Training.........

Sigh, I'm training for two events, the Houston (Texas) half marathon in January and the Motatapu (New Zealand) marathon in March. I've had problems over the summer with heat exhaustion and another injury that has interrupted my training. Before Summer I was consistently running 8:30 min/mile pace and now I'm lucky if I can run under 9:00 min/mile pace. Then Sunday I ran 12 miles (longer weekend run) and now I have soft tissue damage around my left ankle from the tongue of my trainer consistently hitting my ankle  for 12 miles. I won't even go into toe blisters and munted toe nails. Which makes me wonder why I do it. Heck I'm going to be 50 in June I'm a Grandmother and the grey hair and saggy skin have already started, I should be slowing down or something, shouldn't I? Any other nearly 50s out there reading this, are you training for a marathon? Am I mad?

Heck no girlfriend, you go for it 50 is the new 30.

Having said that immediately after I finish running my marathon in NZ I'm moving on to a yacht (located in the BVIs) and I'm going to sail off into the sunset on a (probably) 10 year circumnavigation. Am I mad?

Heck no girlfriend, you go for it. Next year I'll be blogging and crafting in all kinds of exotic anchorages and locations, me, my Scrubby and my cat.

I hope you get to join me in my adventures, I'm getting quite excited about it and I can think of nothing else at the moment, want to buy some furniture anyone?

My Scrubby

My shaved (because it's hot in Texas) cat

Me before going running, I don't look like that after I've been running, lols. 

Keep Well

=^-^=

A three card share.

I forgot to post some cards I made for Halloween. So this is a quick post for you to catch up on. The stamps are Michaels dollar stamps, they're pretty darn cute and the paper is sweet and sassy I think it was. I inked the paper with memento tuxedo black ink to scruffy it up  a little and the black cat is again a dollar punch I got from Michaels and it was fiddly glueing it onto the paper. I need to get rid of my false nails because it makes crafting just that teensy weensy more difficult, lols.
So the same stamps used in 3 slightly different ways, I colored them in using water color pencils and not my copics, for a change.

Keep well

=^-^=

Hope you can cling to .... a few cards.

In the end I didn't make as many cards as I wanted to because of my trip back home to New Zealand. But I am pleased with a couple of the cards I made. I loved the challenge and for such a wonderful cause, it was a win win situation.

Anyway, enough with the babble, here are a couple of the cards I made.

The theme for this card was circles.

A hint of pink.

All I did with this card was paper piece the kite and write Joy with a gel pen on it.

Here I used a card sketch, which I don't have the link to, for the first time and I was surprised at how easy it was. 

This stamp was incredibly hard to colour because it's a very detailed stamp with little white space on it. But, I did my best and I think it looks Ok, I tried to emboss it and again it doesn't emboss very well, it might just become one of those stamps that was a mistake to purchase and it wasn't a cheap one grrrr.

Ha, I made a huge job for myself with this card it took me hours to fussy cut and paper piece it. The background paper I used, I think, ended up being much too busy but the owl stamp set is very cute.  

Two cards using the same stamp to varying degrees of success. 

This turned out to be my favorite card and it was the easiest one to make. 

I didn't send this card in because it wasn't good enough so I'm calling it my prototype and I shall work on it some more in the future finding the right weight card stock etc to use. 

Keep Well.

=^_^=

Hope you can cling to

As you may know, because I blogged about it a few weeks back, my best friend in Los Angeles has breast cancer and is going through a course of chemotherapy. I don't think I'm exaggerating at all when I say she is finding this tougher than she ever imagined it to be.


You may also be aware that I make cards to send to people who are ill, bereaved or who may just need some happy mail. So in October over at splitcoaststamper I am participating in making a card a day for the breast cancer patients at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston,Texas, they are calling this event "Hope You Can Cling To".


This is an article about the event that appeared in the Houston Chronicle, I hope to be showing you some of the cards I will be making even though I have a 3 week New Zealand trip in October as well. My timing is sometimes a little bit off but I hit the mark more often than not **smiles**. 


Speaking of cards here are three of my most recent ones.

Keep Well,
Nicky =^-^=

Vaccine for Celiac Disease finishes it's Phase 1 Trial

For people who have CD (Celiac Disease) or gluten intolerance as little as 15 milligrams of gluten or 100th of a slice of bread can damage the bowel and with many on a GF (Gluten Free) diet after 5 years up to half of the people studied still have damage and the failure of the "gut" to heal leads to more health problems. It was these findings that led to the search for a vaccine to desensitise the gut to gluten.


34 test subjects were double blinded to test the safety of the new Nexvax2 vaccine for patients diagnosed with CD. All patients were HLA-DQ 2 positive with CD following a strict GF diet.


In all, 19 subjects received the vaccine. Three different doses were administered (30, 60, 90 micrograms). Side effects were common with higher doses and included; nausea, vomiting and one subject having to withdraw from the trial due to “severe gastrointestinal symptoms”. In several cases the injection caused symptoms similar to that of typical gluten exposure. 

I have mixed feelings about the vaccine because I truly think that eating whole foods made by me is the best thing for me therefore I don't need to have a vaccine. But, and this is a big but, when I travel I am at the mercy of others and that's when a vaccine would be good for me. I have been on "vacation" for the last two weeks and I have had to stay in a hotel without any food making opportunities. This has left my health at the mercy of others and I think that I have been "glutened" twice during the two weeks (pain, nausea and diarrhea) and I feel dreadful in myself. 


Don't get me wrong I like to eat out with friends but it's always a roll of the dice when I do. It's a shame for me to feel this way but I can't wait to get home just so I can feel normal again. It absolutely ruins any trip for me if I can't go self-catering, just imagine yourself having to worry about every single meal, having to explain your dietary needs over and over again ad nauseam, it's a real drag and I really do need to have that total control over the food I put in my body. 

: ( I'm Sad

I'm sad for two of my friends. The first is my friend in New Zealand, Renee. It is winter in New Zealand and my good friend Renee slipped on some ice and fell and broke her arm. This comes on top of losing her job due to flying to South Africa to attend her Father's funeral. I mean show some compassion, it's not as if you can fly to SA and attend the funeral in 4 days or however long the bereavement leave period is. Anyway here is a card I am sending to her to cheer her up, well I hope it helps to cheer her up, she's having a pretty tough time of it at the moment.

Renee's card.

And the other of my friends who is having a tough time (I shan't name her here) has just been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. We're all devastated by the news but she's a fighter and she starts treatment shortly,  so I'm thinking good thoughts for her and will continue to do so during her up and coming battle. Here is a card I made for her, it is from a template shared by dini over at splitcoaststampers it was my first attempt and although it's a bit rough and ready I know I'll be able to make a better one next time. I made it in a hurry because I wanted to give it to her while I am in LA for the next 2 weeks because words are just to difficult at a time like this. 

Hugs Card.

Keep Well x 

The Day I Met Patty Boone.

I've known Patty over the internet for getting on close to two years now. She lives in LA and so did I for a little while but we never managed to hook up together even though we'd spoken about it for a while. That was until I came back to LA for a visit, this time we were determined we'd get to see each other in the "flesh". So Patty came to pick me up from my Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. Fortunately I'd already seen Patty's Jeep on a photo so I knew what car I was looking out for. After a couple of wrong turns in the traffic thanks to Patty's new droid app we headed out towards Long Beach where her DH (Scottie) works. Scottie turned out to be as sweet a person as Patty. What a great couple.

Patty and I had lunch at the Crusty Crab and I have to say that although I managed to get something to eat, it took me x2 attempts for them to get it right, the first plate came out with battered zucchini and a slab of sour dough on top. I refused the meal and explained why I couldn't accept the sour dough and zucchini and why it was no good to remove the food from the plate either, the lovely server said and I quote "this doesn't have wheat, it's sour dough" on a positive note they did what I asked and that's OK, I mean I only actually ordered grilled prawns and rice just give me what I ordered for goodness sake, I wish that I didn't have to go through a whole rigmarole to get something to eat just one time.  To be honest even though I managed to get a meal and I wasn't glutened, I wouldn't recommend Crusty Crab as a place for people who require a GF diet because the risk of cross-contamination is just way too high. Here is a photo of my plate after I had finished.

Patty and I took a short walk and then had to head back to downtown LA to her house to avoid all the traffic. I got to meet the famous Pua, Pele and Makamae, well, I only briefly met Pua and Makamae because they hid themselves from me, Pele was much more relaxed about a stranger in the house though and we managed a bit of purr time together.  

Patty looking at the boats.

Me !

Keep Well x