Maya Road and Me

getting ready

this is me getting ready for my half marathon a couple of weeks ago. it was still dark outside since i think it was around 4:50 am when this photo was taken. i am putting on my race number and spraying sunscreen everywhere. getting my running gels and fruit snacks ready (yes fruit snacks on my run).

i am getting ready now for my trip to the netherlands. a couple more things to wrap up and then i am off!

check out another peek at one of my projects:

also haven't heard back from the winner of my last giveaway - ria, ria, where are you? make sure you contact me on the maya road website (contact us form)

running

i wanted to share with you all that i did in fact complete my half marathon. if you will remember my labor day post, i had  a rough 15k run (9.3 miles) on that holiday. it was probably my slowest time ever so going into this 13.1 mile (or 21K) race, was a bit of a nail biter for me.

but this race turned out to be one of the best i have had since noah was born. i finished my half in under 2 hours (1 hour, 59 minutes and about 22 seconds) and felt awesome afterwards.

it had been well over a year since i ran a half marathon but i bettered my time by close to 13 minutes. that alone is a cause for celebration.

the last couple of months of getting up at 4:50 am to do my runs was worth it. i was prepared, hydrated and i truly felt bliss on my run.

i think if i ventured back to my 20th high school reunion in a couple of years, my former peers would be shocked at the athlete i have become from the 110 lb bean pole geek they knew in high school. i plan on running some more races this year and will let you know how they turn out!

life is good.

don't forget to post here for a chance to win a giveaway!

yes i ran today

and i feel pretty darn good. it was a short run but noah came with me and we beat out the rain here in dallas. the weather has been amazing the last week. think 80F with rain. that is a much welcome change from the 105 degrees from a couple of weeks ago.

and i wanted to share with you this cool tip. check out some of our new flowers (which are arriving in september) that i "dyed" with our mists.

here is a simple list of the steps needed to recreate this look.

1. get your fabric flowers out (again i used ones we are releasing in a couple of weeks)

2. wet the flower

3. take a cotton swab and dip it in the mist color of your choice (i used orange and pink respectively)

4. "color" the flower as desired. if you feel there is too much color, spritz with some water to dilute.

5. allow to dry.

and the result is a super cool watercolor effect!

you did know our base mists can be heat set right? yup - just allow to dry for 24 hours and then heat set with an iron or in the dryer. this won't work well with the metallics as the color will come off but i will experiment and see what i can come up with.

enjoy!

update on my run

so i ran today. but it didn't quite go as i planned it. at 3:30 am i was STILL awake - unable to sleep with a thousand thoughts racing through my mind. that is not good when you have to get up at 4:45 to get ready to run 10 miles.

and i was worried about the weather too - it ended up being 105 F today here in dallas. my cough from my cold a couple of weeks ago is still here - not strong but every once in a while i will go into a cough frenzy to remind myself that i am not totally well. i spoke to the doc about it - she said i should be ok running as long as i pay attention to my limits and the cough would go away in 2-3 weeks. ugh.

it was hard for me to make this decision but i went to the gym and ran around 10 am. noah came along and played in the day care there. i only did 7 miles but i ended up doing some leg presses, bench pressing and the such. my thought was that the times when the half marathon really sucked was when my back and shoulders hurt - not my legs or lungs that were holding me back but my weaker upper body. so then next 45 days will be hard core training for me. i won't be here every weekend but i am committed.

i want to share this sheer album i did for my friend of her baby boy. check out this sweet dragon:

i will be stopping by to see my friend and her baby boy after i teach next weekend at absolutely everything in topsfield, ma!  i hope she likes this album i created.

i used our sheer top tab album - i love how the photos can look behind the sheer. and i am trying out this new adhesive which appears to be working awesome for our sheers - in the photo above can you see the adhesive at all? i actually put it on the top / bottom left hand corners. but before i totally recommend it for our sheers, i want to take it for more test drives to see how it handles with different albums.

and check out this totally cool photo in this album:

this is the little dragon with his cousins - so cute! do you also see how i stamped our trinket buttons with some of our new stamps? they give it a totally cool effect.

hope everyone is having a cool saturday. looking forward to some cooler weather soon!

what i think about during a 6.2 mile run at 6 am.

• did i really get up at 4:50 to do this?
• i really don't want to do this.
• i only got 5 hours of sleep last night.
• did i put on sunscreen? bugspray?
• did i drink enough water.
• whoa, this group is going out pretty fast, i hope i can keep up!
• i wonder if the baby is sound asleep.
• i don't think the yogurt i ate will be enough to sustain me.
• crap, i forgot to include something on the pallet going to CHA.
• my hair is slipping out of my holder.
• i still have to finish 5 more samples for CHA.
• my feet hurt and i have only done a mile.
• i think i felt 10 bugs hit me.
• i can't believe they are faster than me.
• i can't believe this other they are slower than me.
• i need to remember to pack some extra diapers for the CHA trip.
• oohhh that would be a good product for CHA-W; need to put it on the brainstorm list!
• i think i feel a blister coming on.
• i need to clean my house today.
• i think i need a nap today.
• i could use a bagel and my cup of tea right now.
• dang it, i forgot my stop watch.
• is it really only 6:30 and i still have to keep running?
• how come my body wants to slow down.
• how am i going to get my runs in during CHA?

but in the end i finished in about 55 minutes. not bad for a very stressful week. but now it is time for the big CHA push so i am off!

i did it!

well i did it. even with only 5 hours of sleep i finished my 5 k almost 1.5 minutes faster than when i ran the distance a year ago. i finished in 24:41 which works out to right under 8 minutes/mile. i am happy. i hurt a bit today but i am happy! yes, i still miss those days i could flat out run a 22 or 23 minute 5k but i will take this 24:41 any day. i have been up many 7 am saturday mornings the last couple of months to earn this. i just need to keep on track to keep the progress going. next week, we are starting track workouts which means a lot of sprinting but that is good for the lungs after the burn is gone LOL!

last night i was itching to get creating. so i made this very cool mini album which has over 16 photos in it! are you like me and lots of times, you end up finding random photos, embellishments, etc that you have leftover? that was what i ended up having last night. so i made an album with it. check it out here:

i got to use some of our new maya road journaling sheers along with luxe's new color jotters and a maya road chipboard coaster to create this.

each page has 1-4 photos on it and embellishments that have just been sitting aroudn on my table waiting for a home. i do have to share this photo which is one of my faves of noah:

LOL - these are just photos from the every day and they needed a home. so if you have some photos like these - consider making one of these albums. they are simple, fast and a great way to store lots of photos! check out this link for the rest of the album. enjoy!

favorites

can i just say every time i see all these cute Maya Road trinkets it makes me smile?  seriously i am in love love love with all of these and i can't wait to put more of them in my projects. i must say that a lot of you like them too because we have been getting lots of orders for these lately!

i have been working hard this last week to try to get back on a decent exercise schedule. i admit it i feel guilty sometimes with my responsiblities at MR and even with baby noah so that i don't take the time to work out. but if i go long enough without working out, everyone knows that i get in my antsy moods that only working out can get me out of.

this morning i groaned when the alarm clock was off at 6:50 am to meet my 7 am appt for my group runs. i will be doing my first 5k in well over a year next week and i am getting excited about it. my run today was crazy. it was in this park with about 200 other people in this 1/2 mile loop. we warmed up for 1 mile and then the real work began. we did these 30 on / 60 off repeats for 18 times. what that means is as soon as the whistle blows, you run as hard as you can for 30 seconds and then when you hear the whistle again, you jog for 60 seconds.

none of that is really hard until you get to about the 8th time and then you just want to curl up and die because your legs don't want to go fast any more and you still have at least 8 more times to do this. i guess i am also competitive by nature because i play this mind game with myself about not letting anyone pass me if possible. some times i win, some times i lose but it all makes me stronger.

looking foward to a beautiful day tomorrow for church, soccer, weeding and taking noah to play in the park!

hope your weekend is beautiful! i am working on some small projects which i will share soon.

an amzing 24 hours

so this has been a busy 24 hours for me and our family - in the last 24 hours i have:

1. played in a co-ed soccer game

2. got up at 6:45 am to run a tempo run followed up by hill sprints and stretches

3. mailed some packages

4. dusted the house (my un-fave activity so far)

5. hung out with david, noah and my MIL - we went to the dallas arboretum

6. started working on some projects for my teaching which is coming up!

here are some photos from our day at the arboretum - who can resist the 80 F days of march here in dallas

noah was going crazy running around with all the other little boys out there. it is funny - all the girls were chillin' but you see like these dozen boys running up and down the hills yelling and hollerin'.

i still have a lot to do this weekend but i really enjoyed our family time. i admit it is hard sometimes to take a step back and just do it but i am making it a priority in our lives.

i wanted to share a couple of other things - here is an album i started work on (but not finished)

i have taken some photos of our home to be included in here - definitely our home is a bit messier and more insane than it was before b/c of noah's arrival and the growth of our business. LOL - do you see the orange "petals" of the flower? those are really just some extra letter "o" chipboard letters i had that i wanted to use up. i was able to incorporate 5 different paper companies' papers into this album. gotta use up my stash so i can make room for more MR goodness!

i will share more once i get the album finished up.

be sure to check back tomorrow - i will have another RAK ready to share with you all with a challenge twist!

have a great saturday.

PS: if you are on the hunt for a Maya Road blinkie, check out what deb has on her blog! enjoy!

back at it

so i am back on my running game again - i ran yesterday and today (one neighbor was kind enough to point out that i was pushing an empty stroller as i ran to go pick noah up from his friend's house - LOL). i think i might also be looking at 3 soccer games this weekend. i am ready. my body just hasn't been the same since i had baby noah. i can deal with the bit of stretch marks but i miss the intensity i felt when i was really in the game of running and soccer.

since we are neck deep in orders, i am going to have to get creative about creative time. sometimes it is hard when i see the 500 new emails i have and the stack of orders we have to do but for my own sanity, i think i will pick up some supplies and make something this weekend.

after our LONG trip home, i managed to clean out our suitcases in 1 day. i know that if i let them linger around any longer, they will just sit around taunting me for months without end. as with most tradeshows, i always end up with some extra MR "stuff" from the show - giveaways, samples and the such so i put together some of the extra stuff i had and it is here as a giveaway!

check out some of my very faves from the show - our trinkets textures - flowers. here are 2 of them. we had these made of quality that is really hard to come by. the jewels all color coordinate or are dyed to coordinate with the fabric or thread. the crocheted flower is a high sheen thread imported from japan. a lot of the fabric is imported to our factory from japan to get the textures we wanted.

i even have one of our MR giveaway stickers in this pkg.

all you have to do is post here between now and sunday for a chance at this - tell me what you love best about our new MR goodies. you can check out the full catalog here. pick your top 3 items and list them out for me. we always love to hear what other ppl love!

good luck!

some more stamping and running...

well i did it. i ran a 4 mile tempo run followed by a 1 mile cool down today. i haven't run this far in a LONG time (and i haven't been this slow in a long time) but it was a nice swift kick-in-the-butt for me. i feel pretty good now as we are finishing up some CHA stuff. i am bummed i am going to miss 2 weeks of group runs but i will keep up even if that means running late at night at CHA or early in the morning. i owe it to me, to my family and to my health.

i wanted to share with you a sample i made for the booth with our wings stamps  - pretty cute huh? i am in love with using modeling paste and matte gel mixed with reinking distress inks and some old engineering paper for these super cool backgrounds.

after things calm down at CHA - i will share with you this trick - it is the easiest way to make a background that looks very cool in under 15 minutes!

ok back to work! hope you are having a great Saturday!