A Long Break

Wow, it's been a long time. The summer has kind of disappeared on me. Not really any news to report but I promise I'll get better about posting stuff once I move. That's right, I'm moving to Atlanta at the end of the month. I spent quite a bit of time in Bemidji this summer and will again for the next few weeks and then I'll be driving to ATL with my friend Erika at the end of the month so I can look for work there while I stay with her. Pretty awesome friend, huh?

I notice that I last posted the day before I left for Bemidji a few trips ago. It also happened to be the day before Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died. Very crazy and sad. I was a big fan and even saw him perform live twice in 1993 for some Clinton inauguration festivities. He was definitely one of the greatest entertainers of all time and the sort of celebrity that we will never see again. With the rise of the internet and so many channels, it is impossible for an entertainer to reach the same proportion of the public that they once could. It's similar to the way that Walter Cronkite was known to so many television viewers but there is no news personality that has the same kind of connection with viewers today due to so many sources of news.

Sorry about the lame postings and lack of them but I promise I'll have lots more when I get to explore Atlanta. I already have plans to run a 5k in October and see a Braves game before the end of the season. They are playing the Mets in September and we're hoping that Santana will pitch and we can cheer for the good New York team.

Off to Bemidji

Oy, it's been a while. Oops. Nothing exciting to report anyway although here are some pics I've taken recently. The first are some taken from the Guthrie when I impersonated a tourist with my friend Margaux who was visiting from DC. The pic of the bridges shows the new 35W bridge although it's been open about 9 months now I believe.
The first pic is the top of the handquilted sampler I'm doing. I still need to lay it out with the batting so I can actually quilt it which will take quite a while. The second quilt is the baby project I did for a friend of mine. That one was a lot quicker because I do the cheater method of knotting it rather than actually quilting it. The fabric is all from Crafty Planet in NE Mpls which is a great store. I've got some more fabric from there for my next project and I've got two other tops pretty much done that I need to lay out and knot sometime soon. One is another baby project but the second one is 64x64, my first big project.

Since I'm still feeling the effects of this economy (am unemployed) I've decided to spend all of next week in Bemidji. It's a long time for me in a small town so we'll see how that goes. I actually plan on being there the next three weekends in a row which is a bit daunting. This weekend is my grandma's 80th birthday party, the following weekend is the 4th and the weekend after that is a cousin's wedding. Too much Bemidji...

One Half Marathon Down, Countless to go...

Since I last wrote I finished my first half marathon for my longest run ever. For non-runners, a half marathon is about 13.1 miles and my previous longest was about 12.5. It was in Stillwater on May 24 and it went really well. I've been fighting some knee injuries so I took it easy and a friend was willing to be slow with me and we both completed our first halves in just under 3 hours. Not a very good time but our goal was to finish and improving that time can be left to races in the future. I definitely want to do another one sometime. The weather was great and even though it was Stillwater, the hills weren't awful. At least I didn't think so but others were complaining about them. Stillwater is a hilly city though so I was prepared mentally and my friend and I decided to schedule our walk breaks around them as well so that helped a lot.

I raised almost $750 for the St. Bernard Project so that was also a great incentive to push through everything and complete the run. They use every penny they get very wisely and generously give so much to the residents of SBP that I was happy to be able to help them out in whichever small way I could.

I've been pretty lazy on the quilting. I have the whole front put together but need to add the borders and then do the actual quilting. I did a small machine project though and now I'm really not energized to do any more by hand. Eventually. I'm pretty excited by the success I've had with the machine project so I'm hoping to repeat that soon. I'll post pictures of those soon.

Oh and Twins- I'm now at .500 with 2 wins and 2 losses when I've been in attendance. I guess I can go again because that's better than their overall record although it is worse than their home record so maybe I should go sparingly...

More squares

The novelty of the quilting has kind of worn off because it's so hard to get my assignments done each week. Thankfully we have an extra week to work due to Memorial Day.

I'm also trying to keep up the running. With a bit of an injured knee I've had to ease off it. I was able to get a 12.5 mile run/walk in last week. That one was a huge victory because I hadn't even really planned on it and I did all except the first 3.5 solo. I've never done that much by myself. This weekend is the Stillwater Half and that's my goal. I know I'll be really slow but I think I can do it as long as I have enough time.

Off to spin class!

Still quilting

I have a lot of quilting to get done and I'm not super speedy at it but it seems to be going ok so far. Here are pics of what I've done. The first one I did is actually in the middle. The first picture has obviously not been sewn yet but that's what I'm working on today.
I can't go anywhere anyway as my car is in the shop getting new shocks and struts. A pretty hefty priced makeover for Gus but it should be a lot smoother drive after it's done. Luckily the shop is only a block away so I'm able to just leave it there and walk home and then walk back to pick it up. They seem pretty trustworthy so not a bad neighbor to have.
It got a lot warmer here yesterday and today is actually nicer in my mind. I'm not a fan of the hot weather at all.
Ok back to the sewing...

Quilting

Quilting runs in the family so I figured I should join in when a friend also showed some interest. The two of us signed up for a hand quilting class which began last week. It was funny when we told another friend of ours who is pretty crafty. She really didn't believe that we were actually doing everything by hand. The conversation went something like this:
"A hand quilting class?"
"Yup"
"So you use your machine to put it together and then quilt it by hand"
"Nope, we do it all by hand"
"The quilting is all by hand but the piecing is with a machine"
"Nope, we do it all by hand"
"By all you mean the quilting"
"Nope, we mean everything"
"You're crazy"

I've done one block so far that had 21 pieces. There are quite a few flaws but I'm hoping that it gets better as we do more squares. We should finish a nine block sampler in the course which means doing one or two blocks per week. I've taken my time this week in getting one done so I'll have to work harder in the upcoming weeks.

The Twins are back in business but not performing all that well for the most part. Here's hoping that they get better as time goes on (like my sewing:) In the meantime, I'm loving Cleveland today. They absolutely killed the Yankees. It's pretty sad when the Yankees pitcher starts the game with a 28 ERA and it actually got worse! Cleveland started the year really slow so it's nice that they got into the groove at Yankee Stadium.

Baseball season!

The 2009 season is underway thankfully. Welcome back to the boys of summer. A group of 10 of us went to the opener the other night and even though the results were disappointing we had a ton of fun. I met one of my friends at City Hall prior to the game (she works there for Elections-her life has been a Franken/Coleman hell for a while now) so I have some pictures of the building which is quite cool.

Running has been going pretty well. We did Norwegian relays last night which help us get some speed work in but are a little challenging to explain in writing and most of you probably don't care. Tomorrow we have a 12 mile run which is my last long run before the Get in Gear Half Marathon on April 25. It will also be my longest run ever. I think my previous long run is more like 11 miles. Now I've got a Garmin so I'll be able to tell you exactly how far it is. We are running to the bunny, a big statue at the intersection of Portland Avenue and Minnehaha Parkway. Pretty appropriate for the day before Easter, eh?