Fire and Ice

Yes, it's been a little while since I posted about scrapbooking... thing is, so many other things have been going on (races, courses, life) that I was not spending a lot of time with my photos and pretty papers and things. Other than my monthly crop I wasn't really doing much more than trying to keep up! That changed when I went to my annual scrapbooking retreat with the lovely MK Scrappers - a whole weekend doing nothing more than scrapping, chatting and laughing with friends. These are some of the layouts I made that weekend: I do love it when two of my 'worlds' collide and a great example are some of my layouts documenting my most recent race: the Disneyland 1/2 marathon in September: I still have much work to do to complete the Disneyland album but now that I've started it, I feel like I've got momentum and will eventually complete it (much like I felt in the actual race!) I plan to also scrapbook photos about the rest of my trip to Disneyland and to include...

I've now spent nearly a week back home and, as always, it's a weird experience. On the one hand I'm back to the place where I was born and pretty much had all my growing up adventures so I should know it like the back of my hand... but it is a huge progressive city and of course a lot changes in a short time so there are many parts that I can barely recognize. I hadn't been back in 3 years and everything is so familiar yet so strange: roads that I know very well look nothing like I remember them but at the same time they take me to the same places. It's almost like a half-remembered dream. It is both fascinating and frustrating to find that what I remember is not quite right or was right but has changed so much that it isn't right anymore. The one thing that has remained unchanged are my friends: they are still here, still loving and still very much my friends. It has been amazing to catch up with old friends and, even thought we live thousands of miles apart, a...

Last night I read the funniest and most cringe-worthy thing I have EVER read. Unfortunately it’s not for sale so you can’t read it, it’s a sort of one-off. A manuscript, even. It was one of my earliest journals, covering 1986-87, the years when I was in 9 th grade and then graduated onto High School. So pretty formative couple of years, really. I’ve been doing some sorting out and found a whole lot of fascinating memorabilia (of which I should write in my blog later, really) but this journal probably was the best thing. I flicked through it before going to bed and was laughing and embarrassed all at the same time – it was like watching The Office. It’s amazing the amount of detail I put into this thing. I wrote nearly every day and recorded pretty much every single thing I did, what my friends did and even what scores I got on exams. It was like looking at my past, and I remembered people that were so important to me then but I didn’t even remember. I was surprised to read...

... and it was awesome! I'm happy, tired, stuffed, hungover, the proud owner of new shoes and music and with a mind full of memorable moments. All I can say is that friends are worth more than their weight in gold. Friends, good friends that you can be yourself with, are rare, and time spent with them is definitely good for the mind, the heart and the soul. I love every single one of them and even the ridiculous distances between us will not change that - because good friends live in our hearts and will always be there when needed.

For a long time know I’ve been a little bit sad that I am so far away from my oldest, truest, bestest friends. They all see each other regularly, have the best times, can still catch up and talk about nonsense, shop together, have dinner and do all those things that we all take for granted. I’ve been feeling like I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I married and moved abroad. This weekend though will go someway to address this: I’m going to Madrid where I’ll hook up with two of my oldest friends – all of them from Mexico – and we are just going to be silly together, catch up, gossip, shop and do all those lovely things. I really can’t wait! Seeing my old friends always fills me with energy and makes me feel that actually the world isn’t that huge a place. Sure, I can’t be there every single day but thanks to the Internet I sometimes feel like I am… and the time I do get to spend with friends becomes totally quality time with no distractions: no work, no chores, n...

Is it just me or does everyone think about Carrie in Sex and the City when they hear (or write) those words? Gosh, how long has it been that this finished? I sure do miss it! Fortunately it’s been running almost constantly on cable and I’ve been able to catch some of the earlier episodes that I missed in the original run and of course I’ve been also able to watch the whole series all the way to the end… and in true Carrie style, it made me think about why do I miss this show quite this much? For lots of people it was about the clothes or the “adult situations” but I think that for me it was always about friends. We all have (or should have) friends that have been with us through it all, through the good days and good times, friends that told us when we were wearing the wrong thing or dating the wrong man, friends that you could count on to minutely dissect every little aspect of your love life and give an opinion. I certainly have friends like that, and they know me SO well! Th...

I have noticed that today is turning into an 80s day – from the music I’m listening to at work to some stuff I’ve seen online to the emails I’ve received, lots of things today have something to do with the 80s. 1985 was a long time ago, over 20 years, but somehow events from this year and the rest of the 80s have shaped my life in different ways, subtle ways. I started (and finished) High School in the 80s and this was a time when I grew up, took more responsibility for my life and made some amazing discoveries about myself. For example, I decided to join the Drama department – even though I’d never really done anything like this before. I just heard that the cast parties were awesome so there I was… I ended up spending the rest of my academic life in theatres and surrounded by actors and dancers. I gained a new perspective on musicals and it led to a love of the live theatre that survives to this day. I also noticed that most of my friends are people I met during these days ...

In ten days I, along with 15,000 of my closest friends, will be running through all four WDW parks and hopefully have the time of our lives. It’s incredible to note that I’ve been waiting for this date to come for over a year now and it’s so close… Recently my mind went back to those days in January 2007 when I decided that I wanted to do this, and started ploughing through the Internet hoping to find information on training and on the race itself. I found lots of accounts of people that have done the Disney marathon before, lots and lots of training plans and of course lots of advice for beginners. I also found the Disney Running forum. Now, I am a big forum user and regularly check in with UK Scrappers so I am well aware of the friendship and support that can be found on a friendly online forum. In the year that I’ve been visiting Disney Running I have constantly been amazed at how generous and kind people are, always offering support, advice and kind words. It is a gr...