The training portion of the running is going okay – I’m still working towards running for minutes at a time, and I’m okay with that. If I walk/run a half marathon in February, I’m going to be absolutely the proudest woman in the world, because I know that this time last year there was no way in hell I was even considering moving myself that kind of distance. Unless I was in a car, and there was beer at the end of the drive. Or cookies. I’d probably drive 13 miles for cookies. (To be honest, I know I would.) So to be able to get up and motivate myself to do something that requires that kind of stamina…I’ll be happy. I’ll be ecstatic if I run the majority of it, but I will get a gold star for just completing it.

That’s my goal. Complete it. Don’t die.

A bonus to all of this is that I’m more conscious of other aspects of my health, primarily what I am delivering to my pie hole. I find that the longer I work on the running, the more I don’t want to wreck it with crappy eating habits – my iPhone tells me how many calories I’ve burned after a workout, so everything I eat for the rest of the day feels like I’m weighing it against that number. Burned 230 calories running this morning? That’s a candy bar. And I don’t want to cancel out the run with one damn candy bar, so I start passing up cookies and candy and bread and looking for things with protein and vitamins. I’m not saying that I’m perfect, because more than one snack sized Milky Way has found it’s way out of the kids’ Halloween buckets and into my awaiting face, but overall I’m doing much better than I ever had in the past. Who’s eating vegetables? This girl, that’s who! I’m not doing salads, though. I have limits.

Two long runs down, eighteen to go until The Day. February 20th, 2011, y’all. It’s on.

But, in the spirit of following through, I finally registered this morning. I’ve been running more or less steadily for the past few months in the heat, when time and energy allowed. Now, though, I’ve got to get myself in serious gear and train like…well, like an actual runner, instead of a hobbyist. I’ve got all of the equipment, I’ve got a schedule, I’ve got a training plan, and it is up to me to go and implement it and run, run, run. The trip I made to the doctor last week might be motivation enough, actually, considering that she said things like “borderline high cholesterol” and “lower your BMI” and “immenent death if you eat another chicken wing”. So, on to exercise we go!

Happily, we’ve done a lot over the past few months to improve the food content in our home, and we’re eating a ton healthier than we ever have before; there’s always room for improvement, so improving it I am. My children will become intimately familiar with vegetables like spinach and edamame; I’m learning to like oatmeal (I’m not a fan without heaps of sugar and butter) in it’s raw-er form, and we’re all reducing the amount of red meat we eat. My kids are going into shock from the reduction of the amount of pasta in their diet. My husband is looking at the amount of dietary fiber in the foods that we’re eating, and he’s predicting separate beds before too much longer.  Fine by me; he gets the blow up mattress in the floor of the media room.

Work on the quilt for my sister is going well; I’m at that mindless peicing part, where you’re building blocks over and over and OVER again, so I’m having to remind myself to be careful to not space out and end up picking out stitches and redoing blocks.

I have to make 80 of those (that pile represents 20), then turn those 80 blocks into 20 blocks, and then turn those 20 blocks into one large and in charge full sized quilt. I’m having to hold myself back from knocking out a few of the larger blocks (which takes 4 of these smaller blocks), but I want to get through the full 80 before I do that so that I can lay it out and not end up with an entire block of brown at the end. It’s hard, though, because I’m an impatient girl. I’m going track down backing and binding fabric and get that ordered so that I’m not waiting on anything once the top is done.

Anyway, the past few months have been crazy busy, both with work and quilts (and hey, what’s that, some actualy KNITTING?!).

The hand sewing caught my eye again, and I knocked out a ton of flowers for the quilt that time forgot. Or maybe I forgot. Whatever. Don’t judge me.

People are STILL HAVING BABIES and I’m still having to knock out quilts for folks who refuse to find out what flavor of baby they are having. Like, seriously, how hard is it to sneak a peek during an ultrasound? Ask the doctor to slip you a strip of paper detailing the bits of your baby? I guess it did give me the opportunity to use up the rest of the strips I cut up for the Flower Quilt pictured above (I had about twice as many as I needed), so I can’t complain too bitterly.

This is the Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf from Nancy Bush’s Knitted Lace of Estonia, which I adore both for the eye candy and the patterns. This book is full of nupps; I’m not a huge fan of knitting them myself (note that the scarf above is cleverly utilizing beads in place of the dreaded nupp), but hoo boy do I love the effect they have when knitted by someone who has a good grasp of how to do them. That book is a must have for any lace knitter, if for nothing else than inspiration.

And finally, the always happening sock – there is one around the house at any given time, in some stage of being knit. I’m not huge on following sock patterns for some reason; I have some lovely ones, but I tend to enjoy mindless knitting with my socks, and dragging a pattern around doesn’t really make that possible. I didn’t want to break up that girly swirl I’ve got going on in this one, so I knit in some waste yarn and then I’ll go back and do an afterthought heel on this one (and it’s mate).

Beyond those things, a couple of momentous things occurred: I ran a 10K and another 5K, my daughter turned 3, and I turned *mumblemumbleglurg* another year older. I passed a Macroeconomics class with a 101 average, which I wasn’t actually sure was possible but the grade my instructor gave me assures me that it IS possible, and I’m starting on the Microeconomics class in two days hoping to maintain this streak of A’s. The class I took in the spring, Intro to Marketing, ended up with a B average, but I’m not upset by that at all. I’m just glad that I never have to step foot in that professor’s classroom EVER. AGAIN.

Running is actually going really well, and I’m about to start working on a 10K training program to get my endurance up – that 13.1 mile run is creeping up on me in 6 months, and I’ve got to get my tail in gear if I don’t want to, you know, DIE. Also, apparently my cholesterol is too high, so more exercise and eating less meat is in store for me. Sadly. Because steak is delicious.

Anyway, still alive, still crafting, still schooling and working and doing all of that. And parenting. Don’t forget that one.

Sent quilts two friends who had three babies between them. (For the math challenged, that included a set of twins). These were SUPAH SEECRET projects, so I didn’t blog about them at the time of creation. Mommies would have known (one mommy is nursery theming with mushrooms, and the other, well, two quilts for twins kinda gives it away as to who they were for).

Knit a looooong scarf, out of two skeins of Manos that I had sitting in the stash:

Started work on a One Block Wonder quilt. This has been a lot more fiddly than I thought it would be, but then again, I’m a super simple quilter; I like straight lines and quilt tops that go together in a single day. This ain’t that kinda party, y’all. It’s pretty, and I’m looking forward to it being done, but I’m not sure I’ll be making another one.

And, I RAN. I ran in the mornings, I ran in the evenings, and on Valentine’s Day, I got up at 4:30 in the morning and drove to downtown Austin, where I stood around for TWO HOURS before the races started (my sister ran the half marathon, remember) and then I ran a 5K in a very shameful amount of time. But the point here? Is that I did it. Proof positive (I’m the one WITHOUT a medal, because they don’t give those to 5k runners. We were lucky to get a banana and a bagel at the end of our race):

And that I plan on doing it again in April. And in May. And maaaaaybe next February, when I’ve committed to running a half marathon. 13.1 miles. Which is further than my DRIVE TO WORK. Seriously. But I’m going to do it; I’m still excited about running, which is a positive thing I think. Of course, after watching my sister limp around after her race, I’m not sure that I”m ready for what I’m getting in to, but she’s going to run the FULL marathon next year, so she will still be in more pain (and have more bragging rights) than me.

February is on its way out, and I’m hoping to finish up another baby quilt, and knock out sleeves for Cassidy. I’m stranded on Sleeve Island, y’all, and I’m struggling to find the motivation to haul myself out of there and finish that damn sweater. It will be done just in time for the heat to return to Texas, so my timing is (as ususal) fantastic. Now, if I had finished it LAST week, it would have been perfect for this:

That would be snow. In Austin. This happens every few years, and it doesn’t stick around all that long, but we get all excited and freaked out while it’s here. Schools close, people stock up on essentials, and anyone that has lived anywhere north of Lubbock starts eyeballing us like we’re crazy. The small amount of snow we got would not cause them to bat an eye, but to us? It’s a juicy disaster waiting to happen. However, throw a tornado our way and we’re out on our front lawns starting up at it, slack jawed, and narrating the whole thing to our camera phone for later uploading to YouTube.

I’m not a very physical being; my favorite place in the entire world is curled up in the corner of my couch, Kindle in hand, blanket draped across my legs. I don’t relish sweating. I don’t get the high from working out that everyone else does (and quite frankly, I think they are lying out of their asses about it, because really, endorphins? That sounds totally made up.) But I’m coming to that crossroads that every woman eventually hits – where you have to make the decision to either move your ass or buy bigger pants. And y’all, bigger pants are NOT an option. Bigger pants are the sign of failure. Bigger pants might make me cry into my delicious bowl of ice cream and caramel sauce, and you don’t want to ruin ice cream with salty tears.

Austin is a big running community. At any point during the day, or even possibly the night because these people are crazy insane, you will find people jogging and running and walking and generally doing that exercise thing. We have trails and paths and specialty running shops and running clinics and all sorts of things to help you get into top running shape. And in the spirit of all of that, I got myself up and went out into the FREEZING COLD (seriously, it was below freezing) and I…jogged. This morning. Before the sun was up.

If you have any inkling of how hard it is for me to get up before dawn, then maybe you get just how monumental this is. Like…angels wept at my effort.

Getting back to the goals, the entire purpose of this is to get ready for this:

Ha, I kid.

Oh, ha. Hahaha. Except not. Just the thought of THAT much distance makes my legs curl up in defeat, like someone dropped a house on me. That’s the big race on that day, but there’s a smaller one that starts about 30 minutes after the Captain Freakin’ Insane group has already started, and that would be the race I’m participating in. Although, it’s less of a race and more of a “OHMIGOD, DON’T LET ME DIE OR MAKE A FOOL OF MYSELF.” Both of which are equally possible.

That's more like it

The best part about this is that my sister, who’s a Runner, will be doing the half-marathon. I’ll get to be down there with her, before she takes off on her absolutely insane 13.1 miles. And then I’ll take off on my pathetic little 3.1 mile run, and I’ll be there to cheer her on when she makes it back across the finish line. Of course, with my pace, she might just beat me back. And then I’ll beat her with my iPod. I was looking for an excuse to buy a new one anyway.