Just a minute of my time...

All the rain

After meeting with farmer Ray last week, everytime it rains I think of him. He shared with me that he can't harvest the soybean crops until it dries out, and this rain just keeps coming! His house is mortgaged for it, and he could lose it all if they can't get those soybeans.

It's been his most challenging year, and it has really brought the issues of the farmers to the forefront of my life. He's 88 years old, outdoors working on that farm daily, shouldn't life be easier for him?

Yet even as I express Ray's challenging year, he still smiled and chatted and said "it will all work out"... he still has faith that no matter what happens, that everything will be okay. Did I mention he's the sweetest?

And as a constantly learning photographer, he says to me the greatest compliment I have heard to date.  "Your pictures of my farm have made me see my farm in a way I had never noticed"

And so when I think of my word for the year challenged, I had only seen challenges and how they affected me, and have learned there are many challenges out there, we are all going through, each of us going through them with a different attitude, and that's what makes the difference.  

I need to remember farmer Ray's attitude the next time I am faced with a challenge!

Fitness Friday

    

Figuring out my goals for 2012... this year it was to run a marathon and we chose Chicago. It feels great to set a goal and reach it, it seemed like most of my running this year was all geared for Chicago, so now when I run, I get to do it for fun and to fulfill my other goal of 1000 miles for 2011, I am getting close, with only 142 miles to go! My plan is to get to 120 by November 1st and then an easy 60 miles for November and December...

As for 2012 we are already planning! We know we are going to do 12 half marathons in 2012, and are currently compiling a list, but we are even talking about another full marathon for 2012. Now I haven't fully committed to the full yet. I guess it will depend where it is, and I definetly will look into different training.

I really do enjoy running still and look forward to setting and reaching new goals each year. Now if I could just reach my reading goal for a year!

You can find more Friday Fitness stories here on Jill's blog

The farmer

And so, I met with him again the other day. Finally he was out in his yard when I was going by. I came walking up, trying to be obvious and not startle him, since he had his back turned.  It seems he's always doing something on the farm. Whether he's on the mower, the tractor or just walking about, but with all the rain recently this is the first I've caught him outdoors.

We talked for a few minutes and he made mention of my camera hanging by my side. He sweetly told me he loves my photography (I've dropped off collages of pictues I've taken through the seasons) and how I captured his farm in a way he's never noticed.  Now isn't that the sweetest!

I still hadn't told him I was there to take pictures of him this time, since he's kinda shy, I knew it wasn't going to be easy. At which point he says, "you can take pictures of anything here, except me".  "Oh no, I told him, that's why I came, to take pictures of you"... he chuckled and said oh no, I don't know about that.  Luckily, after a few more minutes of small talk, he finally concented to pictures, and I asked if we could move in front of the barn.

Our conversation carried on as we walked to the barn. Touching on every subject from his losing his wife years ago, to growing up and working on the family farm. He shared that this year has been quite a struggle for all the farmers, with all the rain, he has not been able to harvest the soybeans, and the only person in control is mother nature.

We also talked of his upcoming birthday! December 15th he will be 89 years old, and not only does he look great, but he told me he feels great too! Except for that worry about the soybeans...

So while I have some time, I'm trying to figure out what to give a farmer for his 89th birthday?

After my class on Sunday, I will share more of our photo shoot.

Oh and as I was walking away, he says I hope you don't get an F in class because of taking pictures of me...

 

 

Halloween treats

I've gotten better at not picking up every new treat bag for Halloween, knowing my kids have grown out of the "Halloween treats" like I used to make, but I can't help but come up with something, and the girls always seem to love them.  

So I decided to put together some candy boxes for Chelsea and her roommates, and as I had hoped... they were a hit!  Here are a couple of the designs...

Since they don't go out trick or treating anymore, this is what I get  to do for Halloween.

Enjoy it while they are still young!

Oh what fun

The other day I got the mail and left it on the passengers seat for the entire day while running my errands. When I got home and started sorting through it, I found the Christmas edition of Better Homes and Gardens Scrapbooks Etc and tore through it to find my page!

They emailed me a while back, mailed me a check for $100 and here it is!  I was even more surprised of the two pages!

 

Oh what fun this has been!

Chicago marathon part 2

about my race...

How do I say I was disappointed, when I finished? Or that it was harder than I thought when I trained for 18+ weeks? Yet, it was amazing and invigorating, painful and emotional!  All of those things and more.

They say you learn about yourself when doing a marathon, your strengths, your weaknesses and so much more, and now that I've run it, it makes sense.

Chelsea, me, Jill and Jennifer before race

I did all the training, the planning, the long runs, the eating right (most of the time), and yet I somehow felt let down by my performance. Not the time... I really was okay with the time.  While a faster time would have been nice what turned for me to be so humbling was how hard it was, how painstakingly hard it was?  It shouldn't be this hard... remember, I trained to do this?

With 45,000 runners, I was a bit nervous at the beginning of the race when we were all crammed into these corals.  So much so that all the runners couldn't even fit into each designated coral for their start time. But slowly, once we began moving, walking that is, towards the start, things moved more smoothly.

Our pace tattoo kept us on track for 13 miles! Trying to run hard, but not over do it too early we were right on, and dang those pace tattoos stayed on for 3 more days no matter how much I scrubbed!

line at the porta potties and sunrise

My thoughts on my performance were like spending weeks studying for an exam, knowing the subject inside and out, ready to take the test, feeling great, you are going to ace this, only to find out you got a D.  You didn't fail, but you sure didn't get what you were hoping for.  I was hoping to feel strong during the race, yet by mile 18 I wasn't feeling anything but pain, and oh so emotional, the tears were so close to the surface. And why?

One reason was I wasn't as strong as I thought I was, and also that I didn't want to hold up my daughter, when I knew full well she could totally make the pace we had set out for, so then the guilt set in...

where we were at the start line

Not all was dreadful, there were many things that made me smile. Like the fact that I was doing this with my daughter,  the 1.7 million spectators who sang, played instruments, had crazy funny signs, food, water and danced and cheered along the entire course! Or watching men dressed as cavemen, lady gaga performers and those runners going by with sandals, crocks and even barefoot, were just a few of the sites along the way.

 

water stop... need I say more?

Coming in that last stretch of the race was probably the most amazing and frightening thing I've ever done. We witnessed a man falling to the ground, holding his legs and in tears just 800 meters from the finish, the medics ran to him and my eyes filled with tears... We decided to push it as hard as we could, we are almost there, so lets run harder... and as I ran harder, it got harder to breath. At first I just kept going, but then I could not catch my breath, I couldn't even get a good breath and I called to Chelsea that I can't breath. She freaked and wanted to stop, but I said no I'll just slow my pace, we were so close.  We were just about to cross the finish and I was wheezing horribly, and fear had taken over... I cannot breath! We went right to a medic, all waiting at the finish and they grabbed my arm and walked slowly with me, heading towards the medical tents, pulling a wheel chair behind in case I needed it.

We walked and they covered me with the foil cape, gave me water, and of course the medal, all the while the medic held onto me, asking how I'm feeling. Slowly I was able to breath and catch my breath, but they wouldn't release me yet. Unbeknownst to me, he checked my pulse while walking with me and said my heart rate was good, and asked how long I had asthma. Finally, I insisted I was okay and they let me go on back to our hotel.  I got on the phone with my husband and just cried, the fear I had, the fear I had put Chelsea through having an asthma attack at the end of the marathon, plus the running the marathon had finally boiled over.

I had pulmonary testing done over 3 months ago, but then hadn't had another attack? They claimed I had exercise induced asthma, but after so long I had begun to think it was all in my head...

My daughter was amazing through the entire race... she danced along the way with spectators, cheered as we reached another mile and announced how many were to go... after the race I endlessly reminded her that I could have never done this without her!

This marathon was a lesson in so many things, and while at first I thought I'd never do this again... now I'm not so sure?

 

Find more stories at Fitness Friday blog, and enter to win an inspiring giveaway!

Chicago marathon

It was amazing, overwhelming, empowering and defeating! Yep, all of those things and more! The range of emotions you go through when running a marathon, I never thought possible!

So much to share about the weekend, and after having a few days to reflect and not feeling as sore, I think I have a little different perspective of the accomplishment of running 26.2

It started during the training, when I dedicated myself for 18 weeks to follow a plan that would get me to my goal, but there is so much more... so much before and so much after.

We met Hal Higdon at the expo (we followed his training program), though he wasn't the nicest or chattiest person we've ever met, especially amongst runners?

 hung out in the city...

hanging out in Nike Town!

As for the race, I need to put it into words, and soon... so much detail I want to remember, and learn from

to be continued...

Photography Class

I've been taking photography this semester, I really wanted to learn more about my camera. So far I can say I've learned a lot and have been taking most of my pictures on manual, although all that I learned with aperture priority can confuse me. Trying to retrain my brain...

As we take our photos and edit we are also learning editing through photoshop, which now makes me want to take a photoshop class and learn even more!

here is one of my photos after a rainstorm in Medina

and after a few changes in photoshop

This week we had to print some of our best shots and there will be a critique by our teacher and fellow students. Although I printed my photos, I won't be there for the critique.  So hopefully I will learn from it when I return from Chicago.

Next assignment... Intimate portrait

 

 

Word of the year

Challenge has been my word of the year and I had no idea how many challenges I would face, now leading to one of the biggest challenges, running 26.2 miles in Chicago.

The idea began in 2010 as we enjoyed dinner with Jill, Jennifer, our spouses, and Chelsea, Ben, Zach.  Talking of races past and races future brought us to the challenge of Chicago.

We booked the hotel in JANUARY and signed up for the race February, and now here it is only 5 days away!

If you've checking out my running goals for the year, you'd see I've run over 800 miles towards the 1000 miles for my 2011 goal...

And as excited, anxious, nervous and every other descriptive word you can think of, for Chicago, I am ready to have a life outside of running after it...

Including planning for the Bertram, and getting back to be creative, oh yeah, and blogging again!