Finishing a Marathon is a State of Mind That Says Anything is Possible

Look at my new project!

I've been training for my eighth marathon, which just sounds crazy to say.  When I started this journey in 2013, my goal was just to finish one marathon.  I had just finished a half marathon, and I very foolishly thought, "I could probably keep going...another 13.1 miles."  Every time I train for one, I think that I'm nuts, and each time I finish one I can hardly wait for the next one.  That's what has led me to run two marathons every year.

Finish Line, Fox Cities Marathon 2014

As a result of running these marathons, I have a bunch of race shirts (that I wear almost all the time!), lots of bib numbers (which went directly in my scrapbook), and a couple of really cool medals, which have basically just sat in a drawer.  That is a sad place to put medals.  I get to wear them for one day (race day, obviously) and then they just fade into obscurity.

I've seen medal displays at race expos, but they can be $80 or more, and I'm just not willing to spend that much.  So...DIY time!

I started by buying 6 inch wooden letters that would spell out the word RUNNING.

I painted them all white to start with, and then I decided to paint each one a different color, so it would be like a rainbow.  And then I also decided to do a different pattern for each one.

R=red thick horizontal stripes

U=orange polka dots

N=yellow diagonal varied stripes

N=green ombre

I=blue zig zag stripes

N=purple sponge paint

G=pink overlapping dots  

Then, off I went to the hardware store, where I picked up an oak board 1x10x36, six hooks, and some picture hangers.  

I painted the board black, because I thought the rainbow letters would stand out more against a black background, instead of wood-colored.  I lined up the letters so that they would span the entire distance, but I left about 2 inches at the bottom for the hooks.

The hooks ended up being a problem.  I initially thought (confirmed by my husband) that I could hand screw in the hooks.  Turns out oak is a lot harder than anticipated...so my husband had to drill some holes in the board to let us get the screws in.  We may have broken a couple of screws, but we did end up getting them in.  And by "we," I mostly mean my husband did that part for me.

Thanks honey!

The hooks had silver screws, so I painted over them with some black paint, and also touched up some of the places where you could tell that we had drilled into the board because the black paint was chipped away.  

Once everything was attached, I hung it up and hung up my medals on the board--which was really exciting!  Somehow the amount of races I've run seems a lot more impressive when they're all hung up on a board and displayed.  Check it out:

  

Ignore the bar...it is temporarily hung in the bathroom, and that's the towel bar.  

It will move to its permanent home soon.  

Yay!  I'm so excited about this.  I'm actually working on a whole running wall, complete with pictures, quotes, a poster, and this medal display.  Hopefully it turns out just as nicely as this display did!  

Wedding Sugar Cookies

Guess what came in the mail yesterday?

That's right: wedding cookie cutters!  Actually, I had forgotten I ordered these, so I left sugar cookies out of the plan.  Oops.  But luckily, sugar cookies are one of those things that, if stored in an air-tight container, will keep for up to two weeks.  I only need them to keep for one week, so I'd say that this isn't a problem at all.  

So I got out everything that I would need for sugar cookies. 

• 1 1/2 c. butter
• 2 c. sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 5 c. flour

I whipped it all together and ended up with...

Ok, not very interesting.  But it has to chill for at least an hour before I can do anything with it.  

In the meantime, I ate breakfast (while enjoying a great storm.)  I was sort of glad it was raining.  I'm trying to hold out as long as possible on turning on my air conditioning, mostly because I'm cheap.  I live in an upstairs apartment, which means it gets super hot!  Sometimes my apartment is several degrees hotter than the outside, even with my windows open and my fans blowing.  But with the rain came weather a few degrees cooler, which meant my apartment was bearable again.  However, I know that this can't last.  When I start in on my 15 cheesecakes for the wedding, the oven will pretty much be on all day, and I think I'll have to turn on the A/C or risk melting (myself and the cheesecakes!)

After doing other things for about two hours, I baked these at 400 degrees for 6 minutes.  All told, the recipe made 68 cookies.  Not too bad--the cookie shapes are medium sized, so that's about what I figured I would get.  Didn't burn a single one!  

After letting them cool for a bit, I mixed up some royal icing, using a recipe that I invented that has no eggs or milk or anything else that would make me nervous about leaving it out for a week.  I know everyone says it's okay, but I run the risk of killing 250 wedding guests if I screw up the food.  So I'm not taking any chances.  Here's the recipe:

• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract (or almond, or any flavor you like really).
• 2 tsp. light corn syrup
• 4 tsp (approx) water (use as much or as little of this as you need to get it to the right consistency)

Simple, and it probably won't kill or maim anyone who eats it.  I made mine thick enough the first time to serve as the edging for all the cookie wedding dresses, cakes, bells, and hearts.  They looked like this:

Not very interesting, I know.  But then, after being interrupted by a visit from my dad (and who can call it an interruption when the interruption in question takes you out for dinner and ice cream!) I made another several batches of royal icing, a lot thinner this time (just added more water until it was the right consistency), and containing a variety of food colorings.  Then, I went to town until all the cookies were filled.  

After filling them I had to wait overnight for them to dry fully before going on to the last step (boo hoo!).  

The next day, I made the remaining royal icing thicker (more powdered sugar) and added a few last touches (belts on the dress, decorations on the cakes, etc).  Here's are the finished products:

And they were tasty too!  

The hearts and bells were okay, in terms of looks.  However, the dresses and cakes were eaten the fastest, which in my experience means they were the crowd's favorite!  Plus, I like the dresses and cakes because they are easily reusable for other things (wedding dresses become princess dresses, wedding cakes become birthday cakes.)

More wedding stuff to come in the next couple of weeks.  I was a busy baker!

Food Labels for Wedding

Well, I've got everything pretty much ready to go for the bake-a-thon.  Yes, that's right, I was crazy enough to agree to bake for my brother's wedding.  I'll be making about 15 cheesecakes, a surprise (shhhh...it's a secret!), the wedding cake (with a board game theme), and a bunch of cake pops.

I'm super antsy to get started, but I decided that I wouldn't start more than a week before the wedding, to ensure that everything was as fresh as possible.  (The cheesecake I'll start first--it'll stay good in the fridge or freezer for a really long time!)  Since I'm antsy, I created a project for myself--I'm making labels for each of the cheesecakes.

I'm doing each cheesecake in a different flavor.  This is for a couple of reasons:

• I get bored easily, and if I make 15 identical cheesecakes, I'll go mad.
• I like a challenge.
• Inventing new flavors I haven't made before is fun.
• I'm nuts.

Since every cheesecake will be different, I figured they might need labels.  I love scrapbooking, so I figured these labels could just be teeny tiny scrapbooks.  I decided that in addition to the name of the cheesecake, they would need a cute hand-drawn little icon.  Here's the finished product:

Here are some close-ups of my favorites:

 And, of course, I couldn't resist being a little silly on this one:

I'm really pleased with how they each turned out. I made them on card stock that was 6''x6''.  I cut each one in half (so it was 3''x6'') and then I folded them.  I cut the white card stock to be 2.5''x2.5''.  I drew the little icon, cut it out, framed it with a complementary color, and glued it on.  Hopefully I can keep these after the wedding, and maybe even reuse them.  They took a long time, but I think they're worth it!  Besides, it was something to keep me busy today, the last day until I can start the bake-a-thon.