First Giveaway and Goals for The Week

Please Check out my Giveaway for a free set of holiday cards or birth announcements at Giveaway! Pretty Ink Designs Holiday Cards and Birth Announcements. 

Running Goals:
*  Continue to build a base and keep building back strength in my hamstring
*  Slowly add in more interval work and small amounts of speed
*  Consider a Race schedule for 2011 and possibly find some races for early in the year.
*  Look into possibly joining a women's running club: Team Athena.  Might be nice to have a team to do speed work with on Tuesday nights.

Nutrition:
*  Start being more conscious of eating more fruits and veggies.  Especially veggies.  This weekend and past week was awful for food choices. 
*  Find better ways of getting my 16 month old to eat veggies!

Motherhood:
*  Be present with my children
*  Try to find time to spend reading with each one.
*  Not letting my to-do list take precedence over spending quality time with my kids

Happy Monday,
Amanda

Giveaway! Pretty Ink Designs Holiday Cards or Birth Announcements!

It's that time of year when some of you are starting to think about taking family holiday pictures and deciding on your holiday card to send out to friends and family!  Even if you are not one that sends out cards, or that celebrates the holidays, most of us know of someone who does.  I know that I love to get personalized cards in the mail!  I love seeing pictures of all my friends and family.  I also love getting birth announcements in the mail.  These special cards are always a joyful reminder of this beautiful life!

I'm excited to announce that the owner and designer at Pretty Ink Designs is giving away a set of 50 holiday cards or birth announcements to the lucky winner of this giveaway.  The quality and originality at Pretty Ink Designs is FABULOUS! I've always loved every card I've seen from her. When you win, all you'll need to do is choose a picture you want to use and contact Pretty Ink Designs with your order.  Who doesn't know someone who would love to have free custom designed Holiday Cards or Birth Announcements?!  I wish I could enter my own giveaway.

 This Giveaway will be open until November 28th and I will announce the winner on the morning of November 29th.

 So here's how to play. Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

*  Go to Pretty Ink Designs Facebook Page and "like" it and let me know you did (1 entry)

*  Go to  Pretty Ink Designs Etsy Page and tell me what card you would order if you won.  If you are interested in birth announcements, the designer is adding samples of those to her Etsy page soon.  Just let me know that you would want birth announcements.  (1 entry)

*  Be a follower of my blog

Optional:
*   Mention this giveaway (and include a link of this giveaway) on a blog post and let me know you did.  (2 entries)

*  Include a link to this giveaway somewhere on your blog page (and yes, let me know you did).
(1 entry)

*  Just for fun, If you have a blog, tell me why you started blogging and how long you've been doing it. 

Good luck and thanks for participating!

Amanda

Tree, Holiday Cards, Art, Thanksgiving and Other Randomness



1.  Okay, so is it too early to put our Christmas Tree up?  We usually wait until after Thanksgiving but  I really have the itch to do it today!  My husband says absolutely not!  But I say Why Not?! 

2.  This Tree topic makes me excited to tell you about my first giveaway that I have in the works for Monday!  I'm so excited because I wanted it to be a giveaway that isn't just for runners but something that will reach the interests of all kinds of people!  I know not everyone celebrates Christmas, but most people either know of someone or they themselves have a use for some kind of announcement, invitation or Holiday Card! And what's better than getting a set of custom made cards, invitations, or announcements for free?! All you'll have to do is send in a picture that you want to use.  I have not ironed out the details yet but I'll have more to say about this giveaway soon! 

3.  Thank you for all your comments and feedback about the Cher Odum art I wrote about in The Beauty of Art, The Essence of a Runner.  She is definitely working on coming up with something new.  I know art is such a personal preference and what one person loves, another might take no interest in.  Such is the beauty of art!

 

4.  I ran 4 miles on the treadmill last night and reached another new level in my recovery!  Today I think I'm going to try to get in 6 at an easy pace. Good news is that I don't feel any pain in my hamstring!  I've been using my kinesio tape and stretching really good so this is helping.   Thinking of all you that are coming back from an injury...I know how hard it can be to not run!  Just keep focusing on the your goal and visualizing yourself running free and strong.  Visualizing and remaining focused on healing and strength help speed up the recovery process!

A shout out to several NW blogger runners who are running in the EWEB Run To Stay Warm .  Good luck ladies:   Elkton Runner, Little Fruit Fly, Laurie, and Kim!

5.  Holiday Traditions.  I'm so excited for Thanksgiving.  It is my favorite holiday.  I love getting out my nice table cloths, dishes, decorations and music and making it a really nice dinner.  I know for some it is a more relaxed day with football and eating on the couch all day but for me it more of a fancy occasion.  I usually have everyone write down what they are thankful for (with some twist) and then we include them in our gratitude album where we can look back to all the past years and see how far we've all come in life. Everyone is so good about humoring me.  They even agree to share their gratitude cards at the table before we eat.  And the only thing that would make it more festive is a decorated TREE!  ;)

What are your Thanksgiving Traditions?

Amanda