broadcasting from the san gabriel valley

Monday, May 30, 2011

Farmer's Market: 120 Portra NC

Somehow this week I ended up at the Farmer's Market twice. And both times I found myself eating a Chocolate Sprinkled Cake Donut from Bob's Donuts. Seriously. But both times I enjoyed them immensely. On one of those trips to the market, I found myself with my Seagull so here are a few shots that I snapped:


Sunday, May 29, 2011

Felting Fun


On Saturday, Genia led a workshop to teach some of us art therapists how to needle felt. Needle felting is something that while I have always admired, have never taken the time to learn how to do. The sad thing is, had I taken a ten minute chunk of time out prior to yesterday, I would have been felting away ages ago! Right before the workshop. I made a pit stop to the Urban Craft Center in Santa Monica, which for those unfamiliar, must be like an Etsy-Seller's sanctuary. I went in and picked up some wool roving, a foam square and some needle felting needles (needles with tiny barbs on the end). After my purchase was complete, I was ready to go. Genia was nice enough to provide both samples and books for inspiration in addition to her tutorial. Here are some of the outcomes of the afternoon:



Tuesday, May 24, 2011

List

In no particular order I would like to/for:

1) The 4 day weekend to come sooner rather than later. At this point, I wont even complain about the mandatory furlough ordered for this Friday.

2) See the movie 'Hesher'


3) Keep on running injury free

4) Work on the garden. I grew a few serious radishes in the past few weeks.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Boo-Yea!

So I have two bits of good news regarding the race today: The first being that I ran straight through which was my personal goal for the SM Classic. The second bit was one that shocked me....I was magically (and consistently!)able to run under 10 minute miles throughout the race placing me under the 60 minute mark for the 6.2 mile stretch. I am still waiting for the official scores to be posted, but my finish line time read 59 minutes so my chip time will be 30 to 40 seconds faster as we took about a minute to get over the start. I had no idea I could pull that off on my first race! Boom!

So, the race was fantastic. The weather was rocky as I left Echo Park with rain pouring down at 6:15 this morning. As I made my way West, the rain subsided, but grey skies were still looming. However, like the second that Leslie and I pulled up into the beach parking lot around 7:25 the sun began to creep out. At 8:00, the start time for our race, we had full sunshine and about 60 degree weather. Amazing!

I have to admit, I was nervous going into the race. It had been literally over fifteen years since I came anywhere near running against an official clock. As soon as the horn blew to signal our start, I just got into the zone with a little help from Lupe FIasco:

(This is an AMAZING running song btw)

Funny thing is while I was running, I seemed to have all these moments that had me thinking blog posts in my head. However, as I type this (wrapped up in blankets, drinking coffee in recovery mode on the sofa) none of those so-called moments are surfacing. The fact that I was running with a crowd definitely boosted my speed big time. So did my iPod. I created an upbeat playlist last night and removed anything that did not have either a) an electronic beat or b)fast and loud guitars. Around mile 4 there was an incredible surge of energy. I just came to the final portion of the uphill and made my turn down San Vincente for the final 2.2 DOWNHILL portion and Ready for the Floor by Hot Chip popped up on the shuffle. That song put my feet in speed mode! I had a strong wind to finish. Ratatat and Ice-Cube ran me towards the finish line. I could have crossed the line with 'It was a Good Day", but about 100 yards before, I hit pause and just let the noise of the crowd carry me over. Can't wait to do it all again!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Easy Like Sunday Morning......(or not!)


Tomorrow Leslie and I are going to be running in the Santa Monica Classic! I went to the K-Swiss Store this morning to pick up the race bibs and I was surprised to also receive a computer chip tag of sorts that gets twist-tied to our shoes. It will help record the start and finish times. I am not running for time this race....I am running for completion! This is my first race in my post college life so I am both excited and very aware that my speed is nowhere near where it was when I was younger!

The race begins tomorrow at 8:00AM. Our plan is to be parked and ready to go before 7:30 to avoid road closures. Wish us luck!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Puerto Vallarta: The Villa

So this past weekend, David and I headed south to Puerto Vallarta to attend the wedding of our friends, Sonnet and Chris. We made the decision to stay in a Villa aptly named Casa Sueno Tropical which was literally two doors down from the Villa where the wedding was going to be taking place. Here are some images of the place:

Greeted with chips, homemade guacamole and salsa. Oh...and Margaritas. This was an incredible treat to walk into....especially after flying for the better portion of the afternoon.



The infinity pool!



The master bedroom. There were really cool built-in planters throughout the house filled with plants of all sorts.


The Dr. Seuss tree as we called it on the cliff behind the villa. Each morning there were a bevy of birds in what seemed to be a bird fight coming from this tree.



A hammock. Yes!