hobbies
Nathan is out doing his 5 mile run
I learned my lesson from the last time. I set the timer for how long I think it will take him and I’m planning to send a search party if he is late!
I did my 5 miles this morning. It was so nice out. The sun was just coming up and it was a little cool. I could definitely feel fall in the air. I even noticed that the sumac on the trail is starting to turn red. I suppose it is the end of August. I just can’t believe our summer is basically over. Today was a speed work day for me. I did 1 mile warm up and then I had a goal of running a mile at 9:28 followed by a half mile recovery and then another mile at 9:28 followed by another half mile recovery. Then I finish off with a cool down mile. Instead of hitting 9:28 I actually finished in 9:16 and 9:14. Not bad!
I just checked the timer and it looks like Nathan should be back in about 20 minutes!
A very late race post
Through a bizarre sequence of accidents, I locked myself out of the blog until yesterday, when I finally took the time to get myself back in 
So, here’s my brief, belated blog boast.
I finished the race faster than Amy predicted. I averaged 11:20 miles for a total time of 34:59. There’s nothing like a clock ticking up to xx:59 to get your adrenaline pumping. I kept speeding up over the last block, ending in a near-spring, just so I could claim a speed faster than 35 minutes (even if only by 1 second).
I’m still not loving running, but I am getting to really enjoy the sense of accomplishment I get from doing it.
Unfortunately, probably because they were tired and sore, I tweaked a muscle in my back over the weekend and have been hesitant to run until it’s on the mend. But, since I cut a whopping 5 minutes off my last time, I figure taking a week off won’t hurt me much…
I started a new tracking sheet, though, aiming for mid November. The new goal is to run 125 miles and bike 250 miles by that time. We’ll see if I can keep on this roll. It’ll get harder as work gets busier, but running or biking is a nice escape from work.
I’m running!
I’m back to running. Training for my 2nd 5K, which will happen here in town in August. It’ll be fun to run places I know.
Today, though, I am quite proud of having run all the way around the lake. 4.3 miles in a 66 minutes. Not bad…
Running Update
I thought I would work on a post about running and my diet progress while I’m uploading photos to photobucket so you can see the farm photos. I don’t know why they aren’t working from Picasa, but sometimes it doesn’t work right. Oh well.
I’m up to 193.6 miles for the year. I’m actually quite a bit behind my lofty goal I had set at the beginning of the year. I still feel good about my progress though. On Friday last week, I got up and I ran 6 miles. It took me 1 hour, 13 minutes and 50 seconds. It wasn’t setting speed records, but I was proud of my accomplishment. I ran for 6 miles. Less than a year ago, I couldn’t even run a quarter mile. Now I can run for over an hour without stopping! When I set out on Friday, I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go. I took a route that went all sorts of crazy ways, but since I was wearing my Garmin I didn’t have to worry that I would have to remember every street because it calculates and maps everything for me. There was a point when I turned down one of the country roads that I thought to myself, “What have I done? I’m way too far from home!” I was sort of committed to doing the distance at that point. I suppose I could have walked home if I ran out of steam, but I had to get back in time for Nathan to get ready and leave for work on time.
I’ve decided to ramp up my running a little as I prepare for the 5k in August. I have 7 weeks. Nathan is going to run again too and he’s planning to take his training a little more seriously this time.
My weigh-in on Friday was good. I was down .4 lbs. That puts me a little more than 16 pounds from my initial goal and I’m half pound from being done re-losing weight I already lost. Even more amazing was that I managed to control my eating over the weekend after my weigh-in. I have a terrible habit of eating a lot on Friday and Saturday (and sometimes Sunday!). I didn’t do that this week. Yeah for me! I did have a high calorie day today though. I’m putting that behind me though. I’m ready for another good week. We have a family reunion coming up this weekend and I’m sure it will be more difficult to eat healthy with travel factored in. I want to have some good days before we go.
Looks like my photos are ready to add to the previous post. I’m off to bed soon since I have a run scheduled for early tomorrow morning.
Running Update
I think I’m back “full-time” now. Or whatever you call it. I hope to run about 9.5 miles this week.
I set some crazy goal at the beginning of the year that I was going to run 720 miles. That’s about 14 miles a week. Hah! I’m not going to be anywhere close to that. I’m not sure what I was thinking. Here’s how I’ve done so far this year:
Total Miles- 148.7
High Mileage Month- February with 44.4
Low Mileage Month- April with 25.9
Average Monthly Mileage- 34.175
Highest Weekly Mileage- 14.4
Longest Run- 5.02
Fastest Run- 2 miles in 19:26 (9:43/mile pace)
Journal and Story-led Scrapbooking
Three of my favorite things:
1) My family, 2) Writing, and 3)Reminiscing by looking through old photos
This is why I love scrapbooking. I get to combine all 3 of those things.
Ethan turned 5 this last weekend and I wanted to see if I could get his scrapbook up to date by his birthday. I had finished a couple of layouts, but I had not done much since his birthday last year. We keep all our photos in Picasa on our computer. I browsed through the months and started thinking about what really characterized Ethan this past year, how he liked to spend his time, what he was excited about, and the big milestones. The main question I kept in mind was “What do I want to remember about Ethan from this year?” I picked photos based on the answers to that question. It was an incredibly freeing way to choose photos. We have hundreds of them and it can easily be overwhelming. Narrowing down the choices this way made it much more enjoyable. And, because we have the photos on our computer, I’m not losing the photos I didn’t print. They are still there.
Although, I prefer to put my scrapbooks together chronologically, this approach allows for more freedom than just scrapping one event after another. I did layouts on relationships between Ethan and his siblings. I did a page just about what he likes and doesn’t like. I did one page on his obsession with video games. The focus was on telling Ethan’s story and not just show-casing fancy paper, stickers or the latest scrapping technique. I love all of those things, but they can get in way of actually getting things done sometimes. I’m focusing on simplifying so the photos can spend less time in boxes or on the computer and more time in the kids’ albums. Even at the ages of 3 and 5, Audrey and Ethan ask me to read “their” books. I have a few pages to wrap up still, but here are some of the highlights:
Ethan got a brother!
I love this page of things about Ethan. They are the sort of things you think you’ll always remember when you’re living it, but are actually easy to forget as they grow.
2-page spread on Ethan as the first-born. I wrote about what it was like to see him become a big brother and how he often asks who I love the best!
A close/cropped shot of the journaling (I know it’s still hard to read- sorry).
Documenting a trip to Chetek.
The picture of this page isn’t as clear. It’s an entire page of photos of Ethan playing the Wii/PlayStation. I wish I could say all he did was look at books and build things, but this is our life. It’s something he loves and I thought I should document it.
This approach took the focus off of the paper and embellishments and put it on the story. The journaling became more important. You might not be able to read them all, but I did a considerable amount of writing on each page. As much as I have had to force myself to journal on the kids’ scrapbooks, I have to admit that has been Ethan and Audrey’s favorite parts when we look through their albums. It’s quickly becoming my favorite part too. Our blog archives have become a great resource as I think of what to write. Another awesome source of inspiration has been the book writing motherhood by Lisa Garrigues. It’s full of tips and writing prompts specifically geared toward helping mothers “mine their everyday lives for stories to preserve, publish, or pass on.”
Project Life- April 11-17
Nathan was offered tickets to the Casting Crowns concert! We lined up a babysitter and went on a date! The music was great and the view was good. The tickets were in one of the suites so we were nice and comfy.
Poor Audrey doesn’t feel well. She laid around and cried a lot on Monday. It was a bit of a challenge to take care of her and Isaac, but Ethan helped a lot.
Tuesday is story time at the library and this day’s theme was the color red. The kids put red paint on their hands to make hand-print flowers. They turned out looking kind of pink. Oh well. The kids loved it!
We had Sara and Baby Victoria over on Wednesday. Victoria is so cute and smilely. Audrey watched Sara feed the baby and later decided to try it with her dolly and shawl. She’s going to love this photo when she’s a mom!
On Thursday night Ethan became the next victim of the stomach bug. He slept on the floor in the living room that night.
On Friday I made these yummy bars!
On Saturday while I was working on my scrapbooking, Nathan took the kids to see the Big Wheels at the local highschool.
Highlights from this last week
We started out our week by celebrating Easter at Grandpa Henning’s house in Cottage Grove. I took a photo of all “my boys” all dressed up in their Sunday best. Aren’t they handsome? And why is Ethan doing some sort of gang symbol?
Every time I turn around, Isaac is pulling himself up on something. He loves to practice standing.
Nathan found a Snuggie on clearance at Target and he bought it for me! Ethan thought it was great so he tried it out. He laughed and laughed over how big it was on him.
Another picture of Isaac standing. Look at how close he is to standing without support? Ack!
Audrey loves to dance. Daddy loves to dance with Audrey. It’s a perfect combination. I love to see the strong bond they have. I pray that it will stay strong and healthy.
Our labor of love for little Gideon was a choo-choo cake. Gideon loves choo-choo’s and I had the time! So, I made a cake (with some help from Nathan) for his party.
Here’s the birthday boy and his cake. He loved it! Yeah!
Scrapbooking my Baby
I didn’t really do any scrapbooking before I became a mom. I put some basic albums together, but not many.
Then I had Ethan and I finally felt like I really wanted to dive in. Well, I didn’t exactly “dive”, but I dipped my little toe in and discovered that the water was “just fine” and soon found myself swimming in albums, idea books, tools, papers, stickers, . . . That was almost 5 years ago. My approach keeps changing, but my commitment to capturing these moments doesn’t.
For Ethan’s first year of life, I completed 20 front and back pages. That’s an entire album for one year. It was fun and I was never more than a few months “behind”. Then I had Audrey. My free time decreased a little and I now had 2 children to document. So, I started to think about my pace, what I could actually sustain, if I was going to keep these albums or give them to the kids when they got bigger and what my point was in doing this. Now, I have 3 children (and that’s all, thank you!) whose lives I want to record, but I want this to be fun and not a burden hanging over me.
This is how I decided to approach Isaac’s baby album-
- I’m doing these scrapbooks with the idea that I’ll be giving them to each child when they graduate. With that in mind, I’m going to try to keep the number of albums down. Ethan is not going to want 18 photo albums. So….
- I’m letting myself go a little crazy on the first year album. So many changes, growth and milestones happen that first year. It’s really fun to document all of that.
- After the first year, I’m slowing the pace down a lot (more on that in a future post).
- I’ve found that planning out what I want to include in the album ahead of time helps me select just the photos that I’ve already taken that serve that purpose and helps me to be more directed and mindful as I take photos in the future.
- My page plan for Isaac’s baby album (which will include his first 2 years of life) looks like this (not necessarily in this order): collage of monthly photos, pregnancy photos, letter from me to Isaac, birth story and hospital photos, early days at home, Christmas, Easter, Baby Dedication, first birthday, photos with siblings, photos with Daddy, photos with mommy, 2nd birthday, 2 page spreads for every 3 months that include favorite photos and journaling of milestones/routine/highlights.
- I’m making a list of types of photos and moments that I want to capture and putting it somewhere as a visible reminder.
- I’m making a renewed commitment to include lots of journaling- stories of what Isaac was like, what our life was like, how much we love him, what his siblings think of him and what they do with him. These are the things that Isaac is going to really appreciate as he gets older.
This is my progress so far. I’m about 9 months “behind”, but I’m happy with that!
I need to finish writing out Isaac’s birth story still.
In Progress
We’re still working (I’m dreaming and Nathan is trying to figure out how to make things work) on formatting and editing our site. Soon, there will be a few more tabs, and I’m slowly working through all the old posts and categorizing and tagging everything. I have about 1/3 of the old posts done. There are over 500 in total! We’re also working on the look and what exactly we want on this front page, which posts to include in our favorites, and making a really fun “about” page. Keep checking. It keeps us motivated to finish this project !
amy
