Rough week

Oof.  My laptop died Saturday and I wanted to get in a draft of a project in by Monday.  I had to fire up our old desktop, which, for what it's worth, has been a great trooper.  Unfortunately, totally not portable.

Then, at a follow-up appointment for Paul, post-Achilles surgery, he had an infection, which meant another surgery to remove any possible sources of infection.  So besides worrying about this infection, we are close to square one with the Achilles surgery.

And now work is ramping up and I'm at the hospital and all I can think is how helpful it would be too have a laptop.

Fingers crossed, something lightens up!

Care package to my girl

Besides being buried under tons of Massachusetts snow, my girl is getting ready for exams. Put together a little care package:

All stuff I would love to eat all in one night, though Paul thinks I overdid it on the Kind bars. Hope she digs it!

Happy New Year!

I cleaned the house like a crazy woman yesterday to welcome the Year of the Sheep.

Here's to my mom who was proud of being born in the year of the sheep.

Wishing everyone good fortune in the new year!

Happy Birthday to my man

For my man's birthday, I got a little crafty with his favorite trail mix to sneak into his lunch:

And we had his dream dinner of pizza, wine, and chocolate:

Best birthday wishes to Paul!

Sweetheart 5k run

Man I was getting so anxious for this run.  Yesterday, I mentioned this to a woman at the gym who used to run a lot.  She said, "I've found there are two kinds of runners.  One, those who are in tune with their bodies the whole time, those are...the top runners...the cream of the crop."  She took a wistful pause and I briefly thought she was going to kiss her fingers to honor these elite runners like waiters in Italian restaurants do when describing their transcendent ravioli.  She continued, "the other kind are the ones who need a distraction."  She looked at me, "Maybe you could have a radio."  I totally took no insult that I wasn't an elite runner and confirmed, that yes, yes!  I'll be playing music when I run.

And...I finished!

With a smile, to boot.

It was chilly--in the 30s.  And as usual, I started gasping immediately.  But I finished!  And it was pretty hilly terrain according to my RunKeeper app (fyi, 186 meters is approximately 610 feet):

What threw me off is that part of the trail overlaps part of itself towards the end and a 12K race was starting as we were finishing so we started to run into each other in opposite directions.  I heard a runner say "you got this" and another (thinking I was in his race) helpfully shout, "you're going the wrong way!"  Pretty supportive, don't you think?  I ended up stopping at one point after my app said I finished 5K and checking my map to make sure I was going the right way.  I was on the right path and found my way to the finish line.

According to my splits, I finished 5 km in 39:49, which was in line with my goal.

But apparently, the official 5K finished further out than my app calculated and my official time was 48:27.  At least I have time to beat next year--and I won't need to check a map next time!

Trainwreck

Okay, so I'm pretty sure I want to see this movie (fair warning, this is the red band trailer):



The cast looks great, from the chemistry between Amy Schumer and Bill Hader to Vanessa Bayer. Annnnnnnd...anybody who knows me, knows I love, love, love Tilda Swinton. And it doesn't look like she disappoints here.

"Thank you. You inspire me."

Valentines

And also, #2 of 12 of my "make things" resolution.  Using an iota of my craft stuff, I made a few valentines for my girl and her cousins:

Besides stamping the front, I used my Zink hAppy to print pix to wish them kisses and funny faces inside.  Then I adhered a vintage valentine for some cute sentiment:

Here's a close-up of one to our nephew:

I included a little fruit wrap (though the girl got a Dunkin Donuts gift card) to give them something sweet but didn't bother going overboard since I'm sure they are going to get inundated with sweets by friends and schoolmates. And it doesn't hurt that it kept postage down to one stamp too.  Just a little sweet something from their Auntie!

Another run

I tagged along on another trail run--about 4 miles, which isn't nearly as hilly as the one I'm doing on Valentine's Day.  It was about 30 degrees and yeesh, it felt like the freezing temp that it is.  I still struggled and still feel like I was gasping the whole run.  For what it's worth, it would be awesome if I could maintain this 7:25 min/kilometer pace (it's about 12 min/mile pace) for the run on Valentine's Day so I could meet my goal to do a 5K under 40 minutes, but the extra hills on the actual course may wrench that up a bit. 

We'll see...in less than 7 days, I run that 5K.

I love my Zink hAppy printer

During the lost years of trips up to NJ to help take care of my mom, a great friend gave me a great gift in 2013--a Zink hAppy printer:

Printing photobooth strips from Pocketbooth app

As a scrapbooker, I was often yearning for instant gratification of the photos I took with my iPhone, which made it so easy to take photos of everything: food, friends, moments. Like I said in this post, I love my Instax cameras but there is an unpredictability that is both its charm and weakness--there is definitely magic about the moment you captured but every once in a while, you know the pic that you want in your hands and can't necessarily keep capture with an Instax the way you can with a smartphone.  I was craving a portable photo printer that was compatible with an iPhone and my wish was granted with the production of the Zink hAppy printer.  Some apps, like Pocketbooth, are instantly compatible and I can print my photostrips directly from the app.  For other apps, I can save pix to my camera roll and just use AirPrint to print out pix.

Compared to printing at home, my Zink hAppy prints a little lighter than it looks on my iPhone while my printer at home prints them a bit darker compare to my iPhone:

On top are Zink hAppy prints, on bottom are printer prints

But overall, I'm happy with the prints.  Here's one of the pix from my phone for comparison:

Another detail is that the largest roll a Zink hAppy prints is 2 inches.  So maximum width is 2 inches.  Zink offers a free app, Zink Big, where one can print out a big picture by printing it out in 2 inch tiles.  But for my needs, 2 inch width pictures are not a limitation at all.  On top of that, I LOVE that the Zink rolls are adhesive so when I scrap or craft with the pictures, no glue or tape needed.  I get the 2 inch rolls (for printing out pix, including Instagram pix) and 1 inch rolls (for photobooth pix).  My only quibble is that the rechargeable battery pack that makes it completely portable (like "drop it in your bag and print wherever you want" portable) is available as an accessory and I feel like it should be included with the printer.

I know that there is an Instax Instant Film printer that recently came out, which frankly I totally dig (I love Instax!).  Both are portable and print directly from an iPhone but the film required for the Instax Instant Film printer is usually about $1 per print.  Zink rolls are about $30 for a 19 foot roll--so depending if printing a 2x2 Instagram pic or a regular portrait pic (2x2.75) comes out to 25-40 cents per print.  And bonus, they are adhesive!

I've been really enjoying re-discovering my Zink hAppy--printing out pix and maybe even some crafting will be happening!

A hard run

For one of my supporting goals of my resolutions, I'm aiming to run a 5K under 40 minutes. I ran locally in the streets today and ugh, I was dying. My time wasn't terrible:

But I felt like I was gasping from the get-go and my legs felt like I was shuffling lead.  At one point, I'm shuffling up a hill and gasping so loudly that I can hear myself above the music in my headphones.  I pass a lovely human blonde gazelle as she was running down the hill, her golden ponytail bouncing joyfully above her headband that covered her ears.  She gave me a smile that was a mix of sympathy and encouragement like one gives 4-year-olds when they exclaim they are going to win the Olympics in mud-pie-making.  I tried to reciprocate with a smile but I'm sure it was just a desperate grimace of agony.

Ugh, kind of need to improve by the time of the 5K on February 14th, since it will be a trail run and I'll have to worry about not tripping over sticks and stones and slipping in mud patches on top of the hills and distance.  Fingers crossed...