fun, but then I didn't bring my foot up enough once, so I tripped and nearly face planted into the snow.  I felt like a goon, but no one was around to see, so it was funnier to me.

I took a couple pictures since it was so neat looking out. The two on here are a couple of the hills that I climbed up. The first one was especially fun because I was the first person to do it. The rest had already been walked, but that was ok because I probably would have gotten lost if I didn't have a path to follow. I'm not super familiar with the paths out there.

Chairs and Pastries

 Last weekend I went to a fabric outlet in Burnsville with a friend from work. Ever since I got my dining room chairs three years ago, I've wanted to recover them. The fabric store had a lot of really nice upholstery fabric for pretty cheap, so I finally found some fabric and recovered the chairs.

The original fabric was very old school and not really in the greatest shape. There were a few different colors/patterns that I liked, but in the end I chose a simple brown. I don't really have a very decorated kitchen so I had nothing I needed to worry about matching, but I wanted to go with something fairly neutral. Hopefully when I get a real place someday the chairs will still fit in there.

I also made some super awesome scones a couple weekends ago. Really they weren't all that impressive, but they look neat and tasted ok, so I thought I'd also add a picture of them. If I ever make them again I think I will have to add more orange zest to kick up the flavor. They were a little more plain than I was hoping for.