Picture of the Day: October 21st to October 27th

October 21st: I love how these flowers are still blooming, even into the fall. 

October 22nd: Now that the government is open, Shenandoah National Park has reopened! Mark and I did a 6 mile hike today and the leaves are right in the middle of changing colors...it was gorgeous.

October 23rd: Since I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew (let's just call it being overambitious), I've decided that since Thanksgiving and Hanukkah coincide this year, it would be the perfect excuse to make Thanksgiving dinner from scratch! Or, should I say, Thanksgivukkah dinner. It's something I've wanted to try, and since Thanksgiving is delicious and Jewish food is delicious, I figured why not? I spent some time tonight digging through piles of recipes to get some ideas. 

October 24th: One of the best things about my music school moving to downtown Warrenton is being able to stop by the library before my violin and piano lessons. I've been trying to read some of the books on my ginormous list of books to read (at last count, I had 152 books on there!). The hard part is trying to limit myself to four books each time I go...I always wind up finding some other random book that I want to read, and if I don't cut myself off I'll wind up leaving with more books than I can finish in three weeks!

October 25th: My Newtons came today! They're my new pair of running shoes and I've wanted to try them for a while. They're pretty expensive, but I found a new pair on ebay that was my size. They're supposed to encourage you to land more on the middle part of your foot instead of your heel (hence the lugs that stick out of the bottom), which is supposed to help keep you injury-free. One of my friends swears by these (and she just ran a fast enough marathon to qualify for Boston), and since I've had my fair share of running injuries over the past year I figured it was worth a shot. I can't wait to try them out!

October 26th: There was frost outside this morning. Yuck! I had to work a 10-6, but I took a few minutes to sneak outside and take a few reverse-lens macro pictures of the frost on the flowers before I left for work.

October 27th: Dinner of champions: half an Amy's pizza and some coffee. Mark and I both have the mid tonight...only 8 hours of sleep deprivation stand between me and my weekend!