Gangnam Style

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh sexy lady!

That's right, I'm heading to South Korea. Not only that, I'm heading to the Gangnam district of Seoul..or the "Hollywood" of South Korea, as it is popularly known.

Why am I going? You mean Seoul isn't on the top of everyone's list of vacation destinations?! Well, aside from that, I am tagging along the Turtle's work trip to venture into the world of kimchi, chopsticks and..um....er....... yeah, I'm completely unprepared from this trip.

So let's have some fun. Here is the very short list of things I do know:


1. My hotel has an INDOOR RUNNING TRACK!!!!!!
     ---ok, list over. That's all I need to know!

of course this was the first thing I looked into

2. Young-uh day ha sheh suey simeeka?
      --Do you speak English?
     ---A helpful phrase I think I might find handy.


3. There is a mall under my hotel.
   --That makes it easy for the Turtle to find me!


4. There is also a Coldstone Creamery under my hotel.
    --While I totally plan on trying all kinds of new and different foods, I have got to see what Korean Coldstone is like! And it's good to know I have a fallback for my ice cream addiction.

I think this might be getting a visit from me or 2, or 10

5. Do not leave your chopsticks standing straight up in your rice.
   --This is reserved as a tribute to a deceased member of the family. Otherwise it's insulting.


6. Don't pour your own drink at a party...and if someone pours you one, you better drink it.
   --Unless its a before-a-run night. Then I don't care how insulting it is, I am not compromising my morning run for tradition!


7. Our hotel has the biggest hotel fitness center in the country.
   --I had to mention this again, I am so excited about this!

Those look like the same brand eliptical I use at the gym! Score!

8. Watch where you walk.
   --motorcycles, bikes and even cars can be driven on the sidewalks.


9. There are 22 million people in Seoul.
    -- So, that's like Disney World during peak season, right?

This is why we go to the Parks in off season

10. Postage-sized skirts = ok, Low-cut = not so ok.
    --So, a nun on top and a hooker on the bottom.


and finally....


11. Dress warm.... (well, except for the mini skirt part)
   -- Highs will be in the low 40s, Lows will be in the 20s. Good grief. It's like I'm not even leaving Ohio.


Well, I am good to go, right?! Honestly, I don't even know what to picture when I think about the trip. Seoul hasn't exactly been on my radar. Oh yeah, and have I mentioned that aside from Canada, I've never left the country? Or that our flight from Atlanta to Seoul is 14.5 hours!!!

The hotel has Wi-Fi, so hopefully I'll be able to post a blog or two about running in Seoul!

Turkey Recap

Gobble gobble everyone!

Hanging with Mr. Turkey before the Turkey Trot

I'm sure all of your Thanksgivings were merry and bright..err.. wrong holiday... Well, you get my drift.

Wed. night Turtle, I and his sister piled in the car and made our trek home to Cleveland, with our usual Subway stop on the way. As we went,  I got a message from a runner friend telling me there was a good chance I'd place if I ran the Turkey Trot the next day.

Don't have to tell me twice!

I spent the remainder of the trip plotting and scheming ways I could fit this in the schedule (and find someone to go with me because I am not parking downtown by myself and what fun is a race all alone?)

Going thru my short list of potential candidates (in order of most likely to go) I was quickly at 2 strikes. Then,  I went in for brother #2. I pulled out allllll the stops. There were pouty faces (facetime is very handy for this), whining, pleading, guilting and the kicker: bonding time. Shockingly, he said yes! I whooped and promptly hung up to hydrate and scrounge up an outfit from what clothes I still have at my mom's.

Such a good brother!

The Turkey Trot had perfect weather, with sunny skies, little wind and about 45 degrees at gun time. The race went by really quickly, and I gotta say, it was really nice not having to do 8 more miles when I got to the finish line at mile 5! I could get used to that......

Done already?! Awesome!

Since it was only a 5 mile race, my usual going out too fast habit never turned off. I ended up sprinting the whole race! With an average pace of 6:48, my finishing time was 34:00:02!!!!

I was completely floored! I had told my brother to start watching out for me between 35-40 minutes, closer to the 35, but I had not at all expected to finish even in 35 minute at all. I was completely floored when I got in under that!

I ended up coming in 7th in my division, which I was a little dissappointed about. But then I thought about how well I did and got over it (it also helped that it wasn't even close since the top 3 in my division came in a good 2-3 minutes before me).

I think they need to restock

The rest of the holiday weekend was great. I did 2 more morning runs (a 5 and 7 mile).  I did some serious damage to Michael's canvas stock, completely looting them of their 18" x 24" canvases.

And I had a great time hanging out with friends and family. I can't wait til Christmas when we can do it all again!

A rare moment of my siblings and I with our spouses all together in the same place!

Having A Ball

Disney is going to get so sick of me :-)

Here is my latest submission to the lovely Disney Fine Art company. I wasn't quite sure if this would turn out when I was sketching Cinderella's face. Its pretty hard to see your "vision" when you're only looking at pencil lines. But, I'm glad I stuck it out (thank you Polish stubborn genes!).

And let the layering begin....My little foray into black & white made me forget the frustration of mixing the perfect color only to have to paint over it all over again because one layer just wasn't rich enough.

And finally.....

"Having A Ball" - 20" x 24" acrylic

And speaking of almost throwing in the towel, the painting I'm working on now I really almost did just that. But I'm so glad I haven't. I'm about 75% done with it, but the holidays and more full-time work days are going to put this on the backburner for a bit. Stay tuned!

The Camo-Rose

To tide you over while I finish up my new Cinderella piece, here's my entry for the Postcards From the Edge Auction. I sketched and painted this all in one day the weekend after I got home from Disney. Since I was beyond anxious to get all of my contest and auction pieces done so I could start work on new Disney stuff, I wanted to pick something that I could do relatively quickly. That 4" x 6" size requirement has its advantages!

Here is "The Camo-Rose":

And finally.....

"The Camo-Rose" - 4" x 6" Acyrlic

It's nothing epic, but I think it's pretty nice. Cinderella is coming along nicely, hoping to finish it this weekend!

Waiting For a Prince

Since my trip to Disney (and a long talk with one of their artists), my desire to become a Disney Fine Artist has gotten even stronger. I am absolutely determined to get a contract with them! They'll beg me to sign with them, I'll move to Orlando and have the Castle in my backyard. Yes, it will happen! I will MAKE it happen!

To start what will turn into an epic series of Disney paintings, I'm beginning with Sleeping Beauty. It's no secret that this is my favorite Disney movie, and Princess Aurora is my favorite Disney princess (I may be Tinkerbell, but every girl has their favorite princess!). I'm trying to do some creative and unique takes on these paintings, to hopefully catch Disney's eye. So, here we go!

This time I'll take you thru the whole process...

Here's the screen shot I started with...

And then after I performed some photo-shop magic.

Then, I put the above picture onto my iPad and prop it up on the table I paint on (propped against a mason jar of whiskey...best use I've got for the stuff!). This way I can keep glancing at the iPad while I sketch and paint.

I completely winged the entire background. I just put branches where I felt like it. I'm really happy with how I was able to give it some depth with various shades of gray for the trees. Totally didn't plan that until it happened!

And finally....

"Waiting For a Prince" - 18" x 24" Acrylic Original

I'd day it looks really close to my photo-shopped pic.. Here it is again for you to compare!

Next up, an interesting take on Cinderella.

Live Running Soundtrack

It's been awhile since I've caught you up on my running. Before Disney, I had my usual pre-vacation freak out that I would lose some of my speed/gain weight over the trip. This was followed by my usual post-first-run-after-vacation freak out (which inevitably sucks) that I've lost my speed and will never get back to where I was. Hi, my name is Tink, and I am insane.



Disney's Boardwalk Inn's hotel gym

I managed to get to the gym 2 mornings of our vacation for an hour bike ride each (not to mention oodles of crunches throughout the trip). Not that I needed it with all the walking we did each day, but it really pumped up my mood and made me feel like less of lazy bum when I was wolfing down peanut butter sundaes for dinner.



Watching Hurricane Sandy coverage on the morning news

My first run post-vacation wasn't bad, but wasn't great, either. And of course, I wouldn't allow myself to use vacation fatigue or the fact that we got home from the airport at 8:30pm the night before or that I had gotten up and gone to work before the run be an excuse. And the panic began.

But, this week I've had 2 awesome 9 milers! And yesterday, the high school orchestra was practicing Sousa marches while I ran! It's not every day you have a live orchestra accompanying your run!



At one point, some of the trombones were playing from the track too!

I've been working some extra hours this week, so not much painting getting done. I can't wait til the weekend when I can work more on my latest!

Hoo Hoo

Finally! All 3 of my entries are done for the WOP Contest, wahoo! Here is
"The Owl":

I decided to do a black and white piece because I figured it would go with more paintings. Whoever the gallery picks to be the judge for the contest selects what pieces are part of the show. Their selecting is completely arbitrary, but they do try to make up some sort of theme as they choose. Black and white goes with everything, so hopefully this one will have at least half a chance.

The sketch

I've gotten really lazy with my sketches lately. I'm just doing the core sections and putting a lot of faith in my free-hand brush skills. At least it's improving my painting abilities, whoever said laziness was a bad thing?
 

And finally........

"The Owl" - 11" x 14" Acrylic

Not only did I finish this this weekend, I also completed my postcard for the Postcards from the Edge auction and started a super cool new Disney painting! Busy, busy!

Disney October 2012

Why can't I just live here forever? Come on Disney, wake up and hire me as an artist already! You'd get all of my salary back anyway with all of the merchandise I'd buy!

Like this hoodie I sooooooo needed

We had a fantastic time on our exteneded weekend trip.

We met Sandy, when she was much calmer:

Flying above her

Getting poured on in Epcot

We ate:

They really need to work on portion sizes- this was way too small!

More peanut butter sauce, please!

And ate.....

Should've had more dinner

And we rode and rode and rode rides:

Space Mt.

Duped my friend into riding Thunder Mt.

Breaking rides!

And we even got a sneak peak at the New Fantasyland! Awesome!

Entrance to Ariel's Grotto

It was a fantastic trip and I'm already dreaming of the 2014 Disney Half when I can go back!