Garmin Forerunner 110

Three more weeks of classes to go! Holy shoot! I have so much catching up to do with the blogging, but soon enough I will be able to stop by and say hello much more regularly.

I started this post on Sunday...and today is Friday. Oye. 

I've made a lot of good technological purchases in the past few months, including a new laptop and camera. I mentioned before that I got a Garmin Forerunner 110 for my birthday. I just used it last weekend for a 6-mile run in the woods near our house. I'll talk to you in more detail about it later, but I promise you that I will never want to run without it again. If you don't own one but like running and have any interest whatsoever about how fast you run outdoors, I highly recommend that you buy one!

Let's backtrack to last Saturday night, shall we? My food recaps are patchy, because I haven't been taking many pictures. You're not missing anything, because I don't eat exciting things during the week. 

On Saturday night (two days before the Fourth of July), I accompanied my parents to Vittorio De Roma in Palatine. The restaurant is in an ugly strip mall that is around other ugly strip malls, so I didn't expect much from it at first. However, my parents and I were blown away by the quality of the food and the service. Based on the photo of the menu below, by the way, what do you think I ordered? Hint: it's not very hard to figure out if you know my favorite food!

They had sangria on special. Sangria isn't Italian at all, but I ordered it anyway. It tasted good, but I wish that I had ordered wine for the all-Italian experience. 

We started out with a basket of bread, and then we ordered two appetizers.

The first appetizer was grilled calamari.

The second appetizer was a grilled portobello mushroom with roasted red peppers and goat cheese. This was definitely my favorite of the two!

My main dish of choice was very predictable: I ordered the gnocchi marinara. For me, the potato dumplings were the perfect firm texture that I want when I eat this dish. I almost cleared my plate. It was so good. 

Our server brought out a dessert tray when we finished our meal so that we could see what everything looked like. I decided that a giant red velvet cupcake was the best choice of the lot. 

Great dessert!

All in all, the dinner was a memorable experience. We enjoyed every minute of it. We said that we'll definitely go back there in the future. 

Trader Joe's also get an honorable mention for making tasty and healthy frozen food. I picked this up a few weeks ago and made it last week when I wanted a quick and easy lunch. It has 250 calories and 5 grams of fat, AND it's not loaded with crazy dangerous chemicals. 

It doesn't look super appetizing below, but also take into account that the microwave bent the plastic and I accidentally spilled a bunch out while trying to avoid my hungry dog Buffy. It was very tasty. It was also under $3.00. I love Trader Joe's. 

As for the Garmin and the half marathon training, I ran six miles last weekend in 80-degree heat (high 20's in Celsius and up) with humidity. I went to the running trail on the Des Plaines River by our house, and the majority of my run was shaded by the forest. I was great for my first three miles, and then I was convinced I was going to die. True story. My mom ran by my side the whole time, and you would not believe the profanities that were going from my mouth to her ears. I still finished. I ran six miles without stopping to walk in a little over an hour. Despite wanting to jump into the river (which I'm glad I didn't, because I had to look at Des Plaines River water under a microscope in biology a few weeks ago, and I saw what lives in it. My lab partner and I named the amoeba "Jefan" since my name is Jen and his name is Stefan. I considered keeping Jefan as a pet, and then I realized that I would have to purchase a microscope if I wanted to see it. We killed it instead by washing it out in the sink.), I was so pleased that I had my Garmin Forerunner. I knew exactly how fast I was running, and I knew the exact time I could stop and keel over on the grass. I'm sure that I will talk more about it in the future since this blog is called "The Little Jogger" and all.....

I hope all of you wonderful people have a great weekend. I will be home studying my little brain away, but I really want to pop by a few times and say hi.