More Sisterly Bonding

We had some crafty time too, while Anne was visiting, so we played with the beading.  Anne's first time, so learning some new stuff for her and working on a few projects of my own.  Bwa ha ha!  I've started her on a new craft!  The Enabler strikes again! 

This one is inspired by a necklace I saw at Kohl's using yellow beads.  I used light green instead, as I still have bunches of them, and made it a double strand, because I wanted too.  The beads are just linked together, in a relatively random pattern, nothing complex.  I did try to mix up large vs. small beads in the pattern, and the two sides of each chain do mirror each other, but other than that...  The accent beads are just from Wal-Mart, and match the light green beads I had to a T!  Score!  And I've got a sweater in the same light green, so I'm looking forward to wearing this one a lot, assuming it ever becomes sweater weather again in Texas...

This one below was a simple one - just a ribbon with some decorative beads to match a pretty pendant.  Took some doing to find blues and greens that matched the pendant, though!  They aren't straightforward colors, apparently.  More of a blue-grey than a sky blue, for example, and the green's the same.  Still, am very pleased with the final project, worth the effort.  And the funny thing, Anne made a similar necklace with the same pendant in different colors.  Hers is in light and dark roses (rose and mauve? burgundy?) with a burgundy ribbon and silver beads.  Very pretty, and I wish they'd had more than one of those pinkish pendants, as I'd have been making one too!  I do like my blue and green one, though, and know I've got those colors in my wardrobe too, so it all works out.

I do have to say, I think Anne enjoyed this bonding more than the run :)

Sisterly Bonding (and she doesn't even hate me afterwards!)

So, part of the reason I was incommunicado recently, besides the work around the house and the starting of a new job and everything else that was keeping me busy, was that Anne was able to come out and visit for a week!  Huzzah!  Fun fun times abound!  Both of us recognized that we need to have more friends to just play with.  It's so much harder for adults to meet people, you know?  In high school, there are clubs and sports teams, and in college you have dorm life as well.  And throughout school, there are people in your classes that you get to know as well.  Once you're out of school, there's work, and... work.  You have to make an extra effort if you're going to find people to work out with or go to the movies with or have a board game night, or whatever.  So, it was greatly appreciated when a playmate came out here to TX!

Anyhoo, while she was here, there was a 5K on post which Zach and I wanted to run - the oh-so-appropriately named Hotter than Hades 5K.  We gave her the choice of running it (or walking it) or of sleeping in, and she took us up on the offer!  It helped, I'm sure, that the races on post are free ;)

So, we all woke up nice and early last Saturday and went over for a nice jog around post.  First 5K race I've done in MONTHS!  The ones back in CA weren't exactly well-advertised, so I missed some by just not hearing about them; and there were a few that I just couldn't do because of scheduling.  So I was greatly looking forward to the one here, something to hopefully get my lazy butt back in gear.

Here she is at the starting line, still looking very chipper.

 

So how did the race go?  Not too badly, considering I'm trying to get back in shape still!  Getting extended in the desert (that extra 6 months was a motivation killer) and having one of my workout buddies move and another get injured... well, my workout motivation thermometer dropped below freezing.  Now that we're in a new area, I'm trying to get back into a routine, but with my work hours bouncing around with trainings, and this horrible never-ending heat wave, I'm finding it a challenge.  So, a nice easy 5K was needed.  It was indeed Hotter than Hades, but was also held early enough that we could finish before it became too beastly. I was slower than usual, to be expected after 7 months of laziness, but I wasn't a total wreck either.  So, still have some muscles there under the lazy layer?  Let's try and get them going again!

And for Anne?  She survived!  Her first 5K successfully completed, no knees blown, no EMS called at the side of the road, and hey - she can still smile at the end of it!  She hung with me through the first 2 miles or so, and then had to do a bit more walking than running.  Still, not bad for her first 5K!  We made sure to take a bunch of pictures so she could go back home and show her workout buddies that she really did run a race.  She didn't they'd believe her otherwise, as she is definitely not a Runner :)

   

And as a side note, I'm wearing one of my favorite running shirts - a running donut, with the caption "1 Glazed Donut = 6 Miles" - a Target clearance find, actually.  Get compliments on it though! "I'm sweatin' sprinkles!"  Silly donut :)  We both laughed too, wearing our bright pink shirts together.  Made us a little easier to find, but we had to chuckle at how we turn the same color as our shirts as we workout.  Have always turned bright pink when I workout, and now I'm that color from the top of my head on down!  As one of my favorite workout quotes runs, "If you still look good at the end of a workout, you're not doing it right!"