Reddy to beet you

It's kind of hard to believe that Martin Luther King Day was less than a week ago. It seems longer, even though it shouldn't. Since I have paid holidays, I try to do fun things on those days, but the snow prevented me from doing anything fun. I got my brake light fixed.

In the evening, I wanted to watch Inside Out because I hadn't seen it. However, I have a rule that I don't sit idly watching TV and movies. Usually I lift weights while watching horrible 1960s sitcoms. But I can do language study, so I turned on French subtitles to watch the movie. (The translation was not literal at all.) It was a really good movie; I understand all the hype. It was the most imaginative movie since The Lego Movie.

On Wednesday my mom had surgery. She's recovering pretty well.

On Saturday, while everyone else was taking pointless stick figure quizzes, I ran seven miles and made veggie burgers.

In 2015, my first run was on New Year's Day, but in 2016 I didn't get my first run until yesterday. I was really excited to use my new Fitbit. I have been a little disappointed with my Fitbit, because it doesn't show the date or seconds, and because I have to charge it a lot more than the promised seven days. But I really liked it yesterday on my run! It has a GPS so it keeps track of how many miles I run, and it vibrates every time I hit a mile, and it shows my pace. I have an eleven-minute pace--I knew I was slow, but I didn't know that slow. But hopefully this will help me get faster. I ran for an hour and twenty-four minutes and ran 7.4 miles. And when I got home and synced it with the app on my phone, it even showed me how fast I ran at each mile. I was fastest between four and five miles, probably because that was flattest. It even showed a map of where I went, and it showed that I had a six-hundred-foot elevation change. (I think it only counts going up, not going down.) I only do street running for exercise, but I do trail running for fun. I'm very anxious for spring to come and the trails to thaw out.

(I would have run faster yesterday if people did a better job of clearing snow and ice off their sidewalks. Smh.)

Then after I came home, I made hearty winter vegetable burgers using beets, prunes, almonds, bulgur, ginger root, and some other things. I was glad to have a food processor to help grate and mix. I like beets, especially their vibrant color. I can't take pictures of them, though, because I don't want to turn my phone red. I did take pictures of the final result:

(Those are beet burgers, not beef burgers.). They were pretty good, but not as good as the spicy autumn vegetable burgers with sweet potatoes, kale, beans, and spices.

And lest you think I'm some health nut trying to make you feel bad about yourself, don't worry. It's red velvet season, so I've been eating plenty of red velvet cake, cupcakes, Oreos, Pop-Tarts, and pancakes. All these things leave a lovely red color in the sink when I brush my teeth.

Between the red velvet and the beets, if I were bleeding, I would have no idea.