Forecast Done

It's finished!! Yee Pee!! Actually I can't believe that i finished it. Overall I'm happy with the end result, especially since it was my first top down sweater. It could be a little bigger and a little longer but it's cool and i love the color. After all that work I'm not taking it off until it gets a lot warmer out.

Blanket in Action!

OMG!!!! If that is not the cutest thing you've ever seen, i don't know what is?? Grace Elizabeth born 3-7-09, 6 lb. 15 ounces sporting the blankie that Aunt Margaret made her. Love this!!!!

2009 Race Schedule

My tentative Race Schedule for 2009.

Races I'm signed up for already:
4-19 - Run 4 Home Half Marathon - New Philadelphia, OH
5-2 - Indy Mini Half Marathon - Indianapolis, IN
5-17 - Cleveland Half Marathon - Cleveland, OH
9-26 - Akron Marathon - Akron, OH

Races I'm thinking about signing up for:
6-24 - Seattle Marathon - Seattle, WA
9-13 - Buckeye Half Marathon - Akron, OH
10-18 - Detroit Marathon - Detroit, MI
11-29 - Space Coast Marathon - Cocoa Beach, FL

I know it's pretty ambitious but time will tell and at the end of the year we'll see how many of these I'll actually complete. Also, this would give me 3 more states to add to my 50 by 50 list for a total of 14. So I would have 15 years to get the rest ;)

Sun

On Saturday morning I was driving to meet my friends for a 10 mile run at 7:30 in the morning and this is what the sky looked like. Since I don't go anywhere without my camera I got this great shot.

That afternoon this is the sunset I saw.

Life is too short you never know if you will see the next sunrise or sunset so I captured both that day. It was so pretty!

Disney Princess Half Marathon

7,000 Princesses woke up at 4 a.m. on Sunday March 8th to run the Inaugural Princess Half Marathon at Disney. Tiaras and all!!
What a great time it was with absolutely perfect weather!!
I do have to admit that Disney is not my favorite race simply because a lot of time is spend on the highways connecting the parks and very little time in the actual parks. The highways are boring and there are no spectators on them and the on and off ramps are slanted which just kills. But somehow I keep on forgetting about this because this was my 4th race at Disney. At about mile 9 I had a brief moment where I didn't think i was going to be able to finish but it didn't last long and I pushed through to the end.
For this race especially, most women were dressed in princesses costumes. Not me, I only managed to deal with a tiara pinned to my hat. But it's great looking at all the costumes, people put in a lot of time and effort in their outfits and it shows.
So my time was 2:03:00 which breaks down to 9:24 pace. There were 1047 women in my age group and I finished 125th (12%). It's definitely not my best time for a half marathon but it's my best statistically.
My good friend Khim ran her first race ever and did awesome. She has definitely caught the running bug and has been planing her future races. Now I have to convince her to run a full marathon.

at 5 am, I love this pictures the camera caught some of the car lights

hanging with the characters after the race!

with our well deserved tiara medals!

Last weekend

Last weekend was pretty busy. I ran my 10 miles on Saturday (17 degree weather) yuck! It was a nice run but come on already it's time for Spring.

Then we went to the Home and Garden show and saw Ed Begley Jr. (from "Living with Ed"), what a great speaker he is. He talked mainly about being green, sustainable energy, and his show. Very interesting stuff.
Then my friend Fiovi (God love her!) signed me up for a card exchange (and she will never do this to me again). I had to make 11 birthday cards, I was pretty mad the entire time but somehow managed to get it done. Now I'm suppose to get 11 cards back (some of you might be getting them from me for your birthdays).

these are my 11

The best part of the weekend was when i came down the stairs and saw this going on. I guess I'm not the only one that loves the electric blankie. How cute are my fur kids?? Love them!


So nothing much got done but we sure had fun. Now I'm off to Florida tomorrow (yeepee 80 degree weather), will be taking my Forecast sweater on the plane with me so hopefully i'll finish it and have photos soon. The Disney Princess Half Marathon is on Sunday, can't wait to add the new medal to my wall. Wish me luck!

Crazy

So I ended up doing 9 miles at 7:30 am on Saturday morning in 7 degree temperature (icicles formed on my eyelashes like glider mascara). Can I just say how crazy that was, I couldn't feel my fingers for about the first 30 minutes. When i was done the temperature was only at 18 degrees, which is still way too cold to even be outside. I'm glad i did it but there is no way i would be out there if it wasn't for that half marathon coming up. Of course I wasn't alone in this craziness, there were 4 of us (2 doing 15, 1 doing 12, and me with my 9). I'm praying for warm weather!

Back on track

Finally i feel like I'm back with my running. I did 7 last weekend, 6 last night, hopefully another 4-5 on Thursday and I have 8 planned for this weekend. Then next weekend i will do 10, and the half marathon is the following weekend (March 8th). I think I'm going to be ready! I didn't think it was possible but it's definitely happening and it's makes me so excited and happy. So I'm hoping that we don't get any more snow. I think I'm delusional since it's only February, but a girl can dream right?

V-day Weekend

After way too many revisions the hat that matches those booties in the previous post got finished and mailed on Friday. Now i have to wait to see if the recipient of these gifts approves, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Sadly i didn't have a baby close by to model the finished product so this is the best i could do:


Now that the hat is finished I can go back to working on the forecast sweater. This is how much i have so far. It's going pretty slow but it will end up being a really thick warm sweater, i only hope that i can finish it before it gets warm out. The picture doesn't give the color justice though it's more of a deep sea shade.


Lastly, Valentine's Day was great! At 7:30 am I got an awesome 7 mile run in (thanks to Elaine and Krissy), it was the farthest I ran since October. I felt pretty good even though it was a rolling hill route. Later I made another attempt on making something from my favorite website. And unfortunately it didn't turn out (not even worth being photographed), but we ate it anyway. Sometimes i want to give up and admit that I'm not a baker but NO i will keep trying. This is what i have in mind for this coming weekend (of course i pick the most complicated recipes i can find). Also, I got a nice card and gift card to Joann Fabric (so i can buy more yarn ;0). Saturday night ended at Outback for a nice steak dinner with a sweet potato and a Pineapple Chipotle Margarita (Yum-O).

Ladybug Booties

This weekend instead of getting a bunch of stuff done at my house or even working on my Forecast sweater I decided to try some baby booties. My first pair turned out pretty good but it took forever and I had to rip them out about 5-6 times.

I had to borrow my friend's baby (Rowan) for the photo shoot the booties just weren't right without feet in them. Now I'm working on a matching hat, I already ripped that out twice so if i don't get a hang of this ladybug stuff quick it might end here. But I do love the ladybug, it's so pretty and happy! I even have a collection of ladybug stuff that I'm probably too old for but can't part with (at least not yet).

Charity

My friend Jenn has been fundraising and ran the Miami Half Marathon for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. Please check out her website and donate (if you can) to this great cause. She's almost reached her goal but needs a little more help. Thank you!

http://www.active.com/donate/MI09neohio/Burtz

Random

Please vote for my dog Baci as pet of the month on this great website. He's way cuter then the picture that's on there. Additionally the products on this website are made in the USA so please support them, if you have pets.

Also, I'm totally obsessed with this website. It's a Polish website of mainly baked stuff (I love sweets), the pictures are phenomenal. So far i only made one thing, the lemon sweet bread, it was delicious and looks pretty close to the original. I can't wait to try more recipes.

And I ran 4 miles on Sunday since the temperature went up to almost 40 degrees and the sun was even out, it was wonderful. I felt really good too! Of course it was too much for me since I haven't been running so I've been pretty sore and my shins don't feel too good. It's ok, I have to get past this cause that Disney Half is fast approaching (March 8th).