new and old

While I may be whining about being done with the cold and ready for spring this sudden surprising relapse into winter finds me happy and excited. 

Our beautiful New Mexican desert is transformed into a winter wonderland! The clouds were chasing over the mountain, everything looked so fresh and bright and somehow full of promise! I guess you can call me a desert rat now  - after seven years in New Mexico! Moisture - be it snow or rain - promises growth and  flowers in the spring - soon!!

When I'm at home I rush through chores just to get them done quickly. Then I can allow myself to get back to knitting on my sweater. 

The body is done, pieces assembled and I managed a perfect neck binding. The first sleeve is halfway done, I'm getting there!

While I was rummaging through some drawers the other day, I found this small hooked piece, a zippered pouch, which I had finished some time last fall.

I am so pleased with how it turned out, but I must confess, the hand stitching annoyed the heck out of me.

The hooking part was really fun - a managable size and just letting go with various materials and enjoying the play with colors.

 I had dyed the red and purplish grey for the backgrounds and the rest is a mix of strips, yarns and various fabrics, whatever I found that worked together! 

If you have never worked with other materials in your rugs - I can highly recommend it!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the fireplace! Be well, friends!

lost words

(The guy was wearing a cowboy hat and he could spin, too!)

memories

Marathon in Hamburg, Germany, April 1996.

Run for the Zoo, May 2009.

He was there. Right there with us.

Ready

Tomorrow the whole family will participate at the Run for the Zoo.

Wyatt and the kids will walk one mile and I will do the timed 5 k run.

This is real special to me, it will be my first event of that kind, called 'Volkslauf' in German. My father ran plenty of those and naturally I have been thinking of him a lot, when I was training the past weeks. I felt like I had to do something special for him - and myself. Just a few days ago I had the perfect idea and today Fiona and me decorated our t-shirts.

I feel peace now. Have a good Sunday, I know I will!

Mom, where are the mountains?

Another rainy day in Abq. When I went out to run/burn some calories/get soaked/think, the rain put a smile on my face! At times we don't get too much of that good stuff in Abq, so you can actually enjoy it, when it finally rains! By the time I was high up on the trails the rain had turned into snow and then stopped and when I turned and looked at the city, I was rewarded with bright sunrays on the center of town and the mountains were finally visible, the bigger part of them covered with new snow.

While my father used to run in solitude and enjoyed listening to the sounds of the forest, I like music for my runs. I need a good beat, I have a long list in my playlist "runningstuff", and with the music my mind wanders.

As so often this past week my mind went to the past. It probably all started last Saturday with my friend Carolyn's 50th birthday party, I talked a lot about the past with Carolyn and also Deb, I've been listening to "old" songs like this or this, emailed with an old friend in Germany, that I had lost touch with for years, and I've been digging through photos, that are more than 15 years old. I remember parties, vacations, windsurfing, my first car (a beautiful blue Toyota Celica sportscar!) and standing out from all those memories the great friendship, that I've always shared with my brother, who lives in Germany. I stumbled over this photo, which summarizes somehow a lot of this and thought that I have not looked at it in too long.

It shows, who we were and kind of how we got to be where we are now in our relationship and it really makes me happy to look at it!

So for Tracey's vintage photo Friday I chose some even older pictures of the two of us.

Have a great weekend, especially you, my dear brother! I miss you!

Life is good

When I got up this morning I was greeted by the oddly unfamiliar sound of rain and the sigh of relief of all my allergy suffering friends echoed across the city. It took me a few minutes to get used to the idea of getting wet out there before I decided to run anyways. I headed out after the kids were off to school and the trails embraced me with solitude and the peace of steady snowfall and even I, who usually only suffers allergic reactions to guineapigs, was breathing a little easier than usual. Life is good.

Every couple of days there has been ART in our mailbox for Fiona, who participated in Erin and Blair's wonderful Kid's Art Swap. We added some walldecoration in the studio, while we are waiting for the last Art letter - possibly from New Caledonia.

It is amazing, how different the kid's approach is, we have it all - collage, watercolor, acrylic, pencil drawing! If you want to see more of the kid's projects, go here, there is a Flickr group.

Fiona's five little watercolor paintings have all been mailed, these were my favorites:

Finally I have to show off this:

I started a new pair of socks, Opal yarn, that was a generous gift from German fellow knitter Susann (Ravelers click HERE), thank you again! The colors are stunning and I can't stop knitting, which has not happened in a while, I like it.

Have a happy, bright and colorful Monday!

Running ABQ

As many of you may know Albuquerque spreads out on the foot of the Sandia Mountains, so if you choose to run in Albuquerque it is quite likely that it involves some kind of up and down at some point.


Since I live in the North East and I like to run on the trails in the foothills, we are talking about A LOT of up and down. Which brings me to my second favorite title choice for this post "Beating your inner Schweinehund", which, my non-German-speaking friends, means essentially "Kicking your own butt".

Yes, when you know your run will be tough and you'll end up panting like a steam engine and with a face like a tomatoe (not a green one..), there are days when you don't want to go out there, even less when it is near freezing cold and you'd much rather sit on your comfy sofa, work some on your favorite knitting project and watch the next episode of Weeds.

However, then there are the days - like yesterday - when you manage and go go out there and you just do it.

After a downhill warm-up comes the upwards heat-up...
The trail keeps winding up and up until you get to the turn. THE TURN is actually THE REWARD and the point during the run, where you are happy you are running, happy you are healthy and you feel like the luckiest person in the world to live in Albuquerque.


Because the trail finally swings around and you get to see this:


and a little bit later this:


Running here also reminds me of my father. "Of loss and of Gain" could have been another title for this post...

My father was a runner. Seriously. He ran marathons, several of them. 5 years ago we lost him to cancer and I still miss him so much for so many reasons.

I know he would have loved Albuquerque and he would have loved to run and bike on the trails, but when I am running and I'm out there, he is so much closer to me than anywhere else. And that is a good thing.

The last stretch just goes down our street and feels like a walk in the park compared to the previous 45 minutes.
Yesterday was a good day. Any run is a good run, any time you are out there is good and I swear, I am a better person for the rest of the day.

Now today, that's a different story.... :-)