he does exist!

Pictures from Tea with Santa with Katherine's friend Serena (from school)

life lesson: there's safety in numbers

She didn't run screaming from the room when Santa appeared. AND she told him her name and gave him her list when he stopped to talk to her. It really is a Christmas miracle!

Thanksgiving highlights

Just some pictures from Thanksgiving Day. Katherine took most of the people pictures--not sure why we all look drunk!?!

the all important Thanksgiving Day outfit

and my favorite: the Thanksgiving Day turkey cheeseball!

Because making cheeseballs is what I do now instead of work! I'm thinking reindeer for Chirstmas!

Made: part 2

I also finished this project recently. It was started well over a year ago (yes, a year!). It's foam core cut into pieces, covered with unprinted newsprint paper (so the paint will have something to stick to), glued together, painted, and decorated. In all fairness I did make one for Mom & Dad last year for Christmas and I did finish that one in a month!

The inside: recognize anyone? heehee

 

The top: made from embossed aluminum foil
colored with alcohol inks

A Tale of Two Kitties

get it? A Tale of Two Cities Kitties : )

So this little kitty when to the vet for a checkup that I've been putting off since February. I'm not sure if you've noticed but she's a little let's just say, temperamental. Her chart at the vet is flagged because she's (and I'm quoting the vet from the last time we were there), "one of the worst he's ever seen." Awesome. Well she started losing weight so I figured it was time to do something. They sedated her and I told them to do whatever they wanted while she was out--change the oil, rotate the tires, the whole enchilada! Turns out she has hyperthyroidism. So the treatments are a transdermal gel applied twice a day to her ear, surgery, or some kind of radioactive chemotherapy that means we'd have to separate her from us, the other animals, and especially Katherine for 2 weeks. Awesome. We've decided to try the gel although it does require blood work routinely. Not sure how that's going to go...

$362 on Monday at the vet for Kitty...

This little kitty went to the vet because she has oily fur and issues with excessive licking. She was an angel at the vet no matter what they did to her. ( And apparently vets don't have patient/doctor confidentiality because we saw the other vet with Pixie and he said while he examining her, "she's great, you should have seen the cat we had in here Monday." And I said, "I have, trust me. It was mine too.") Turns out she was negative for all normal causes of oily skin and grooming so we did blood work to rule out metabolic causes--also negative. So now we're trying a diet change to rule out a food allergy. The vet's suggestion: venison and green pea (or rabbit and green pea, we went with venison--yumm!). They should call it kitty gold at $32 for a six pound bag. If this doesn't work, he wants us to go see a dermatologist--awesome!

$282 on Wednesday at the vet for Pixie plus the $32 food plus $30 for Kitty's medication; and Robin and Charlie went wah, wah, wah all the way to the bank!

(don't you just the love the combo of some classic Dickens with a children's tale)

Made

So while the marathon training did pretty much suck all motivation out of me to do anything else during the last few weeks before I tapered, I did manage to create a few things I haven't shared here.

I saw a tutorial for this online and realized I had everything I needed right here to make one...so I did. I bought the fabric in a jelly roll last Christmas for a potential gift that didn't happen and it was all fall colored. Throw in some random ribbon I had and a wire coat hanger and you get a fall wreath...

(Some of the best and funnest projects are ones using things you already have. I'm sure my credit card and Charlie would agree!)

And some new layouts from the past couple of months:

Right Now

Fourth of July (don't yell at me Susie--it's a cute picture!)

So Proud of You

Just Like Daddy

Photo Reality

9 Months

The Days are Long but the Years are Short

12 Months (I felt like playing with some mists and inks and stamps on this one)

Autumn Bliss (those leaves on the 2nd page are embroidered, this one won me a $35 Pottery Barn gift card from the Crate Paper blog!)

Custom

Up next...a tale of two kitties...and their vet bill...bet you can't wait!

Chuck Norris Never Ran a Marathon

...and other fun signs I saw along the way: "Your feet hurt because you're kicking so much ass!" "26.2 miles, because 26.3 would just be crazy!" "Waking up early to make this sign was hard work!" "I may be old and slow, but I'm still ahead of you." (As seen on the back of Marine, Staff Sergeant Nuniz's shirt. I was with him for the first 5 miles and it made me smile every time I glanced at it--so thank you wherever you are!)

The marathon was awesome--the crowds, the enthusiasm, the Marines--everyone was so supportive and for the most part cheered regardless of who you were. And with that many people running, there was always someone running past them, so they cheered constantly. A few places stood out to me as having really great crowds and energy: the start and first 2 miles through Rosslyn, Georgetown was great, the second half of the Mall by the old Smithsonian, Crystal City, and of course the finish. Having a Marine put a medal around your neck was an inspiring experience.

To be honest I'm a little disappointed in my time. I went into this saying I wanted to run one marathon and just finish (no time goal). Everyone says, how can you be disappointed, you just finished a marathon? I think after training for 6 months you build up in your mind what finishing will feel like which after 6 months of building up and building up, the reality may have a hard time living up. I posted my thoughts on the Run Like a Mother facebook page which is a book written by 2 women runners and mothers. One of the authors commented that she was only really happy after one of her 7 marathons. A bunch of other women were having the same feelings as me. Another posted this: "Congrats on finishing! I wasn't even across the finish line this past October when I was sure I wasn't happy with my time and was going to do another. I think it fits with the personality type of some of us..." which made me laugh because I'm pretty sure she's onto something. A few days out now, I'm feeling better about it. But during the last few weeks of training I was looking forward to doing something else exercise wise. Now, I really just want to go for a run. Hello Runner's Anonymous....?

Somewhere during all this, something changed for me and it became enjoyable and something I wanted to do it longer. Sure there were really really bad runs, but there were really good runs too. Another marathon isn't completely out of the question for me somewhere down the line. Will it be soon? NO! Probably not next year either but maybe the following (depending on life and other things going on). I'd like to get faster at shorter distances. Run a 5K in less than 30 minutes and a 10K in less than 60 minutes (this one will be more challenging for me). I like having goals or something to accomplish. I'd like to do a 1/2 marathon or 2 or 3 and then see what happens.

I'm still trying to decide if I want to buy a fancy schmancy GPS running watch the tells you your speed and distance constantly with my birthday money--last month I would have said "I don't need that!"

Also got access to the official marathon photos and trying to decide if I want to spend $15 per 5x7 or pay $90 for access to digitally download all of them. I mean I don't want all of them but seriously, $15 for a 5x7? And it goes up from there in cost.

My soreness is gone (and it wasn't as bad as people said it would be) so tomorrow I'm going to the gym for a quick run and some weight training. We'll see where this takes me...

yep, I'm still here

living life, chugging along, running...or at least that's what I feel like I live to do these days. And most days I feel like that's all I do. 8-1/2 weeks left, which isn't much. But those 8 weeks will contain the longest runs yet--probably up to 22 miles. I eat to run, I sleep to run, I schedule my days to run. And I'm only running 4-5 days/ week so on the computer screen it doesn't seem like much. What hasn't been happening as much as normal? Cleaning and other general chore/household like stuff. Scrapbooking--although there is a layout in progress, maybe I'll finish it sometime soon. Reading. Blogging....well duh.  I have bad runs and I have good runs. And I've learned I like running. I want to keep running--maybe not train for a marathon all the time--but 6 or 7 miles is good for me. Unlike when I trained entirely on a treadmill and then ran a 1/2 marathon. I didn't run again for months. I want to get faster at shorter distances. I want to run 5K's and 10K's. So here's the past few weeks with times (mostly for my record, so I can get them out of my head!):

14 hilly miles: 2:52
16 hilly miles: 3:10 (a faster pace than the previous week)
18 flat miles: 3:33 (up to mile 15 I was on pace to beat my 16 mile time which wasn't surprising because it is  relatively flat. But I'm not going to lie, those last three miles were a sorry excuse for anything you might call running. There was quite a bit of walking happening. I was done. I blame vacation: bad diet, bad sleep, etc)
14 hilly miles: 2:47 (same course as the first time, 5 minutes faster! I'm not breaking any sound barriers here but I'll take any improvement I can get)

This weekend: 18 flat miles. Different course as the last 18. So we'll see what happens. I now have a mental block to get around since I died at mile 15 last time.

Bragging moment: Because we were on vacation I ran the 18 on a Monday, did speed work on Wednesday, ran on Thursday, took Friday off, and ran the 14 on Saturday. That makes my total mileage for that week: 43 miles!

Birthday pics...finally

The much requested dress that went to her feet and high heels. We found the dress on Ebay for $20--I couldn't have made anything that cheap.

Birthday dinner at Red Robin--her choice.

And the party. And it rained and rained and despite checking the radar 452 times that morning and it claiming that everything would be gone by 1:15-1:30, it kept raining. Luckily it wasn't storming, the pool was really warm and nobody seemed to mind swimming in the rain.

The Barbie princess cake. No I didn't make it, yes I could have but the fact that I didn't have to...priceless. :)

She told me before we sang she was nervous. She told Aidan he could help blow out her candles.

The pinata...it had ribbons to pull but they wanted to hit it so we did both because it would have taken hours to break that thing.

happy birthday

Katherine turns 5 today!

And apparently (according to her) you need a name sign to decorate with for your birthday...so I made one. When Charlie asked, "why spend time making one instead of just buying one?" I said because I wouldn't like it as much, because I have the ability to do it, and have you seen the amount of crap supplies I have upstairs--WHY NOT?

Finished it about two weeks ago and it's been hanging here since--have no idea what I'm going to do with it after her birthday--maybe hang it in her room for a while?

And of course I made some of the popular tissue paper flowers. Ok, so they were supposed to be balls hanging from the ceiling but even with Martha's tutorial, they looked weird so we went with flowers instead. What to do with these after the party as well? hmmm...

Here's some more close up shots of the banner...

I cut the template for the banner shapes (there's three different kinds--hard to tell in the photo) using my Cricut and a SCAL file I downloaded. Then I cut the backing out of thin chipboard, covered those in patterned paper, made the paper rosettes and attached them, stuck a punched center in the middle, cut the letters out using my Cricut, attached them, put some random glitter glue on them, punched the holes, strung some ribbon through, & hung it. The flowers were cut by hand using a template found online. I thought it needed a break between the words so it was easier to read.

Be back later this weekend with pictures of the actual party and birthday!

happy 4th (on the 6th)

or what we did on the 4th....
spent most of the day hiding inside--it was hot. Or at least it looked hot from the window! :)
And then we went to an Aberdeen Ironbirds baseball game with Margaret (aka: Grandma) and Aunt Susie (aka: Aunt Susie). Luckily there was shade and a slight breeze so altogether it wasn't so bad out. Had some cotton candy, Rita's Ice, cracker jacks, a crab pretzel, a beer, hamburgers and hotdogs and french fries--oh yeah, we were watching baseball during all that eating.

Joe Flacco's brother, Mike (I think?)

bejeweled, bedazzled, and bespeckled for the 4th

And we saw some fireworks. I tried a photography technique I had read about for taking pictures of fireworks and took about 50 pictures of them...

I also ran 11 miles in 2:06 on Saturday morning. There was actually a chill in the air when I started and I can't even begin to tell you how absolutely amazing that was. Not to mention how much better I felt when I was finished--come on fall! Total milage for last week: 21-1/2 miles.