I am (still) not a runner. Maybe a little bit.

I am not a runner.

I distinctly remember one day in probably Junior High, running slash limping around the track in some forced exercising, about ready to pass out and literally SWEARING to myself that if I just made myself complete this loop around the track to meet whatever PE requirement we needed to do I would never make myself run again in my life. Ever.

I kept that promise to myself during High School and College by doing fluff PE classes like aerobics and kickboxing and racquetball - anything that didn't require myself to put one foot in front of another in a continuous fast motion moving towards a finish line.

Running to me is boring. Mind-numbingly boring. And painful. I get shin splints. The balls of my feet hurt. Why anyone would want to subject themselves to that type of boringness and painfullness on a regular basis, especially in the name of a hobby, is beyond me.

So that's why seeing myself, in this picture, at a finish line of a race, is pretty much hell freezing over in my world.



So it was only a 10k. My official finish time was 1.13.33.5 (an hour and 15 minutes) which means my pace was 11:51 miles/minute. (That's pretty slow to you non-runners, the winner of the 10k ran a FIVE MINUTE MILE). I finished 888th out of 987 women runners. But I ran almost the whole time. I slowed to almost a snails pace of running a few times to catch my breath but the atmosphere of the race and being among thousands of other runners does wonders to keep up your enthusiasm.

My legs and lungs felt good. I laughed at a lady standing outside in her nightie on 13th east with her hose spraying an arc of water for the runners to go through and cool off. I was accosted by a morning news entertainment reporter with a camera crew trying hard to get to me to accept one of their Krispie Kreme donuts to take with me - he said "I know you have a sweet tooth!!" He was right - but during this 10 kilometers I was running Erin and said no to the donut.

I was grateful to the people that had slept out on the Pioneer Day parade route in downtown Salt Lake City - they cheered for us and clapped as we ran by, and one little girl offered me an ice cold bottle of water straight out of her cooler - I gladly took it around mile 5. Thank you, little random girl!

I blasted Katy Perry and Kesha and Everclear and Selena Gomez (what?!) in my ears as I made my way from the University of Utah down the hills to Liberty Park, barely believing I was where I was doing what I was doing.

Marc had finished before me and took some pictures of me approaching the finish line and about to cross it.



Then I made my way through hoards of other stinky runners to get some orange slices and a popsicle. When I was sticking my shoe out to the timing-chip-cutter-off-guy I kind of realized I had finished a race, a real running race.

I told Marc this still didn't make me a runner.

But I think I am, a little bit.

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I picked a winner in the giveaway for the UTA Trax group pass ... congratulations to entry #6 - geecru. I will email you!

UTA TRAX blogger's preview ride & giveaway

We've been riding TRAX ever since we moved to Utah 4 years ago. TRAX is Utah's light rail system and it is awesome. It's cheap and easy to use and not scary like other city's public transit is. I remember riding on TRAX when we visited Utah for the 2002 winter olympics. Mason's first ride was the winter after we moved here.



They are doing some expansions on the lines and I'm so excited that a new route is opening soon out where we live (where some consider to be the boonies! ;] ) This past Friday I was part of a group of 30 bloggers that got to be the very first riders ever on the new line. The boys were SO excited - we've watched the new station go up in our neighborhood for months. Well, Mason was excited about the train ride. Grahm was excited about the Nutter Butters I brought for him.



My friend Tauni works for UTA (the Utah Transit Authority) and she was the one who arranged the ride for bloggers. She put on a great event that the kids just loved. Especially the wooden train whistles - the moms - not sure they loved them so much. And Mason was so excited for his "real" conductors hat.



Tauni talked to the kids a little bit about safety which is SO important around these high-speed trains, and gave us some great handouts to go over at home more to reinforce the rules about obeying all the rules and signs around the light rail trains.

On the ride Grahm was a little scared at first - nothing a little Twizzlers couldn't take care of though.



The new trains are nice - they've got a better seat layout and some more standing and room for bikes, too. The benches are higher up than they used to be, something Mason struggled with a little bit to get up on to, but loved once he saw the great view they gave him out the window.

The thing I loved the best is that there are NO STAIRS to board these new trains! This is a lifesaver when you're a mom juggling a stroller and kids and a bag.



See - Grahm, the warning sign, and the black speckled part is on the train - the concrete and the yellow is the platform! Zip right on and off SO easily. It's great for handicapped and wheelchair access as well.




If you are local to Utah you'll be excited to hear that both the mid-Jordan and the West Valley lines are opening August 7th. They are having a free public preview ride day on August 3rd, and they're encouraging people to bring a can of non-perishable food to donate to the Utah Food Bank. Visit the LetsRideUTA.com for more information.

GIVEAWAY:

And finally, UTA sponsored our ride on the new TRAX line and they'd love to sponsor one for you, too. Leave one comment on this post to be entered to win a round trip ticket for 4 on any of UTA's services during the month of August - and kids under 6 always ride free. Use it to take the train to one of the Twilight concert series shows or to a Bees game. I'll pick a winner Friday and get your free pass in the mail to you!

32 things in review - my birthday goals list revisited

Last year I started making a list on my 31st birthday, of 32 things I wanted to do before I turned 32 (tomorrow).  I have been revisiting the list over the past few weeks as my birthday approached and am, depending on when you ask me, both happy and sad about the things that I have completed & not completed off my list.

Here's my original list, with notes and additions in italics.

1. reupholster & refinish my blue side-of-the-road-find chair -I bought some County Fair home dec weight fabric for this chair and can't find it ANYWHERE in my house! It might have gone to Goodwill by accident. Will have to figure out what new fabric I want for it.
2. go away with Marc somewhere for our 10 year wedding anniversary in September -We went and stayed downtown at Hotel Monaco for 2 nights
3. make a quilt for our bed -this is in the works. I'm a commitment-phobe when it comes to a quilt that is going to live permanently on my bed!
4. grow my business -I have been making some big changes
5. pull off something biiiigggg with a friend -This time last year we hadn't announced The Sewing Summit yet. Now it's less than 3 months away!
6. eat healthier -We are all totally eating healthier and I'm getting ready to run a 1/2 marathon in September!
7. read the Harry Potter books -Nope, not my thing
8. blog the Encyclopedia of Me -Nope, still have this in the works, though
9. clean out the master closet -yup, one random day in the winter I overhauled our closet. Still need to buy some more wood hangers though
10. be published -In the works!
11. clean out/organize/repaint the laundry room -Partly done, still deciding on if I want to paint it or not
12. design & craft a Family Rules board -Decided I didn't want to do this
13. buy myself a new camera -Nope
14. finish Mason's quilt -Sadly, not yet
15. mail some stuff that is long overdue
16. own a complete 1/2 yard set of Katie Jump Rope -So close!
17. make a good Dance Party playlist -Yup! We have a great iPod playlist as well as an awesome Pandora station just for Dance Party
18. make the book of Grahm's Weeklies -Nope
19. have a German Christmas
20. make Marc a quilt -In the works! Bought a fat quarter stack of fabrics for it
21. feed the ducks in the park -We did!
22. blog more regularly -This is debatable, but I have been making a big effort! When you've been blogging for 13 years you go through periods of ups and downs ;]
23. be a better friend -Always trying
24. send my Thank You notes -Always trying to
25. finish watching seasons 2 and 3 of Veronica Mars -finished October 12th
26. read The Lost Encyclopedia -Not yet
27. get a new cell phone -new iPhone 4 in September
28. bake cinnamon rolls from scratch -Lots of times over the winter!
29. be halfway through a Project 365 -Yes! Although I am still way behind on posting my pictures from June
30. decide on a color for Marc to paint our bed he built -I've decided on a color, now we just need to do it!
31. host book club at my house -No. My poor book club, I keep having Quilt Guild fall on the same night
32. take more pictures with my regular camera -Off and on I do
33. H.E.L.P. Marc, Mason & Grahm -Continuously :]

So 21 out of 32 isn't too terribly bad. And some things I decided that I just didn't want to do or weren't a priority anymore. I think I will revisit this list and make a new list sometime next week, 33 things to do before I turn 33 :]

Quilt top for Virtual Quilting Bee

One of the reason I love my online sewing community is that it gives me the chance to participate in things like Virtual Quilting Bees. I have participated in a few of them, but this one that I'm in right now is my favorite mix of people so far. Probably because some of my best online friends are participating in it with me. :]

We started in May and I got to go first! I rifled through my scrap bin and pulled out some of my all time favorite fabrics and got to work assembling them into little bundles to send to each of my bee members.

I asked them to loosely follow Annela's crazy scrappy block tutorial and make me some crazily colorful blocks.

As soon as the blocks started coming back to me in the mail I knew that the quilt was going to be a bit scary. I keep referring to it as terrifyingly awesome. I know the scrap vomit thing going on here isn't for everyone - but for me, these fabrics are a reminder of lots of the projects I've done in the past 3 or so years.

I had been planning on adding sashing in between the blocks to break up all the color a little bit, but once I got 9 blocks back and saw how they looked next to each other I started toying with the idea of just butting the blocks up to each other. If you're going to go terrifyingly awesome scrappy vomit crazy might as well do it 100%, right?

Yesterday I got 12 of the blocks sewn together into the beginning of the quilt top - and I'm LOVING how it looks. Once I get 4 more blocks done I'll sew one more column on, making it a square quilt. It should end up being around 70" square - these are BIG 17" blocks.

This is going to be a couch quilt just for me - and the more I think about it the more I'm glad I'm not doing a plain sashing - the crazyness of all the colors will hide my ice cream drips better ;]

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I'm linking up today at Megans awesome blog, Canoe Ridge Creations for Sew Modern Monday!

and at Tip Junkie for Tip Me Tuesday

Independence Day 2011

We had a pretty eventful weekend - the 4th of July is always a fun time and this weekend was no exception. It was great having the holiday be on a Monday - we had 3 straight days of BBQ's, parties and late nights of fireworks.

Sidenote: I had been complaining on Twitter that I was annoyed by all the people going crazy with Utah's new laws allowing more powerful aerial fireworks be for sale. The first few days fireworks were OK my neighborhood was just going CRAZY with loud fireworks until 11:30-midnight EVERY night. And it was waking up Grahm, and thus me. So I was bugged! But tonight was better, and so I won't complain, for now. We'll see what happens for the 24th of July (Utah's state holiday).

I started the weekend off right with a pedicure in a fun new summer shade (sent to me all the way from Switzerland from my awesome friend Jill).

We then had a little excitement on Saturday night when there was a mishap with some fireworks being set off a few streets over from us and they went into the garage catching the house on fire and kind of exploding the garage. Lots of sirens and then neighbors walking up to scope out the action while all the news stations were there. At midnight.

Then on Sunday we braved the heat (over 100) and went to the zoo. We love the zoo - such a low key and fun outing. We love the elephants and the bird show (even though Marc refuses to see the bird show seeing that he is terrified of birds).

Mason was super-loving the elephants and learning all about them - he was impressed that the elephants femur was taller than he was.

As we were leaving the zoo we noticed the mountain behind the University of Utah was on fire. They had just started dousing the flames with a helicopter carrying a big bucket of water which the boys thought was the coolest thing ever, so we found a shady parking lot and watched them fight the fire for a little while.

Then Monday was the holiday! We had a bunch of our friends over for a BBQ in our backyard. Marc made pork tenderloin with pineapple jalepeno salsa/chutney/relish that was delicious. All the kids played in the sandbox and with the squirt guns and Grahm took a 4 hour nap because he's still fighting off an ear-infection that just won't quit. And the adults played a marathon game of Bocce ball where I managed to win every single match I played (and I'm usually terrible!)

Then it was fireworks time! Our neighbors all were outside doing their fireworks at the same time and it made for a pretty great show. We could see aerial fireworks all around us for hours.

Grahm was loving the show - he can be a nervous kid so I was glad he wasn't too afraid. And I had some cool glow-in-the-dark bracelets on, too.

Mason and his best bud Corinne - these two were 2 peas in a pod the whole entire day and didn't spend too much time apart from each other or not holding hands, for that matter. Kindergarteners. ;] We're sad that they're moving to Texas soon!

The 4th of July rocked this year! It was perfect weather, perfect friends and family, great food and amazing fireworks!