break!

eric and i went to visit the trail of lights the night before i left (and he was supposed to leave) austin for winter break. it was cold. it felt like winter. i approve.

this whole sickness thing took a comically bad turn this morning. after the flu, bronchitis and a sinus infection, i broke out in hives on friday on my ankles...and this morning on my whole body. turns out i might have become allergic to penicillin. the positive side of all this is that i don't have to take the antibiotics anymore.

either way, i am feeling much better. this morning i went out on a 10 or 11 mile walk. it felt amazing. i was only going to go out for an hour or so, but i was enjoying being outside so much i just kind of kept going. it was quite relaxing....and a nice break from trying to walk around stores and the mall. i already knew i liked shopping online, but my recent trips to the mall have confirmed my appreciation for it.

i've been experimenting with vegan cooking the last couple days. i found a good recipe for portobello, artichoke, sundried tomato risotto. and i tried a recipe for mac and cheese, but i have to say, the real thing is better. i did get to learn a little bit about nutritional yeast though. even if i never use it again, its fun to experiment with new things in the kitchen, and i'm really enjoying the opportunity to cook again.

all of this time away from work has actually been making me miss it. today while i was walking, i found myself pondering how dogs walk. i was observing the wet paw marks on a section of pavement and the pattern was really interesting. in terms of spacing in the horizontal plane, dogs steps seem similar to humans except that for everyone one human print, there would be two paw prints in the same location because of the way dogs coordinate their legs during walking. doing some comparative gait analysis in the future would be cool.