Week 6: Winter scenes


Week 5: Cast shadows - hum.. not much of a cast shadow on my candy since we had natural light and the classroom lights in the room, but it was good practice for painting wrappers :)

Out of all the places to sit, my cat decides to do so on a top of a 5" wide scratching post.

I never thought I'd have so much fun painting flowers. All the layers and shading make it a bit challenging, but i think that's what makes it so much fun. :)

I just bought my very first anti-aging wrinkle cream... *sigh* I hate getting old. >:(

Watercolor is interesting. It forces me to be patient because I have to wait for each layer to dry before applying another (and because of this, I am truly thankful for blow dyers. :) ) It also forces me to plan my whole composition ahead of time ... something that I am not used to – I tend to be spontaneous – so at times it can be quite frustrating. But it's slowly growing on me...the more time I spend painting, the more I'm enjoying these paints. I'm still not completely happy with what I've created so far, but then again, when are artists ever happy with their end piece? Isn't that why we start a new painting? Anywhos, here's a glimps of what I've been learning so far...

Week 1: Landscapes

Week 2: Trees

Um.. that's it so far. :) We're learning how to paint flowers next week. Stay tuned...

Happy New Year!! :) I cannot believe January is almost over. It has been a busy, busy start to the new year and I hope it'll slow down soon so I can breathe. So let's catch up on what's been happening in the world of Amy...

I decided it'd be fun to take some art classes so I signed up for a watercolor class... I am loving it! I forget how it feels like to be a student... meeting new people and learning new things. I've always been fascinated with how watercolor paintings look, especially the colors. I miss creating tangible art, like feeling the paper, holding the paintbrushes, etc. It makes me want to be an art student forever. hehe.

Another item that has been filling up time has been house hunting. Jeff and I decided last year that we would start looking for a home to settle into...needless to say... it's been tiring and a bit depressing. Granted we've only been searching for 3 weeks, I guess the impatient part of me tends to take over. So we've been scouting out the homes in the area -- some were nice, some needed a ton of love and care. hehe. Just recently we've decided to put the hunt on hold...until we get a better idea of our job security. We'll see how things go as time passes...

It's been a crazy month...

Jeff and I spent the weekend in Monterey to run the Big Sur half marathon. This is my 3rd year running this race and I feel like it gets harder and harder each year. It's probably because of the proper training that lessens as each year goes by. The good news is, I think my body has finally adjusted to the endurance because recovery only takes about a day now, instead of a week..and I no longer have post-race headaches. ;) We drove down on Saturday afternoon to go to the Expo to pick up my packet. Expos are always fun because I get to see all the other enthusiastic runners and there is always free "goodies" being handed out. Not to mention all the vendors selling about every running gear you can imagine. It's like a kid in a toy store for runners. From the hi-tech running watches and ergonomic shoes to the "heart-healthy teas" and high-performance energy bars. It took a lot of willpower for me to walk away from it all. ;)

Unfortunately, the weather didn't look promising. It rained and poured all day Saturday. Jeff and I got up at 6 am Sunday morning. I looked out the window to see the sky was dark and gloomy. I got dressed, grabbed my ipod, watch, and jacket and headed out to the start line. It started raining the minute the gun went off. Luckily, it only lasted a few minutes. The race started out slow. I never remembered the race being so crowded! It was difficult to get by all the runners without rudely cutting them off. By mile 1, my time was 10:45. Not good. This meant I was already almost 2 minutes behind schedule. I had a lot of catching up to do. The course had some slight hills. We ran through downtown Monterey, to Cannery Row, to downtown Pacific Grove, and finally, along the coast. The stretch along the coast is my favorite part of the race. By mile 5, I could hear the other races cheering and I saw the Kenyan racers on the other side of the road, already close to finishing. It is amazing to see how fast they run. While most of us aren't even half way done, they're already almost at the finish line. By mile 7 I was at 1:00:00. Not bad, I was able to catch up to average 8.5min/mi. I was feeling pretty good at that point, my legs were relaxed and my breathing was consistent. By mile 11, I could feel my legs tightening and I was loosing support in my left ankle. I wanted so bad to stop and walk but I knew if I stopped I wouldn't be able to start up again. Only 2.1 miles to go. The rest of the race was kind of a blur. All I could focus on was the finish line. My time was 1:48:44. 3 minutes away from my PR. My body felt beaten and my legs were fatigued and I was so thankful that it was over.

We met my sister and her friends at Cannery Row. I treated myself to my post-run coffee. We headed down to Cannery Row for some window shopping and had lunch at Bubba Gump. :) After lunch, Jeff and I hit the road and headed home. This is my last race of the year. woohoo! It feels good to finish. :)

Happy Halloween!!!

I woke up with a start to the dreadful sound of my alarm clock thinking "it can't possibly be 5 am already". We arrived at Toulumne Meadows close to midnight the night before - exhausted and tired from the drive up. Unfortunately, for most of us, a restful sleep never camel; it often takes a while to adjust to the air and surroundings the first night. It also didn't help that the campsite next to us didn't get in til around 2 am. Before we knew it, it was time to get up and we a 2 hour drive down to Yosemite Valley to start our adventurous hike. The sky was still dark as we stumbled around getting ready. By the time it was 5:30, we could see the sun peak from the mountains and the sky began to lighten. We left the campsite at 6:00 am and got our first view of Yosemite's majestic mountains. The view was magnificent.

We started at the trailhead at Happy Isles by 8:00 am. The air was relatively cool, but when the sun came out it was certain that the cool weather wasn't going to stick around...

We could see Half Dome within the first mile of our hike. We took the John Muir trail (the "easy" longer route). Within the first 3 miles, we found ourselves fighting gravity and taking in as much air as possible as we trekked uphill.
We got a great view of Vernal Falls on the way up. Luckily there trail was shaded, and the trail ended up flattening out as we reached Little Yosemite campground. We trudged along the dusty, sandy trails and continued to climb upward. I wish I had a giant leaf blower to blast all the sand away from the trails. It was a grueling hike on the way up, but the sand turned out to be nice cushion for our knees on our way back down.

At mile 6 we approached an area where we could see Half Dome and the tiny ant trail of people climbing the cables (you can see Half Dome in the background). The air was getting thin and it was getting hard to breathe. The trail was also getting significantly steeper. We had been hiking for 3 hours. We were almost there! Only 2 miles to go...

We encountered the last bit of the hike: the awful rock climb. It took about every ounce of energy to climb each step... and the it felt like we'd never reach the top. I stopped to rest midway and took a picture of the top...We were only about half a mile away from the base of the cables. Others around me were huffing, puffing, and swearing at each step of the way.

Here's a view looking down from the climb.

As we approached the the base, we could see what waited ahead of us - a 400 ft climb to the top.

Pile of gloves left by previous climbers.

Up we go!
I've read from previous hikers to avoid the cable lines, but in my case, I was thankful that there were people there with me. Had it not been for the encouragement from guy in front of me and Jenn behind me, I probably would of turned around and gone back down. Half way through I made the mistake of looking up and the distance loomed before me. A wave of fear went through me as my mind was saying "No way, you're arms can't possibly have enough strength to pull you through this." I don't know if it was some type of survivor instinct that kicked in, but I shook the thoughts away and blindly scrambled up the cables as quickly as I could before my mind could convince me to do otherwise.

It took about 45 minutes to get up to the top, but the view was well worth it.

Here's a shot of the crazies sitting on the edge. After about 20 minutes of taking in the view and resting, we decided to head back down. The descent was much easier. It helped that a little redhead tweener was in front of me, yakking nonstop - which made me temporarily forget about tumbling to my death. I also noticed that she had Chuck Taylors on... which made me think, okay, if this girl can do this wearing a pair of Converse, I might have a shot getting down with my trusty hiking boots. Using my weight, I simply slid down the cables with my gloves and was down at the base within 15 minutes. I nearly kissed the ground.

As we were resting, we heard a rustling sound nearby. Someone had left their backpack under the rocks and a lucky squirrel was having a field day. It was in there for a good 45 minutes before the owner returned and found the bottom of her pack full of holes and the remains of trail mix spilling out. Those Yosemite squirrels are crazy!


The 7 mile descent was much easier than climbing up, but it still had its challenges. We were running low on water. We started the hike with close to 8 liters and we were down to 1 liter by the time we started our descent. The descent was also extremely hard on the knees. We decided to take the steep Mist Trail back, and in retrospect, I'm thankful we didn't decide to take that trail on the way up! We reached the car around 8:30 pm and looked forward to the meal waiting for us at the campsite. The car ride back seemed like eternity. We finally reached the campsite at 10:30, starving, fatigued, and exhausted. After a quick meal, we changed into warm clothes, climbed into our sleeping bags for a well deserved good nights sleep.

In the end, I'm thankful for the experience. I can't promise this will be something I will venture again. Despite the psychical hardship, I was able to witness some of God's incredible creation and will be something I will never forget.

I participated in the "Jungle Run" half marathon a few months ago (haha sorry, i know I'm behind on posting). The race started bright and early at 7 am. I dozed off around 3:30 am the night before and slept through my alarm. I woke up at 6:40 and went directly into panic mode. I made a record speed of getting dressed and driving to downtown Los Gatos in 20 minutes *not bad, eh?*. I heard the gun go off as I weaved my way through the crowd to get to the start line. I'm not sure why they call this the "Jungle Run," as there aren't really any areas of the race that represent a jungle, aside from the people dressed up as Tarzan (there was a woman wearing a leopard print top and a grass skirt and carried palm frawns as she ran). The race went pretty smooth and was over before I knew it. We started from Los Gatos High School and ran down Winchester, looped around to Los Gatos Creek Trail and ended back at the school. With only 3 hours of sleep I had to give myself a pat on the back for finishing. I took this race at a relatively easy pace (avg 9 min/mi). My time was 1:56:42. I hope to improve by the time San Jose Half rolls around, but we'll see how motivated I get. :)

Aug. 16, 2008
Congratulations to Jenn and Kevin!
Much love to you both :)

I survived my first festival!! For those of you who don't know, my company puts on two annual 3-day Christian festivals each year (one in Del Mar and the other in Monterey). It was great to witness the festival come together after all the months of preparation. It was quite rewarding. :) When we first stepped foot on-site, we saw the crew set up the grand stand stage, exhibitor tents and food stands. They had deep fried twinkies, chicken, frog legs, snickers...you name it. Gotta love carnival food...hehe. Things were pretty hectic throughout the festival. Trying to make things run smoothly and making sure everyone had what they needed. We were able to get the following 2 days off to recover and it was well spent! Here are some of the highlights:

1. "Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf" coffee runs. I don't know what I'd do with out my latte every morning. I heart Coffee Bean. :D

2. Meeting one of the band members from Switchfoot. So my job is to run Guest Services at the festival. This means I have the guest list of all the artists', comp tickets, etc. On the third day, a guy comes up to the table and I'm thinking, "wow, he looks really familiar". He gives his name and it's not on the list. So I tell him that he looks familiar but I don't see his name and he tells me that his band has played at this venue a few times before. So I ask him what band he's in, and he says "Switchfoot". We also happened to have their poster lying on our table. No wonder he looked so familiar!!! I felt a little dumb. Makes me feel like I need to brush up on band members. :P

3. Getting to be part of the photo shoot for Kutless and BarlowGirl - that was SO COOL!

4. I got tons of positive feedback on my t-shirt design! I had the privilege to design the festival t-shirts/sweatshirts this year. They were a huge hit.

5. Getting to finally meet all the people I've been corresponding with over the last 6 months.

All in all, I feel that I've gained a better understanding of why and how things run and I feel more prepared for the Monterey festival, which is coming up in the next few months. I did run into a few bumps at Del Mar, but nothing is ever perfect. I can certainly take lessons from it all. I hope to post some photos soon. Stay tuned...

Just to update ya'll... I went to the eye doc 2 Saturdays ago and got myself a pair of glasses... AND THEY LOOK SO COOL!!! Still getting used to them and I'm starting to get indents on the semi-bridge of my nose... The appointment went okay. I hate getting eye drops or having someone stick a probe up to my eyeball but I won't need to go back for a while. I'll post pics soon. (once I get a decent picture).

I spent Saturday morning running the Santa Cruz Half Marathon and I curse the people who described the race as "easy, fairly flat with minimal hills". The race actually consisted many moderate hills, very few flat areas and many clumps of horse poo which I miraculously managed to dodge without breaking my ankle. They also failed to mentioned that you had to run in the sand for the last 20 feet. But all in all I made good time (1:48:04) and I'm happy to announce that the soreness wore off after 1 day of recovery. =D On a positive note, the scenery was beautiful and weather was wonderful. My favorite part of the race is crossing the finish line and seeing what goodies they have waiting for me. They had baskets of the best strawberries I've ever tasted, juicy pears, bananas, grapes, and bagels with cream cheese. YUM! It was probably the best "after the race food" I've had. After cleaning up and checking out of the hotel, Jeff and I headed to downtown Santa Cruz. It was really nice walking down the strip. I haven't been there in a while, so it was nice visiting all the shops I haven't seen in a while. We stopped by the Pacific Cookie Company for cookies and then I popped into Bad Ass Coffee for some hawiian coffee. (it was soo good!!). After browsing in a few shops we hopped in the car and headed home.

Next up is the Jungle run in mid July! woohoo!

I know I'm a few weeks late, but I wanted to shout out "Happy New Year!" to everyone :) Let's hope this year will be a happy one. So I've set a fewpersonal goals for myself and decided to put 'em on here so you people can keep me accountable! :D Here they are...

1. Lower my "lousy" cholesterol. I'm not all that surprised that it's higher than "normal" even if I'm a runner. For every run I completed, I rewarded myself with doughnut or a pound of candy last year :P Things definitely need to change this year.

2. Read the bible daily - this will probably be the most difficult... but I'm "starving" and need to be re-energized.

3. Stop loosing my keys - this will change one I get myself a key hook. :D

4. 2008 Nike marathon - okay, it's a long shot...we'll see how I feel about this when summer hits.

Um... that's all I can think of for now. :)

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Yesterday I ran the Big Sur Half Marathon and I have to be thankful that the race turned out well. Every year I wait until the month of to reserve a hotel room, and all the closer hotels are already booked and we end up having to drive to the race and scramble to find parking. Next year, I'm making it my goal to reserve one walking distance to the race! The morning started at 5:45 am with the horrible ring of Jeff's cell phone, yelling at us to wake up. Jeff was really good and got up immediately to take a shower and I laid there for a good 20 minutes having mental battle to get myself up. I finally dragged myself out of bed and look outside the window. The sun wasn't even up yet. The sky was dark and dreary and the winds were blowing so hard that the trees looked as if they were going to blow over. My heart sank at the thought of having to run in the freezing, gloomy weather, but I quickly reminded myself that I wasn't going to be doing this alone.

By the time we headed over to the started line, it was already light outside and the streets were quickly filled with other racers. At 7:00 am, the gun went off, and the race had begun. I have not been training as vigorously as I did last year, so I was a little anxious about how long my endurance would last. At mile 4, the winds decided to give us a challenge, but the sun began to break through the clouds, and made the whole coastline glow. The race was much more hilly that I remembered and at mile 6, my legs were starting to cramp. Not a good sign considering that I wasn't even half way into the race! With the help of 3 GU's and many water stops, I was able to finish the race in 1:48:05, only 2 minutes shy of last year's record. Woohoo! With the help of Advil, a recovery drink, and a nice long soak in epson salt, I'm feeling pretty good right now. :) It was much more challenging this year, but I had a blast. See you again next year, Monterey!

Happy Belated Halloween, Everyone!

Yay, we did it! (again) :) It's kind of crazy to think that in less than 2 weeks I'm going to be at it again. The race went nicer than I expected, considering all the crazy festivities that has been going on in my life. I was grateful I was able to run with someone this year. Jay was able to keep me from running my legs off, so I wasn't as sore later that day. If you'd like to read more about it, click here. Note: That pic was taken BEFORE the race, there was probably a reason why we didn't take one AFTER. ;)

My, my...where to start?? So, for some odd reason, all these changes in my life happened all in the same month. God really does have a sense of humor...

1. I got a new job! Yes, I no longer have to make a 3 hour daily commute anymore! Woohoo! I get to work in a mere 20 minutes. Ah, life is bliss...and with any new job, it's been challenging but I'm learning a lot. Plus, since I work for a concert promoter, I get to go to free concerts and events. I think I'm getting old tho, cuz the other day my boss asked if I wanted to go to a concert on a Tuesday night in San Francisco, and I had to think about whether I really wanted to stay up late on a week night. :P I know, I'm sad. I have no right to complain though, free concerts, free cds, and I finally get to work in the print industry!

2. I got married! Yay! After 10 months of planning, the day finally came on September 23rd. I'm a little sad that the planning is over because, for some odd reason, it was really fun for me. Married life is funny. I used to imagine Jeff and I being the perfect couple and we'd have dinner together every night and talk about intellectual topics. That dream was shattered the day we got back from our honeymoon. I quickly realized that cooking isn't so fun when you have to clean up afterwards, and after working all day, who wants to slave over a stove and then scrub and clean for the rest of the night? So yeah... so now we're back to Amy eating whatever she can find the pantry and Jeff bringing home Subway almost every night. :P hehe.

So there ya go... my life in a nutshell for the past month or so. I'll be posting honeymoon pics soon. :)