My Creative Sketches

My Creative Scrapbook has a new sketch up that I used to create this layout of a beautiful sunset that Jesse took from our lanai in Kauai. I used more of MME's Lost & Found Sunshine collection.

My new favorite music video

I am not sure what my old favorite music video was, but this is my new one. Remember how I mentioned that we bumped into Danny Pudi (who plays Abed in Community) while we were in New York this summer? Well, he happened to be in Time Square shooting a music video for Jones Street Station when we ran into him. We (at least Rachel and Chloe) are so dang cute that they couldn't help but include us in this music video for the song "The Understanding":

These are some shots that we took on our own cameras (much larger than the toy Danny was "taking pictures" with).

Anatomy of a Bonk

The Duke City Marathon was today. I've been training for a few months. I'd been hoping for a pace around 9 min per mile, but I'd been able to keep a bit faster pace during my runs without trouble. So, I went out a bit faster, around 8:45 - 8:50. Even at 15 miles, I felt great. I kept going at that pace until I started to fade a little because I thought I'd be able to back off some and keep going if needed.

Boy was I wrong.

Check out my Garmin splits from the marathon. As you can see, I'm cruising up through mile 19, at which point I start to slide. And like an avalanche gaining speed, I quickly slide all the way down and am doing nothing more than just moving forward. I was lucky to be doing that.

I made the classic mistake of going out too fast, overestimating my abilities. I won't say I would have gone under 4 hours if I hadn't done that (because who knows?), but through 18 miles I was on pace for a 3:51. Apparently, that's way out of my league.

I would also say that it wasn't a mental breakdown. My body was done. I was nauseous, dizzy, and running for even a minute left me out of breath with my head spinning. When I finally finished, I couldn't stand up straight without getting out of breath for half an hour, and I was nauseous for twice that time. It wouldn't have surprised me if I had passed out just standing around afterward.

It was a good race overall though. My time was decent, and I learned a lot about running a marathon. I think I could have gone faster with better pacing, and I was hopeful to be able to hold the pace I tried based on runs like this one. But ultimately that's not what God decided to have happen. C'est la vie!

Marathon Man

Jesse ran his first marathon today! He ran a total of 26.2 miles in 4:09:12 hours, which is quite incredible when you think about it. Here he is running to the finish line:

Fall Colors

Jesse and I met up with his dad and uncle for an impromptu trip to Colorado. We got there in perfect time to see the aspens turn a brilliant yellow and drove up winding roads to see these spectacular views.

I have been working with fall colors in scrapbooking as well, using yellow from MME's Lost & Found2 Sunshine line


and orange and brown from MME's Lush and Lush2 lines.

Ten Challenge

For the TrailMakers' 10 challenge, I used ten buttons and ten alphabet stickers to create this layout that features Bo Bunny's Et Cetera collection and Bakers Twine from the Paper Trail store: http://leaveapapertrail.com/zencart/ I love how these pictures from Jesse's trip to Chile just pop against the neutral papers!

Et Cetera

I know that Jesse just got back from his trip to Chile, but I couldn't wait to begin scrapping those pictures! Bo Bunny's Et Cetera line (found at http://leaveapapertrail.com/zencart/) is perfect for scrapbooking travel pages!

Tile

Yes, we finally did it! After years of discussion, we finally installed tile in our bathrooms and laundry room. We decided to get it professionally installed instead of doing it ourselves, which turned out to be a great thing because the installer ran into a couple issues that we would not have been equipped to deal with! Anyway, without further ado, here is the finished product:

We absolutely love the look and it will be so much easier to keep clean than the carpet that used to be there (gross!)

More Crafting

I wanted to show you how I made my latest handmade flower. You need to start with approximately 8 hearts. You can punch out the hearts, hand-draw the hearts, or stencil them. I traced mine using some chipboard hearts that I had in my stash. You will want 4 larger hearts and 4 smaller hearts. The size you want will depend on how big you want your flower to be. Your largest heart will be about 2/3 the size of your completed flower.

Once you have your hearts, use your fingers or a pencil to curve them a little bit, which will make them easier to manipulate later.

Poke holes in the bottom of your hearts and put them on a brad -- smallest hearts first. Arrange the hearts around the brad and you will end up with this kind of flat looking flower.

Mist your entire flower with water so that it is easy to manipulate and then pinch each petal to get this look:

I used my handmade flower on this layout of our trip to Hawaii last year. I used MME's sketch, theme, and their new Lost & Found 2 papers, pearls, and brads.

I also made this card based the MME's card sketch & theme and using their Lost & Found Union Square and Lush Red lines.

Taos

Jesse and I had not gone to Taos except to ski, so we had fun taking my mom and Jeff there while they were here a couple weeks ago. We stayed there overnight so that we could have the time to see all of the sights. We walked around galleries and saw neat things like the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge:

the San Francisco de Asis Church:

And the Taos pueblo (my favorite):

We had a great tour of the pueblo, saw their adobe homes, and bought some art and bread: