Frigid free time

 Wow, I have had so much free time! 

I have a few requirements for myself every day. I must do cardio, strength training, some kind of chore, and some reading for spring semester. Otherwise, I get to do all sorts of festive Christmas activities.

Cardio is harder to be motivated to do in the winter. Indoor cardio is boring, but ice, smog, and darkness make it harder to do outside. It drives me totally crazy that people don't clear their sidewalks. It is literally the law! One day, I decided to be nice and shovel lots of neighbors' sidewalks. At one of the houses, their driveway was clear, but not the sidewalks, and I heard of an incident where the man of the house publicly shamed someone in elders quorum for not keeping his storm drain clean—but he can't be bothered to clear the sidewalk? That's way worse!

I ran to the Bountiful Temple from my house, which is my default long run for winter and early spring. It's 10.8 miles round trip, and it takes about the same amount of time and steps as the 7-mile North Canyon run, but I feel more sore when I'm done. Around the temple, the houses have put up signs that tell the Christmas story, so that's always fun to see (and I can't help but proofread it; they spelled it "fourth" instead of "forth"!). Another house made a "Candy Cane Corner" with free candy canes! So of course I took one, because it seemed nice and Christmassy. Then I thought, "What if I ate it while I ran?" It didn't take my brain long to shoot down the idea of running with a sharp item in my mouth. 😬

Then the next day, with a fresh blanket of snow (that I know people wouldn't shovel), I decided to go sledding for my cardio, since I had to keep walking up the hill once I got to the bottom. It was fun, but it's not as fun as going with my nephews. Stupid Covid!

Unfortunately, whenever I am active in my boots, they rub my heels raw. So I didn't feel like running on Saturday, and instead I biked about sixteen miles. Since I went on the flat Legacy Parkway Trail, it didn't even feel much like exercise. One of many reasons I prefer running to biking. When I'm biking back to my car, it feels like it just takes sooo long! Before I went biking, I went to a new NSL park, since I'm trying to go to all of them. 

It recently occurred to me that it isn't good to buy liquid soap because of the plastic bottles it comes in. I wondered if I could make liquid soap from bars of soap. Most of the recipes sounded complicated, but one sounded easy. I'm providing the link so you know not to use it. I followed the recipe, which involved grating a bar of soap in my food processor, boiling water, and putting the soap in the water. It was weird using soap with food items. 

I looked away for a second, and it bubbled over!

The soap was supposed to congeal, but it remained very liquidy. So I added a whole 'nother bar to the mixture, and it still was runny. I decided to keep the watery mixture. I haven't really used it yet, so I'll have to see how it works as runny soap.

I have enjoyed watching cooking championships where the contestants have to create a dessert using a particular ingredient, which makes me want to get creative. We have lots and lots of frozen cherries in our freezer from my sister's tree, so I wondered how I could make cherries into a Christmas dessert. One of my standbys is a classic crisp. It's easy, tasty, versatile, and forgiving. So I decided to make cherry crisp with a gingerbread topping. I swapped out a third of the brown sugar for molasses and added ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, along with the cinnamon that's already in the recipe. And it turned out nice and gingerbread-y! If I were a professional chef, I would probably tinker with it more, but it was still enjoyable.

The uncooked batter is the last picture here, since Blogger still can't get the pictures in the right order 🙄

Speaking of gingerbread, I got desserts from Utah Taste Off again, this time ginger desserts. Brownies! Brownies! Brownies! was my favorite, but RubySnap (bottom right) won. Parsons' Bakery had an entry (bottom left), but it wasn't very gingerbread-y. They're local, but they're really a mediocre bakery.

On Wednesday, I rescued two yellow sac spiders. One was in the bathtub, and spiders often have a hard time climbing out. It was kind of shriveled up, like it was going to die soon, so I draped some toilet paper over the edge, thinking that would be easier for it to climb. Then I used another piece of toilet paper to coax it, but instead it just dangled from that toilet paper, so I lifted it out.

Then, after my long run, I was sitting in the hot tub when I heard something fall. It was a yellow sac spider that had fallen onto the edge of the tub. It crawled around, but then fell in the water. It was sitting on the surface of the water, so I tried to blow it to the edge so it could climb out—but that just made it sink. Then it resurfaced, and I took a cup to rescue it. Sometimes I kill spiders, but then I feel guilty. Yellow sac spiders are less harmful than others.

In my free time, I've been watching holiday movies and episodes, most of them ones I haven't seen before. 

I'm looking forward to finishing my Christmas preparations so I can have an enjoyable holiday! Well, as enjoyable as it can be during a pandemic.