To those who enjoy a day off,

What a nice treat, I had the day off today!  It's a weekday so all of my friends are working.  This means that I have the whole day to myself.

Like every morning, I cook myself up a breakfast.  I had one fried egg, a yesterday's fourth of a roast beef sandwich and a small bowl of cottage cheese topped Hawaiian pineapple complimented with a cup of rose white tea with milk and honey and a glass of watered down orange juice.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to do something fun and/or different on my days off.

Got my haircut and I look like Dora the Explorer even more.

Next, I drove to Tilden park on an almost empty tank of gas.  It was a cold and gloriously sunny day.  I hiked for about an hour and twelve minutes.  Of course, I timed it on my stop watch.  It's enjoyable to see how long I hike for.  I attempted to meditate while I was hiking.  I am not sure if I was successful.  I met Martin from Oaxaca, Mexico on the hike.  He hikes twice a week on a steep mountain.  He was an elderly man wondering if he had seen me hiking before.   I snacked on a tangerine, Swiss cheese and honey nut O's and drank some water.

Came home for refueling!  I ate tuna and mac and cheese.

I wanted to continue the day and prepped my bike up which has been having problems.  I rode off to Modern Coffee which is connected to the Tribune Tower building.  I had a delicious decaf latte coffee with raw sugar.  I wrote two letters and listened to the hustle and bustle of the coffee shop.  The decor was elegant with a twist of industrial modernism.  Anyway, on my way home the bike was back to normal for now.

I decided to head home at 4:15pm with a stop to the grocery store for some soup ingredients.  I enjoy being at home cooking and relaxing.

For dinner, I ate my soup with some toasted cranberry walnut bread!  The soup ingredients included hot Italian sausage, great northern beans, kaleidoscope chard, brown rice, crimini mushrooms and chicken based broth.  The soup needed something more so I went to my neighbor's house and stole three lemons.  I only used one and will use the others for something else.

I still have more to the evening and I am not sure what I will do.

Loving today,
My-Linh

P.S. I am sad that the Vikings did not beat the Packers.  I am cheering for the Packers to make it to the Superbowl.