Crock-pot? Jackpot!

I think Gymmy has rubbed off on me. I mean literally, yes - I wake up to his tooshie in my face every morning - but figuratively as well. His lack of desire for the cold has kicked my motivation to do any long runs outside right to the curb (our other dog, Kobi, is older and body can't handle anything more than a walk anymore). The other day a coworker informed me that I need to either run on a 1.0 incline or 20sec faster per mile for it to equate outside running. On top of that, I began looking through my old running journals and was *shocked* with what I saw - I was running at 7.2 (mph)!! That's crazy talk for me right now!

Fully determined, I stepped onto the treadmill last night, when suddenly my arm became paralyzed as I tried reaching for the incline button. I.....just.....can't. Fine, I'll just run at a faster pace, I told myself. The willpower it took for me to press that 'up' button on the speed dial just a mere 0.2 was more difficult that I could have imagined. "6.2," the screen read. Ok, I can do this. The first 5miles are always a killer for me. After that, my body goes into autopilot and I'm free to watch whatever show they have on the tvs at the company gym. By the end of 10miles, I felt I was much more knowledgeable on random facts as I watched 4 consecutive episodes of Cash Cab (Thank you, Ben Bailey! I'll be ready when I see you in NYC!).

On the way home, the roomie and I headed to our fav grocery store (shout out to Holiday Market, woot woot!) to grab ingredients for my department potluck lunch. I decided to steal K-Jo's mom's recipe for crock-pot pot roast. I just threw in all the ingredient and pushed the start button. Can it really be that easy?? I'm still uneasy with crock-pots - I didn't grow up w/ one. The thought of something tasting good w/ that little prep work boggles me. But it IS Mrs. K-Jo's recipe, the queen of made-from-scratch-goodness, so I had high hopes.

my beautiful, nearly untouched All Clad crock-pot

The verdict...eehhh, the jury's still out.  I personally thought it was delicious, but it didn't go as fast as I thought it would have at lunch...  All in all, though, crock-pot = jackpot!