Graduation is quickly approaching. In just over a week, I start my final quarter at Pierce college as well as my first class at Central Washington University. In June, I will be graduation with my AA in Social Service/Mental Health. My question is: should I walk for graduation???
Over the last couple quarters, I have made some friends in my classes who are wanting me to walk at graduation with them. For me, I don't really want to walk and would rather cheer them on in the crowd. But, they really want me to be part of the celebration. So, I want your opinion. I have created a poll to see what you think I should do: walk with my friends, or not? Personally, I was going to wait until I got my masters to walk at graduation, but I know this is a big accomplishment for them and want to give them my support.
Please vote and help me decide what to do. Thanks!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
To walk or not to walk: that is the question....
Monday, March 1, 2010
First Ride
So, on Thursday, Terry made an offer on a 2006 Yamaha V-Star 1100 Silverado for me. The week before I took his bike out for a ride and realized that it all came back to me quickly and I started to get antsy for a bike of my own again. Amazingly, his offer was accepted and on Thursday night, we rode up to Renton and rode home separately on two bikes.
On Sunday, it was forecasted to have great weather, so we decided to go for a ride after church. We made the decision to ride up to Poulsbo. Terry had never been there and we thought it was the right distance away for a quick trip. We left after church and arrived in about an hour. The ride was really nice. We had lunch on the waterfront which was amazing. We shared a crab and corn chowder, Terry had halibut and chips while I had the halibut tacos. It was all really good. After eating, we walked around town and looked for the bakery everyone talked about when we mentioned Poulsbo. We found one in town and each picked out a donut. I also got a cinnamon roll that I had for breakfast this morning; one word amazing. The ride home was nice as well and we got great views of Mt Rainier. It did start getting cold though and by the time we cruised off the freeway, my lips were numb and I couldn't easily talk. Overall, we both had a nice day on the bikes and enjoyed the ride. I am definitely happy to be back on two wheels.
Scrapbook Weekend
Last weekend, I joined about a dozen other women at a conference camp outside of Lake Stevens for a scrapbook weekend. I was invited by a couple ladies from our 4-wheel drive club and had a nice time. Due to some stuff I had to get done on campus, I didn't get up there until late Friday night and immediately went to work on some pages. We were up until about 1:00 on Friday before heading to the cabins for bed.
The cabins definitely reminded me of 6th grade science camp where we were all in bunks in a big room. I didn't sleep too well, but that wasn't too much of a surprise. On Saturday, we got up and started scraping again. The grounds provided food for us and the meals weren't too bad. They also had a giant swing that we were able to go on. It was about 60 feet up and I went to the very top before I released. It was fun, but the final hanging around the bottom made me a little nauseous. We worked on the scrapbooks all day and I actually got a lot accomplished. I ended up leaving Saturday night to come home since I wanted to go to church on Sunday morning and was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. Overall, I had a nice weekend and hope to do something like that again sometime.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Elbe OHV Work Party
Yesterday, our 4-wheel drive club, the Timber Tamers, hosted a big trail work party to fix the top of our apoted trail at Elbe OHV. When we got there, we noticed that we had a lot of work to do. The top of our trail had become a huge mud hole and a few new by-passes had been created. We had to put rock on the top of the trail to prevent more erosion and sedimentation from running down the trail and into any streams. We also had to try and block some of the by-passes. Luckily, we had a decent show of people with 3 small tractors, 2 trucks and 60 yards of rock to work with.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Nookchamps Winter Runs 10K
On Saturday, Terry and I ran our first 10k. It was really nice that we were able to run it together. He stayed at my pace, which was quite slow, but we finished under my goal of an hour and a half. We were able to cross the finish line together at 1:25:55.
Overall, we don't have much good to say about the event except we ran it together. We felt like the signage was inadequate as it took us about 10 minutes walking around a college campus to find the registration. Then, there was no direction as to what to do once we got our race packets. Since there the race wasn't chipped and the roads we were running on weren't going to be closed, we decided to start early so we wouldn't have to compete with other racers at the starting line.
When we started the course, the first mile was a gradual up hill. Great, I hate hills. After that, we ran through some farm lands and got to enjoy the smells of a local dairy... I don't know what is worse, smelling car exhaust or country cologne. Also, by now, the sidewalks were gone and there was no shoulder to run on so we are trying to share the narrow road with passing vehicles. After about a mile of that, there was another long, this time very steep, uphill. Once we got to the top of that, we passed the mile 3 marker.
From there, things mostly leveled out and we had some minor hills to deal with as well as roads with no shoulders where the white line was hanging off the edge of the pavement. No fun. We kept going and luckily running together made the time go faster. Right before the mile 5 marker, there was another steep section, this time it was short though, only about a block long. In my head, I thought the last mile would be easy since it was so close to the end. That was not the case though.
The mile marker 5 was right before we cut into a wooded trail. This was my favorite portion of the course as we were running through trees on a sawdust path. It kind of reminded me of being in high school and running in Fall Creek. By this time, my legs were hurting. I wasn't good on my workouts for the weeks prior to the event and by mile 5, I could tell that I wasn't as in good of shape as I would have liked. We kept pushing though, and with Terry's motivation, I was able to finish the race.
We crossed finished the 10k, or 6.2 miles, at 1:25:55. My goal was to complete in under 1:30, but in my head I was hoping for a finish in under 1:20. Overall, I am just glad I was able to jog the entire time. It is amazing to think that just a couple months ago I could only run for about 2 minutes straight and now I can go for about an hour and a half. I do know that I need to get back into a regular workout routine as things of tappered off with the holidays and starting school again.When we crossed the finish line I didn't think I would ever sign up for a 10k again as I was miseralbe, however, things change and as of this morning, our next 10k is on March 20 in Orting.
