Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. Can you believe that Christmas is next week? The older I get, the faster time flies.
1) I finished my final virtual bike ride of the year through the Conqueror Challenge app. You set your own goal for this one, and I set a goal of 2700 miles for 2022. It's very satisfying to log my progress and it keeps me on track riding every day on my Peloton bike. I already signed up for my first ride of 2023- 1968 miles on the Appalachian Trail. This one will take awhile.
2) When I was in high school, I worked at the Fingerlakes Cinema 4 in the Fingerlakes Mall in Auburn NY. One of my many tasks was to make the popcorn, and we used a flavoring salt called Flavacol. I was online somewhere (maybe The Today Show website?) and I saw that Flavacol was listed as a great gift under $25. I immediately ordered one, and then I had to order a popcorn maker to make the popcorn to use the Flavacol. I hope it tastes as good as I remember. 
3) In our continuing quest to eat healthier I made a recipe from Marlene Koch's Eat What You Love- Restaurant Favorites. I made her Burrito Bowl with Cilantro-Lime Fiesta Rice. It was delicious! I used the leftover shredded pork I made in the slow cooker the day before, and we both decided that this recipe was definitely going into the rotation. My husband isn't a cilantro fan, so I left that out, but it was still very tasty. He even brought the leftovers to work for lunch. I have two of Marlene's other books- Eat What You Love Everyday and Eat More of What You Love Every Day- and I use them frequently, but Restaurant Favorites looks like it has more recipes I we would enjoy. I highly recommend. 
4) Like the rest of the world, I watched the Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan. It gave you an eye-opening look at how awful the tabloid culture is in England. The lengths the paparazzi go to get a photo or destroy someone's mental health in the name of greed is disgraceful. I'm not sure why anyone would put themselves through that, and after seeing his mother Diana literally hounded to her death by them, it's no wonder that Harry took his family away from that poisonous atmosphere. 
5) Things are busy at work and Christmas stuff, but I did manage to read my Book of the Month selection, Matthew Quick's novel We Are the Light. It tells the story of the aftermath of a tragedy at a deadly shooting at a movie theater in a small town that left 18 people dead. The narrator Lucas is writing letters to his therapist describing how he is handling the loss of his wife in the shooting by a young man he counseled in school. He sees his wife in the form of an angel who visits him every night, and when a young man puts up his tent in the Lucas' backyard, Lucas decides he must help this young man, and his wife tells Lucas that this young man is the way forward. It can be a tough story to read, with a lot of sadness, but the town wants to come together to heal and how they do that is beautiful. 
Stay safe and healthy everyone and have a very happy holiday season. See you in 2023.
