Couch to 5k

A few weeks ago, I started a Couch to 5K running program. For me it is still a gasping, lumbering jogging program, but you get the idea.

Yesterday, I decided to enter the Squash Blossom Classic (for some reason, the URL isn't working right now) which has multiple events on May 20-21, including a 5K trail run.

Those of you who know me well can pick yourselves up off the floor now.

I am in the process of convincing friends that they really want to run it with me, if for no other reason than to force myself to see it through. My thinking is that at worst I end up walking a lot of it. At best, I have an actual goal to shoot for.

Free to move about the world

Guess what arrived today?



Another thing taken care of.

Next on the list is getting a box of yarn in the mail, a acquiring a job, and getting rid of massive amounts of stuff. Not necessarily in that order.

The hard part is books. Lots of books. I am setting limits for myself on the number that will be able to go into storage somewhere and the small number I plan to take with me, but that still leaves a lot. I finally parted with papers, articles, and photocopies of plays that I have been dragging around for the past 9 years. (Yeah, I know. I don't know why I kept them, either.) The eventual goal is to get everything I plan to take and plan to store into my car, a RAV 4. Let's just say there is a bit of a way to go.

Window Rock and jewelry

A few weeks ago, my mom came to visit me for my birthday. In addition to going to the Navajo Arts and Crafts enterprise to buy yarn and look at jewelry, we went to see the actual Window Rock that the town was named for.

She thought the tumbleweed was funny.



















Yarn was purchased (because I'm like that) and so was this:












There is so much I want to see and do and remember before I go! Right now, the only regret I really have is that in the three years I've lived here, I never made it to the Wool Festival at Taos. (There is something strange about me that I will regret not going to a yarn festival over everything else. I understand this.)

the first.

My mother bought me some art while she traveling through the Southwest about 10 years ago. It was mostly found materials on which was painted, "When you have come to the end of all the light you know and are ready to step off the edge into the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: there will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught how to fly."

Here's to flight.

I just found out that I was accepted into a program, and will spend three weeks this June studying in Japan. After that, I have no idea exactly what will happen or where I will be, but right now I'm planning to be in South Korea as an English teacher.

Other stuff about me:
- I knit. A lot. I also do a lot of other fiber/thread related crafts.
- I teach Special Ed at a Junior High, and love working with this age group.
- While I don't live there anymore, New Orleans is where I became a real-for-true adult, and big pieces of my heart are still there.
- I run and lift weights. The fact that I can really (almost) run astounds me.
- At this time last year, I weighed about 70# more than I do now.
- Change scares me. A lot. The fact that I will be leaving the country in about two months is freaking me out. Totally excited, totally scared.