Ready to Pounce

As promised, here is a painting I completed to enter in a cat-themed art show a few weeks ago. I found out about it last minute, so I literally did this entire painting in one day! Unfortunately, I didn't make it into the show (sigh). But here is the Puddy Tat.

 

 



 And finally......

"Ready to Pounce"
11" x 17" acrylic original on canvas board

Adventures with RRB

I knew it was going to be an adventure when RRB texted first thing asking if I'd brought old shoes. That can only spell one thing: MUD. Luckily, I had a beat up pair of Mizunos at my mom's...though one shoe was missing a shoe lace I now have hanging around my rearview mirror. After raiding her sewing basket, I tied 2 old laces together and presto! Like a brand new shoe!

My next race on Father's Day has 4 killer hills in it (ok, not really killer, but any slight incline is torture for me), so I've been wanting to get some hill training in before then. All I have to do is slightly mention that I'm even thinking about agreeing to doing hills and RRB seizes the opportunity. Seizes the opportunity without properly scoping out our path. Ok, he trial-runned our route days before....and got lost. And yet, I still follow him.

We went to Hinckley Reservation in Medina, OH and ran up some monstrous hills, that never really had the equal downhill to go with it. But it was so much fun!

I have no idea why I keep putting my life in this guy's hands

 

Halfway thru the run we climbed the mother of all hills. At the top? This really cool rock/cavern grove full of rock carvings some guy in the late 19th / early 20th century carved into them. Really neat!

 

 

Well, it was really neat the first time....RRB realized we'd made a wrong turn after descending down the mother of all hills (Everest). Passing the carvings the second time was not as fun.

You are NOT my favorite person anymore. (Note hot orange makeshift shoe lace)

After threatening RRB's life, I got over it...until I stepped in a creek. I've mentioned in the past that I don't do trail downhills very well. I pause my Garmin and tend to tiptoe down, fearing for my life...same goes for creek and river crossings.

Step 1: Stare at body of water in confusion. "You want me to cross this!? F&#*!"
Step 2: Scratch head and plan attack...mutter expletives, curse out RRB
Step 3: Tentatively step onto first rock..more expletives
Step 4: Scratch head and plan attack. Curse out RRB again
Step 5: Onto next rock
Repeat steps 2 and 3 until crossed

Yes, I have serious issues.

Anyway, my carefully crafted creek crossing plan failed.

Glad I wore old shoes

It was a great run, we got 10.5 miles in. We had so much fun and I got some monstrous hills in to help with my race. I love being back home!

Friends thru thick, thin, mud, hills, fire alarms, hamster circles and insanity

Once Upon a Dream

Here's one of 3 paintings I have finished recently. I've got a few Disney Princess ones I want to do in this style, so they're going to be part of a set.

Here is "Once Upon a Dream"

I was a little nervous about tackling the trees, so I put it off for awhile. Then I got sick of having it stare at me leaning against the wall while I watched tv...so I sucked it up and gave it a go. I ended up doing all the trees in one night! I think it worked out pretty well! 

And finally..........

"Once Upon a Dream" - 20" x 28" original acrylic painting

 

 

I had a fantastic run with RRB over the weekend, which I'll post about next! More paintings to come!

Awesome Weekend

I have been such a blogging slacker lately! But mostly, its because I have been so busy. I have some exciting Disney things in the works, plus I found out last minute about an art show I could enter, so I had to paint something up lickity split.

I also have been going home to Cleveland a lot recently, which has eaten up a lot of my weekend painting time. But it's been so worth it! This past weekend was awesome. The weather was perfect for my run on the Towpath with RRB.



Gorgeous!

It was so perfect, I went back for a 2nd run the same day! This time I joined my sister in-law to show her the beauty of my favorite place. She's new to running and I'm so proud of her for making such great progress at this! I had an awesome time running with her and hopefully soon we'll be able to do a 5k together!



Cheesin'

Then, I got to strap into my wedding dress and model for my friend, Natalia Dale, the most awesome photographer ever. I don't know how she does it, but she makes everything look so beautiful! She helps this sweaty, stinky runner look pretty!

I always jump at the chance to put on black angel wings!



Song Bird captured the moment of the moment!



Never thought he'd be helping me back IN my dress!

I'll post new pics of paintings soon. Did you all have good weekends too?

Pooh

I hate Winnie the Pooh. I mean, I really hate Winnie the Pooh....and all of his little furry friends in the Hundred Acres Wood.

So why did I paint him? Well, I thought maybe if I spent some quality time staring at his chubby belly we might bond. Ha. Nahh, a friend had asked if I was going to be making any Pooh paintings and while I hadn't planned on it in a 100 million years, it made me realize that there is a demand out there for it!

And, after finding the picture I wanted to paint, even I had to admit it could be a pretty cool painting. So here is Pooh:

I actually ended up erasing my entire first sketch after I realized I had completely misjudged the size of the canvas and drew him too small. THAT was frustrating.

And finally.....



"Pooh"
14" x 16" acrylic original on canvas

Towpath Trilogy: 5 Miler Recap

Sunday was my first race of the season and I was so giddily nervous, I was randomly clapping and squealing sitting in my car while I waited for the start.

Mom didn't seem to have this issue

The weather was almost perfect, upper 50s and partly cloudy, if only we could have gotten rid of the wind...though I hardly noticed it during the race.

My lofty goal for the race was to come in 1st woman overall. My regular goal was to come in somewhere in the Top 3 Overall, or at least 1st in my division. And of course, when I put those kinds of goals in my head, the pressure is on!

I positioned myself right at the front of the pack and did my normal bunny hops to work off my nervous energy (and stay warm). While chatting up my fellow racers (read: giving the Disney Marathon free advertising), I spotted HER.

HER: A fake 'n baked, jet black hair, string-beaned, mutant with the cockiness of an Olympian. She was hanging out at the start line with HIM, an equally cocky, pro-runner-attired mutant.

So much for 1st place.

Runners, on your marks...
"No Line on the Horizon" set on iPod.

Get Set...
Hand over Garmin's 'start' button.

Go!!!!!!!!!!!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Outta my way, bitches!!!!!

The only psychotically grinning runner

Mile 1: Man, there's a whole slew of women passing me. I hope they're just fast starters!

The first part of the race is uphill (a theme of this race) and then we turned onto the Towpath. Even without the leaves on the trees, it is such a pretty race. I love my Towpath!

I used a huge downhill to my advantage (man, is that going to suck coming back up), and passed the remainder of the women who had gotten ahead of me at the start, minus HER.

Mile 1.65: OMG, that's it?! Holy crap. This is turning into the longest 5 miles I have ever run!


Mile 2: Side stitch! Dammit! Really? This little bugger never did left my side the rest of race, har har.


Mile 3: Finally heading back. Wahoo!


Mile 4: Almost there, almost there. Crap! There's that blasted hill! Who maps these courses out, Satan?

Mile 4.75: Oh look, there's HER and HIM. Jogging back. Because they're finished. And wanted to gloat. Where's a gun?

Mile 4.9: There's mommy! Yay! I'm comin', I'm comin'!

Mile 4.97: WHHHHHRR! The middle-aged guy I'd been passing back and forth the whole race goes whipping by. Dammit! Not enough time to catch up.



Yeah...He totally sand-bagged me by letting me pass him that last time

Mile 5: DONE!!!!!!!! Yes!!!!!!!!!!!

Finished in 35:35:4, 7:07 pace,  2nd woman overall, 15th place total out of about 365. I'm so happy! And for the first time in my entire running career, I got PAID! I got a very pretty matted picture of the Towpath, and $25 to Vertical Runner, a local running shoe store. Awesome!



Not too shabby for the 1st race of the season, and only 2nd run outside in months!

Oh, and about HER and HIM? HER and HIM both came in as top Female and Male. HER beat me by almost 6 minutes. This got me very suspicious. How is it possible that there are 6 minutes between 1st and 2nd place? So, I googled them and found out she's a track/cross country coach at a University, and he is her student! How is that right? Maybe next time I'll go race some kindergardners on the playground! I hope they feel real proud of themselves, trouncing us normal folk. Lol. (Ok, I'm totally joking around, but come on! So not right!)

And tonight.........I'm signing up for the 2014 Walt Disney World Half Marathon. YESSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Master Chief

It's no secret that I married a nerd. And when it comes to nerd-dom, my Turtle is practically royalty. He has a strange fascination with spreadsheets, numbers and all things technology. Wednesday nights I am sequestered to the 2nd floor so he can geek out with his buddies and have Halo night.... Only no one is in the house but the two of us.

He slaps on the biggest pair of headphones known to man and plays video games with his friends online. 3 years of this and it still is a bit odd to walk in on my husband having a deep conversation about the best manner of alien attack, seemingly to himself.

But that's my Turtle, and I love him for it. There are worse things he could be addicted to... like running ;-)  (good grief, that would be horrific....I don't think I could stand being married to myself!)

Anyway, in honor of my Turtle's love, I painted Master Chief, the main character from Halo. One day, when we have a house and he has his own little man cave, he can hang it on the wall (along with the lightsaber that currently hangs on our living room wall....ok ok, I actually don't mind the light saber...but shhhh! That's our little secret!)

Here is the Chief!

 

 

And finally.....

"Master Chief"
18" x 24" acrylic original on canvas

And of course, I've sent it along to the Halo nerds at Bungie to hopefully attract their interest!