Open Studio {Petro}

Petro
9"x12"
acrylic

I had so much fun painting this kitty with his striking blue eyes for my sister-in-law Ashley's birthday (one of the Ukranian-named foster kittens she fostered soon after Russia invaded Ukraine). I started 8:40 the night before her birthday and wanted to give it to her on her birthday, so I did it in acrylics as opposed to my usual oils, as acrylics dry almost immediately- a plus, but also, kind offrustrating, as I'm used to being able to blend colors a while after I've put them on the canvas. But it was a fun exercise, and it was done in time deliver to the birthday girl on her birthday.

Aurora Borealis

On Tuesday evening, I got wind via a local facebook page that there might be some northern lights visible in our area. So I went up and looked out Toby's window, which faces north. Sure enough, I could see a faint tint of red and glow of green along the horizon. These photos make it look so much brighter than it was to the naked eye, but it's still cool to see how much color the camera captures.

A little further to the west...

Just a few minutes later, I went up to check again, and the intensity in the spots of color was picking up.

There was a wide band of green snaking across the sky. I called the kids up to see. They oohed and ahhed, and we went back down.

A few minutes later, I went up again to take a peek, and was rewarded with a very bright red. I knew it would be intense by the overall red hue of the sky. The kids kept saying, "Wow! I have never seen the sky so red!"

The trees seemed to be on fire in front of a glowing green backdrop.

Seeing the stars behind it all just added to the beauty. It was like the color was just a thin, translucent film.

I kept going up see see the show- it was lovely.

Later that night, I went out to see, and the clouds had rolled in. The colors just gave the clouds a neat and eerie effect.

I know that much stronger solar storms could mean catastrophe, but I feel blessed that we were able to witness the aurora borealis as brightly as we did, and from our own home. God's paintbrush at work! Just majestic.

Here's the best we could find while in Iceland six years ago when we were on a "Northern lights tour." I'll take our upstairs window.

Ladies' Madison Marathon {10k} weekend

Last weekend, Mike held down the fort so I could have a much-needed ladies' weekend with some great gals, planned around that Madison Marathon, in which we ran the 10k (6.2 miles). We met at an adorable little lake cottage 35 minutes away (the other ladies were coming from Milwaukee and further north) that I found on Airbnb. Saturday was filled with pedicures, picking up our race packets at the capital, yummy food, relaxing, and deciding what we should wear for our race the following morning, as the forecast was looking VERY frigid and windy 🥶 I went to Mass on Saturday evening, and by the time I got out, it had already started to snow.

We set our alarms for 5:30 Sunday morning and were out the door by 6:20 to hopefully make it downtown and park before our race, which was scheduled to start at 7:20. Our phones reported the "feels like" temp: 11⁰F. The snow, though barely covering the ground, was beautiful.

Mike said the kids were "screaming" to go outside. Lol. He sent this pic from home.

we asked someone to take a picture of us in front of the capitol.

There we go!

The return headwinds were NO joke! I couldn't feel my face. I tried pulling up that neck gator, but then I couldn't breathe.

About to cross that finish line... I was trying to stop my MapMyRun :-D

For a few minutes after I finished, I had a hard time moving, my body felt numb, but also muscle-tired. There was Michelob beer and a baked potato bar available for finishing runners, and at 8:30 in the morning, I passed on those, but I did grab an apple cider donut. I had the hardest time chewing it. My face was just frozen.

Frozen stiff, ecstatic to be done!

Not a PR, but not bad for 41 with sciatica and knee pain, with 19mph headwinds! And that last hill leading to the finish was a doozy. I had to stop and walk a couple of times, I just could not make my legs run.

I got more and more stiff throughout, exhibited here nicely by my positive splits.

Our airbnb host was probably the best I've ever had, so accomodating- we asked for an extension so we wouldn't have to pack up so early in the morning before our race, and she extended it even longer than we'd asked for. We were able to stay so Kaethe could see her daughter Mali, who was running the half, finish her race. We could warm up with some coffee before returning to the house to finish packing up. And we snapped a pic of all of us in our race shirts and medals.

We found out later that out of 800-some woman running the 10k, Marissa (on the right) got 12th place overall, 1st in her age group; Hannah (beside me) got 16th place overall, 3rd in her age group; I got 20th overall, 3rd in my age group, and Kaethe got 75th overall and 6th in her age group- go Madison 10k squad! Now we are looking for a possible half marathon to run in the spring (barring any injuries). But hopefully, it will be slightly less windy. I can deal with some snow and cold, and even some rain.

😍

HXN in Nasville {part 2}

We met up with the Eagles for the course walk-through a little after four. It was nice to already know the head coach and some of the runners (Opal ran track with their team in the spring)

Intros. There were a couple of other "Honorary Eagles," whom Coach Pfarr had recruited, one of them, who ended up winning the girl's high school Varsity race! Not a huge surprise- she wins all of our local Wisconsin races, and by a lot.

Ruah, in the blue t-shirt, is the super-speedy one.

I love this course. I wish more runners on our team could experience it. We've had a lot of PRs here.

The middle schollers with Coach Jessie

SO FUN to be able to meet up with our good friends the Tomans, whose team had traveled from near Kalamazoo, MI! Serina and I got to catch up some- maybe next time we won't have to travel to Tennessee to do it X-D

We got done pretty late and headed back to the Drury for pasta dinner. We packed up everything we could to make leaving the next morning easier, and the kids played a quick lobby card game before turning in.

All ready for bed (I didn't realize they wear their uniforms to bed the night before races- I guess it makes sense!

We had to wake pretty early the next morning to have time to eat breakfast and get all checked out by 7:45. In the parking lot, we were greeted by multiple hotel staff on guard, and a poilce officer was standing at the front desk when we went down to breakfast. The next time I went to take a load down, I noticed the glass window of the SUV beside us was knocked out. And then I saw the one on the other side of us was also busted out. I looked at the two hotel workers who were standing in the lot and they just nodded to me and said, "They got all the ones around you." I asked how many total had been hit and they said eight. I don't know why our Transit was spared. We all asked the question. Alas, we did know... By the grace of God. Thank you, Jesus!

Sent from a mom on the team- sadly, it's now blurry.

Amber, a senior, finished her year with an amazing race- she only ran the last three races after finally getting back into it following breaking her tibia during the Belleville race last year! It was fun to watch her take more than two minutes off her season PR!

The middle school boys about to race!

Coach Russow imparting some words of wisdom.

(REVSCOTTPHOTO ~ I bought one $6 non-printable photo of each of the kids running because proceeds went to a good cause, plus, they're awesome photos!)

Middle schoolers ran a rolling 2.1 mile course. Last year, Toby ran the 1 mile elementary schooler course. The Eagles coach put his goal at 14:05 based on his times from earlier this year, but he made a personal goal of 13:30. And he got 13:08! He was just a second behind Jeremiah. The two of them have been neck and neck this season, really pushing each other.

I absolutely love this! This little gutsy guy should have run in the 1 mile elementary race (he's only in 3rd grade), but to save us from waiting a couple extra hours to go home, he agreed to run in the 2.1 mile middle school race. Coach had made his goal 16:05, based on his earlier season times, and he pulled out a 14:46! Go Joel!

Coach Pfarr imparting some words of wisdom to the middle school girls

Opal had a great, strong race to finish out the season, too. Last year, she got 13:16 at this course, placing 27th for middle school girls in 6th grade. This year, she got 12:48, placing 23rd!

Sadly, I never saw Ella come through, and got a call from Coach Pfarr 7 minutes in saying that Ella was down. She had alerted the gator, who went to look for her, and I headed back to look for her as well. I met up with her and Coach P at the medic station. She had been spiked early in the race, along with a couple of other girls and that was the end of the race for her- a nasty gash, but she was so tough.

Post-race, sad to not meet her buddy at the finish but grabbed a sibling hug

We were all glad to see Ella up and able to walk over to awards.

Great job, kiddos!

We left the race around noon, stopped and got subs for lunch and Chick-fila for dinner and got home around 10:45, but with the time change a few hours later, it was more like 9:45.... another fantastic whirlwind, three-day trip to TN for Homeschool Nationals. We're hoping we can recruit more teammates so we can compete as a complete Holy Family team next year!