Back from Paradise

I flew back from Florida a few hours ago and am a little sad it's over. I had a wonderful time in the sun but now I'm back to cold, snowy reality.

I went to Florida last Tuesday to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon (13.1 miles).  I've been training since last July and my goal for the race was to run as much as I could and then be in good enough shape to enjoy my day after the race.  I was able to run just over 11 miles (I was thinking I wouldn't make it over 6 so I'm thrilled), finished 52 minutes faster than my last half marathon, went back after the race to shower and then headed to the parks.  My mom and dad went with me and we stayed there until the parks closed and managed to fit in MGM, Epcot and Magic Kingdom.  I couldn't have been happier with how the day went.  I did start crying at mile 12, and again on the bus back to the hotel after the race.  I wasn't hurting terribly, I was just experiencing another form of Post Project Depression.  Normally I get this after finishing a really big lace project that I've been working on for months, but this was different.  This time I set a really challenging goal for myself, overcame obstacles, and performed better than anticipated. And this race that's been on my mind for the past 8 months is finally over and I'm free.
Here's a few of the pictures from the run.  They aren't great, but that's because I was running and trying to take a picture at the same time.

So that's that. 

I did spend 8 days in Florida though, and only 2 were devoted to the race.  Which means there were 6 lovely days of walks on the beach, hanging out in the yarn shop, fine dining and wine-ing, shopping and of course, crafting. 

One of the highlights (and a rather silly one at that) was the trip to the Amish area of Sarasota.  If you've never been to Sarasota, you're probably thinking that I'm crazy because the Amish don't live in Sarasota.  But they have to retire somewhere!  There's a really nice Dutch Amish area in Sarasota that's got farmers markets, restaurants, little shops, bakeries, and my real goal- a quilt shop. 

So I took in my $20 bill that I was going to use on fat quarters and leave after that.  Yeah right- as if I could stop at $20.  I didn't go crazy, but it's really easy to rack up a bit of a bill when the fat quarters are $1 more than you're used to and your mom is there going "get this one too!". They had some really nice and subtle colors and they had some fabulous things like honeycombs and Peeps fabric.  Couldn't walk away without those!  So I got a few for my quilt that I'll be starting eventually, and I got 4 patriotic fat quarters to turn in to something for Rob's mom who has a huge 4th of July party every year and collects flag stuff all year round.  That will surely get me some brownie points, right?

I really wanted to take a picture of the inside of the shop because it's amazing and there's about 8 giant frames set up with little Amish ladies at each one of them, hand quilting.  But the Amish don't like having their picture taken (my mom swears the pictures won't even turn out) so we took the picture outside the shop, waiting patiently until the Amish ladies were out of the picture. 

I did take a few knitting projects with me but was pretty monogamous while I was down there.  I've had a baby blanket going in Good For Ewe Chord since July or August and I've been carrying around the first 5 inches for months.  I'm tired of looking at it so I grabbed a bag of white yarn and thought I'd work on it a bit.  I ended up working only on the blanket and went from 5 inches to 17, which should mean that this part of the blanket is just over halfway done. It's lovely to work on, it's just not the most appropriate purse project because it's getting a bit big.  I also took a sock down (made 1 inch of ribbing) and a hat down (made 1 inch of ribbing).  But it's the blanket's turn to be done so I'm getting there. 

So the trip knitting was pretty boring.  But I'd really like to get this blanket done and the pattern written up soon.

So I did come home to a little surprise...my Christmas Cactus start has gone from "surviving" to "growing" and has 2 new little sections growing!  (The awkward yellow/green thing towards the bottom of the biggest leaf and the teeny tiny pink star dot right next to the dirt at the base of the plant) So excited! These things are hard to start! 

I did bring back lemon seeds and kumquat seeds too, so I'll see if I can get those to grow this time- I've been studying up on how to grow citrus plants from seed.