A little indulgence

Not to toot my own horn, but I have been super good lately about exercising. I've found a bunch of stuff on Pinterest to motivate me, and lots of new/old exercises to try. So, ok, I already knew how to do crunches and pushups, but I've pinned a few things to remind me that I actually need to do these things. It helps that I can already see a difference in myself, just from adding a little bit of weight training to my running.
As for the running, well. I don't think the dog quite knows what to do with herself now that she's getting to go for so many regular and tiring runs. I injured my knee well over a month ago--I'm still not sure what happened, except that running and long walks were the only things which bothered it, biking and even squats/lunges were fine--so I've been taking it sorta slow getting back into the routine. Also, it's chilly out and long runs just don't seem the most appealing. Add in the increasing darkness (which means more limited times in which I'm going to think, "Yeah! Running!") and we've been doing more smaller runs. However, I've upped the difficulty for myself to make up for the lack of hills and distance. We've started doing sprint intervals. You know, sprinting between two landmarks, then slowing back to a jog for a very short time, then sprinting again. This has been wearing both of us out extremely well. Pepper has been so tired that she can't even cause mischief when Shane is gone. (Most of the time.)
As if all this wasn't enough, I decided a few weeks ago to scale back my addiction to all things bread. I realized that it was my go-to snack, and my default food when I couldn't think of what else I wanted. I was eating something with bread (or bread with something else) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So I scaled it back a bit, and what bread-y stuff I have been eating has been almost entirely whole grain. (The few exceptions being things like the rolls I ate when friends invited me over to dinner, and a friend's 'going away party' cake.) Shane laughs at me because he has absolutely no problem not eating bread and pasta and all things carb-alicious. I do. It's been a conscious effort not to eat these things. Yesterday was the first time in over 3 weeks that I made bread, and that was so that I could finally make reuben sandwiches. (I made sauerkraut and it's ready to eat!) Just to be clear, I haven't gone Atkins, or Paleo, or even really low-carb. I'm just not overdosing myself on bread all the time.
So, after about a month of being very physically active, and eating well (I really do feel a difference) I just needed some sort of little indulgence the other night. Of course, my first thought was, "Cookies!" but not only did I not have all of the ingredients for pretty much any cookie recipe, I didn't want to eat an entire batch of cookies by myself. I didn't want to totally throw all of my efforts out the window (like I said, I do feel a difference) so I wanted to make it within my new parameters.
Usually, I try to save my preserved foods for after the snow falls. It's a little silly, but to me it doesn't feel like I should be breaking into my supplies when there's still plentiful stuff at the store. However, I didn't have a vehicle and really didn't feel like biking to the store. Also, there was snow in the forecast and the feel of snow in the air. Good enough for me. (We did get a light dusting of snow the next morning, but it was gone by the time I got out of bed.)
With autumn in the air and most of the summer fruits out of the store, I've mostly been eating vegetables and very, very little fruit over the past couple of weeks. (To be honest, I just haven't been feeling like it. Autumn doesn't feel like a season of peaches, so I don't want them anymore. Mostly) Pulling out some cherries and blueberries for a mini cobbler was an especial treat. It turned out so well! I didn't want to make a huge one, just enough for me (the Boy was gone for the evening) and just enough for one evening.
I made it in one of our 4-cup Pyrex storage containers (they're oven safe) and it was super easy.

Mini Cobbler
Approximately 3 cups of frozen cherries
About 1 cup frozen blueberries
1 tbsp corn starch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
A couple dashes of nutmeg

Combine in your baking vessel. This was enough to almost fill the Pyrex container, but it cooks down a lot, don't worry. Then combine (in a separate bowl):
1/2 cup oats
1/4 cup brown sugar (or, I suppose, honey or maple syrup would be good too)
Enough butter to make it all crumbly. (A couple of tablespoons.)

Pour that over the fruit, bake for about 20 minutes at 375. Let it cool a bit so that it's not the temperature of the sun when you bite into it, then enjoy.
You could almost certainly get two servings out of this, I was just greedy (and hungry) and I ate it all. :)