Joy and the Marine Layer

(Kitty) Thank God for joy and the marine layer! We had to run 8 miles today - BY OURSELVES because John is visiting his family in Michigan for the weekend. Normally we don't do well by ourselves. Nor we do sleep well by ourselves after 18+ years together. So when I finally dragged myself out of bed this morning at 7am, having not slept well and with a sore neck from a dream that was a cross between Burn Notice and Law & Order (I get tense in my dreams!), I had to tell myself how very much I really wanted to run. :)

But I remembered something wonderful from my Thursday run. I had done some really great work on my book on Wednesday and was still so excited about it that I was thinking about it when I was running Thursday morning. Every time my thoughts drifted to my book and I got excited, I ran faster! And when I started getting tired near the end and started thinking about my book, I still slowed down a little but not a lot. I ran really well, in fact!

So today when I woke up and finally got going, I listened to some writing lectures I have on my iPod instead of music. The first lecture was by Susan Elizabeth Philips and Jayne Ann Krentz. They are hilarious! Listening to them and laughing while I ran kept me going for the entire hour of the lecture. The next lecture wasn't as funny, but it kept me thinking about writing instead of looking at my watch and wondering how much longer I had to run.

Plus, we had a really heavy marine layer this morning (and Thursday, too, which was great!) so I didn't have to run with the sun in my eyes. If you're not familiar, the marine layer is the fog/clouds that settle over the ocean near the beach during the night and don't burn off till the sun comes up. Or in today's case, not until after 11am when I was already home! I still put on a little sunscreen, but I was so glad not to have to run for two hours in the blazing sun! (Yes, it took me 1 hour and 55 minutes to run 8 miles (averaging 14.5 minutes per mile) but I'm just so darned pleased that I did it! And I probably could have run 9 if I'd had to! Thirteen miles, here I come!)

Today - back to finishing my book proposal for the editor and agent who requested to see it at the conference I was just at. I'm so excited! Hope you all have just as happy a weekend!

Back in the Running

(Kitty) So after our 10K race last Sunday, my feet and legs were simply killing me. We decided to take Monday off, then Tuesday, and by Wednesday we wondered if I had the wrong shoes and they were the reason for my aching feet and legs. I went in to the running shoe store where we bought the shoes and spoke to the manager about whether perhaps I'd been sold the wrong shoes.

The guy was awesome! He sat down with me and asked a lot of questions and showed me some stretches and gave me a lot of great advice. I did the stretches for the rest of the week, then today John and I started up again. It went great! Well, after 10 days of no running, I was gasping for breath! LOL! But other than that, it went great, no pain. Yay!

So now that we're getting into higher mileage runs, our schedule is changing a little. We can't run more than 8 miles and get home in time for John to get ready for work on time. So instead of running Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we'll run Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Here's hoping we make some great progress! Less than 12 weeks until the big race!!

A Taste of Heaven

(Kitty) Today our church (Bel Air Presbyterian) closed our doors for the morning services and went down to Faithful Central Bible Church (which meets at The Forum, where they used to have sporting events, and still is used as a music venue - it's huge!). Pacific Crossroads Church also joined us, and we were a crowd of thousands!

The service was wonderful! The choirs of Bel Air and Faithful Central sang together and they dressed in all these bright colors - the combined choir looked like a huge spotted rainbow! And because the combined congregation was so diverse in terms of every definable way to group people, all I could think of was - this is how heaven is going to look! I loved it!

For a variety of reasons, I've felt a lot of internal stress in so many areas of my life lately that I ended up at church today and found my spirit being filled and revived and refreshed without fully realizing until then how much I needed it. God is so good at providing what you need even before you recognize that you need it. Through the sermons and the music, He encouraged me, reminded me of all the good things He's done for me in the past, reminded me of His promises of good things in the future, and helped me to relax and enjoy the moment that I'm living in right now.

I can't wait to get to heaven and see how it is way better even than what I experienced today. But in the meantime, I'm glad God is also a step ahead of me, arranging for me to be encouraged right when I need it. He says in Isaiah, "Before they call, I will answer," and I've found it to be so true.

10K Results - Pretty Good!

(Kitty) The weather was perfect and the bike path through the wetlands along the beach was gorgeous, all 6.2 miles/10 kilometers of it. Yea!!

On the one hand, nearly everyone ran faster than we did! Dwight and I came in last in our age/gender class (5th of 5 and 9th of 9, respectively), and John came in 13/15 in his class. On the other hand, we all did quite well - as good or better as our practice times. John ran in 57 minutes 54 seconds - amazing!! Dwight came in at 1 hour 11 minutes 30 seconds. And I came in at 1 hour 22 minutes 30 seconds. Plus we're all proud of the fact that while a few people used the run/walk method (I won't try to explain it, but it's a method that's supposed to make you faster by not running the whole time. I don't like it for this short a run.), we all ran the whole distance.

Oh, and did I mention I came in third from last in the entire race??!! LOL!! And that's because two people took a wrong turn on the path and got lost! LOL!!! There were only 131 people in the race, though, so when I come in nearly last in the Pasadena Half Marathon in November there will be hundreds of people faster than me. And just maybe I'll be faster than someone! LOL!

Dwight, John and Kitty a few minutes before the race started.

John, Kitty and Dwight after the race - long enough after for us to look a lot better than when we first crossed the finish line!

Dwight, Kitty's friend Teri, Kitty and John at a great little restaurant on the pier for a hearty lunch afterward.

Visitors and Races and Good News

(Kitty) So my friend from college, Teri Glirbas, is visiting for the weekend. We spent just about the whole day yesterday wandering around Hollywood seeing the sights, taking pictures, and buying souvenirs. I found a keychain with Betty Boop on a motorcycle that I bought to put my motorcycle keys on. Today we're going to the Farmer's Market and The Grove, then Venice Beach, then Santa Monica Pier and Third Street Promenade. LOTS of walking, and hopefully lots of fun.

Then tomorrow Teri is coming with me and John and Dwight to our 10K race in Santa Barbara.
Our training program had us slowing down significantly this week to be fresh for the race. But John and I are still feeling the slower, ache-y effects of our new shoes, so we're not expecting any record performances. Still, it should be a lot of fun.

We've been having a lot of adventures lately, but that means we've been too busy to get the pictures off the camera and post about everything here. Hopefully next week we will have the time to do that. Meanwhile, the big news about my Romance Writers of America National Conference is that an agent and an editor that I am really interested in both want to see the first three chapters of my book. Woo-hooo!! Due to [insert long story here] I am polishing it up, making a few changes to improve it, then I'll send it out before the end of the month.

We'll talk again next week. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!

New Shoes - OW!

(Kitty) We knew we needed to get new shoes sometime soon before our next race (a 10K on August 17), so we finally made a point of going to a good running store this week. The one our friends go to was closed so we decided to try the one near us that we knew nothing about. When the guy (Josh? I'll call him that, I can't remember) looked at our shoes he shook his head and said they had no support. I'd noticed that my hips were aching nearly every run, but I hadn't realized how closely related that is to poor shoes.

Apparently, it's very related. We've run in our new shoes for two days now. Both of us noticed our legs ached from the get-go on the first day. Today, the second day, John's legs were stiff, but feeling better as they got used to the new shoes. I on the other hand was run-limping! John and I finally decided that he would continue with our 6-mile run, and I would turn around at the 2-mile mark, giving me 4 miles. If I could make it home.

Now Josh says I'm essentially flat-footed, so he sold me "motion control" shoes. Highly supportive shoes that not only support your instep (keeping your knees and hips in line) but keep your foot from moving around much at all. On the one hand, I'm really pleased. Like I said, knees and hips are happy campers. And I don't feel like I'm about to twist my ankle at every bump in the sidewalk. On the other hand, holy guacamole, my muscles hurt! By the middle of the third mile I'd decided to try to just "zone" out into the run. I kept my mind thinking about the horizon (as I've read is helpful) and I focused on trying to be completely relaxed.

Must have helped. By the beginning of mile 4 and all the way home (I did manage to run 4 miles) I found myself relaxing a bit as I ran and feeling better, not run-limping anymore. Then I walked up and down the block several times waiting for John to get home. By then my legs were doing about as well as could be expected. I'll tell you though, I can feel every muscle in my shins and half the ones in my calves and thighs. I'm guessing I'm now re-training my muscles to support my body correctly. It's a guess, but I'm going with it because it'll keep me running instead of quitting. John, of course, must be naturally athletic because he's breaking in his new shoes with far less problem.

We've got about 10 days till our race, and my friend Teri will be visiting from Minnesota and watching. I'm hoping the shoes and I make peace and learn how to be a team. I really don't want to embarrass myself by running like a turtle! LOL! But at least I'm not quitting. Only 14 weeks till the big Half Marathon! Woo-hooo!!

Running a LITTLE longer then I planned...

(John) Well, according to our training schedule that Kitty and I have been following, today was the day I was suppose to run 8 miles (ugh.) Kitty have been running down to the beach from our place, then down the beach walk to Venice. Well, since started running that route I have noticed that the beach walk path also goes the other way (toward Malibu.) Today I decided to see how far I could go down the walkway for my run. According to a sight called MapMyRun.com, I could go down to the end of the pedestrian walkway and turn around and run back and that would be around 8 miles!
Cool, I thought, this will be easy.

*Sigh* famous last words

I ran down the beach as planned and turned right at the beach to run the other route. The route was easy and pretty nice. I thought "Great, just follow this until it ends, then I turn around!"
Well, I guess the bike path AND the walkway both intertwine at several place, often becoming one path. Yea, well I followed WHAT I THOUGHT was the walkway and continued to run....and run....and run.... . After a while I was like "Man, this 8 miles is longer then I thought it would be!"
A little while longer the revelation came to me: I bet I messed up and I'm following the wrong path. I saw a major intersection coming up and decided that I'd run up it, turn around and head back home. The intersection was called Temescal Canyon Road. So, I turned around and ran back. By the time I got home I realized I was running late for work! I jumped on the computer and checked to see where I had gone wrong and how far I went. According to a rough estimate I ran 10.2 - 10.5 MILES!
OK, it is now time to get my Nike+ system calibrated and running so this does not happen again.

Running Along the Beach - Ahhhh!

(Kitty) Today I didn't have to get up early to run in order to beat the heat. After all, I'm in the coldest summer in the country if rumors are to be believed. Today's high (July 29th, keep in mind!) was 59 degrees! So I finally got around to getting my running shoes on at about 9:30, maybe 10am. It was AWESOME! Pretty cold even with a sweatshirt because of the wind coming off the ocean, but it was beautiful running on the path along the beach. John and I run along a beach path in Santa Monica, too, but the terrain and beauty are different here in San Francisco. It was a beautiful 6 miles!

Going to San Francisco

(Kitty) I've been too busy to post lately because I'm on my way to San Francisco in a few hours. I'm getting pretty excited about it. Not only will I get to spend time with friends, but the reason for the trip is to attend the Romance Writers of America National Conference. I've been to a lot of conferences before but not this one. Over 2000 writers will be there, plus agents, editors, and more! It's going to be very exciting, a lot of fun, and seriously exhausting!

What's more, I've told myself that hills or not, I AM going to keep up my running while I'm there. Eek! I hope I can make it without John - we run so much better when we run together.

I'll be gone for ten days, so unless John has time to post - or I have time to post from the conference - we'll talk to you again in about two weeks. Hope you're all having a GREAT summer!!

7 Miles!

(Kitty) I can hardly believe it but we did it! We ran SEVEN MILES today. I was so tired the last half mile. All I could think of was, "I have to walk home if I stop running, so I might as well just keep running and I'll get home quicker." LOL! Then the next several hours I was soooo hungry! LOL!

The thing is, John is a much better athlete than I'll ever be. He runs ahead for a while, then turns around and comes back to me, then runs ahead again. So I figure he runs maybe a mile or more longer than I do! We started running almost four months ago today. The first day I could hardly run more than a block, and today I ran 7 miles! And that made our week's total 21 miles! Wow! Kinda says what you can do when you put your mind to it!

Riding My Bike

(Kitty) - So my first ride was with John last Sunday, but I had to go out on my own at some point. So Friday I decided to take my bike to the library and the credit union. I made it without any problems - and I wasn't even scared! I could hardly believe it! By the time I got back, I checked the mileage - I rode 6 miles by myself!

Today, we went out before church again (the idea being there are fewer cars on the road for me to deal with) and this time I rode all around Santa Monica - 16 miles! I was a little nervous sometimes when I had to ride on a 4-lane street and switch lanes. John is still rolling his eyes that I'm not up to the speed limit all the time, but it's getting better! And today - only my third ride on my bike! - I got up to 40 mph!! Woo-hooo!! And I didn't even feel like I was going to go flying off!

I still like 2-lane streets better right now - no worries about people trying to pass me or hit me when they change lanes, but I'm really going to have to make sure I'm "up to speed"! And in LA, being up to speed means going 10 miles over the speed limit! LOL! I'll keep you updated!

From Waiting to Riding

(Kitty) Here is the pictorial tour of me getting my very first motorcycle! I bought a 2008 Yamaha V Star 250. It used to be called the Yamaha Virago 250 from 2007 and before. It is the smallest version of John's bike, a V Star Classic 650. I am soooooo happy!!!!!


My first view of my new bike! The guys are filling the tires and checking all the - whatever it is they check! The one I sat on in the showroom was sold before I came back, so this one came from the warehouse. I am one of the only people to even sit on my bike!!



And in fact - here is a picture of me the very first time I got to sit on it. I'm waiting for the guys to take it out on it's test drive before they hand over the keys.



John thought I was so silly, but I was just so excited!!! I couldn't help myself - I had to hug my new bike! LOL!!


The side view of Kitty's new motorcycle. The paint job is called Black Cherry - and it's beautiful! John named his first car, so I decided not to feel silly naming my first bike. Due to American slang uses of the word "cherry" I decided not to use that as part of the name. But my middle name is Rose, and the color is a shade of red, so I named her Rosie! The funny thing is that we had a horse named Rosie, one of the first I ever rode. Hmm...wonder if there is some hidden meaning in there... LOL!!



This is Billy, handing me the keys to my new bike! I think he thought I was a little silly for taking a picture of every little thing - including him - but he was a good sport about it. He said he loves to ride, and he understands the excitement of buying a new bike. :)




John, on the other hand, teasingly made a point of letting me know how embarrassing it was for him to have to ride my little bike home for me. When he got home, he told me I'd succeeded in fully emasculating him - he'd pulled up to a stoplight and looked over and there was a beautiful blonde at the wheel of a BMW. She just looked at him and looked away. John said he wanted to yell, "No, no, this isn't mine! I have a real motorcycle at home! Really!" LOL!!



Getting ready for my very first ride on my new bike! I'm taking off the lock on the front wheel. My friend Milissa, who also rides, told me a long time ago - if you have long hair and you ride, be sure to braid it back or you'll never be able to get the tangles out. Thus - me in a braid.



Gearing up for my first ride - helmet, gloves, nylon mesh jacket (it's like air conditioning when you're riding and the wind is whipping through, much cooler than leather), jeans, Kevlar boots. I jokingly asked my friend Janice who used to be a police officer if my boots are bulletproof. You know, 'cause they're Kevlar. :)



You can't tell, but I'm grinning like a kid in a candy store!!



Pulling out into the alley - my first ride! I'm pretty sure the butterflies in my stomach were more excitement than fear.



My first run down the alley behind our apartment! I did it!

I drove up and down the alley a few times, then asked John if he wanted to take his bike and follow me out onto the street. It was Sunday morning and hardly anyone was out yet, so I wasn't too nervous. Better to get out there and see how I felt when no cars were around! So John followed me as I made a few loops around the couple of residential streets we live near. Then I took it on a couple bigger streets. Basically, I kept making ever-widening circles around our apartment! LOL!

John was my guarding my back so I wasn't afraid of any cars getting too close. And I only stalled once! But I also only made it up to the speed limit twice!! LOL!! And the speed limit was 30 on one street, and 35 on the other! (Come to think of it, I think it was 45 on the second one - which means I was going way too slow!) The first time I got up to 30, I thought I was going to blow off the back of my bike!

Eventually I looked at my watch and realized we needed to get back and shower for church. But I was so excited about my first ride. And even more so when I looked at the odometer and realized my first ride was 10 MILES!!! Woo-hooooo!!!

Best Times Ever!

(Kitty) What did we do on 4th of July? We got up at 5:30 and drove down to Redondo Beach (about half an hour away with no traffic) and ran a 5K race with our friends Dwight and Jill. It was ridiculously hot while we were running, then about an hour after we were done, "normal" weather returned with a nice breeze. Ah well.

The point is we ran in some heat and John and I still beat our best times! John ran the race in 27 minutes 50 seconds, coming in 91st out of 134 in his category. I ran it in 39 minutes 14 seconds (shaving off more than 5 minutes!), 93 out of 141 in my category.

Next stop - the Santa Barbara 10K in August!

New Haircut

As some of you know, I was going to try and grow my hair long again. I got a pretty good start on it, then we started running. Well, I found it a hassle more and more so I got it cut short again. Now the summer is fast approaching, I'm really glad for the short hair!

Motorcycle awareness ads

I found these on-line the other day and thought I would post them with the news that Kitty just bought her own motorcycle! Her bike is kinda a smaller version of my Yamaha 650 (her's is only a 250.) As soon as she gets back into town, we're picking it up from the Yamaha dealer and she starts riding! We'll be posing pictures of it soon!

It's a Southern Thing

(Kitty) I'm out visiting my brother Michael and my sister-in-law Kristy and having a great time with them! This is the first time I've seen Michael since he gave me away at my wedding 18 years ago! And I've never met Kristy - even though they're about to celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary! It's also the first time I've been back in South Carolina since I left Parris Island and the Marine Corps in the fall of 1987.

On every trip, you need at least one small souvenir, and Saturday night the three of us found the perfect one for me. Michael and Kristy really enjoy stock car racing and they took me to a local race on Saturday night. I told my Bible study before I left California that I was going to a stock car race and they just laughed - it's so outside any of our experiences! So on Saturday, Kristy bought Moon Pies that we ate after lunch - the wrappers got us $3 off the race admission. (They're soft cookies with marshmallow covered in chocolate. Yum!) Then at the race we saw a t-shirt - Moon Pies and RC Cola, It's a Southern Thing, Y'all Wouldn't Understand. LOL!!! So I bought the t-shirt, and we decided I'd wear it to Bible study on Wednesday and bring along enough Moon Pies for everyone!

The Beach Boys!!

(Kitty) Last night, I went with my friends Doug and Marlene to see The Beach Boys live in concert! What great fun! It was fantastic to see the real, live Beach Boys perform just a hundred or so feet away, playing a ton of songs I know by heart. But there was something kind of strange and vastly amusing about seeing a gray-haired 60+ year old man flirting with dyed-haired 50+ year old women crowding the base of the stage. LOL!

There were a total of seven people in the band last night, one of which I think is a son of one of the Beach Boys, but only two of the guys were originals. Didn't matter that much to me because they were good - and one guy sounded sooo much like one of the missing originals! In any case, they all looked like they were having a great time, and Doug and Marlene and I were having a great time, so I guess that makes it a success! LOL!

Here are some pictures I found on the Internet since we weren't allowed to bring cameras.

NOW

THEN

Comments

(Kitty) Hi everyone! I just wanted to let you know that I made some changes to the blog so that you can post comments easier now. I didn't realize that the earlier settings made it impossible to post a comment if you weren't a Google user. To avoid spam, I changed it so anyone can post a comment (I can't remember but you still might have to type in the strange verification letters), but then I see the comments before they are posted and I have to accept or deny the post. This way, hopefully we can have a little bit more of a two-way conversation but without the extra comments posted by strangers about erectile dysfunction and winning the Irish National Lottery. LOL!

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

Race Pictures

(Kitty) Here are the pictures we took after our Memorial Day 5K race. We actually look pretty good for after our first race. It's not even been 10 days since then and already John ran his first 10K today. Not a race though. We're training now to run a 10K (6.2 miles) in mid-August in Santa Barbara, and then the Pasadena Half Marathon (13.1 miles) in mid-November, and according to our training schedule we're already supposed to start running 5 miles on our "long" day. Today we did it! Hurray! But because John is taller and faster and in better shape, he still runs ahead, then back to me, then runs ahead, then back, the whole time. So he figures he definitely ran at least 6 miles today! LOL!!

Kitty and John after The Brentwood Run, Sunday, May 25, 2008


Dwight and John after The Brentwood Run

©2008 ~TheDragoness1992

Our First Race!

(Kitty) We did it! Step 1 of getting ready to run a marathon - run a 5K. Check!

On Sunday, May 25, John and I ran our first race, along with our friend Dwight. We all ran the 5K (3.1 miles) portion of The Brentwood Run. It's only a few miles from where we live in Santa Monica, so we were quite happy to not have to get up early and drive somewhere. But we were all so excited that we got an early start. Turns out that was a good thing as it took us forever to find a parking spot!

There were booths set up advertising local health and fitness organizations (I'm going to try two free weeks of a martial arts self-defense course!), as well as booths with free food and drinks. Advertising, of course. The food and drinks were mostly of a sports nature - Clif bars, energy drinks, etc.

Before the race, a woman from the local YMCA got on stage and took us through an aerobics-style warmup. I stopped about half-way through. I had visions of me using up the energy I needed to complete the race because of the warmup!

Finally it was time to run! I went to the back, right in front of the people pushing strollers, and John and Dwight stood in the middle. I kept reminding myself to start slow, think Tortoise and the Hare, make sure you can make it to the end. I was pleased that I found a pace and stayed with it! But I was shocked to see John running down the other side of the road when I was barely to the 1-mile mark! He'd already passed the half-way point and had turned around with the pack!

Soon Dwight passed me, too. I just kept my eyes on a young woman in her thirties and an old man (who I later learned was 89!!) because the three of us kept passing each other, so we must've been running around the same pace. Nearing the 2-mile mark the fairly flat road went slightly downhill so I picked up my pace a bit. At the 3-mile mark, with the Finish Line in sight, I picked it up again. As I passed him, I told the old man thanks for being my pace-man! He laughed!

Then I heard my name and looked to my right. There was John and Dwight as well as our friends Len and Bobbi cheering me on! I called out, "Well, if I've got an audience..." and sprinted as fast as I could to the Finish Line! What great fun! Well, it was more fun about 2 minutes later when I could breathe again! LOL!!

John finished in 28 minutes, 17 seconds, 37 out of 54 in his gender/age category, 402 out of 827 overall. Dwight did his best time ever (he's run two 5K's already) in 33 minutes, 47 seconds, 51 out of 56 in his category, and 594 overall. And I finished in 44 minutes, 22 seconds, 45 out of 56 in my category, and 752 overall.

Overall, we're all pretty happy with our experience. In fact, John and I want to do it again. I'll let you know how that goes. Meanwhile, on Tuesday we started the next step in training to run a marathon - training to run a 10K. There's one we'd all really like to run in Santa Barbara in August. It'll be a 1.5 - 2 hour drive to get there, but it's a beautiful city on the ocean - and there's an ice cream social afterward! LOL!

We'll try to remember to load our pictures from the race tomorrow. But if you want to look at the one Dwight took of us afterward, it's at his blog. And if you have any advice, let us know! It's amazing how many people you run into who have run a marathon - but you'd never know it till it comes up in conversation. Have you run one?

Riding in the Rain

(John) I have been trying to decide what other exercise I should do when cross training with the marathon running. My friend Dwight invited me to go for a bike ride on Saturday, the day before Kitty's and my first 5K race. He lent me his old Specialized while he rode one he had just bought on eBay. We went to a park that we have ridden at before and spent the morning riding through a light drizzle. We both had mud on us when we were finished, but we got some great exercise and some great pictures.

BANANAS are Your Friend!

(Kitty) Only a few more days until John and I run our first race with our friend Dwight! John and I are finally getting excited about it. Why only now? Because last Saturday when we were supposed to running a "long" run, we totally broke down, practically before we got started. We did our 5-minute brisk walk to warm up, then started jogging. My muscles began to ache from the very start. About 16 minutes in, I finally broke down into a near-limping walk. How embarrassing!

Then John jogged back to me and I told him I didn't know why, but everything from my hips down hurt and I was just going to walk while he ran ahead. About 5 minutes later, he was toast, too!

When we got home, the first thing we did was go to the store and buy some bananas. I remembered feeling this kind of muscle ache on a lesser scale in the past, and eating bananas always made it go away (potassium, you know). Then I Googled running muscle pain and found out a lot of things can cause it including poor nutrition and dehydration. So we spent the weekend eating a lot of bananas and drinking a lot of water!

Monday, our run went much better. Wednesday, I ran longer than I have so far in all our training (and I think in all my life!) and could've kept going! (Also, a first for me!) We run again on Friday and finish the "Couch to 5K" 9-week program, then our first race is Sunday! We're running in The Brentwood Run 5K, not far from where we live. Our friend Dwight is coming down to run it, too. (He turned us on to the "Couch to 5K" program. This will be his third race.)

We'll let you know how it all goes. And feel free to give us any advice! :)

AMAZING Conference!

(Kitty) I just got back from Austin, Texas (where I wish I'd had more time to look around - beautiful place). My friends Lauraine and Bonnie and I went to a writer's conference by Donald Maass called the High Tension Workshop. It was perhaps the best writer's conference I've ever been to! You know how you go to a conference for either your business or one of your hobbies or interests and there is so much going on you can barely process it all? Not this time. At this conference we studied one thing for four days! By the time we left, we really knew what we were talking about when it came to tension in novels. My brain was so tired I had to take a long nap after I got off the plane! LOL!

In other news, John and I are eagerly pursuing our marathon training. Yesterday morning, and then again this morning, I broke my personal best records for speed over a 2-mile run! Woo-hooo! By the end of May, we'll have completed our "Couch to 5K" training. On Sunday, May 25 (Memorial Day weekend), we will be running our first race! It's a 5K - about 3 miles - and we're feeling very good about it. Only six more months until we run our first half marathon at the Pasadena Marathon! We'll tell you all about it as things progress!

P.S. If you haven't seen the movie Iron Man, you've got to go! It's awesome!!

Kitty has her motorcycle license!

Kitty just called me from outside the DMV and told me she passed her written motorcycle DMV test! She will have her official motorcycle license in a couple of weeks! A few of you knew that Kitty took the motorcycle course a couple of weeks ago and passed with flying colors. She called the DMV earlier this week and made an appointment to take the written test early this morning. She got the maximum allowed number wrong (you only allowed 4 wrong on the test,) but passed! We won't be rushing out to buy her a motorcycle yet, she will be sharing my bike when I don't drive it to work.
Don't worry, pictures of Kitty on my bike will be hitting the web as soon as possible!

Again baby, CONGRATULATIONS!

Where I work

Many of you might wonder what the place looks like where I work. Well, thanks to obsessive fanboys, I can show you! On a sight called marketsaw.blogspot.com, it seems that they had a photographer who found out where we are working on the movie and sneaked onto a public jogging trail with a telephoto lens to take pictures of our building. A bunch of the employees got a good chuckle on the intensity of the article showing, of all things, WHERE WE EAT!! Just to give you a quick overview, we are working at the Howard Hughes Center. Here is where Howard Hughes created the airplane the H-4 Hercules, nicknamed the "Spruce Goose." They are currently building an office park around the core of the original Hughes buildings (we are working in one of them.) Here are some of the pics:
This gives you the best view of our building. It's the medium sized building on the left side of the picture. We think the photographer was in someones yard for this picture.
Here is a picture of a couple of trailers used for mocap people, and the food tent where we get our food for breakfast and lunch. That's the back of our building in the picture.
This last picture is a tarp covering one of our props. The fanboy was SO PSYCHED when he was able to show you the alien plant under the tarp.
Well, I know you guys are interested in the plant, but I'm more interested in showing you MY BIKE that made it into the spy photos! While you might be disappointed about not seeing the plant, at least you can console yourself that you did, in fact, see a bike that is being driven by an employee of James Cameron (Truth be told: I did not want to show anything that might spoil the movie or incur the wrath of Mr. Cameron.)

My Career

Many of you know that I work in the film industry. Many of you know that I tell you that I can be very busy. A co-worker of mine, named Eric, found this on YouTube and felt that it summed a typical work day during crunch time. Watch and enjoy, they did a great job on it.

Weird Things To See In LA

(Kitty) Have I told you this before? One of the weirdest things I've seen in LA, I see a lot of in Santa Monica specifically. That is people pushing baby strollers that are filled with everything except babies. My impression is that all of these people are street people, but that may or may not be true. Whoever these men and women are, they are walking the streets with dirty old baby strollers filled with all kinds of "stuff." Perhaps all their worldly possessions? Perhaps cans and bottles for recycling? I don't know.

But I saw two of them today and it struck me as it always does - as just plain weird.

Back to Work!

(Kitty) John and I have had several friends affected by the Writers Guild of America strike (Hollywood screenwriters, if you haven't been following this), but one couple we've been praying for a lot because they're both screenwriters. Being unemployed is difficult (John and I know about that!), but to both become unemployed at the same time and for the same reason - eek! To show my support, I delivered brownies to the strike line at the beginning of the strike in November. And last week I walked with my friend in front of Fox Studios.

At church on Sunday, she and her husband called me over to tell me the good news - the strike is as good as over! Thank you, God! Now people can get back to paying their car payments on time. Whew!

On a similar note, I am feeling that "back to work" feel more than ever! I decided last week that I'm never going to make a living as a writer if I do "everything else" first every day. So I'm now starting my day with my work - writing - and trying to fit "everything else" into the spaces after that. Now I see why I wasn't writing as fast as I should have been! There is no room for everything I've put into my life! So...I'm working on a plan to decrease the amount of "stuff" I have to do and the amount of time I take to do it. Difficult, but I'm already finding some other people in my life are stepping up and volunteering to take some of the load. Again - thank you, God! Maybe 2008 will turn out to be the kind of writing year I've been waiting for!

There is Hope

I found this art piece titled "There is hope" by a talented young fellow named Reid Southen on www.deviantart.com. He is a 19yo art student who lives in Rochester Hills, Michigan.
As a Christian, it shows to me the hand of God reaching down to those who are in need of his help.
A very strong and wonderful piece of art.

Yes, it rains in California

photo by Michael Buntag

(John) While Kitty has been getting lots of snow and freezing temperatures in Michigan, we have had a whole week of cold and rain here in California. It has rained off and on since about Monday, making impossible to ride my motorcycle and turning our work parking lot into a small wading pool. While I'm glad it is raining, because we did need it, I would really like to see the sun again before I forget what it looks like.

No Cold Like a Michigan Cold

(Kitty) I'm sure it's not true, but it feels true. I caught a cold several days ago and my whole life now revolves around it - carrying tissues everywhere, drinking water constantly, not sleeping well at night, not fully "with it" during the day. People have asked me if I miss LA - that sunny, warmer land where I probably wouldn't have caught a cold. Nope. Not even when it's 15 degrees above zero here.

Michigan has weather. Lots of different kinds of weather. It was raining, then snowing, then clear and bright, then overcast and windy, then absolutely freezing cold. All in the space of only a few days. I love it! Even though I'm miserably sick. Eventually I'll get over my cold, and Michigan will still give me different kinds of weather every day. And then I'll go home to LA and be happier with the blue, sunny skies because I had a chance to dance in the snow for a while. And catch snowflakes on my tongue. I've got pictures.

Beautiful Darkness

(Kitty) I was one of the last to go to bed last night, so I crept down the stairs without turning on a light. I haven't walked in such pitch blackness in quite some time. I'm talking can't see your hand in front of your face blackness. I figured that I'd have some moonlight or some other outdoor light to guide me once I turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs. Uh, yeah, not so much.

I forgot how deep and rich the darkness is in the country. It's sooo beautiful! I've lived in the city for so long that I've forgotten what real darkness is. I generally have to sleep with a pillow or a dark-colored t-shirt over my eyes in order to sleep deeply in the city. Here at my sister's farm (for lack of a better word), I'm beginning to sleep with a depth and richness that I haven't had for a long time. If you're not sure what I mean, you probably live somewhere where there are outside lights on all night. All I can say is - boy, I forgot how much I miss the country.

No Fear

(Kitty) Last night (Friday) I had my second riding lesson this week. I'm not sure what happened, but Bonnie must've said something on Wednesday because for the first time ever, I was riding without fear. And what an amazing difference it made! I trotted, and learned to do a posting trot, and I did quite a bit of cantering. I've never cantered for more than a few paces before - I'd always been afraid of falling off. This time was soo different - at one point Bonnie said, "Kitty, bring Max back to a walk." I looked at her and frowned and said, "Aren't I walking?" I was so comfortable with this slow trot Max has that I was sure I must've been walking!

It makes me think about how we live our lives as well. How many things do we want to do, try to do, and stop when we're almost there because we're afraid we'll fall? By the time my one hour lesson was over, I was sweating all the way through my shirt (underneath my down-filled winter coat - it is Michigan in January!). Learning to do something well takes a lot of work! But over the last thirty years, I've chosen not to give up trying to learn to ride. (I don't see my sister very often, so it's taken time!) And now - finally - I am beginning to reap my reward.

I hope you find something in your life that you've once again decided not to give up on. Good luck!

Surprises!

(Kitty) What a great 24 hours! I flew to Michigan yesterday to visit my sister Bonnie and help her with some accounting and web site work for her nonprofit therapeutic riding facility (www.chumtherapy.net). What a surprise to find that all of my family showed up for a late Christmas celebration! Waiting for me at the baggage claim was not only Bonnie, but my other sister Wendy and Jim, and waiting at Bonnie's house was my mom, as well as my brother-in-law Bryan and my nephew Chris. My nephew Bruce called to talk this morning. The whole thing was so cool!

Then today, I got my first horseback riding lesson of the year - and cantered!!! I've never been able to do it before, but my new friend Max, a tri-colored Tobiano Paint gelding, and my awesome teacher Bonnie both helped me get it done! Technically, since I was riding Western, I "loped" not "cantered". See how much I'm learning?!

Gorgeous Weather

(Kitty) I'm not speaking for anyone who is living on the street, or lives in a flash flood or mud slide area, I'm just speaking for Kitty who grew up in Michigan with about 7 seasons and now lives in CA with about 2.

THIS WEATHER IS SO GORGEOUS!!!

It's all dark and gray and cloudy and cold and perfect for hot cocoa and soup! And I LOVE it!! The only weird part is that for some reason the backyard smelled like wet dog when it first started raining and none of us has dogs. Ha, ha! Weird.

Well, I'm done here. Time for some more hot cocoa! :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

(John) Happy 2008 everyone! We spent a quiet evening with friends here in California to celebrate the New Year. Well, quiet except for the horn blowing, and laughing and games of Guitar Hero 3.
While we didn't get pictures of our New Years celebration, Neville Crombie, a friend in Australia, took these pictures of the fireworks that they set off every year off the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
He was there from 3:00pm to 12:30am to get these pictures.

Thanks Neville!

Merry Christmas! Jesus Lives!

(Kitty) Merry Christmas everyone! We're having a wonderful and relaxing day after a really lovely Christmas with our friend Doug and his family. I got the coolest gifts from John! One was somewhat expected - I'm going to the motorcycle safety class where they teach you to ride and you get your motorcycle license! Woo-hooo!! The other was completely out of the blue - two hours at a firing range! Woo-hooo!! We've talked about it occasionally over the years (because I was in the Marines just long enough to get an Expert badge on the range and loved it, and living in the country as a kid I did some target practice and loved that), but we've never gotten around to going to a firing range. I told John we definitely have to go do it together! I can't wait!!

Of course, we had plenty of fun opening gifts with Doug's 2-year-old nephew, and everyone gave all kinds of fun gifts to each other. But the best part was spending time with people we love who love us. We hope you had an equally blessed holiday. God did a wondrous thing when He came down here to fulfill the law that would've condemned us. The best present we could ever have - we have! Living forever with God who will love us forever! Yea!!

Whimsy and Joy

(Kitty) According to the calendar, today is the first day of winter. Someone in the bank said, "They call this the first day of Wind-er." I laughed out loud, though I'd never heard that before. Last night, the wind started and I don't think it's quit yet. I woke up four or five times last night when the wind whistled so loudly under our door that it woke me up!

But on the way to the bank, I saw a sight that filled me with whimsy and joy. In the air a block ahead of me was a flock of a hundred or more birds. But they weren't going anywhere. They swooped together one way, then took a dive together and up in another direction, back and forth and swirling around. The more I tried to figure out what they were doing, the more a crazy fun joy welled up in my chest. And that's when I decided that's what they felt! I think they were all just playing together in the wind!

I was never so glad for a nice long stop light. For whatever reason, I felt more Christmas-y at that moment than I have all week! (Except when I delivered gifts from the church yesterday. That was awesome!) Those birds stopped looking for dinner long enough to participate together in the joy of the moment. It was beautiful watching them dance in the air like that.

I pray that for you in the next week - that you stop in your preparations occasionally to participate with your friends or family or the strangers around you in moments of whimsy and joy. God loved the world so much that He came down in the form of His Son - the JOY of the world! Like glitter that sticks to everything, bits of that joy can be experienced everywhere.

Enjoy! And Merry Christmas from John and me! We love you! :)

Living a Fantasy Life

(Kitty) The other day I decided I was tired of being grumpy about the traffic in LA. I needed some way of not getting angry every 2.3 minutes. So I figured - I'm a writer, I'll just make up stories about these people. So when the black Mercedes to the left cut me off to change lanes, I decided he was a doctor on his way to deliver someone's first child. (It is Christmas, after all. A time we're remembering someone else's first child's birth.)

When the red Miata ran a red light in front of me, narrowly missing all the traffic - like me - accelerating through the green, John said he must be on the run from the mob, trying to get away to live another day.

And when the white pickup next to me kept swerving into my lane, oblivious to the fact I was taking up space there, I knew he must've recently been blessed with 20/20 vision via lasik surgery and was still trying to get used to being able to see everything.

You can call me looney tunes if you want. But my blood pressure is still resting at normal levels, even a mere ten days before Christmas. That's a fantasy I can live with.

Ya Gotta Love This!

(Kitty) John sent this to me this morning. It's John as a character in The Simpsons! Isn't it funny? (And it looks like him, too!) If you want to try it, go to http://simpsonizeme.com/ and upload a photo of yourself. I'll have to try it later. The site says it's too busy right now! :)

Our First Christmas (Tree)!

(Kitty) - I know, I know, it's hard to believe. We started out sharing our Christmas holidays with family, then we were alone and broke, then we moved around a lot. Then this weekend John said, "I think we should get a Christmas tree." Just like that, out of the blue.

No, we haven't moved out of our 343 sq ft studio apartment. So I asked the obvious - "Where would we put it?" John suggested a tabletop tree to sit on the edge of our desks; the next day, there we were fighting the crowds at Target. Last night, we decorated our home with a Christmas tree complete with lights and bulbs (even 4 Happy Feet bulbs - thank you, Sean!) and a big red ribbon at the top. (Target didn't have any stars less than half the size of our entire tree!)

I love it! It's so festive! And we even have a small lighted nativity sitting next to the tree. I love it! Due to the joy of digital cameras - we took about 40 pictures of us until we got a good one for our Christmas photo stamps. Next weekend, we're taking pictures of ourselves with Santa hats sitting on John's motorcycle for our Christmas card photo! LOL! It'll be great!

Hope you're having a great week! Remember to thank God for the best Christmas gift ever! :)

(Kitty) - YESSS! I DID IT!! I wrote 52,415 words in 30 days! And because I was busy hanging out with my sister Bonnie, and then at our friend Doug's for Thanksgiving, I was seriously behind by last weekend. I wasn't sure I could make the final word count, but I decided not to give up. In the last 7 days, I wrote nearly 35,000 words!

Now, if you'll give me a few days to get caught up on bill-paying and other sundry details of life, I'll get some regular blogging in and let you know how our life is going out here.

We hope you're all well! God bless you!!
:)

So Much to Tell You - But Not Now

(Kitty) By the time we get thoroughly caught up with tell you all the interesting stuff that's going on in our lives (like John's birthday party!), it'll be Christmas. But hey! At least that means we'll start the new year with a clean slate! LOL!

So...just to let you know, I won't be posting anything all next week. One of my sisters is coming to town! Bonnie will be here for the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association 2007 National Conference. So I'm being kidnapped (yea!) for the week. We're going to visit San Bernadino where she was born, and hopefully get in a trail ride, and who knows what? :)

Meanwhile, if you're interested, I've written 8263 words in the first 8 days of National Novel Writing Month! Now, we're supposed to be done writing 15,000 words by the end of today to reach our month-long goal of 50,000 words. Yeah, I don't think I'll be writing 7000 words today! LOL! But I'll get caught up. Maybe if I type instead of eat over Thanksgiving weekend I won't gain any extra weight AND I'll get caught up in my word count. :)

Talk to you later! And have a lovely week!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Found this picture online and thought it fit us perfectly. Happy Halloween everyone!

A New Job!

John-
Hi everyone! I'm sorry I have not written in a while. I just started a new job! About four weeks ago I gave my notice at my job. Kitty was getting worried about my mental and physical health working at Threshold Entertainment so we sat down and talked and prayed about it. We asked God to give me a solid sign on when to leave Threshold. Well, I got the definite sign four weeks ago today, so I gave my notice the next day.

I spent two weeks decompressing and getting my sanity back. Then about two weeks ago, on Tuesday, October 16th, I saw posting for Dreamworks looking for layout people. I thought I'd put a resume in there and check the web for other job postings. On another web site I found a posting for MotionBuilder people (that is a program I used at Threshold for manipulating motion capture information.) I saw that the company name was Lightstorm Entertainment, which is James Cameron's company (if you don't know who he is, do a web search for his name.) I sent my resume and a link to my on-line demo reel to the e-mail address listed. 10 MINUTES later I got a response asking if I could come in the next day for an interview. I said I'd be happy to come in! At the interview they told me that the project was AVATAR, which was the movie I was hoping to go to New Zealand to work on with Weta Digital (Peter Jackson's company.) The interview went so well they offered me the job at the end of the interview. A couple days of contract negotiations and I had a job by Friday, October 19th and started last Monday. Mr. Cameron will be in New Zealand until the end of the year filming a bunch of live action parts for the movie. He'll be back "in office" at the start of the year to do some work with the mocap.

We have discovered God works in wondrous and exciting ways when you have faith and trust your whole life to Him.

Happy Writing!

(Kitty) For all you writers out there, here's something you want to know about - or you may already know about it. November is National Novel Writing Month. Somebody came up with the idea that we should all try writing 50,000 words in a month - and do it together. So they created a web site and now nearly 100,000 people around the world are writing together every November!

So, many of my writer friends and I are planning our stories, our word count, where we're going to write, where we can write together, and how we can write nearly an entire book without also eating an entire grocery store aisle's worth of food (or worse, an aisle worth of Halloween candy). :)

Let me know if you're participating, too! I'll see you there!

We're Safe

(Kitty) Hi everyone! Sorry - I can't believe it's been three weeks since we posted!! So much is going on, and there's so much to tell you, but all that busyness is why we haven't posted!

Just wanted you all to know we're currently safe and well in regards to the fires. We found out in church Sunday morning, near the beginning of the disaster, that one of our sister churches, Malibu Presbyterian, had burned to the ground that morning. Very sad, but there is going to be such a swell of help and support that we'll see all kinds of blessings as people come together. As their pastor said, the Church is not a building.

Of course, I think it's far worse to lose your home, and so many people have. One of our friends is trying to keep us updated for prayer purposes - her home has not burned, but it's been in the line of fire for a couple days. Another friend sent out a prayer request for her family's house as they were being evacuated. Another friend is using their home as a "refugee camp for their family in San Diego."

I've been in Temecula, a part of Riverside county, this week, housesitting and writing. It's been disturbing to go out every day to the store or to get my friend's mail and see a new fire, more smoke, darker skies. Two fires popped up Tuesday about 30 miles away, and they've gotten worse, but truly aren't near me. Still, the situation is so sad for so many. I pray for safety for the firefighters and for those whose homes are near the fires, and I've also been praying that people's insurance is current! One friend said that her parents' house is uninsurable due to its proximity to the Northridge earthquake some years ago. Wow. Who knew you could own a home that couldn't be insured? (Not me.)

Anyway, John and I are safe and well. I'll be in touch as soon as I can to tell you all the interesting and wonderful things going on in our lives this past month. Sorry to keep you waiting so long. But know that we love you!! :)

Better Safe Than Sorry?

(Kitty) Just a little LA ranting here...for the last 20 years I've been driving a car. In that time, I think I've gotten one parking ticket, two "fix-it" tickets, and that's all. Every now and again I think, "You really shouldn't be so over-careful. There's almost no chance that someone is going to run that red light. (But people do!) There's almost no chance someone's going to whip around that blind corner." (But people do!) Etc., etc.

In the last week, I've almost been hit about three or four times! Now that isn't different from any other week in LA, but this week it just pissed me off. How come I'm the one being careful and "everybody else" thinks they can just do what they want? Tonight in a parking garage I slowed way down at a place where I was the only lane that had the right of way - if I hadn't, I would've been rammed by a 30-something cute guy in a big expensive car. He was looking down at the seat when he almost hit me. Then he looked up, stopped fast, smiled, and motioned for me to continue. As if!!

Buddy, you really better watch it. Someday I might recreate that scene from Fried Green Tomatoes when Kathy Bates rams a sports car with rich, hot young people in it - they steal her parking space and call out, "We're younger and faster." She punches the accelerator and repeatedly rams their car, then calls out, "I'm older and have more insurance!"

Series Premiere

(Kitty) We had such a great time last Monday. We watched our friend's Internet series - like a TV series, but with short episodes - at a Premiere party! The series is called Dirty Bomb Diaries and it's a cool kind of "War of the Worlds" thing on a smaller scale. Click on the link and watch an episode! Or all of them! :)