Training Progress #16, #17, & #18

17 weeks down, O-N-E more to go!!! The marathon is in t-minus 6 days!!!!!

I completely failed on week 16. I didn't run a single day that week....OOPS! I was supposed to run 5 miles on Tues, 8 miles Wed, 4 miles Thurs, and 12 miles Mon. That was the week that I was super busy...I went to Dallas and then had a lot of things planned for my birthday. I figured since I ran 40 miles the week before, my body probably needed a nice little break.

I felt fabulous on Tuesday when I started my running for week 17. I ran 4 miles Tuesday, 6 miles Wednesday, and 3 miles Sat. I was supposed to run 8 miles today for my long run, but I skipped it. There was really no reason for skipping it other than the fact that I was busy doing other things and wasn't really in the mental state to go for a run. I sure hope skipping my last two long runs won't kill me!

This week (week 18) I will be running 3 miles tomorrow, 4 miles Wed, 2 miles Thurs, resting Friday and Saturday and running the race on Sunday. I can't explain to you how long I've been waiting for this day to come.....since Dec. 27th, which was 5 months ago, or 18 weeks ago. Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!! I'm very very anxious and ready. I'm a wee bit nervous about the weather, but other than that I'm totally ready to go! Praying for nice cool running weather with a little bit of a breeze, but not much. Hopefully no rain.

For those of you in the area and interested, you can tune in to KFOR NewsChannel 4 for live minute by minute marathon coverage from 6:00 am-10:00 am. My bib number is 2990, although it is highly unlikely that you will be able to spot me running by. Check back next week for pictures and information on how the race went!

Slow and steady wins the race,
Quincee

Birthday Extravaganzas!

I had the BEST 23rd birthday. Thank you to all my wonderful friends and family who sent cards, text messages, facebook comments, and made phone calls. You guys made my day!

My week started out super fun with a short trip to visit my best friend Marcus in Dallas. He recently moved to Seattle for work, but was in Dallas for the week for training. I had so much fun catching up with him and meeting all his friends from work. We got to see Cory Morrow in concert one night and I got to spend all day shopping at the Grapevine Mills Mall. I found quite a few bargains!! Thanks Marc Marc for being a wonderful host....I'm so glad I got to see you!

Downtown Fort Worth for the Cory Morrow concert.

On Friday night my best friend from college and her boyfriend came into town for the Josh Abbott Band concert. We all had dinner with my brother, his fiance, and my other roommate before the concert. Josh Abbott Band was soooooooo good in concert...they exceeded my expectations. We had a BLAST!! Allison and Jeremy surprised me with an A-W-E-S-O-M-E birthday present....a 22 inch LCD flat screen TV!!! HOORAY!! If you know me at all, you know that I'm always behind the times when it comes to technology. I have an old school TV and an old school cell phone and I'm never up to date with those two devices. Allie knows me best and knew that I would never buy a new cell phone or TV for myself. I absolutely LOVE it. I feel bad because they spent WAY too much money. The old school cell phone problem was also taken care of when my parents bought me a new cell phone for my birthday...yay! Thanks guys for helping me stay "up to date."

My brother's fiance, Ashley, me, and my best friend from college, Allison

Allison and her boyfriend, Jeremy

Me and Allison

My new TV!

Saturday night a small group of my friends went to a 70's dance club in OKC called Groovy's. It took a while for everyone to get warmed up and get on the dance floor, but eventually everyone starting dancing for most of the night. Thanks for coming guys!

On Sunday morning my parents surprised me at the house with breakfast and presents. We had a nice breakfast before I had to head to work.....yes, I had to work on my birthday...YUCK! It wasn't bad at all though. After work, we had a cookout at my parent's house and my cousins and my grandpa came. It was a beautiful night and we sat outside on the back patio and watched the boys play.

Me and my cousin Stephanie

The boys helping me blow out the candles

Playing on the hammock!

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes and gifts....and for those who helped me celebrate. I'm so thankful for each and everyone of you!

New Onesies!

Here's a picture of sweet little Lillyan (my cousin's baby) modeling her new outfit that I made. I think she likes it :) Isn't she precious?

Lillyan checking out the tu-tu!

Here are the most recent outfits that I've made. More to come soon!

Marathon Training #15!

15 weeks down, 3 more to go!!! This week was my 40 mile week....and I'm so happy to say that it's over and I ran it all! Here's what I ran: Tuesday- ran 5 miles Wednesday- ran 10 miles Thursday- ran 5 miles Monday (today)- ran 20 miles I finished the 20 mile run in just under 4 hours, which equals about a 12 minute mile pace! For me that is REALLY GOOD. I'm very satisfied with that. I ran around Lake Hefner twice and my best friend Allison rode her bike beside me the whole way. I could not have done it without her so thank you, thank you, thank you Allison! I stopped about 6 different times to get a drink of water. The weather was perfect and there really wasn't much wind at all. I was expecting it to be WAY worse. Right now, I can't really feel my body. I'm pretty sure I'll sleep HARD tonight, but I don't even want to think about how sore I will be in the morning. I also don't even want to think about having to run 6.2 more miles on top of what I ran today. Hopefully the encouragement and motivation from other runners and fans will get me through it. On a good note, I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The runs will decrease from here on out until the day of the race. I think I can pretty much handle the rest. This week I will run 4 miles Wednesday, 8 miles Thursday, 5 miles Friday, and 12 miles Monday.

Busy, Busy, Bee!!!

This week is going to be ULTRA busy, but filled with TONS and TONS of exciting fun stuff! I'm super excited about it. I'm sure none of you really care about my plans, but I'm going to tell you anyway because I think they are worthy of mentioning!

Monday I'll be attending a Matrix color class in the city all day. After the color class, I'm meeting my best friend Allison to go on a 20 mile run. She's so graciously volunteered to ride her bike beside me! That's really not a very exciting day, but it will definitely be a long, busy, tiresome day.

Tuesday I'll be back in the city again for another Matrix CRAFT color class....you never can get enough continued education. I'm excited to learn some new things! After the color class I'll head in to work and then when I get off work I'll be on my way to DALLAS!!! Yup that's right....ROAD TRIP! My best friend Marcus will be in Dallas for work. He recently moved to Seattle and I've missed him oh so much. Since my friend Stephanie and I have Wednesday's off we decided why not road trip to Dallas to see Marcus. While he's at work on Wed we will go shopping and do fun girl stuff and then we'll all go to dinner and hang out Wed night and we'll head back early Thurs morning.

Friday after work my best friend from college will be here....and her boyfriend will be coming along too!!! YAHOO!!! We are going to the Josh Abbott Band concert at Wormy Dog with my brother and his fiance Ashley! If you haven't heard of the Josh Abbott Band before you must go listen to them now. Once you hear them, I promise you will fall in love. I don't know a lot of their songs, but two of their songs are my favorite songs out right now. You can check them out here and here. CAN'T WAIT!

Saturday is my birthday party at a super fun 70's dance club in OKC. They play a lot of disco music and songs from the 70's and 80's. I've been once before and it was absolutely hilarious. We danced the night away and had so much FUN! Hopefully there will be a good turnout and hopefully some of my other good friends from college will be in attendance!!

Sunday is my actual 23rd birthday!! We are celebrating with my family at my parents house when I get off work. Yeah, I have to work on my birthday....YUCK!

Then, the next weekend is Easter and I'll be doing something fun and exciting then..can't say much about it right now, but I'll make sure and tell you all about it after the fact.

And the next weekend after that is the big MARATHON that I've been preparing for since December 27th......yup that's 5 months. Let me tell you, it's been a LONG 5 months and I'm so ready to cross that finish line and be done with it. I think there will be a pretty good fan section of family and friends at the race. I'm curious to see how emotional I'll get when I cross the finish line. I cried the first time I ever went to watch the race when my mom ran a 3 mile leg in a relay. I can only imagine that if I cried then, then I will for sure cry when I run the full marathon. We'll just have to wait and see. Hope I don't get too choked up that I actually hyperventilate and lose my breath, haha!

.......and because all posts are better with pictures I thought I'd share these. They are somewhat relevant to the post.Allison and Jeremy. Yup, those are their excited faces to come see me and go to the concert :)

My best friend from college, Allison!

My best friend Marcus...the one I'm going to visit in Dallas!

Last, but certainly not least.....I only hope that this is how skippy and cheery I'll look when crossing the finish line. I'm afraid it will be much worse. Matter of fact, I KNOW it will be much worse. If it's anything like the picture that was taken of me during the triathlon then we are in trouble. See picture below.

My mom couldn't resist purchasing this picture because if you haven't already noticed I'm wearing my bicycle helmet backwards.....OH WOW! I'm so smart. Pretty much everyone gets a kick out of it. Lets keep our fingers crossed that I can be more poised in the marathon pics because I will probably cherish them for a long time!

If you're still reading this, thanks for staying with me throughout the whole post and being somewhat interested in what's been going on in my life lately and what all I'm looking forward to. I'll be posting pictures shortly after all these events occur. Hope everyone else has a fabulous week!

Love,

Quin

More Onesies!

Here are some pictures of the latest onesies that I've made!

Katie's Baby Shower!

I helped host a baby shower yesterday for one of my best friends! We met in cosmetology school back when we were just juniors in high school and now we work together at the JCPenney salon. Katie is expecting a sweet baby boy named Christian in May. I'm so excited to meet baby Christian and I know Katie is going to be a wonderful mommy. It's been fun to see her everyday at work and watch her little belly grow. She has a teeny weeny belly...it's hard to believe she's 8 months pregnant. I think I've drank more ICEE's in the last 9 months than I have my entire life because she always craves them at work, but she doesn't like to walk across the mall to get one so I usually get one for both of us :)

Here's a few old school pics of us:

And here are the most recent pics from the baby shower:

The Details

The sign we made for the front door.Christian's toy boxDrinks served from mason jars with gray and white striped straws that we ordered from Etsy!Tissue poms also ordered from Etsy...what did we ever do without Etsy?The food table full of delicious treats. My friend Stephanie catered the food and she did a FABULOUS job. She made fruit salad, chicken satay, friend wontons, pimento cheese dip and crackers, and grilled vegetable bruschetta. It was delish and she saved me a ton of time and work....and no one would have eaten my food because I'm an awful cook!The homemade tabletop topiaries made from flower pots, Styrofoam balls, and tissue paper. These things were tedious to make. Thanks girls for coming over and helping with these. I enjoyed our fun craft day, even though you all probably didn't haha.The yummy cake! The shower theme was little prince!

The glowing mommy-to-be. Isn't she the cutest pregnant lady you've ever seen?

Beautiful sistersKatie and her momThe shower hostesses/cosmetology girls...thanks for all your help!All in all, I think the shower was a success. It was a fun night full of friends and family, yummy food, lots of awesome gifts, and celebration for Katie and the new life of baby Christian. I know he is going to be a HUGE blessing for her and I can't wait to witness the new season of life that she will be in. I love you KATIE!!!

Training Progress #13 & #14

14 weeks down, 4 more to go!! The marathon is exactly 27 days away....HOORAH!!! This is what I ran for week 13: Tuesday: ran 4 miles Wednesday: ran 9 miles Thursday: ran 5 miles Monday: ran 18 miles I ran my long run by myself this week. It wasn't as bad as I expected, but I had to carry a water bottle in my hand the whole way which was annoying and made my arms sore. The weather was perfect...no wind and chilly. Every time I have a long run a cold front comes through and it makes for the perfect running weather. I don't know what I'm going to do when I actually have to run a full marathon in 90 degree weather. I might just end up fainting or passing out, hopefully not though. Week 14= FAILURE! I was supposed to run 5 miles Tuesday, 10 miles Wednesday, 5 miles Thursday, and 14 miles today. However, I only ran the 5 miles on Tuesday and have not run since....OOPS! I attribute it to my extremely busy schedule this past week. I was planning a baby shower and I went out of town twice, once to stay with Aaron and once for my cousin's baby shower. I was planning on running 14 miles on my day off today, but I think I'm going to clean house and work on some more onesies instead. That way tomorrow I can start fresh on week 15 and I won't be sore or anything. Week 15 is the furthest mileage of any week in the training schedule. I will run 5 miles Tuesday, 10 miles Wednesday, 5 miles Thursday, and 20 miles Monday. Twenty miles is the longest run I will do before actually running the 26.2 mile race. After week 15 the running slowly decreases in preparation for the big day! I hope I didn't kill myself by skipping out on a whole week. It's definitely hard to get the mind set back, but I'm ready!!!!

Toybox Project!

A while back I found a wooden box/chest at a garage sale for $5 and I couldn't pass it up. It was sturdy and I saw a lot of potential for it. Originally, I was going to paint it and cover the lid with batting and fabric and use it in my house to store stuff like blankets, pictures, craft supplies, etc. Then, I found out one of my good friends was pregnant and I decided it would make the perfect toy box. I was very anxious because I had to wait a long time before I started the project. Let's just say I'm a really good procrastinator and I didn't start on it until a few days before the shower when I had the thing for almost 9 months.

Here's the before:

After a little bit of cleaning, sanding, spray painting, striping, gluing on letters, and adding new rope handles, we now have this:

My original plan was to put a dark wood stain on the lid, but due to my mad procrastination skills I didn't have time for it.

FYI, my new favorite product is Frogtape. I've heard that it works miracles, but seriously...it's crazy how straight your lines will be with that stuff. There's NO BLEEDING of the paint whatsoever. Will never use a different painter's tape again.