The End of My Virtual Run

Let's see . . .  where was I?

next goal: Orono's Hope Chest     5 miles away

carried over from last milestone: 

5/19  Paws on Parade with my neighbors!!   1 mile

AND  then . . . . 

5/22   Walking with Mary   hot and windy   1.7 miles

5/28   1.17   Treadmill

5/29   1.7   walk with Mary

and the total for these is 5.57!!!!

http://hopechest.us/Orono
The Hope Chest for Breast Cancer Foundation
Our Mission is to help under-served or financially distressed individuals and their families touched by breast cancer. 

A great place to shop

for lots of

good reasons

!!!! 

And that is .57 beyond Hope Chest, which takes me the last .5 mile leg of my journey up the hill and to the front door of . . . .  Minnetonka Mud,

a very cool place to enjoy coffee and a sandwich!

Minnetonka Mud Coffee Cafe
3465 Shoreline Dr
Wayzata, MN 55391
(952) 471-9848

SO, I've actually made it to my goal:  Minnetonka Mud!!!!!   a total of 41.2 miles.

Slow . . .  and not so steady . . .  but indeed, FORWARD!

And moving more than before.

My job comes to its yearly end in about a week or so.

I will set a new goal that will help me prepare for the 5K Day!!!!   July 14, in Henning, MN!!!

I think I can. I think I can!

PS: AND I am thinking how fun that Megan is participating in the Color Run in Mpls. in July!!!

http://thecolorrun.com/minnesota/          Note: this link includes a colorful video!!!

Discarded

Day 79
Challenge:
Work with materials you find laying around on the ground.

I found all of these little scraps and wrappers and this fine looking stick and the seed near the shipping/receiving door at West this morning on my way to work. 

 Snail Flag

I showed some of my students how they can make a little flag out of a stick! When I hesitated in naming the tree seed, they kindly reminded me that it is called a helicopter.

Oh yes. Now I remember . . .  from forever!

It is the very best to throw a handful up to the sun and dance in them 

as they whirl back to earth.

@

Deli Drawing

Day 102
Challenge:
Write a palindrome.
Palindrome: A word or phrase that when read backward is exactly the same as when it is read forward (though changes in punctuation and spacing are allowed). 

Bonus: Illustrate it!

Trailed Deli Art

Abstract

Day 81
Challenge:
Make something out of erasers.

 Alien Snail

Connections

'thinking to myself how Leaning Snail came to be  . . . 


1. I attend the Home Extension Dinner on April 16. It is an Italian theme. Thank you DC and MAC!

2. The place card at my setting is Leaning Tower. I save it because I really like it. 

3. The inspiration for my blog creations, A Daily Creativity Journal: 365  Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life!  by Noah Scalin, suggests on Day 71 "Make something that seems like it came from another era in history". 

4. I imagine the tower being the snail's shell.  I think about this for a long time. Maybe a month. I think about it so long that I loose the place card when I finally sit down to begin work on it. It is lost for a week or so. 

5. Now relocated, I darken the image with brown shoe polish and trim a bit of the detail from the red paper frame. I add a soft green piece, completing the transformation. It also gets a bit of polish.

6. I photograph it on several different pages of a coffee table book I have long owned. In Tuscany, by Frances Mayes.

7. I remember this book because I watched Under the Tuscan Sun on Oxygen earlier this week while I am washing the dishes that had piled up because I was working on a blog post. Frances Mayes wrote the book on which this movie is based.

8. Friday evening, May 25, or maybe it was very early Saturday morning, I post my favorite of the photos and add a little bit of information from a Website on the Pisa Tower. To my delight, it includes the word spiral!!!!

9. Early this morning [2:35am] I am awake and hungry. While munching on Kashi and banana slices in soy, in the half dark, I page through In Tuscany. I spend time in the section called La Festa!

I learn that every town has at least one sagra, a festival that focuses on a particular food. There are celebrations for truffles, frog legs, cherries, potato, rabbit, pine nuts, cheese, and bread [to name a few]!  And dare I hope . . . ????  . . . . yes . . . .  snails/lumaca! In early spring, Cartona holds The Sagra della Lumaca!  I feel like I have come full circle.

One Further Note:

I become curious about the author of the book and learn she lives with her husband in San Francisco and also in Cartona, Italy! We have visited San Francisco a few times to see our youngest son, Scott, so by now, cereal bowl empty and probably 3 o'clock in the morning, I am so hepped up on connections that I'm pretty sure Frances Mayes knows me and that I am really good friends with her.  

So FuN!

@

 

Very Old

Day 71
Challenge:
Make something that seems like it came from another era in history.

Solution:  
Date:   1174 AD
Place:  Italy
Style:   Romanesque

 Leaning Snail of Pisa

Inspired by a recent and delightful Italian gathering 

of Home Extension Friends!

@

Note:

The top of the Leaning Tower can be reached by mounting the 294 steps which rise in the form of a spiral on the inner side of the tower walls!!!

Taken from 

http://www.italyguides.it/us/pisa/leaning_tower.htm 

by Deb F. on 5/25/12

Story (Edited!)

Day 78
Challenge:
Write a story for a stranger you see.



As tourists go, the two New Yorkers intrigue me even before I see them
as a couple, boarding arm in arm.
And after the launch leaves the docks and we are moving across the water, I consider them as much as I take in the lakes and islands.

She is younger, confident in a “less is more” way, wearing simple diamond earrings and carrying an Audubon Guide in the back pocket of her vest.
He is older, in two layers of sweaters, graying, approachable.

The ranger has just spotted a loon with chicks and announces their location over the speaker. They are out ahead of us and to the left, a good distance across the waves.
She lifts her German engineered binoculars, briefly adjusts the focus, and, with a slight nod, confirms it.

She moves her finger across her phone. From my place on the bench just behind her I see images of birds appear and disappear until she finds what she is looking for.
I imagine she enters:   Loon with Chicks   July 26, 2011    Voyaguers Ntl. Pk.

On the return trip he and I find ourselves at the front of the launch.
He tells me they hope to say they’ve visited all the national parks. But time is not on their side. He is nearly eighty, and some, such as the one in Samoa, are so distant.

He speaks of her birding interest. I mention my fascination with snails.

Upon debarking Steve and I visit the Learning Center and make reservations for a second boat tour the following afternoon.

The next day, waiting on the dock, we see them again . . .  getting off, arm in arm.
We exchange surprised greetings before going our separate ways.

When we are seated, I lean over and tell Steve how nice it was to see their familiar faces. And how it feels like we have known them for a long long time.

It still does.

Note: 

Dear readers! Thank you for your continued patience with my spelling and my edits.
Yes, earring has two R's and John Audubon's vowels are not what I thought them to be.

Separate is better than seperate, because now the word doesn't have a dotted red line under it when I am looking at the draft of this post. 

Sometimes I don't catch my errors until I see them in hard copy . . .  or on my smart phone. Or while standing on my head!   :)