Wouldn't trade it for anything, but....

This has been one of THOSE weeks. It seems like every major event or deadline happened to be right around the first week of February. Some of those deadlines before, some after, but everything in it's full on crazy had to be done THIS WEEK!

So what have I done this week? Well:

I took care of Girl Scout cookies for 11 girls. I made bank deposits, ordered cookies, gave out cookies and handled our troops cookies. Thankfully, we are 12 cases from being finished with the selling of 167 cases of cookies.

I finished the last assignment and the final exam for my graduate level art history class. It was way more fun to take a grad class in the summer when I had some down time.

I prepped, printed and plated contest pieces for the Theatrical Design Contest my students are participating in. There is work is phenomenal by the way.

I challenged and inspired 75 students to research the great Dutch Master painters and really feel like a couple of "fringe" or "borderline" students felt successful for the first time all year!

I ran my children to events after school and did all of the crazy momma stuff.

and a dozen other mundane daily and weekly tasks!

So, what did I not do?

I didn't run.

I took the week off.  I am learning that sometimes you have to stop and let your body recover in order to not get injured. Last Saturday's race was really, really hard on my body. Maybe cause I will be 40 in six months or maybe cause I have colitis, but nonetheless, it was a hard race and I needed to allow my body to recover.

I am hopeful that this next week won't be so crazy. But that huge contest date is looming. And sure, those 32 contest pieces will get themselves mounted, matted and paperworked. right?

Visiting some of the GREATEST art musuems without ever leaving home!

Some of my most enduring memories are associated with museums. I have been blessed with many opportunites to see incredible works of art and artifacts in person. I never really thought about this being a "lucky" thing, it was just part of my childhood and education.

As an adult and an educator, I am realizing how fortunate I am that I have visited a number of world class museums. For many of the images I show students, I can relate stories of seeing the actual work or a work by that artist. I tell students about the smell of the museum, waiting in line for tickets or general anecdotes about my experiences.

Sadly, many (if not most) of my students have never experienced a world class museum in person. They have no real connection to the art they see in textbooks or in prints.

But yesterday, a little of this changed with the use of Google Cultural Institute!!!  Google Cultural Institute is a virtual museum where you can see the masterpieces of all time in high resolution photos. You can zoom in and actually see the brush strokes!

Even better, you can virutally visit museums! My students LOVED "walking" the halls of the Musee' d'Orsay in Paris and I loved telling them about my visit many years ago.  Or how about the Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo and see the work of my favorite working artist Beatrix Milhazes.

Check out Google Cultural Institute for yourself and if you want, you can take a look at a couple of my galleries that I've made.

I created one for the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.
http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/user-gallery-edit/kimbell-favorites-mcl/iwKy4D1Se6LdJA

and one for Geometric Abstract art
http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/user-gallery-edit/geometric-art-mcl/agJyvbsZsL8dLA

But a word of caution... you are going to want to travel to see these in person!! So get your passport ready!

The not-so Polar Dash

The 14mile Polar Dash. 

 

Race Recap.

 

The race was about an hour and a half away from my house and it didn't start until 9am, so that meant that I actually slept in on a race day! Woohoo!

 

When I started out the morning, it was cold. In fact, about 45 minutes into the drive the thermometer on my car read 25 degrees. By the time the race started it was about 38 or so. It was beautiful race weather. However, it ended up being not-so polar!! I think by the time I finished running it was close to 70 degrees. I was burning up in my winter gear!

 

Here we are before the race.

 

Don't you love my skirt! :) I made skirts for me and Courtney. Then Courtney found us winter tshirts (from the children's section...) and fun socks. Yes, we were "adorable."

 

So how was the race? Well, it was hard. I am learning that for every "easy" race, you have a dozen hard ones! I'm still so new at this that I thought every race would get easier and I'd get faster. Not the case. There are so many intangibles that go into racing.

 

Back to the race...

Here we are about a 1/2 mile into the race. There were a LOT of people running. They started the 10k and 14mile people at the same time. On the divided road it was fine. But by mile 2 we were on a sidewalk on a bridge close to a turnaround, so we were all crammed on the same section of side walk! It was very frustrating.

 

 

 

 

The route was a 6 mile loop that covered a number of small ups and downs, a couple of bridges and lots of winding trail.

 

No spectators.

 

I didn't realize how much Cowtown ruined me for other races! I need crowd energy! There were NO spectators on this course. For 14 miles the only cheers you got were the people at the water stations.

 

The volunteers were nice and we got some great comments about our skirts. But running the same section of the route three times was hard. Passing mile marker 4 and seeing the 10 and 13 markers was demoralizing. It was a tough section (at least for me) and knowing that I had to do it two more times, then one more time was hard mentally.

 

I am also learning that I need to plan better for the road conditions. Wearing my older running shoes was probably not the best choice. I was great till mile 5. Then my foot started hurting a little. By mile 7 my hip was hurting. I wore my older shoes because my newer shoes had hurt my foot the week before on a long run.  I think I'm going to have to upgrade to some Hoka's for long concrete races!

 

In the end, I did the 14 miles in 2:31 (that includes a 3 minute stop at mile 8 for pottying and a gel). I had hoped for a better time, but I am reminding myself that I am still learning. I took gels and chews and then only at one gel at mile 8 and bummed a chew off of Courtney at mile 11. That's not enough food. And I totally skipped the water stop at mile 6. One of these days I am going to learn. My best races I eat a jelly bean or a chew at every mile marker. It gives me something to do, and that little calorie jolt is important.  I forget this. Then later when I process the race and wonder why I went from feeling strong and great at mile 9 to hurting and tired at mile 11 I remember the lack of food and water and that at that point I had been running for two hours!

 

But I made it to the end. Here I am coming in to the park.

 

 

 

 

And here we are with our medals!

 

 

 

And because running 14 miles wasn't enough....

 

Yes, this was AFTER the race.
(and it took multiple jumps to get a picture!)

 

And what will I take with me from this race? The knowledge that I am not good at a looped course and that I need spectators.

 

hmm.... this might change up some of my race plans for this year....





Kylie's Scissor Art

Like many 4 year olds, Kylie LOVES scissors.

 

She is very good with them and creates all manner of cool art pieces. Like the puppet below. She did this ALL on her own! Even better, after she cut out and colored each indivdual body part, she used stickers to tape everything together.

 

I kept her puppet. I love her view of the world.

What I don't love. Confetti. Kylie's Scissor Art creates a lot of confetti. EVERYWHERE. And random holes is things, like her bed sheets, a sock... you get the idea.

But it's worth it. Just look at that sweet child and her creation!

Girl Scout Cookies and Weight Watchers, a tough combination!

I don't know if it's good timing or not... but I'm the cookie mom for Lexi's Girl Scout troop, and I'm back on Weight Watchers.

OUCH!

Here is what my house looked like Monday afternoon.

That's 117 cases of cookies.

That 1404 boxes of deliciousness.

And let's see... Girl Scout cookies vary from about a point a piece for the most basic cookie to two points a piece for the ones I really want on WW.

So lets see.  33 cases of Samoas at 2 points a piece for each cookie

times 12 boxes per case times 14 cookies makes...

11,088 points.

I get 26 points a day.

So I could eat Samoa cookies for my full allotment of points every day for the next 426+ days. 

And then I could start on the Tagalongs.

Wow.

Thanks goodness we have 11 very excited girls that are selling cookies.

Or I might be in trouble.

I am happy to report however, that even with the cookies living in my house for the last week, I still lost 2 pounds!

Whew. And I totally blew it on Saturday.

Starting the day with 3 Tagalongs for breakfast will do that to you.

February 21st can't get here soon enough!