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.

A Salute to Reality

People tell me they think I take great pictures. In reality I take lots and lots and lots of pictures and hope for 1 or 2 that are decent. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes not. I guess that's one advantage of digital photography--no film to waste, all you have to do is delete. Today, the weather was nice, Katherine had just showered AND was wearing matching clothing--the trifecta of a good kid photo! I wanted to get a nice picture of her with her hair shorter (oh yeah, we cut about 3 inches off--her idea, not mine). The older she gets, the goofier her expressions are. Here's what I got:

Which if it looks a little grainy, it's because I cropped it down from this:

She wanted me to take a picture of her standing on one foot. Check.

Then there's this:

And this:

Really not sure what to say about this one.

And this:

Great smile, but what are you doing with your shirt? (still may end up on a scrapbook page!)

And this tilt her head to one side "look at me, how cute am I pose"

Also seen here:

AND here:

So that's a few of about 35 pictures taken in a few minutes outside this morning. There were a few more, but I had the camera on manual mode since the light was so good but I guess the shade from a tree was enough to challenge the shutter speed when you put an almost 5 year old into the equation--lesson learned!

Of course these can't equal the gems Katherine took:

(although the sky in this one does look awesome--and I didn't touch it in Photoshop!)

There was a lot of talk in blogland and scrapbooking in general about how we (as bloggers and scrapbookers) portray ourselves and only focus on the good, positive perfect lives we lead. When if that's all you see out there, you're naturally going to compare your own life and feel bad you're not measuring up. Instead we should be exposing our realities so we can support and encourage each other. Several bloggers I read regularly did a post about their real life so here's a few from mine:

• 
  
  I never make my bed. It only gets made when the sheets get changed. I'll never make Katherine make her bed either--I'd feel like a hypocrite making her do something I don't.
• 
  
  I donate at least monthly to the Harford County library. These little donations are my way of saying "thanks" for reminding me about my disorganization and/or absentmindedness when I'm overdue.
• 
  
  I question regularly my job performance as a mother and wonder if I put enough energy & time into it or if I spend too much time on my hobbies. Hence my latest two books checked out from the library: "Mitten Strings from God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry" and "Bringing up Girls."
• 
  
  It's a good week when the laundry gets put away before it gets pulled from the basket and worn again.
• 
  
  I compare the cleanliness and decorating of my house to houses on TV and even though logically I know it's a TV set, I still wish my house looked like theirs.
• 
  
  Sometimes I look at the clock and it's only 3pm, Charlie's at work and I wonder how in the world I'm going to entertain Katherine till bedtime.
• 
  
  I watch the Bachlorette--and I like it!

Pheww, that was a long one. Gotta get to bed so I can run 11 miles in the morning!