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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...

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...

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...

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'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...

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...

Training for a marathon...
There is a part of me that is tired of it, tired of not getting to choose when I run, instead looking at a piece of paper to see that I NEED to run a certain distance. Also worried about the taper down period and learning to trust the program.  All this and realizing Chicago is just over 2 weeks away!
Although there is still a lingering high from the Air Force half marathon,...

Saturday I ran my 5th half marathon race and I guess for me, five is the charm... although I do have to say I've done my best training before this race, especially since I've been training for the Chicago Full Marathon.

Jill, Chelsea, Jennifer and myself
This run... was amazing! Not just because of my PR of 2:11:25, although I'm pretty stoked about that.  I followed along with a pace group which...

Running the Air force half marathon today and remembering my brother Joe...

February 14, 1966 - September 17, 2003

 
my poor neglected blog. It seems life has gotten in the way of me staying updated here. I'm hoping my fall schedule gives me more time for the things I love. Reading, blogging and of course running. With training full speed for the marathon it seems to take quite a bit of my time in between everything else that needs to get done daily.
 
Then you have those days with girlfriends, a little...