Skipper

Well I guess I'm officially a Wednesday night Woods Run Skipper.  Today I had to go into school to get a bunch of stuff figured out for the new school year and by the time I was done there, I had no interest in hanging around until 6:30 waiting for a run to start. So I went to the gym and then scooted on home.  Maybe next week I'll make it back to the Woods again.  Time will tell.

I did go for a run yesterday, around Horn Pond for a change of scenery.  It wasn't a terrible run, but it is a small loop, so I did it twice, but we all know how I feel about loops.  If you've never been to Horn Pond, there's one path on the back side, near the golf course/water treatment plant that basically goes straight up.  It's about a quarter to a half mile long and it is seriously a hardcore climb.  Mostly because it's just steep and continuous.  Obviously to make my run worth more, I started on that side and made it to the top.  Unfortunately I was turned back by a Momma turkey and her little baby turkeys.  They were crossing the path and I"m not fool enough to mess with Momma birds.  So I turned right back around and ran down that path again.  On the second go around I attempted the top one more time, because it's a nice view, even when it's cloudy.  This time the turkeys were gone and I got my view.  Then I had to go back down the other side, which is much harder than it should be.  It's a rocky path/small cliff that goes down in the same way the other trail goes up.  Steep and continuous.  If I had to compare it to anything to give you a visual, it looks like a place where a river or small stream would cut through.  But I made it down and back onto the trail no problems.


At the end of the run, I managed 5 miles and some short extra workouts on the side.  Tomorrow I think I'm going to try and run around the park near our house.  It has some nice trails, but they all seem short.  I've never really explored back there though, so it's possible that there are longer trails off the main loop.  Otherwise there's always the workout circuit at Manning Forest.  Until then, I might have a picture from my run yesterday, so you can enjoy that you lucky ducks.

Made it to the top.

Surprise second picture!

Beer Bouquet

Have you ever had that someone in your life who you've known for their whole life, but just can't figure out what to get him/her for a gift anyways?  Recently I came upon this problem as I tried to figure out the perfect gift for my cousin who turned 30 this July.  I know what he likes and doesn't like, but I just couldn't figure out a gift that would be good enough for a thirtieth.  After a while, I decided that it couldn't be something bought, it would have to be made.  And I know that one of his favorite things in life is beer, of any variety.  Eventually I settled on making a beer bouquet.  Which is exactly what it sounds like.  Now, I could go into detail about how I made it, but honestly, it was a hard thing to put together and it would be hard for someone to recreate by following a bunch of steps.  Rather, I recommend taking the general idea from the pictures provided and running with it on your own.  Of course if you're extremely interested in the process, you can let me know and I'll come back with an update.  Or, if you really want one, but don't have the skills to make one, you can let me know and I'll be happy to make you one for a reasonable price! Until then, here are the pictures, good luck!

Seashell Wind Chime

Craft 1: Seashell wind chime.  Perhaps you know from a few years back that I created a simple summer centerpiece by painting a bunch of seashells and putting them in a square vase/jar.  Well, I've used this centerpiece for the past few years and I felt like the shells weren't working to their full potential, so I decided to repurpose them into something new.  I came up with the brilliant idea of a wind chime, and I have to say that it came out pretty good.  It was a basic project.  I got a wooden letter G from Michael's, drilled four holes in the bottom and one on the top for a hanger.  Then I took 12 shells of varying sizes and drilled holes in those.  Pro tip: when drilling through a shell, use a masonry bit, not a wood drill bit, it will break the wood ones.  Anyways, so after the holes were drilled, I attached one shell laying flat to the G.  This shell was the base for the rest of the chime.  I attached the smaller shells, two to a line, on the four ends of the base shell.  I also attached a larger shell to the middle, as sort of a buffer, and added two shells to the bottom of that as well.  All in all, it came out looking real cute, and it sounds pretty when the wind blows, so it's a win all over.  For the sake of the craft, I'm including these pictures here.

Materials: drill, drill bits, letter of your choice, shells, fishing line, and a pencil to mark your drill spots.

Drill spots marked

Holes drilled

Ready to be attached

Final product!

Camp life

Last week/weekend was our annual Runyan/Troisi camping trip and it was just as good as I hoped it would be.  We've been going camping together for 24 years, sometimes for 10 days, sometimes for three, but we've always managed to get in at least one trip with almost everyone there.  There's a lot that goes into these camping trips and obviously a lot that can never be explained to an outsider, but I can't let the event pass without acknowledgement, because it was a real fun weekend, as the camping trips usually are at this point in our lives.

While I was at the lake I managed to get in a few short runs, 3 miles per run.  Conveniently, two laps around area 2, a lap around the lake, and the trail back to the site is just about 3 miles.  I liked doing the lake trail because it gave that added difficultly level of dodging rocks and tree roots, as well as snakes apparently.  Aside from running, I also did a lot of swimming, a little bit of paddleboarding, and one run across the actual lake, in water, from rope to rope.  Plus there was the usual family game night, S'mores making, and general hanging out around the fire that happens every trip.  So I probably could have/should have run longer distances, but I didn't.

Since I was camping and driving back and forth to see the Impractical Jokers, I didn't make it to the woods runs this week either, much like I figured.  Generally I would end this post here, but tonight I have a craft or two to add in.   So I'm going to add the photos from camping and then create two more short posts about the crafts. Enjoy!

After my run around the lake, I jumped in, because it was humid AF out there.

Michelle hanging at Diana's Bath

The top of the bath...sort of.

sunset sketch

Impractical Jokers

Muffin Lady Legacy.  Too bad not everyone was there for the picture...

And the original photo from our first year of camping. Look how much we've grown!

My legs, my poor little legs

They're sore.  I don't know. That's it really.  Ran a 10K on Saturday, mostly hills, because Gloucester, calves have been sore ever since.  Welcome to running.  I tried stretching, foam rolling, shakeout runs, more working out even, but still, they fire on.  I guess this is my life now.  Oh well.  But for real. I bought new shoes to see if I could eliminate the blister problem that my good old Hoka's were causing.  Plus, I found a New Balance warehouse that was close to the house and was having a 30% off everything sale, so why not?  I wore those lovely new shoes for the 10K and surprise, got a blister.  Then in a moment of clarity, I realized that I could feel the insole back under my toes, which is not where it belongs.  After the race I looked at the shoes and the insoles had slid way back leaving a nice little gap of at least 6 inches.  So I deduced that the blister problem isn't actually from the sneakers, but from the insole sliding around.  As a crafty person I figured a quick fix would be some super glue, so I got some, glued those suckers down, and 4 days later went for another run.  I used the same shoes, took them for 8 miles on the Battle Road just to see how well the glue held up.  Seems to have done a decent job, no blisters in sight. Sadly, I think the Battle Road causes my knee to hurt, something about whatever it's made out of, so that after 4.5 there was a mix of walk/running again.  Which is too bad because up until that point, I was actually doing well on this run, making good time and not being too hot, which is a change from the usual.  But now according to science, the heat dome is coming, so it's back to turtle pace I guess.  Well, turtle pace for me anyways.


Let's see, nothing else really happening here.  I did not run the woods yesterday because we took a day trip to White Lake instead.  Next week is my camping week, so I probably won't be running the woods then either, but that's to be determined.  We have tickets to see the Impractical Jokers next Thursday night, so I haven't decided if I'm going to come home Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning.  Depends on the weather up there I suppose.  Other than that I've just been reading and coming up with ideas for crafts that I'm not actually making.  Oh yea, a groundhog ate all of my pumpkin and watermelon plants that were just starting to flower, so I'm kind of mad about that.  I just wanted to have a few nice plants.  Now I'll have to wait until next Spring AND make sure I get some chicken wire to keep the things out.   Although I read that groundhogs will chew through wood and wire too, so who knows if that's actually the solution.  For now I'm just going to be annoyed about it anyways.

Ok, done with that.  Here are your pictures for the week.

Woods run from last week.  Temperature provided for your entertainment.

Obama Face Swap.  Obama now looks like Kenny. 

Ohh hey new shoes.  

10K start

10K finish

Cousin face swap.  These are the only pictures I have right now, sorry!

y=mx+b

Yup, that's the formula of a line.  I'm sure you think this is a clever tie-in to running hills or something equally as funny, but alas, it's not. It really is just the formula for finding the y-intercept when you already have the coordinates and know the slope.  Why is this the title of today's post then, you might be asking.  Well, since it is summer and I have free time galore, I decided to fill that time with some good old professional development.  It sure was nice to have vacation while it lasted.  Ahhh the good old days.  Anyways, so I signed up for this middle school mathematics class because there were extra spots open and I figured I could use the PDPs.  Turns out though, they actually expect you to KNOW middle school math.  Now isn't that something?  We spent the majority of today graphing lines and find line stories and I was woefully lost.  Newsflash, algebra is not my strong suit.  Everything made sense when there were numbers in place, but then the person leading the class took away the numbers and turned everything into letters, and there I was, staring at the page like a cow in a tornado.  (Alright, that's a terrible metaphor, but basically, I was lost and had no idea what I was doing there.) And so here I am, googling all the different ways to find the y-intercept.  Which is all great except that it still doesn't make sense when I replace the numbers with letters, so I don't really know what to do about that.  Just be glad I'm not teaching children how to solve linear equations!

Anyways, I'm taking a break from solving line equations now and just throwing in a quick update since I missed two weeks again.  Sorry about that, but I am rather busy, and I'm pretty sure about 10 people read this anyways.  If you're interested in the woods runs, two weeks ago was the 2nd tour, which was fun but HOT.  Well, not so much hot as it was high humidity.  It was 6.5 miles of struggling through sweat and dodging slippery rocks because it had just finished raining before the race.  I do like the tours, even if they do have an elevation gain of 720 feet.

Last week was the regular old 4 mile run that always falls around the 4th of July.  I'd love to say it was easier than the tour, but I'd be lying.  By all means, it should have been easier, but for me it wasn't.  That run goes up by Stone Tower and Steel Tower, which are both large hills. I don't know, it could have been the heat again, or perhaps I've just given up at running consistently because I found myself walking quite a bit again.  At this point, I've taken on a whatever attitude towards it, which obviously isn't helping.  I've even been walking the bits of the Battle Road trail in Lexington, which is just ridiculous because it's fairly flat there.  Hot tip: Great spot for Poke stops if you're playing the hot new game of 2016.  There's one at every historical marker and if you've been on that trail, there are historical markers basically every 20 feet, and that's no lie.

Aside from the running, I've been catching up on months worth of missed reading.  I hit up all those must read book lists that Buzzfeed publishes, compiled a list of books that seemed most interesting, and hit the library.  Some of the books I ended up with were just new releases that looked good when I picked them up, others are from the lists, but in case you're wondering, here's what I've read so far.  Sorry, I don't record the author, only the title, so I can't help you with that.
-Lilac Girls
-Carry On
-Lovecraft Country
-Midair
-Modern Lovers
-The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
-Kindred
-Pym
-Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles)
-Scarlett (The Lunar Chronicles)

So far I've enjoyed reading all of them but obviously I've liked some better than others.  I'd recommend them all, but fair warning, most of them are kind of bummer stories, turns out, and not great beach reads.  Carry On would probably be ok on the beach, but the others aren't exactly light-hearted fluff.  Still, if you're bored, check out any one of them for something to do.  I do suppose I should get back to lines now, so enjoy the pictures until next time.

Oh ya, we went go-carting too. That was fun, but surprisingly tiring.

Just a picture of the beach.

After 6.5 tour.  My shoulder looks ripped, but I don't feel like it does the sweat justice, I really was covered.

4 miles, not as sweaty.

WARNING!!!

There is a picture of my blister following this, so if you do not want to see it, don't look any further!

This stupid blister has been on the side of my foot since the Boston Marathon. I've done everything to make it go away and it just won't.  I honestly think the only solution at this point is to get new running shoes.  I've tried taping, soaking, lotion, everything I can think of to get this thing to go away and stop reappearing and nothings worked.  So if you have any other suggestions, please, I'm all ears!

Run skipper

Last Wednesday I had jury duty in Salem.  That ended at noon, so I went home to hang out with the pups. Once I arrived home and got everything done, I was not interested in driving back up to Lynn for the woods run.  Then I looked at the traffic and Google told me it was an hour and ten minute drive, which really sealed my decision.  So I skipped the run.  Maybe it wasn't the best choice, but sometimes you just don't feel like driving an hour to run an hour.  Don't worry though, I'll be there this week like always, burning up those trails.

I've been doing some light running along with the trail runs, but nothing too spectacular.  I'm pretty sure I went through this same cycle last year at this time, of not wanting to run or workout at all.  Of course I will continue to do so because otherwise I'm just sitting around the house working on school stuff all day, and who wants to do that?  There's a state forest about a mile down the road from us that has a little workout circuit trail, so maybe I'll run down there and check it out later this week.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that today was the last day of school.  Sure, June is basically over, but it's the last day all the same.  I have a glorious two weeks off before I have to go back for a professional development class, and then another few weeks before Cross Country starts.  We had sign-ups for that today, actually.  There were about 10 boys that signed up and a whopping two girls.  Yes you read that right, two whole girls.  I think I may have two more that just weren't in school today, but I'm not 100% on that.  Otherwise I'm really hoping to talk it up at the woods and convince kids there to join.  Hopefully some of the incoming freshmen are willing to join too.

Aside from all that, not much else happening.  We went to the Boston Public Market and Haymarket on Saturday.  At Haymarket we bought 3 packages of strawberries for $2.00 and a package of raspberries and blackberries for $2.00, spending a total of $4.00 on fresh fruit.  Best deal I've ever seen, even if some of the raspberries were squished.  Seriously, Haymarket is a goldmine if you go later in the day.  Of course we got pastries in the North End while we were there too.  The line for Mike's was so absurdly long that it wasn't even worth thinking about.  So we went over to Modern Pastry instead, which is equally as good and had no line at all.  They also had the butter cookies, so I bought another pound of those.  No judgement, those cookies are delicious.

Other than that, it was just another regular week at the Gibbs'.  Enjoy these pictures of things that happened that I didn't write about.

We had a paint party at school, exactly like an adult paint night, without the drinking.  I taught the kids how to paint fireworks.  It was fun and exhausting all at once.

Five grades, five paintings. All are mine, none are the same.

I finally put my Undress to use.  Changed from my work clothes to my running clothes at the woods.

Transition stage

Putting on running clothes. I then left the woods and ran at the beach. There's no changing back photos, but it worked just as well in that direction. Great purchase, so worth it!

When I'm bored, I practice my Bocce skills while Stella watches

Saturday afternoon adventures

Made pizza on the grill the other night and it was fantastic.  Highly recommend.

What a weird dog.....