Life

22 Before 22: Run a Race

Before..

This is a great example of why I set goals for myself.

I’m a person who likes my routines. I am not super fond of changes to my routines, or disruptions in my life. These things are inevitable, of course, and I deal with them as they come, but I sometimes think I’d be quite content to just have my steady, reliable schedule to follow. At the same time though, I have lots of dreams and plans and things I want to accomplish! I have lots of fun activities in mind that I hope to one day do. I don’t want to miss out on anything, and I want to experience my life to the fullest. Conundrum.

That’s where goals come in. They remind me of all the fun things I hope to do, and motivate me to disrupt my regular patterns in ways that ultimately make me very happy. Yes, sometimes I grumble, or am annoyed by the hassle that these activities bring, but in the end I am always so excited that I signed myself up and followed through. For Diner en Blanc, the annoyances were things like running countless errands in order to collect all the white materials we needed. For The Colour Run, my major grumble was having to wake up at 6:30AM to do it! (and don’t worry, every time I caught myself getting annoyed about that, I just thought “get over yourself, Stephanie!”) I was also a little stressed about keeping up with my friends, and sometimes cursed myself (usually while on a run) for having initiated the registration of this event with my friends.

In the end, though, it was wonderful. I got to spend time with friends I don’t see nearly often enough, and we spent the whole 5K gossiping and catching up. Because I participated, I ran my first “race” since high school. I laughed and laughed and laughed, especially at the DIY colour powder station where we practically rolled around on the ground and put orange handprints on each other’s faces. They played music, everyone was smiling, we were running right by the water for most of it, and it was the most beautiful fall day. Even taking the metro home, full of coloured people, was fun and special.

They say that you can buy happiness if you buy experiences instead of stuff. I tend to agree. This past year I’ve bought myself a few really wonderful experiences (this race, Diner en Blanc, tickets to Wicked) and they have been so rewarding. The memories are really special, and I feel like I bonded with my friends through them. As I’m pondering my goals for next year, I think I’m going to try to more actively incorporate that idea of buying experiences into my life.

If you ever get the chance to do The Colour Run (or one of the similar races), I recommend it! It’s a great way to get used to a busy, hectic race environment with lots of people, but it’s also fun and laid back, not really a high pressure situation. Plus it’s awesome to run through clouds of coloured powder (doesn’t affect your lungs as you might think) and end up looking like a rainbow.

PS. I didn’t take these photos (because I was running!). So thanks, V, for being our personal photographer! And thanks to Amanda for letting me use them. 

Project 365: Weeks 39 + 40

I still love the idea of this project. Truly, I do. By using my camera every single day, I know I’ve improved. I know more about how my camera works, I can experiment with settings, etc. I’m nowhere near an expert, but I have improved.

But it does get tiresome, taking a photo every single day! If only because it forces me to find something to photograph on a day that seems otherwise fairly mundane. I suppose that’s a good thing! Still, a good number of these photos end up being inside my apartment, posed on my dining room table. As you can see, I have mixed feelings about this project. I think next year I’ll prefer to just take photos whenever inspiration strikes (as much as possible) and not have a daily “must”.

Happy Friday!

Project 365: Weeks 37 + 38

Some of these photos I love, some of them I don’t love. I’m trying hard to practice my photography because I have had it up to here with not being able to take a picture that looks the way I want it to! It’s such a long process though. I am really happy to have done Project 365 because it forces me to practice every day. I like that! And I like having documentation of every day this year.

These past few weeks have gone by in a huge blur. My photos will attest that I spent a lot of time indoors, reading (as I will for the rest of the winter, most likely), but had a few adventures too. I hope that’s how my winter goes as well.

I’m happy because I only have a few days left before I head home for the Thanksgiving long weekend. Hooray! :) Happy Friday everyone.

10/10: Pink Polka Dot Dress

Guys, I’m going to do a little report on my break from the internet soon, but let’s just say: a) it was not overly successful, but b) it was totally necessary for me to not blog/Facebook/Pinterest for that first week of September, and c) taking that much time away from my blog doesn’t make me feel good.

Do you know what does make me feel good? Conquering an extremely frustrating project.   Let me give you some context on this dress. Before sewing this dress, the extent of the sewing I’d done was cutting out two tubes of fabric and sewing three seams to make this skirt, and practicing seams on scraps of fabric. That’s all.

Turns out, there’s a *ton* of knowledge that one needs to follow a sewing pattern. That includes knowing how to even read the pattern, how to pin pattern pieces to the fabric properly, what all those funny marks on the paper mean, what to do when your sewing machine (inevitably) jams, how to finish seams, etc, etc, etc. And this is all basic stuff! Despite my stubbornness (“I’m going to sew a dress, darn it!”), I had actually chosen a relatively simple pattern – it’s just that there’s still so much I didn’t know how to do.

So how did I manage? I yelled at my pattern a lot (wish I was exaggerating). I would take the pattern one sentence at a time, and sometimes half a sentence. I called my mom about how to cut out fabric. I Googled everything and watched a lot of Youtube videos. I Googled some more. I tentatively followed the steps.

It was a bit of a meditation, actually. I was really eager to be finished the project (as I always am), but I couldn’t really rush this one. Every time I tried to rush, I’d almost mess up, and I’d have to remind myself that I wanted to do a good job, and that I needed to focus. #lifelessons

Trust me, nobody was more amazed (or motivated) than I was when I saw this dress start to take shape. Every time I finished a step it looked slightly more wearable, and it made me giddy. And guess what? Now that it’s finished, it really is wearable – and I’ve actually worn it! Success!

I bought my pattern from Simplicity, it’s called Misses’ Dresses. The one I made is called the Diplomat dress. I think the pattern was good, but I will never again buy a printable pattern – the system was not easy to use to download it, and it was so much extra work to print, cut, and tape together the pattern pieces. I picked out my fabric at Fabricville because it was cotton, and because it was pink polka-dotted.

I have to say that although this was without a doubt the most frustrating of my 10 DIYs this year, it is also probably my favourite. I am really proud to have accomplished it, and opened the door (to myself) to make more sewing patterns. Not that bad once you get the hang of it!

I’ve completed 10 DIY projects this year! To see the others, click here. 

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