Fashion:I went to the Ruby Room fundraiser on Saturday night, only to find the designer I had just clipped her photo from a magazine because I loved what she was doing and wanted to meet her, featured in the show!

Tina’s Gowns on the Ruby Room Runway

Tina Witherspoon is so talented. Her design concepts are full of whimsy and absolutely feminine! I love her work and all she is doing with using recycled materials. A woman after my heart- I made my first gown recycled gown in 1985- and I am now motivated to step back into designing again- all thanks to Tina Witherspoon and the Ruby Room. http://glamspoon.typepad.com/

You see I used to have a reason to make myself and my friends formal gowns regularly, my husband was in the military and there were one or two formal dress occasions a year and it was heaven for me. I always had a reason to sew. Well, he is no longer in the military and we live in Seattle the town known for its causal attire. However, Prom and homecoming live on as does the fashion scene. So my goal is to get my gowns on the Ruby Room runway for their fundraiser next year.

I will post gown photos as they progress, have a LOT of work to do between now and even the first gown, but putting it down here is exciting.

Fun: Ruby Room Runway- filling my mind with ideas, designs and models…..

Finishing a Marathon:Back in July I put up my goal to run a marathon and I was going to run the Portland Marathon for the Ben Towne foundation. Well, the week before the Portland Marathon I was going online to print up what I needed for the next weekend, only to discover my registration never went through!

At the finish line!

So, I scrambled and found that there was a marathon the next day where I went to school, Bellingham, so I grabbed my kids and we raced to Bellingham, praying the race wasn’t full.

We didn’t know where we would sleep (though we have family and friends we couldn’t reach them before we were on the road North) or if I was even running the race the next day. We got there at 4:30 p.m., registration closing at 6 p.m. and I got registration # 590. I found out later that the marathon was limited to 600 registrants and they filled it- so I was 10 slots from not running. So that was it- I was signed up for the Bellingham Bay Marathon.

We ended up staying with Papa and Wendy, and it was wonderful!

The next day I went down to the race, it was cold waiting and I had what I hoped was all I needed. When I got on the bus to go to the start the song “Fireflies” was playing- this is one of my songs with the boys so it was like a small hello from them. I sat and talked to a nice gal who was working on qualifying for Boston that day.

When we got to the Lummi Community Center I took my time walking around, going to the bathroom, then settled down with a group, on the edge, and listened. Their shirts all read “Marathon Maniacs” and they were amazing. What a fun group to sit by, they were all talking about doing “50 by 50” or how many they had done this year, how many were left in the season and if they were planning on traveling to any. When I shared this was my first run and my story of reorganizing a the last-minute they laughed with me and wished me luck, saying I had chosen a great race anyway, with the prayer ceremony at the start and it wasn’t too big.

The race started, me with my trash bag around my shoulders for warmth I had to ask one of the other trash bag wearing runners what the etiquette was on ditching the bags.. he filled me in he always kept it until a water station- so that’s what I did- what a fun look I had going with it tied around my waist for a mile or two! Anyway I used tights for arm warmers, had my blue hat and my Ben Towne shirt on- I decided at the last-minute not to wear the tutu- though I will next time!

The weather was gorgeous and the run starting along the water was just what I wanted. We met up with the half-marathon runners at our mile 17 and their mile 4- and I promptly lost all the people I had been pacing in the crowd! Lucky for me I was still feeling GREAT. I had done so much reading about mile 20 being a bit of a magic number- where you are going to be hurting or good. I felt wonderful. So the fun part for me, you see I am a middle of the pack runner and most of the time when I run a race I set my pace and stay there. So I rarely pass anyone after the race settles in.

This race was different, as we met the half-marthon group at mile 4, the people who had not trained well were starting to slow down, so those were the ones I met. I got to spend the REST of the RACE PASSING PEOPLE! This, outside of feeling wonderful, was the best part of the race for me!

I ended up coming in at 4:26- faster than I expected- because I had figured I would slow down. I maintained a perfect 10 minute pace for the whole race! I was so blessed and my first race was perfect. The only flaw was I told my mum to meet me at the finish line at 5 hours, and I missed them by finishing early!

I will run another marathon, not sure when, will spend my winter designing, and going to the gym. Next fitness goal is placing in my age group- probably in the Snoqualmie St. Patrick’s Day 5K- hopefully it won’t snow in 2013 for that race like it did this year!