Saturday, June 02, 2007

i love grey days

T and M are kicking butt with the yard sale. after the obligatory helping set-up i've been happily holed up in the house plotting my take over of the dining room...soon-to-be my sewing room. i decided to not run today and am good with the 30 miles i logged this week. tomorrow's long run will be 8-11 trail miles.

my mom stopped by earlier for a few hours and help kick start the sale. M is quite the sales girl and has gone from unenthusiastically giving up her stuff to jonesing for cold hard cash. she's convinced her father that they should do it again tomorrow and wants to go through more of her stuff tonight!

woohoo...mission accomplished! maybe just maybe we've nipped the need to hang-on to crap in the bud?

the past few days i've been pouring over quilt books and pulling out my stash and sewing supplies. the blustery weather sure sets the right tone. i am going in yet another direction with M's quilt and am in complete awe of my geniousness.

i am by no means a skilled quilter. i rip out as much as i sew. i make a ton of mistakes. my work is not fine or precise. i don't follow directions very well and tend to learn best through trial and error. it takes longer, he! a lot longer but for me it's about the journey. which could explain the lack of discipline in my running life too!

i love fabric and i love quilts and i just have to be working on something. i like feeling creative and the process of figuring out a technique or design is very satisfying. i see the world in a better light. beauty in places i hadn't noticed. i think my foul mood of late has been in part due to the lack of creative outlet.

i feel the same way about running. i'm not fast, i walk alot and sometimes stop and weep for joy because am so greatful that these very-soon-to-be 44 year old legs finally found a way to fly and stay grounded. my race calendar is by no means full but i like to have a couple of races on schedule. mostly though i just love being in nature.

since starting to run the past 2 years have been pretty much about running and other athletic endeavours. quilting has been in the backseat...where i could still keep an eye on it ...in the rearview mirror...a couple of small projects here and there...to still feel like i was quilter.

my sewing room also happens to be the dining room and while we never eat in there we have had more gatherings here than usual and so i packed up my stuff and haven't sewn much over the last year. quilting went from the back seat to the storage unit.

our recent urge to purge has me feeling lighter and wanting to tie up loose ends. this quilt is going to keep me grounded as i figure out this marathon training stuff. i was getting a bit anxious about not liking my current training schedule, a blend of beginner and intermediate marathon training from coolrunning. i have a solid base but i want to go from 1 to 2 days off. i think as long as i put in the time and quality i'll be okay with 2 days off.

i want to run and i want to quilt. i need to find a place for both of them. when i think about it quilting actually led me back to running. when i quit smoking i found a quilting class at the local adult ed. center and quilted like a mad woman for two years. after finally getting healthy i started to run a little around my neighborhood. at the time we were renting a place in the berkeley hills about a 1/4 mile from tilden. it was there my love for trail running began.

so that's my quilting running rant for now. it's clear to me that i need both. i'm not going to compromise the marathon training in any way but feel as strongly about the need to be creative.