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Friday Five

I keep thinking of little things I want to blog about but it seems like so much work to actually sit down and do it, so I decided to try a Friday Five post to give a couple of little updates about the parts of life I seem to be most into right now (I can guarantee that this won’t happen every Friday):

Running:

Aah, running. I was going to call this section “training”, but that sounds too organized for the flying-by-the-seat-of-my-running-skirt thing I’m doing. I’m having so much fun upping the mileage on my weekend runs, because those are usually on real trails with no external motivation needed, but I’m not doing nearly enough on weekdays down here on the Powerline Trail. I really should try to get out for some longer stroller runs. (Writing this post motivated me to take Lily out for six miles today, woot! *high-fives self*)

…however, I did do one really fun thing on the Powerline on Sunday – I ran the Thrilla in Woodinvilla loop! This is a classic bike loop that connects the Powerline Trail, the Sammamish River Trail, the Tolt Pipeline Trail, and the Redmond Watershed Preserve. I’ve wanted to bike it ever since I found out about it in 2012, but never got around to it…so now I ran it instead! Very cool to be able to access this kind of a course two blocks from our house. It’s a little daunting to think that this isn’t even 2/3rds of the distance I’ll be running on race day, but at least I’ve reached the point where I think I’ll be able to cover those miles without literally dying.

Pilates:

That’s right – I’m voluntarily doing strength training! And I’m loving it! A while ago I noticed that there was a new Pilates studio next to the craft store here in Redmond. I’ve always wanted to try Pilates with an actual reformer, so I signed up for a free class…and was immediately hooked. This is huge, you guys – I have not found any form of strength training that I actually enjoy since my Ashtanga yoga obsession 14 years ago. I go twice a week, and since I run to and from class, it’s a really good way to keep my lazy self moving on weekdays. I think my main challenge during the 50K, apart from the heat, will be to keep running on very tired legs, and running back up the killer hill to our house after Pilates classes seems like a decent way to practice that. Pilates has made me feel much stronger already, especially my core and glutes, which I’m hoping will protect me from a running injury now that I keep (somewhat irresponsibly) upping my long run mileage.

(Awkward first ever attempt at a gym selfie)

Nora is really fascinated by Pilates and the teacher let her watch the start of my class yesterday. I think it’s so cool that her first experience of a gym is seeing me do something because I truly think it’s fun – it’s not something I’m doing as some sort of punishment or a means to an end. I’m really enjoying this process.

Food:

I’ve been focusing a lot on running nutrition lately, since I’ve finally realized how important it is to eat not just before an activity, but also during and after. Back in my hiking days, when I was not in very good shape and was working extemely hard climbing those hills, I would wait until I was already exhausted and bonking before having some food or gummies or something. At that point it’s already too late, really. I wonder how much more energetic I would have felt on a lot of those trips if I had just fueled properly.

So these days, if I am going out on a run that will last longer than 90 minutes, I make sure I eat something every half hour – usually dates, oatmeal/banana cookies, or gels. (I’m trying out gels that have more natural ingredients than GU – so far I really liked the Canaberry and Long Haul ones from Spring Energy, and I ordered a sample pack from Muir to try out as well.) I also eat something right after I’m done, then have a big, nourishing, replenishing meal ready to eat when I get home.

Scrapbooking:

Oh, scrapbooking. I have unfortunately been suffering from a bad case of Reverse Midas Syndrome, which means that everything I touch turns to crap. Luckily(?) this isn’t my first time fighting the ol’ RMS, so I know that (a) it’s part of the natural ebb and flow of life, (b) it will go away eventually, and (c) the only thing that really works, at least for me, is to step away for a little bit and then return refreshed. This time around, Ali Edwards unintentionally swooped in and helped me along, because she created these cool videos featuring the latest creative team projects (February and March) – turns out hearing Ali Edwards talk about your layouts is pretty much the biggest creative confidence boost ever. So I’m inching my way back into things by making pages so simple that I can’t really mess them up too much (which is honestly my style anyway).

Here are some of the ones I have liked lately:

Super simple, really just a big photo and those story cards from the Details Story Kit from last year.

Little details I want to remember about my girls, using Ali’s February kit. I actually got a little wild and crazy and STAMPED on this one.

This one was from the Change Story Kit. Those thoughts have been gnawing on me for a while now so it felt good to get them down on paper.

I made this one with the March kit after we had spent some time (yet again) discussing whether or not we should move back to Norway. Gaah. So many places to call home.

I scrapbooked the race part of our Orcas trip here, but there were more things I wanted to remember. So I took my favorite easy way out – an enlarged journaling card for the title/journaling lines (this card was from the Details Story Kit too), journaling in bullet point form, a handful of photos in pocket pages. Done.

Young’uns:

In kid-related news, Lily started walking! She took her first steps on Orcas Island in January, but it wasn’t until these last couple of weeks that she decided she was comfortable enough to make walking her main mode of transportation. I LOVE THIS AGE. I forgot how cute wobbly toddlers are!

…and Nora turned 3.5! She asked for a beetroot cake for her traditional half cake. I truly don’t know where she got that idea, but we made Dr. Fuhrman’s Healthy Chocolate Cake which actually does have beets in it, and we added beet powder to the frosting as well. It was pretty epic.

To sum it all up, life is hectic but it’s oh so good.

March 30, 2018 by Ingunn Markiewicz

Layouts, Running, Scrapbooking

Running updates in scrapbook form

Looks like I’m never going to get around to any real race recaps from Deception Pass and Orcas, but I’ve managed to get them into scrapbooks.

Deception Pass 25K is the first big race I’ve done that didn’t involve a weekend away. We just woke the kids up early, which went against every fiber of my being (the night before, I realized that I literally didn’t know how to set an alarm on my phone – I didn’t get an iPhone until after Nora was born, so kids have been my alarm clock this entire time), and drove up there that morning. I made this page about it for December Daily:

In January, we returned to Orcas Island! This was my first time repeating a race, and I am happy to report that I ran it 40 minutes faster than I did in 2016. I made it just under 4 hours, which was my goal.

My brain isn’t really functioning now because it’s full of mucus, so here are some running/health thoughts in bullet form:

– Regarding that mucus, I am sick again. Both girls were sick all last week and now it’s my turn. I have been eating terribly, which when combined with a preschool virus and lack of sleep, always leads to me getting sick. I want to start eating well again! I should probably read my own blog from last spring to remember how good and energetic I felt. I’ve signed up for a Facebook challenge to eat 100% nutritarian during the month of March, and I’ve already started, as of yesterday afternoon. W00tz!

– Given that I ran Orcas Island 25K in just under four hours, I am kind of panicking about the fact that the cutoff for Sun Mountain 50K is 8 hours. Gaah. Sun Mountain doesn’t have any hills that are quite as evil as the Powerline climb on Orcas, but it does have heat, which is my kryptonite. So my odds of finishing under the cutoff are kind of low, but as long as I have fun (type 1 and type 2) and I cover 50K on my own two feet, I’ll have met my goal.

– I ran a 13 mile training run on Cougar Mountain on Monday, which has been my longest non-race training run since last summer. It felt really, really good, especially after being cooped up in the house with two sick kids for a week. Slightly annoyed when I came home and realized that if I had tacked on an extra .1 mile, it would have been a half marathon.

– I had a crisis of confidence in January when I realized how little I am training compared to everyone I know, but then a friend reminded me that I’m not actually *racing* these races, I am doing them to make sure I get out of the house for regular alone time/trail therapy and, in the case of the 50K, to see if I can actually make it that far on foot. The second I start even considering something that resembles an actual training plan, it removes all the joy of running for me.

I’m super bummed that I’m sitting here coughing instead of running through the woods, but on the other hand it’s snaining and kind of awful outside, so maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world.

February 24, 2018 by Ingunn Markiewicz

Layouts, Scrapbooking

2018 – Let’s do this

Aah, I love this time of year when we’re all resolutiony and motivated. Unfortunately this time of year also brings motivated bugs, and I was out with the flu for over a week. I’ve managed to fight of all the viruses Nora has brought home from preschool except one, but this time I think I paid for a December of little sleep and lots of sugar and pepperkaker, plus my immune system was busy battling an inflamed clogged duct. Not the best start to the year, but the silver lining is that at least those extra pepperkake pounds disappeared.

I did manage to make some quick scrapbook layouts while I was sick too, a bunch of December Daily pages (I’m so close to finishing! I WILL DO THIS!) and the opener for my 2018 album. This year I’m using a 9×12 album so that I have the option to include more pocket pages if I want to, but most of the pages I make for it will probably still be 8.5×11.

For the opener, I grabbed my favorite family photo (taken this fall at one of Hannah Marie Photography’s mini sessions – 15 minutes is about as much posing as Nora can handle, so these sessions are working really well for us) and one of the journaling cards from Ali Edwards’ January digital kit. I elongated it to go all the way across the page so I could fit in journaling for all of us. I cut the title out with my Silhouette, using one of these files.

On the back, I put these adorable portraits Nora drew of all of us. I love this with all my heart.

Next up is this welcome to the new year spread where I talk about my big goal of the year – running the Sun Mountain 50K. Eek! I took one of the 3×4 cards from the kit and turned the background transparent using this trick in Photoshop so I could use it as an overlay on my big trail photo.

I’m planning on doing all my One Little Word stuff directly in this big ol’ album this year, so I’ll probably be documenting my training efforts in between all the family stuff. I’m really excited to have everything in one place this year instead of working on five different albums simultaneously.

As for training, so far in 2018 I have walked around…two miles. Yay flu! But today I’m finally feeling like myself again, so I’ll take Lily out in the running stroller after her nap. It’s gonna hurt oh so good.

January 10, 2018 by Ingunn Markiewicz

Layouts, Scrapbooking

Favorite Layouts // 2017

I’m forever trying to get back into blogging (yay resolutions season might help with that), so I figured a quick post about my ten favorite scrapbook pages this year would be a good way to ease into it. But now of course I’m having a hard time whittling it down to ten. It’s not that I think these are masterpieces or anything, it’s just that I reconnected with scrapbooking in a big way this year (thank you Ali Edwards and Story Camp!) and therefore have warm, fuzzy feelings about lots of my pages. I’ve also just scrapbooked way more than I ever have before.

(If you want to read the journaling on any of these, just click to embiggen. I’m far too lazy to write down the products I used for each of these, so if you’re wondering about anything in particular, just ask in the comments. Most of the products are from Ali Edwards since I am on her creative team.)

I haven’t shared much from this album yet, but I’m making a 12×12 mixed page size scrapbook that documents all the “cabin trips” we’ve gone on since Nora was born. 12×12 is still new to me and I don’t feel like I have a handle on it yet, but it’s been fun to play. Almost every cabin trip section starts with an opening page like this one that gives an overview of the trip.

Here’s the opener for the Sun Mountain trip:

Here’s one from the Packwood section of the book. Two big drawbacks with 12×12: it’s HUGE, and double spreads are damn near impossible to photograph. Everything is just too big. As much as I like this album, I’ve decided that from 2018, the cabin trips will go in our regular family album.

Due to spreading out in so many different albums this year (cabin trip! Nora’s album! Lily’s album! autumn album!), the family album was a little neglected. It has lots of little stories, but it doesn’t really reflect the whirlwind of a year we’ve had. Next year EVERYTHING is going in there. Except for December Daily.

It’s a mix of 6×8, like this one about JK…

…and 8.5×11, like this one about my continuing adventures in solo mountain travel.

I’m using my scrapbook pages more and more as a journal, and I love that.

It lets me make sense of the upsy-downsy feelings of the everyday.

It lets me remember loved ones.

It lets me capture the vibe of the different seasons of our life. This one takes me right back to JK’s paternal leave last winter and spring, which was such a special family bonding time.

There’s no pressure to stay “caught up” – in the summer of 2016 (oops the journaling says 2017 – must fix), I was too down in the dumps to scrapbook, but I’ve captured lots of little important moments and the general vibe here on one little layout.

I use the same technique in my vacation album – the one where I make one two-page spread for every big vacation we’ve taken. I gather the photos that are most descriptive of the trip, and write down the highlights. Even if I never get around to making a separate album for these vacations, the spreads in this album will spark lots of good memories. Here’s one where I puked my way around St. John:

This one from our honeymoon to India was just really fun to make. I wanted it to reflect the style I used when I made our honeymoon album which I started in 2006, so I flipped through that album, found my old Quickutz Squeeze alphabets, Fancy Pants rubons (they worked perfectly even though they’re from 2007), and Rouge de Garance papers (look at that perfectly placed Taj Mahal!). It also felt good to be a little honest in my journaling a decade on – it was a big trip that I will never forget, but I was so depressed that I spent far too much time in hotel bedrooms…in hindsight that whole trip has a kind of “missed opportunity” feel to it. I really want to finish this whole vacation spread album in 2018 – yay for completed projects! I think I’ll focus on one album per month to finish up.

….starting with December Daily 2017 – I’ll devote January to that. I’m about halfway done, and I’m looking forward to spending those cold, dark, January evenings reliving Christmas memories.

Here’s my favorite spread so far, just one giant photo of Lily digging into her birthday cake in the snow. Love love love.

I’m still not finished with December Daily from 2016, but I think I’ll save that for November, when the December Daily stoke will be off the charts. Of course this page had to make the favorites list, with that super cool spinning circle idea from Pam Baldwin’s section of the December Daily Product Play class.

And of course I want to finish up the girls’ baby albums. Lily’s is almost done, I made a very simple 6×8 album with monthly spreads and some extras like her birth story.

Nora’s album still has a ways to go, but at least I managed to get some pregnancy photos in there this year.

I love this page that I made about her baby outfits.

And finally, this spread about the autumn before her little sister arrived. I think this is my favorite kind of scrapbooking – two-page spread, lots of photos, lots of words.

If you made it all the way through this, thank you for indulging me in my little trip down memory lane! I hope you all have a very happy 2018. I’ll be getting my resolutions on, so I will be back here soon (with album catch-ups! best of 2017 hiking list! missed trip reports! goals! all the things!). I will I will I will.

December 31, 2017 by Ingunn Markiewicz

Layouts, Scrapbooking

Best Story Kit

Egads, I’m so behind on blogging that I have actually scrapbooked about my race before getting around to blogging about it!

I was just going to make a quick 6×8 spread for my autumn album (more photos of that album here on instagram) because the ‘go me’ card from Ali’s Story Kit this month matched the tank top I’m wearing in my official race photo:

…and then it turned into a whole series of other layouts. I have another album in the works, one that’s about all the different long weekend vacations/cabin trips we’ve been on since having kids. It’s my first ever 12×12 album, so that I can mix page sizes and pocket pages, and the pages for each trip has some design similarities so you can tell that they go together.

For this trip to Yachats, Oregon, that design theme is stars, the Rockwell font, and teal/aqua. I used those big awesome stars and ‘best moments from this adventure’ card from the Story Kit to create an opening page:

…and pieces from the tear-apart booklet on a quick page about my race (I’m going to be totally honest and let you know that I LOVE this photo of myself (thank you, Glenn Tachiyama!), so you’re probably going to see it so much that you’ll get sick of it):

…and since I got a page about my 30K, Nora deserved a companion page about her 1K! That’s right, Nora ran her first trail race! That called for another star AND a ribbon. *so proud*

October 30, 2017 by Ingunn Markiewicz

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