Sew Excited!

This week's blog is a happy progress report on the status of my t-shirt quilt that I'm working on with my mom.

T-shirts picked - Check! That's right, all thirty shirts were painstakingly prioritized among a seemingly endless collection from my grade school, high school and college years. To satisfy the engineer in me, they've also been arranged in chronological order with the top two rows for grade school and junior high, the middle two rows for high school, and the last two rows for college.

Cut t-shirt squares - Check! Cutting thirty squares of old t-shirts precisely into 16" x 16" squares lends itself to reminiscing of the memories I'm choosing to remind myself of more often by making this quilt. When I did this back in March, that's exactly what I did. Good stuff.

Iron backing onto t-shirts - Check! Mom took care of this in March to make sure the t-shirts don't stretch once they're sewn together. Glad she knows what she's doing!

Choose border fabric - Check! This was a culmination of

three trips to the fabric store: one by my mom, one by me, and one yesterday by the two of us together. Luckily, although neither of us found a winner on our own, jointly we were able to find a color combo that worked. Since there was no chance of a color theme with various color t-shirts on the quilt (reds, blues, blacks, maroons, yellow, navy, green, etc), we decided to go for a neutral white with black and black with white. Which I promptly took to my parents' house and...

Cut border fabric - Check! The picture doesn't seem to do it justice, but I measured and cut 72 strips of 17" x 3" border pieces and 42 border squares of 3" x 3" to go in between the t-shirt squares. Needless to say, the scissors (and my fingers) got a work-out! There are still some details to be determined regarding the potential for an overall border and the material on the back, but this was a huge step in making progress along with...

Sew it all together - Major progress! That's Mother Dearest working diligently sewing together all of the pieces on the sewing machine as we watched the Cardinals game and then Lions/Patriots pre-season game yesterday. Naturally, it's part of the overall strategy here to have me do the parts that are not seen (i.e. cut edges) and have my mom do the visible sewing work. She has a much better knack for these types of crafty things, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not even a novice seamstress. I'm lucky to have such a capable and willing mother. :-)

Next steps - finish sewing it all together, potentially add a border, decide on the fabric/color for the back, have it quilted and enjoy!

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Double Feature

I think it was December of 2010 when I saw my last movie at the theater. It was True Grit with Jeff (boyfriend), Greg (brother) and Shayna (sister-in-law). Granted, I've watched movies since then but all have been in the comfort of a familiar couch, sans previews, and with an easy pause and rewind button close by. It's not that I don't enjoy going to the theater or seeing movies, but when I compare the time spent to what I could be doing otherwise (beers on a scenic rooftop bar, shuffleboard with friends, baseball games, etc), I usually choose other activities. That's why I hope you can appreciate the planning it took to cross this one off my list.

First, a big attaboy to Jeff for putting the thought into making this one special and checking into potential venues back in February. Last Saturday I redeemed my tickets from Valentine's Day for #19 and a double-feature showing on screen #1 at the I-70 Drive-In near Kansas City.

#19. Watch a movie at a drive-in theater - check!

So, what did we see? We ended up settling on Rise of the Planet of the Apes and 30 Minutes or Less. Not our ideal combo of movies, but what we deemed to be the best option available. Some quick prep at Wal-Mart to grab snacks (Puffcorn, Pretzel M&M's, and Gummy Bears) and a small cooler from home filled with Bud Select and vodka mixers and we were set for food and beverage. And with some quick collaboration to turn the back of my Sportage into a make-shift recliner, we were ready to go.

This is the part where I admit that I may have fallen asleep toward the end of not one, but both movies. (For those that know me, you're probably not surprised. I can fall asleep pretty much anywhere.) I could try to defend myself and say that it was the result of the beers we enjoyed that afternoon, but I'd be hard-pressed to blame it entirely on that. Luckily Jeff was awake and able to catch me up on what I missed.

As for the experience overall? Awesome weather. Great view. BYO-Snacks & Beverages. Comparable ticket price to a regular movie ($8 ea). And relatively comfortable seating (something I would control better next time). Not something I'd do all the time, but something I definitely enjoyed and would love to do again. Next time maybe I'll actually stay awake the entire time. :-)

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Try, TRI Again

Mixed emotions. That's what I have now that I've officially completed my second triathlon ever. I'm glad that it's over and proud that I did it, yet mildly disappointed that I didn't quite improve as drastically as I had hoped on my swimming. Part of me wonders how much better I could have done if I had committed to training sooner than I was able to. (Recall from my "Hectic Hiatus" that I had roughly four weeks of training that was sporadic at best due to work and personal travel.) As it stands, I really only committed four weeks to training leading up to it. Not bad, I suppose, considering I was legitimately dedicated to my training plan and diligently followed my Google calendar which told me how many minutes to swim, bike, or run in a given day.

On race day this past Sunday, I left the house at 5am geared up and ready to go. After making the easy drive from the city to O'Fallon, MO (about 50 minutes), I was pleasantly surprised to get a good spot in the transition area and pick-up my packet without issue. I was already thinking about my second breakfast (Cliff bar) by the time the official race started at 7am. Unfortunately, based on my projected swim time and the fact that it was a serpantine swim in an outdoor, inground pool (up the right side of the lane, back the right side of the lane, under the rope - repeat six times) my starting position was number 290. That's right, roughly 289 people began the race before me which meant that my start time was at 8:12am. Starting the race feeling late or behind was a psychological hurdle for me (as it was in my first tri), but I did my best to pass as many people as possible during the bike and run. It was also nice to have my parents there supporting me and cheering me on. They're awesome. :-)

Overall, the bike and run course had much steeper elevation changes (hills!) than I anticipated which slightly impaired my pace on both. However, considering that my overall time would have placed me in the top three finishers in at least two divisions (unfortunately not mine), I suppose I can't be too disappointed with my overall time. To further validate my performance, I decided to compare against the sprint triathlon I completed back in 2008. Here are the stats:

So I can at least say that I improved my swimming pace, which was part of the overall goal of my Operation 30 item. In fact, I'd like to think that if it had been an indoor swim that I might have even done better, as I would have had ceiling lines to spot and keep my line straight and gauge the end of the pool length. I'm also not too heart-broken over the fact that my pace on the bike wasn't as fast as in 2008 considering the differences in the course elevations. And while my run time was significantly slower than my normal 5K pace (8:00-ish min/miles), I can also chalk up a less than ideal pace to fatigued legs and hills, hills, and more hills.

As I type this I'm not sure if I'll be up for competing in a triathlon again, mostly considering the huge gap I have in my swimming. Duathlons - no sweat. I can bike and run for hours. But I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not a good swimmer and no amount of backstroking or Jimmy DeShea YouTube videos will make me one, especially in four weeks. But I suppose I wouldn't rule out a more ambitious Olympic, Half-Ironman, or Ironman distance for an Operation 40 or Operation 50 list. One thing I can say for sure is that if I decide to "TRI again", then the degree to which I learn to swim will be significantly improved.

Regardless, I did it! Another item off the list:

16. Do another triathlon (and this time learn to swim) - check!

Hooray!

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The Road Ahead

Without much else of note, this week seemed like a good time to reflect on how things are going with my Operation 30 list. There are roughly nine months left until the big 3-0, and I've completed nine of the items on my list. That's 30% - not bad!

Of course, I should probably take a look at the other 21 items that I haven't done yet to really get an indication of how I'm doing. As I scan the list, I see that the remaining items are in an assorted state of affairs in terms of planning. There are some that are locked in (such as the triathlon and marathon that I'm signed up and actively training for), while there are others that are sort of "when I have time" items (like the t-shirt quilt and learn Photoshop), and others that are sort of scheduled but lacking in details (like tickets for the Nebraska game and a hotel room for the Kentucky Derby next year).

So with that in mind, here's my attempt to leverage my social community and solicit help, particularly for the "lacking in details" group. I need to get cracking on some of them! I'm hoping at least some of my wonderful blog-readers can point me in the right direction or at least get me a little more motivated on the following...

#4. Do an Adventure Race

I need to check into this one in more detail. Hopes are I might also be able to cross off #2 if I do this right.

#17. Stop Biting My Nails

I'm open to any tips, tricks, or psychological motivation tactics at this point. My only conclusion so far is that this is a nervous/fidgety habit that I have never been able to stop cold turkey, but could potentially redirect to a not so self-destructive activity.

#23. Do an Anonymous Pay it Forward

Short of paying for someone's meal in the drive-in behind me, I'm struggling to come up with a good one here.

#30. Learn Photoshop

In order to learn it, I think I need a project. Hmm...

Alright. (Phew! Strange - but it felt good to write that out.) Some work to do, but I'm optimistic that I'll figure out how to make all of the remaining 21 items a journey in their own right. After all, my Operation 30 list is an adventure that I chose, and I'm more than happy with the journey so far and what I'm sure will be a fun and challenging road ahead. Thirty schmirty - I got this!

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