Productive but off target

My priorities today should have been to clear off the dining room table, the family room, or the guest room. So that means I of course worked on our bedroom which was off task. But it was fun and I'm glad I got so much done, and it's only Saturday so I've got another day to make important progress. The pic below is the icing on the cake for how off task I was, a craft project taking my race medals and displaying them with thumbtacks in a foam core board. Eventually I think a towel or curtain rod model would be better (especially if I keep doing these things)... I dropped the 5ks and was on the fence about the medal for the 8 mile run (omitted it). Here's what made the board in my 11 years of doing this kind of stuff:

• 1  three-mile ocean swim
• 2  full marathons
• 3  ragnar races
• 4  triathlons
• 10 half marathons

Pirates and marathons

Turns out I love being a pirate. Spent a few weeks prepping decorations and costumes for some pirate-themed volunteer activities. With the help of some interweb inspiration, I made a pirate ship mast and 2  flag poles from PVC. Watched youtube instructions in spanish (which I don't speak) to learn how to wrap bottles in cord, and purchased a lot of cool costume pieces online. Best party theme ever. Plus volunteering to hand out water at a marathon was so much fun. Really inspiring and everyone is so appreciative. Continuing the arts and crafts activities, I made some dogshaming themed signs for a friend's ultramarathon this week. Creative shit can be fun! Perhaps I should do this more often.

Cheers to my crazy friend Kelli

I've been thinking about her a lot lately. She randomly sends me things, and a few days ago I wore the purple aqua socks she repurposed my way. And I thought about her when I heard there's an outbreak of plague in China, while she was over there a few weeks ago.
Crazy - a little harsh you might say? Well, she ran her second marathon three weeks after her first marathon. That's kinda crazy. She was the one who came to visit me one year in June and dragged me (someone who had NEVER run before) on her training runs. Three days later we were both signed up for the Seattle Marathon in November. I ran the half marathon and that started my lifelong pledge to run a half marathon race every year - I've been true to that for 5 years so far.
I really shouldn't get into too many crazy stories in such a public forum so as to not incriminate her (or myself). But I still have on my phone a photo from 4 years ago the "after shot" of our waitress who had her hair done during the middle our dinner - flat straight hair was converted by another waitress into a 1940's updo - all because of a conversation Kelli started with them about Blade Runner.
We're totally different in a lot of ways, but two birds of a feather in other ways. The dark side of me comes out when I talk to her - we both channel Lewis Black. Spewing criticisms can be a tremendously fun stress reliever!
Anyways, she's in NYC recovering from H1N1 (so typical - she gets into the strangest predicaments) so here's a shout out to her...
&

The wardrobe refashioning begins

I'm taking the Wardrobe Refashion challenge. It's a commitment to not purchase new clothes, instead clothes should be handmade (by yourself or others) from scratch, or better yet, reworked from existing clothing. I thought the not buying anything new part would be easy, but I did have to put on mental blinders when I went into Target the other day. (Don't walk through the clothes section!!!)
My main hope is that the challenge would be additional motivation to sew/knit/refashion more frequently. And here is my first (tiny) completed project since I've been in the challenge. My loved one had the sensibility to improve his health and fitness last year and lost about 35 lbs. (It's amazing how motivated people can be when they see their lab values and tangible metrics showing the unhealthy path they are on... When given the choice of taking expensive drugs with side effects or changing lifestyle by increasing exercise and paying attention to what you eat -- what would you do? He changed his ways and feels better across the board: sleep, digestive, in addition to moving himself way out of the range of concern on those lab values.)
So I help downsize one of his old, much-loved t-shirts. Very simple, but made him happy.
Now onto one of the other projects on my infinite loop of my crafty "to do" list. I'm seriously consdering dropping pieces of paper into a brown bag for each project and pulling randomly. Or maybe you gentle readers can steer me in the right direction. Give me a color, theme, etc. and I guarantee I've got something brewing that I could work on that fits right in...

Good cause... Terrible fundraising materials

The good cause? Diabetes prevention. Quick background... (scroll down if you have a MD or PhD) There's two types of diabetes, Type 1 which happens when people's own immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas... long story short they need to take insulin and it can't be prevented. Type 2 is more of a complex problem where gradually your body breaks down in a few different pathways that affect glucose and insulin, and sometimes you end up needing insulin. Diabetes can lead to blindness, amputations, and much suffering.

In the past I have supported the American Diabetes Association because anyone can get Type 2 diabetes, but the risk goes WAY UP if you're overweight and don't exercise. I don't beleive in absolutes, but for the most part, it's preventable by staying fit and relatively lean. Once the pathways start going haywire, it can't be stopped, all you can do is slow the progression. The ADA helps educate people about the benefits of weight loss and exercise and tries to prevent people from getting Type 2 diabetes.

Check out the terrible fundraising materials (sent to me by the ADA):
These people have no logic!!!!!! If a nickel really helps, why THE HELL does the letter they sent me have a nickel stuck to it? They just mailed ME a nickel. Don't they need it to help someone? Not only does this not convince me to give, it got me pissed off enough to visit charitynavigator.org to see if this was a single bad decision or if the organization's fundraising is chronically stupid. Well, they get 1 star out of five (bad), a 39 out of 100 overall (bad), and they spend 21.7% of the money they raise on trying to secure more money. Sigh... Which has me thinking: instead of giving them any more money, I might help more people out by upping the percent of my time preaching about exercise... But more on my exercise evangelism habits in future posts. =)