A man and his cat

I walked into the bathroom just now getting ready for bed, and Mike was in there with Bo Bo having jumped up on the vanity (the cat ... not Mike) and he was giving her goodnight cuddles.  

Love that I am married to the Cat Whisperer.

Think she was loving the attention!!

Weekend run with pictures

So the weekend has rocked around again and I had to do a 12km run.  It was weighing heavily on my mind as I have had a sore butt muscle since Friday night.  I ended up ditching the Saturday morning run, turned the alarm off this morning too.  I'm okay if I'm up and moving around, it's just going from sitting to standing which is painful.  So basically I should just never sit down right?

During this morning I remembered something a running friend mentioned on our running facebook site, that the pain of not doing the run would have been worse than the pain of the run itself, or words to that effect.

So at just after 11.30 this morning I got myself ready to go out.  I knew it would end up being a walk/run/walk/run and I was fine with that.  I just needed to get the kms in my legs, only 62 days till the half marathon!  Eeek.  I figured if I do my usual run around the streets of town it's too easy to take a shortcut home and call the run short, so I decided I would just run straight out of town 6km and then turn and run all the way back in.  Shades of Forrest Gump there huh?

I did however tell Mike to keep his mobile phone handy in case I broke down along the way and needed him to come pick me up.

The map here is crazy, you can see I left the township of Mortlake and just kept running, even past the salt flats.  I actually wasn't sure where 6km was going to take me and I was praying as I ran that Runkeeper would hurry up and tell me it had arrived!  Only a few trucks passed me which meant I had to get way over in the verge so I didn't get knocked off my feet with the back draft as they drove past.  And the odd car that went past made sure they gave me a wide berth as I got off the road for them also, running against the traffic.

It was hot out there, and well when you think about it, I was running in the heat of the day, doh!  I was just so glad to be moving and pain free.   What's a run without a selfie though!  You can see the road stretched out behind me, this was as I was making my way back into town.

A view across part of the salt flats over to Mount Shadwell, heck I was a long way from town!  And it's so dry and dusty, but thank goodness I remembered the Nature's Botanical.  That stuff is amazing, although heaps of flies around, they just don't bother you when you have this dabbed on you.

And as part of this run, the first 5km was going to be my 5km Feb run for the Licorice & Olives Race series.  They had asked this month to take a photo during our run, well I had a few to pick from didn't I?  But this is the one I chose.  The sky was such a beautiful colour, honestly if you could bottle it, you'd make a fortune.

And I've often driven past the old Butter Factory at the edge of town, but never stopped to take a photo as it is on a sweeping bend and nowhere to park.  It's a ramshackle old building falling down (but I think the hysterical ... err ... historical society don't give them permission to pull it down) and it often has cacti blooming in the front which just looks so out of place.  So I had to stop and take a pic as I ran on by.

Some post run stretches and then it was nap central in this house.  I ended up having a delicious hour long nap on the bed, Mike fell asleep on the couch in his usual possie, and Lucky loves to get wedged between him and the arm of the couch, he hangs with his head over the side (can we say blood rush!) and pops his paw up on Mike's leg.  Funny boy.

Okay well it's an early night for me tonight, even after having a nap today.  I'm absolutely knackered.  Have a great week. 

Back to normal scrapbook pages

Well now that December Daily is well and truly finished with, my next project is to start my holiday album.  I'm a bit paralysed as to how this is going to be set out, so I want to make a plan up first, as I don't want to get knee deep into it and decide I don't like the way it's going.

Esther has shared with me photos from our time together and the beautiful Debi has also shared photos.  It's been so fun to see me from their perspective, almost like reliving the holiday again.  So I can start on the San Diego part of my trip, while I give the other three a wriggle on in case there are some pics of me that I can put in my album from our road trip.  But the way I'm going it's going to take a while to even get to that point.

In the meantime I'll be still plugging away on my 50 things before I turn 50 - I have the photos, just not the pages.  And of course Tabby's beautiful growing baby bump.

This will be the most well documented baby I'm sure.  I want to make an album for the baby from Nanny and Grumpy, and print the pages out for Tabby and Aaron.  Of course they won't get ALL the pages, there'll be some special ones just from us to this precious babe.

Isn't she just the picture of peace here, like it's just meant to be.  She's making sure I'm kept up to date with photographs so that I can scrapbook them for the baby book.  So lucky that she "gets it".

Credits for the scrapbooking supplies of course from Designer Digitals.

Fun shopping

Now I need to say first up that baby shopping is FUN !!!!  Totally.  How can a person not oooh and aaaah over those teeny tiny little pieces.  I wanted to put a bag of things together for my step-daughter "just because".   Tab and Aaron were both coming out for dinner on Saturday night so I just wanted to give them some things.

Oh and although we "know" and a lot of people "know" there are some relatives that don't want to "know" if you "know what I mean".    Lucky those relatives don't read this blog.  ;-)    So if you are reading my mind you will know what I'm talking about ... as in what (shhhh) colour the baby is !!!    

So a snippet of the fun things I put together which she truly appreciated.  And of course one of the little sleep onesies had dogs on it !  Can't help myself.  So there were two sleep onesies, 10 pair of socks, two singlets and two bibs and a stuffed toy.  Fun fun.

This feral looking kitty cat just caught my eye, I couldn't help myself.  No ordinary teddy bears from this nanny, the odder the better huh???

She is really involving us in all things baby, it's been terrific.  I love that she will send Mike a text "I just felt your grandson kick".   He won't admit it but he is secretly loving those little messages.  So we were having fun and looking at all the things she had been looking at on her wish list of things they are saving for.   And Mike and I had already discussed that we wanted to give them something they really needed for the baby, but for her to know that now so she could tick a big ticket item off the list.  This  is the setting she had her eye on and Mike and I looked across the room at each other, did that whole silent look in the eyes "this is it" look and said we wanted to give them this as a gift.  They were just overcome.  But you know, if you can't do this for your grandchild, what can you do right??

Went out for an 11km run this morning, actually I did 12.4km as I think Runkeeper skipped a km, either that or I was in la la land and missed a km clocking over.  Actually I think it may have been due to all the jigging around I had to do when I made a pitstop at the public loos, and trying to get my sweaty leggings up and down my legs and jumping around.  Okay TMI, but you get the picture.

On my way back home I ran through the Apex Rose Garden and realised when you are running, sometimes it's the little things that catch your eye and make you appreciate being out and about.  Look at this stunning rose, the dew on it looked like diamonds in the light, it was stunning.  I quickly snapped a photograph.  So pretty.

Well that's it from me, I'm so knackered, time for bed.  Have a great week ahead and catch you during the week some time.

V Day

Sitting here on the couch, semi watching a movie, Mike on my iPad, me doing a quick blog post, supremely happy.

Had today off work so I went to the Crazy Women's Association ... err ... CWA meeting.  No time to make arvo tea so I  rocked up with this...

Made sure each of the ladies got a heart.  ❤️   It was a day for love so I made sure I was wearing my tshirt that says 'I can't stop falling in love with you.

Off we went for dinner tonight, just down to the local pub, it was yum.

Finished it off with a skinny hot chocolate, mega yum.

So hope your V Day has been lovely in your world.  Although after my meal tonight there will be a long Saturday morning run to make up for my meal tonight.

The last of my December Daily

And here are the final pages for my December Daily book.  Wonder of wonders, I'm not still making the pages in June!!!  Too many other projects to start and have on the go...

And as seems to be the way with all my projects, I wait until the very end to then do the opening page.  I guess it has given me a chance to see how the pages are going to go, what direction the book will take me in.   I guess I need to see the whole book, to then go back and "set the scene" so to speak. So this is the opening page.

Credits for the Product used:  Designer Digitals

And last but very not least the cover, always the very last thing I do on a project.  And I looooove how this has turned out.  I had it in my mind's eye as to what I wanted to do, fill the cover with photos that spill out and round the edge.  Yes they will be cut off and folded over into the cover and binding, and yes that was what was intended.  I hope it looks as good on an 8x8 book as in my mind it would.  Maybe a cover like this would only work on a larger book.  Time will tell when I get it in my hot little hands.  You might need to click on it to bring it up larger if you want to see the detail.

And so there it is, another Daily December album, silly little photos but lots and lots of memories to look back on.  The iPhone has been a wonderful thing for me, being able to take quick snaps of every day life.  It won't ever replace my big girl camera, but it certainly has a place in my photography repertoire.  Oooooh!  I have a repertoire, who knew??  :-)

But before I go I want to share with you this amazing photograph I took this morning.  I was up and out the door to run before the sun was up, trying to beat the heat of the day.  I ditched my long Saturday morning run for Sunday and soooo glad I did, look at the prize!!   

So in case you missed it, this is what your Sunday morning looked like!! 

30 Minute Masterpiece

Designer Digitals has a challenge every so often called the 30 Minute Masterpiece (or 30MM for short).  I decided on the spur of the moment to play along today.  Well actually I hadn't worked out the time difference to be honest and didn't really know when it started, and saw in the forum it had just commenced so joined in.

Ack!  It's so freaking nerve-wracking trying to get a page done in 30 minutes.    And just when you think right, I kind of know where I'm going with this, you have the photo, you have the screen, you have the rules (which you intend to apply very loosely!! ha) and bam, the computer decides to go on a go slow, ACDSee doesn't want to play the game and shuts itself down, the phone rang and it was my mum for a chat, and to top it off I was busting to go to the loo and I sat here with my legs crossed.  I only had 30 mins to get the page in the gallery.

I'm sure Linda, our beautiful host (earlofoxford) was chuckling to herself.

So this is what I came up with.  Slammed it into the gallery and was only 4 minutes late.  So this is my 34 Minute Masterpiece.  So funny, the bit watery mark I knew I wanted to use but initially I had coloured it red.  The page looked like it had been in the centre of a crime scene with a big red splotch of blood on it !  That would just not do, hence where the orange came from.

The rules were:

• Use something red.
• Stitch something down
• Use the word love in the title
• Use a portrait oriented photo (I used a bit of license there and switched my frame from horizontal, which it started off like, to portrait.
• And include a heart.

But I wasn't happy with it, you know when a page you do just doesn't sit quite right.  So I just did a bit of tweaking of it tonight, I feel like it's a bit more balanced now.  The watery mark is not as big, I've broken it up with some white paint splatters, I balanced the bottom with upward wooden arrows and added another line in the journalling which sat a bit better, bordered it all with black, and now I feel a lot happier with it.  This is the best part of digi scrapping, being able to tweak things like this.

Credits Designer Digitals.

Last night I went to my work reunion which went back 50 years.  It's been 24 years since I had worked down at Torquay PS, where I had a three year stint from 1989 to 1991.  It was fantastic to see some of the old crew.  Way back then I was the only woman amongst about 14 fellows I guess there was, and I was the princess let me tell you, and was very well looked after.  It was wonderful to see a lot of them last night.

But combined with a late night and a 2+ hour drive and knowing it was going to be a scorcher today, there was no way I'd be able to get up early to run, so my long Saturday morning run has been moved to Sunday, and so that means, I need to go to bed now.

Catching up

Catching up is something I'm going to have to do if Mr. G has anything to say about it.  He's gone nuts!  He has started lengthening out his run/walk/run block and is now doing 2km.  He has also bought himself some proper runners, some fantastic Mizuno something or others.  He did a little freak out when he went into Athletes Foot and saw the runners on the wall, every colour of the rainbow, Mr. Conservative that he is.  These are a very subdued shade of white/blue.  And he's already feeling the difference.

I however added to the decline in the sand at Warrnambool beach yesterday.  It was soooo windy after work, the sand had blown over the path in sections and it stung.  I left my sunglasses in the car and so I didn't have protection for my eyes, but I needed to get my training in, so I perservered through half closed eyes.  I'd pass a runner going the other way and we'd just raise our eyebrows at each other and think "nutter"!!  Well when I got back to the car and took one look in the mirror, oh my!  My hot and sweaty face was covered in sand.  Talk about a loofah getting it all off with my towel in the car!

And another catch up is that I have officially FINISHED my December Daily, so much so that I'm about ready to hit the "order now" button.  I'm trying a new company for me, Photobooks Australia (thanks Esther!) so lets hope they look great.  I'll show up to Christmas Day tonight and I'll show the rest later.  Because me being the perfectionist, it doesn't stop at Christmas Day, it goes all the way to the end of the year!

Credits Designer Digitals.

The best run of my life

It may have only been 1.2km but it was probably the BEST 1.2km in my life.  It was the first time I have ever run with Mike.  He has just started running over the last week, he has plotted out a track which is the big block of 1.2km and has been doing a run/walk/run around it each day.  He's been off the smokes now for 6 months and ready to start moving.

So last night he says he was going to go out once the temp got a bit cooler and I looked at him with puppy dog eyes and asked if he minded I came too.

Oh my!  It was soooooo fun running with him.  When he walked I just did a slow jog but didn't stop, and bringing it home I urged him to run right down the street to the front gate without stopping.  Yay, he only had two catch his breathe walks in the whole run.  So proud of him.  To be honest I think I fell a little bit more in love with him than I already am :-)

Here we are before, looking fresh...

Here we are after, Mike had had it!  Poor guy he was knackered!!

Here he is one moment after the 'after' photo!!  tee hee

This is the start.  He says I have inspired him with the fitness I gave gained.  He has never run as a sport before this past week and think he's a little bit impressed with me.  Now he knows when I come home after a 10km run exactly what effort goes into that.

I'm so freaking excited, he's looking at doing the local Noorat to Terang fun run with me at the end of the month.

So tomorrow the February round of 12wbt commences.  Sooooo excited.  After taking a round off, I'm back and doing the half marathon program.  I just worked out where the 12 week end falls and wouldn't you know I believe it is when the Geelong Half Marathon is.  What a perfect end to the round having this as the 12 week major milestone.

Good luck everyone doing this round of 12WBT.