Yesterday was an awesome day, filled with all my favorites - family, food, & fun. Hehe.
The day started off with a wonderful tempo run (more about that below.) Then my mom & I walked to the downtown square in Washington and checked out a new store that recently opened - Created Just By Me.
It's a paint your own pottery and glass fusing studio where you really get to create it yourself! My mom & I decided to try out the pottery painting yesterday, and try glass fusing another time. (It looked really fun though!) The nice thing is that they charge you one flat fee, and that includes all services & supplies that you use to make your piece of art.
There were so many pottery choices to paint: vases, dishes, figurines, bowls, cookie jars.
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| This was only one of four shelves full of pottery! |
I ended up choosing the Cupcake Bank. It is going to be the swear jar in my classroom. Maybe I can get my students to fund my Diet Mountain Dew habit this year... heh.
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| My blank cupcake bank. |
My mom chose to paint a little dragonfly figurine for her house. She even used the "bubble technique" for the wings. The staff was really great and patient with helping us decides colors, what would look good, what's the best way to paint, etc. Because we didn't really know what we were doing!
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| Happily painting. |
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| BUBBLES! |
It took a few hours to get them to look just the way we wanted them. They will be fired in a kiln so they'll be all shiny & smooth, and my mom will be able to pick them up in a few days.
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| My sweet lil' cupcake. |
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| In all my excitement I couldn't seem to hold the camera still. This is my mom's dragonfly! |
It was a lot of fun. I've never really done anything like it before, and it was really reasonably priced. (Mine cost $23; my mom's just $11.) We are hoping to go back when I'm home for Thanksgiving and do some Christmas gifts! They even let you bring in food/drinks, so next time for sure we will hit up the coffee shop before we come in.
After our fun with pottery, we ran a few errands in Peoria, hitting up a few of my favorites - Great Harvest Bread Co., Tanner's Orchard, and a pitstop at Office Max for the last school supplies I need. (Hopefully the last! I seem to always need just one more thing.)
We had dinner at Monical's with my grandma & aunts. Monical's is probably my favorite pizza from central Illinois. The thin & crispy crust is just so good. I must have ate half of a large pizza last night, but have no regrets at all.
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I forgot to take pictures. Here's the Monical's logo instead.
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After dinner, we headed to the movie theater literally right next door to see The Help. Both my mom & I have read the book, and so has my grandma, so it was the perfect movie to see for girls' night. We loved it!
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| I love Emma Stone! She is so cute. |
On our way home from Peoria, my mom and I made one last pit stop - Emo's. It's an ice cream place in Peoria that has been a landmark for years. It has this weird clown sign on the outside, and everybody just loves it.
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| Creepy clown! |
On the first day they open for the season, they open at like 5:30am and people buy ice cream & chili dogs on their way to work. Because it's been an entire 6 months since they've had it last. It's a bit strange.
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| Happy to eat ice cream. When am I ever not happy when I have ice cream in my hands? |
But I won't turn down a hot fudge sundae with pecans! This is our standard Emo's treat. At least once a summer, we must have a hot fudge sundae with pecans from Emo's. Even though pecans now cost $0.75 extra. It was so worth it.
And today I'm headed back to the Bean Town to gear up for the school year. We start a week from today (!) and have a lot of things planned between now and then. Should be fun!
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Tempo Tuesday
I finally got that tempo run in! Yesterday I headed down to my former high school's track to tackle my 5-mile tempo run. Yes I ran 20 laps around the track. No, it wasn't all that horrible.
My goal was to run a 6:50-7:00 pace. Here's how it broke down.
- Mile 1 - 6:45.
- Mile 2 - 6:48.
- Mile 3 - 6:45.
- Mile 4 - 6:44.
- Mile 5 - 6:42.
- Total time - 33:44, average pace of 6:44.
I felt really good through mile 3, and then decided if I completed 4 miles, then I could stop. Then I somehow tricked my body into running 4 more laps. But I'm so glad I did! I finally got that darn tempo run done! And now I get to do it all over again next week. Then boost it up to 6 miles in a few weeks. Ay ay ay... but it's all for the good.
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| Post run puppy lovin'. |
Happy Hump Day, everyone!
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