Sew Half Crazy

4/27/2017

No Going Back Now

Heather 4/27/2017 0 Comments

As I sit here, at my gate, waiting for the plane to Nashville to board, I've been reflecting on my training these last two weeks.

It hasn't been great. In fact, I've only run once since my last Monday Report. Not the way to prep for a race.

I know better, but, as it so often does, life this week has been hectic. If there is one thing that I have learned this training session is that I need to get better about juggling work, family, and training time.

Often, my training gets put on the back burner because the family stuff is getting shoved around, because my work hours have increased. I know many people juggle these things, but I'm out of practice. I need help. What do you guys do?

How do you guys manage it?

Having my schedule in the bullet journal helps. It helps keep me sane, and helps relieve tension with the art I add to it. What I really need help with is prioritizing and not sabotaging myself.

I also think I need to reevaluate my goals. Why isn't pursuing a 2:30 half marathon motivating me the way that running my first half did? Is it the wrong goal?

It's an admirable goal, but maybe I'm failing because I'm putting so much pressure on myself, and deep down I know that I'm not training the way I should be.

I think I need to alter my goal. I think I need to approach my half marathons with a goal of setting a new PR, even if only by a few seconds.

Progress is progress even if it's slow. So there are my ramblings as I wait to board my plane and get ready to run my 10th half marathon.

4/21/2017

Dying the Sunset

Heather 4/21/2017 0 Comments

I love seeing people with vibrant hair colors. It's so fun, and I love the expression of self. My sisters and I first dyed our hair fun colors in January, and then at the end of March is was time for me to change mine up again, except that my hair color was still pretty vibrant. Today's post is about how I stripped the color and then re-dyed my hair.

I decided to write this post, because I had a hard time finding good information about what to do. I also have curly, dry, damaged hair, which is problematic in and of itself, so adding bleach to that mix was going to have to be handled carefully.

So I did tons of research on how to remove the dye from my hair and how to protect and condition my hair. I already know that my hair can't handle multiple shampooings a week, so I washed my hair once a week with dandruff shampoo to help strip the color. Unfortunately, the dandruff shampoo really dries out my hair, so then I'd follow up with a really intensive deep conditioning. I like HASK Argan Oil Deep Conditioning hair treatment. It's a little pricey, but so worth it, and it smells good to boot!

So the weeks leading up to the new dye job were 2-3 deep conditioning treatments, no heat styling, and weekly shampooing with the dandruff shampoo. This faded the color a lot, but not enough, so then I had to look at other options. With my roots coming in, I figured that a soap cap would be the best bet. Since I was going to have to do the soap cap the day before the dye job because of my schedule, I needed something that I could do myself, and not take up a lot of time, because Baby Girl would still need attention.

I found soap cap recipe on Manic Panic's UK site, and decided to go with it. See their recipe {HERE}. It worked so well!

I still don't think I look good as a blonde, but my roots were a touch lighter, and the pink and purple were out of my hair.

My hair also felt really nice and soft, not dry and sticky. It also didn't take long. I mixed up the concoction, per the instructions and applied. Before I was even done working the entire mixture throughout my head, the color was stripping from my hair.

With my hair now prepped for dye, it was time to give my hubs a pep talk, because he was going to be helping me dye my hair.

Luckily, I had found a lot of tutorials and pictures on how to do pinwheel hair color. I took screenshots of all of them, and then the next morning when we were starting we talked out just where each color was going to go.

We parted my hair from ear to ear and then separated each half into 5 sections. We were going to do 3 sections of purple and orange, and then 4 sections of pink. So we had a plan. It didn't help assuage my poor husband. I added some of the HASK conditioner to each pot of Punky color. My hair really can't ever have enough conditioning. I decided to go with Flamingo Pink, Violet, and Flame Red.

After we got all the color onto my hair, we wrapped a plastic bag around my head, and we watched some TV. I left the color on my hair for 90 minutes. With my roots still being dark, I wanted to get as an intense a color as I could.

So after the 90 minutes, I washed the color out of my hair, and it looked like I murdered a troll. So much color! I also did another round of conditioning while in the shower. It was an awful shower. Cool water showers are not the best thing ever, but that's a concession for these fashion colors.

After my shower, I could immediately tell that my hair was exactly how I wanted it to be. I was over-the-moon pleased with it.

It's been a month, and my color is still going strong. I have resumed taking warm showers, and the color is still going strong. I also am very thankful that my hubs was willing to help me. I'm going to need his help again when I decide to change up the colors.

4/20/2017

Art for the Kids

Heather 4/20/2017 0 Comments

If you follow Sew Half Crazy on instagram {HERE}, then you'll have seen these pictures a while back. It's been a bit crazy here, and I'm only just now getting to write this post.

I wanted to share with you a cute little $1 inspired art project that I made for the kids. Well 2/3 of the projects costed a $1, the other one cost $3. All the rest of the supplies I already had on hand, which were -

140 lb. press watercolor paper
Watercolors
Sharpie black pen
Regular No. 2 pencil
Large coffee mug (for the circle gem)
Small medicine cup (for the moon)
Ruler

So these were projects that just kind of evolved. I've wanted to add the Proverbs verse to Baby Girl's room for a while, but just didn't know in what way. Then inspiration struck, and I saw some watercolor gems. Bingo! I used a very large coffee mug to draw the large circular edge of the gem, and then just measured out somewhat even lines from the center. After I'd filled the circle with geometric shapes, I went to work coloring them in with watercolor. I tried to stay away from my pencil lines, so that I could erase them later. Once it was dry and I'd erased the pencil lines, I sketched out the verse, and then went over it with my Sharpie.

Her art is the largest of the three pieces, and after I got it made it sat for a while, because I didn't know how/where it was going to go in her room.

I really planned this project out, as you can see. Then one day in Target over by the $1 section, I saw these awesome little easels. So I snatched up 3. Two of the smaller size which were $1 each, and then the larger one for Baby Girl, which was $3. Perfect!

So I took the mod podge and glued Baby Girl's art to the easel. I didn't cover the top of the art with any mod podge, because I didn't seal it and I didn't want the colors or the ink to run.

While I was working on Baby Girl's art, my Big Guy tells me that he really likes the watercolor gem, but not that it's a gem. So I had another inspiration. I'd back his art with a random geometric pattern, and just color it in like I did the gem, but what to put on it?

A few days later, Big Guy comes upstairs angry at his computer, because he closed the program he was using and didn't save his work, and he lost everything. Hubs and I started chuckling and commiserating with him over the plight of auto-save, but tell him it's life and it's his fault, because he should've saved his work.

A few days later, I'm browsing the internet for quotes, and I find the perfect one for my Big Guy. I draw it out, and get it how I want it too look, and then put it on the painted background I'd created earlier. I mounted it to the smaller easel, I'd picked up. These easels were 2" x 3". The perfect size for a little reminder, as I figured he'd put this on his desk.

He loved it, and immediately knew that the quote was in reference to his lost work, but at least now he smiled about it.

My last piece of art was for my Small Fry, and I knew what I wanted to make for him, but not how I wanted to display it. I have always said, "I love you to the moon and stars," to Small Fry. It's our thing. While browsing the internet, once again, for inspiration on how to display that quote I came across this image -

To the moon and back Hand lettering by Heidi Nicole:

{Original Post}

It was perfect for my Small Fry. So I set off to make my own version of this for him. I used a medicine cup to make the 2 perfect circles for the O/moon. I had no idea what I was doing with my watercolors and the moon, but I just kept blending it and adding a bit of color until I was happy with how it looked. Sometimes the best plans, don't really involve a plan. The stars are actually metallic gold, and I love just the little bit of glitz that they add.

I mounted it to my last small easel, and placed it on his little corner shelf. Small Fry told me it's the last thing he looks at every night. Sometimes that kid really knows how to melt my heart.

I love that each kid now has a little bit of art that their mom made.

Have a lovely day!

4/17/2017

The Monday Report - 2 weeks out!

Heather 4/17/2017 0 Comments

I'm kind of glad that I'm only writing these reports every 2 weeks, because my training at the beginning of this session was somewhat better than awful, but I turned it around this last week! It's a good thing to, because Rock 'N Roll Nashville is 2 weeks away! I'm so very excited. I'm hoping to complete it in 2:45, which I'm hoping is an attainable goal, given my dismal performance this spring.

I have big plans for my summer training, so I'm hoping my fall races get me closer to my 2:30 goal. It's going to have to involve speed work, which I hate, so I'm already trying to mentally prepare myself. The bright side to summer training is that the kids will be off from school, and I will have a babysitter for Baby Girl, so my schedule won't be as dependent on weather and how she's feeling. Yay!

So let's get to it, here's the recap.

My one and only run during week 3, was a quick little 3 mile jaunt that was rather enjoyable, even if it was warm. I don't know what happened the rest of the week, and why I ended up not doing anything else, but it is what it is. I ended the week with 3 miles out of 19. Not great.

Luckily, I got a lot of work done on the blog and was able to refocus the following week, and nail most of of running workouts. I need to be able to focus and get my strength work done, but I hate strength so much. Will someone come to my house and make me do my strength workouts? I guess that's where my gym membership helped, because the machine made that dreaded strength work an easier pill to swallow, but I don't have the gym membership anymore, so I really just need to buckle down and get that crap done. Or if someone has a bullhorn, and will shout at me to get it done.......

So this last week was warm, and lovely training for Nashville, which is bound to be hot. One of the biggest hurdles for me when running Nashville are the summertime temps, because Virginia isn't that hot yet. I mean, we're getting there, but we still have a lot of springtime temps left, and 80+ degree running is so much more difficult than mid-50's and 60's. So I am happy for our mini-heatwave. I wasn't real happy with my pace times this week, but I know that's not the only number to focus on, and there was a huge non-number victory this week! I'll get to it in a bit, but it was HUGE! Like I knocked a mini-goal off my list big.

So back to my numbers. They weren't great, and slower than I was anticipating. I don't know if it was because of the heat, and the accompanying humidity or if I was just off. Who knows, but the miles did get run and that is the most important thing. I logged 19 out of 22 miles this week. Yahoo!

Monday was a lot of fun. I ran 4 miles, while Dana ran a 5k. It was so much fun. I'm so glad that we're able to run "together" via a cellphone and her mac. We listened to her Zombies, RUN! 5k during this run, and during one part, I was startled by the scream heard through her phone. It was all apart of the story, and we had a laugh about it. Dana will be reviewing the 5k she ran, and I can't wait to read her full review!

I did have a funny happen on Wednesday, while running what was supposed to be a tempo 5-miler. It ended up being a 5k and then the remaining 1.89 miles to finish up the 5 miles. Someone didn't plan her breakfast well and then paid the price for it, but racing home counts as tempo work, right?

Dana very kindly talked to me for 3 hours on Saturday morning, as I banged out 10 miles before work. I'm ever so glad that she was there, because while my pace was all over the place for that long run, I was able to conduct an experiment and then talk through the results. Over the past few months, I've been noticing that the gatorade gels were upsetting my stomach, so Saturday I decided to try a controlled experiment, where I would only fuel with gatorade drink. At about 7 miles, that decision bit me in the ass. My legs were fatigued and I was exhausted. Luckily, I planned ahead (read: I had gels left over in my pack from RnR DC) so I popped one gel at 7 miles. By 7.5 miles I was already feeling better, so I popped one gel at 8 and another at 9. I needed the fuel, and they didn't upset my stomach, even with the liquid gatorade in my pack. Next week, I'll be starting the gels at mile 6, just so I don't hit that wall first, and hopefully they'll help carry me over without the fatigued feeling.

So just to share, my average moving pace for the run was 14:12, which is slower than I like for a trail run, but not terrible considering my training this spring. Below are the average moving paces:

13:59
13:42
13:23
14:24
14:18
14:43
15:29
15:11
13:00
14:04

So you can see mile 7 was painfully slow. I was hurting, so after taking the gel, there was a concentrated effort to pick up the pace, which I accomplished. I will also say that at during mile 10, was Henry Hill, and anyone who's been to the Manassas Battlefield knows of Henry Hill, or the hill that is behind the Visitor's Center that is very long and quite steep. The path up the hill is about a quarter of a mile and gains about 100' in elevation. I've never been able to run all the way up that hill, but I did on Saturday!

Dana asked me if I was alright, and I had to remind her that it was a freaking big hill. Then she asked if I was having a heart attack, and replied, "No, still running." Of course, when I got to the top of the hill I still needed about a tenth of a mile to finish 10, and I was asking her if 10 was ever going to happen.

So while the first half of this stretch could've been better; the boon of achieving my mini-goal of running all the way up Henry Hill was definitely a much needed win.

Here's to getting these last 2 weeks out of the way!

4/03/2017

The Monday Report - 1/3 done!

Heather 4/03/2017 0 Comments

It's been awhile since I wrote a Monday Report, and figured it was high time to get back into the habit. Not that I think all of you are waiting on the edge of your seats for my report, but more for me. It's a good reflection for me.

I'm in the middle of a short 6-week training schedule, and it's going pretty well. I am seeing improvement and that's really what I'm looking for.