Living the Life

This past weekend was awesome. We finally had beautiful perfect weather for three days straight.  It was a long holiday weekend with many wonderful and fun adventures. Below is a list of what I did with my weekend.

1. I was asked and went to a concert at CMAC. The main performers were Death Cab for Cutie and Head or Heart. I had never been to CMAC nor had I been to a large concert in years.  I had forgotten how much fun they are. The music was great and the atmosphere was fun. By the end of the evening we had made our way down to right in front of the stage which was great.

2. I attempted a couple of impromptu bbq's with friends which was all about great food, fun times and awesome friends. I also hosted a bbq at my house for my parents and grandma which was a really wonderful time to spend together. I kind of cooked or rather did the prep work and my mom ran the grill. :)  We ended the bbq with a walk to the corner ice cream parlor. yummy!

3. Game night with the ladies. We played a Scatagories Catagories game I had purchased in a yard sale practically brand new for a dollar. In addition we played Spot It. The best part was when my friend Amanda started snorting because she was laughing so hard. This made the rest of us laugh even harder.

4. I was able to go sailing with a friend one afternoon. Unfortunately while it was sunny and warm there wasn't much wind once we got out of the bay. We basically floated which meant I was wearing the wrong attire as it gets really hot just sitting there. I had dressed anticipating for wind and cold air. oops!

5.  My friends Amanda, Vi and I went for an 18.5 mile bike ride around Conesus Lake on Memorial Day. It was a beautiful day but got a little bit windy at times. (where was that wind when we were sailing)  This was my first bike ride for the season. It felt great although my butt was slightly sore the next day. Perhaps I need to purchase some padded biking shorts. NOT!

6. I recieved the mailing list for the Hand Community Art Swap. I sent all of mine out yesterday! Can't wait to start receiving some in return.

"Hands" The Next Community Art Swap

To participate in this community art swapfrom the Art Therapy + Happiness Project 2014 (http://www.cathymalchiodi.com/art-therapy-courses/the-art-therapy-happiness-project/) you had to create 11 hands (10 to exchange and 1 to keep of your own) using the outline form provided. I received the list of my exchange mates from all over the world again and am excited to see what I get in return.  I ended up receiving all but one zendoodle so not a bad exchange rate. I hope I get them all back this time though.

I spent one main night creating my hands. I didn't feel like getting messy for this project so I ended up pulling out my transfer blender marker and a bunch of print outs of neat images. I transfered the images onto the hands with each hand having a theme to it.  I then went on an internet search for quotes that I felt matched the images and I used an ink marker/pen to write the quotes on the hands.  I chose thought provoking and inspirational messages to put on the hands. I guess I felt that you never know who will receive the hand and where they may be in their life when they receive this gift so my quote may resonate or give them energy and/or hope in that moment. At the very least perhaps it will make them smile.

Retro Rollerskating

My friends and I went to Retro Rollerskating hosted by the MCC iceplex. This is something new they started this year in conjunction with Roller Derby. http://www.billgraysiceplex.com/page/show/1188680-retro-roller-skating-nights. They strip down one of the ice rinks to the cement, pull in a DJ and you can rent old school rollerskates. They play the past 40 years in music and you can rock out to a blast from the past.  I had a great time. We all talked about the memories rollerskating brought up. Remember the limbo, New Kids On the Block, pom poms on your rollerskates, and so on... What are some of your memories of rollerskating on FOUR wheels?

Lilac Festival 10K Race

Here in Rochester each spring we celebrate the Lilac Festival; http://www.rochesterevents.com/festivals-events/lilac-festival. I guess you can call it our city "flower".  At Highland Park where the event is held there is one part of the park that has tons of lilac trees and you can walk through the park and smell the trees in bloom. Since Lilac season tends to be very short the festival is typically beautiful or a flop depending on the lilac season we get.  This year they were in bloom half way through the festival, so not to bad.  The festival itself is like many others, lots of food and other vendors, free music on the lawn and on weekends they have arts and crafts vendors (which tends to be my favorite part).

This was the first year that I ran in the Lilac 10k. A few friends and I ran in it. This was my first race since the half marathon. My training has decreased significantly with the most I've run being 6.5 miles one time. I've enjoyed cutting back and running just what I feel like on any given day.  This race had a 5k which started and ended before the 10k. There was about 1,200 runners for the 10k. I finished in 51 min. and 10 sec. which I was pretty happy with.  I came in 360 out of 1,204 runners, 22 out of 114 females in my age bracket (30-34 and I'm at the tail end of the bracket), and 130 out of 676 overall for females.

I'm kind of happy to say I don't really have any other runs lined up other than the Warrior Dash. There are a couple I'm considering such as the Music4Everyone (that would mark the anniversary of my first race ever) at the end of June and a possible 5k 4th of July run. I just haven't wanted to comitt at this point. We'll see what I end up doing....

Okay- horrible pic of me but had to share as my friends picked on me. Instead of grabbing to halves from the bin I grabbed a whole and put the cream cheese on top. For some reason they found this hilarious.

After the race we walked through the lilac part of the park.

Kittens and New Little Library Improvements

My friend lost her two cats over this past fall. She new that someday she would get another pair and that day came this past week when she found out about some kittens found in the forest next to their dead mother.  She picked them up right before they were going to be brought to the animal shelter and now has to awesome new baby kittens. They are about 4 weeks old and total little butterballs.  I could have stayed for hours watching them play and playing with them.  Was wishing I could commit to pets but just not there yet (especially knowing that they grow up quickly and live a long time). Instead I'm going to enjoy visiting my friend's kittens, starting with lunch duty tomorrow!

So, last weekend in my blog entry I mentioned that my mom and I went to the neighborhood yard sales and I picked up a stool and children's bench that were much sturdier than the homemade ones I had made for outside next to my Little Free Library last year.  Well, I purchased both for a total of 6 bucks and spent the past week redoing them.  I forgot to take a pic of the little stool but you can see the before pic of the bench.  I think they turned out really neat. They look much better than my homemade ones.

This was the original bench. A little too pink and wild for me.

Dumpster Diving

It was the last day of the semester for me at work this past week. All of the students were packing up and heading out of town for the summer.  It was very quiet on campus so I was actually able to get a lot of work accomplished AND have time to finally take lunch breaks.  I ran on lunch some days and walked with a co-worker another day.  On the last leg of the walk we went by the apartment dorms and there was a large dumpster beside it with a lot of garbage students were throwing away.  While I'm not a trash digger let me tell you that students throw a lot of "good" stuff away.  Among other things, I eyed a cool rug laying on top.  I'm pretty sure I embarrassed my co-worker by making us back track where I struggled to reach over the top of the dumpster and pull the rug out.

I laid it out on the ground totally expecting to see some really gross stains including puke but to my surprise it was in perfect condition and it was a fairly good brand. I rolled it up and carried it up the hill to my office. I vacuumed and fabreezed it and it's now decorating my office floor. It fit in perfectly with my decorating scheme.

Patio Expansion and Archery All In One Day

If you've seen my blog post from last spring you'd know I bartered some patio pavers from a co-worker and built myself a little brick patio in two days.  Well, I knew since the time I built it that it was just a little two small but was to worn out to extend it.  That is until this spring.

I searched craigslist over a one week period and found a guy selling brick patio pavers for cheap. I enlisted the help of another co-worker who has a truck and muscles to help me pick up around 100 bricks and then started to work.  I made the expansion over a one week period a couple of hours each night after work.  It took 3 trips to HD, 27 bags of paver sad, 10 bags of paver rock/base and a lot of digging, but the outcome was worth it.  Beyond extending the length of the patio I decided to go all out and put in a built in fire pit.  I roped neighbor Bob into helping me out. He designed the fire pit and helped me build it. He also did a lot of direction giving, being sure to tell me when I was off or something wasn't level. :)

I christened my new and improved patio today by having a bbq with neighbor bob, his daughter and some friends over.

Friday night I went with my friend Marcy to see the Red Lion's perform again.  Then Saturday morning we went out to Traditions Archery; http://www.traditionsarchery.net/ where we (by this I mean I) pretended be Katniss by using a bow and arrows.  Once I was bored with playing Katniss, I pretended I was killing zombies.  We did pretty good. By the end of the hour I was shooting straight and strong. I had one bullseye and two half bullseyes.  I would definitely try this again as it was pretty fun.  My arms and shoulders were a bit sore today but not to bad.

Art and Adventure Updates!

This past week was crazy busy but wonderful all the same.  As the end of the academic year winds down and the summer moves forward I find myself wrapping up the old and thinking about the new.  Below are updates on what I've done recently and where I'm heading this summer.

 Work related wrap up and coming adventures:
1.  We had our annual Student Development luncheon this past Friday.  Unexpectedly, I was given the Student Development Staff of the Year Award! This was awesome to receive after a busy adventurous work year.  I few years ago I won the New SD Staff of the Year award and never thought I'd get another award. It was a very pleasant surprise.

• Here's the leftovers from the SD luncheon. I got enough to feed my mom and I. Yummy!!! Oh we had already ate the cannoli's for breakfast!

• My art therapy intern (who was extremely good) surprised me on our last group day and gave me this awesome t-shirt!

2. I finished my grad classes for this semester and next week will start my 3 day a week internship that will go for about 10 weeks this summer. A week after that I will start my summer class which will go for 6 weeks 2 nights a week. yuck! However, it seems like a useful class. I'm looking forward to both.  Even better is that after this summer I will have one class left, my capstone/thesis next spring.

3.  I'll be teaching an ACS class (freshman seminar) in the fall and am looking forward to this new adventure.

4. I'm working with a professor of mine to develop a research paper on creating a creative arts therapy program within a counseling center in higher education. Specifically I'll be taking a look at my data on the art therapy groups I offer to reduce stress and tying them into the self-authorship theory of student development. My goal is to publish the paper in a higher edu. related journal and put out a proposal this fall to present at the AATA conference on my program next summer.


Updates from this past week on art and other adventures and upcoming adventures.
1.  I received my 10th and 11th zendoodles from the Art Community Swap. These came from Mexico and Bolivia. Just waiting on one more.  I signed up for the next swap so stay tuned to see what I create and what I receive.

2.  I was a juror for the Mental Health Association Creative Wellness Coalition annual art show "Serendipity" this past Friday night.  The art work chosen will be presented at the Memorial Art Gallery on May 13th in conjunction with the opening of the Reel Mind movie series.  This is my 2nd year being a juror and I love the opportunity. The Creative Wellness Coalition is an amazing free resource in the Rochester community for those struggling with the affects of mental illness. This event and the Reel Mind series shows the public that people are more than their illness. http://www.mharochester.org/Default.aspx?RD=1801

3. My mom came up for a girls pamper weekend. We had a very busy awesome weekend.  Here was our line up of great things that we participated in:

• 50 min. Massages at Onondaga School of Massage (mine was amazing and I signed up for my first 100 min. massage at the end of the month with this person because she was so amazing.) http://www.ostm.edu/
• We unexpectedly came across the Mayday! An underground Crafts + Art festival. This was it's 9th semiannual show and yet it's the first time I've heard of or been to this show.  It was held at the Village Gate which is a perfect venue for the show. There was around 60 different venders exhibiting all handmade arts and crafts. You can check them out at; MaydayUnderground.Wordpress.com. Highly recommend.

• We then went to my neighborhood's biannual yard sales.  Of course we have yet to experience spring here in Rochester so it was a cold and rainy day. Because of this there was only about a quarter of the amount of yard sales that there normally is. However, my mom and I still got some great finds! See future art adventures for further info. on what I found.
• Saturday we found ourselves at Veritas Wine bar; http://www.yelp.com/biz/veritas-wine-bar-rochester.  I had purchased a groupon a while back with the intention of it being a neat new place for my mom and I to check out.  So we went and had our glass of wine, chocolates and macaroons.  It's a quaint little place with a front room, and a comfy back room.  While we were there a huge thunder and lightening storm occurred. When we left we were shocked to see huge hail balls all over the place. Global warming anyone?

• Sunday we woke up and got pedicures at TK Salon. I love the woman who manages the place and provides most of the services.  My feet were a hot mess from all of the months of distance running while training for the half marathon. She worked miracles on my feet. She did mention they were pretty beaten up and I should get a pedicure like every 2 weeks in order to regain my cute feet. Something tells me that won't happen.  Well, at least my feet loved the attention!  I even talked by mom into getting a chic haircut there. Even my dad noticed and complimented her when she got home. http://www.yelp.com/biz/tk-salon-monroe-county

Before: 5 black and blue toenails. The picture doesn't do it justice. I also had lost one of the toenail's Christmas Day.

After: Amazing!!!

4. So, adventures for this summer include: 

• I purchased a ton of patio pavers from someone off of craigslist a week ago and I started to dig last night. My goal is to expand my brick patio I built last summer. Boy, with all of the rain I thought it would be easy digging, unfortunately being wet makes the soil very heavy. This is going to be a process.
• At some yard sales I picked up a cute little kids bench and a sturdy little wooden stool.The total was 5 bucks. I'm going to repaint them both and put them out at my Little Free Library.  My homemade bench and stool are a little wobbly. ;)
• I'll be heading to Ann Arbor, MI in July to visit my new friends. I'll be there during the huge Arts Festival they have annually and we may go sky diving. http://theguild.org/art-fairs/ann-arbor-art-fair/
• I'll also be heading to SC for a couple of weeks to hang with my nephew and to be there for my nieces birth. This is a highlight to my summer!
• I've mentioned in a previous blog entry that I'll be at least partaking in a few fun runs this summer. I'm sure more will be added as the summer progresses. 
• I also have plans to attend some art related classes at The Brainery and the Arts and Crafts meetup group. Just have to find some classes that match my free time.