We're all having a lasagne party, not a laundry party

Because I know despite your devotion to meaty layers of pasta and cheese, marinara sauce has a tendency to get all on your business.  Five new jazzy aprons to prevent the chicken korma memories your fave sweater doesn't need.  Get them in my etsy shop!

I'm not sure what I'm talking about

How do I look today? Verging on positively mental.  With an unfortunate arrangement of crispy, wild hair, not a whisper of makeup and to make matters worse I've been gorging on quorn scotch eggs since late morning.  What's happened to me, Monday? Some sort of crazy ups and downs.

Believe it or not, despite my unruly appearance I'm on my way up.  We might need to start fresh with the not-looking-like-a-crazywoman thing tomorrow, but I promise I'll even wear deodorant and I promise we're still on with this Janathon thing.  (Illustration above done for Whitelines magazine issue 106, January 2013)

It's just been - well - you know, sometimes you just gotta stick up for yourself and say what you want.  (Sometimes that involves taking a day off, whether you like it or not.)

When in doubt: hibernate, cry if necessary and say what you feel.  Cake also helps.  As does cheese.

I didn't take the whole weekend off, nooonono.  Just Friday.  Although snow+rain+freezing temperatures makes for very challenging running conditions, so Saturday was almost a no-go as well!

Fortunately the pretty blue sky on Saturday morning was too hard to resist so I got my butt outside for 5 miles and I didn't land on said butt once.

Turns out the run was a perfect start to a top day that involved lots of time with my other half, coffee, new runners, and a lunchdate.  I was back in the game :)

PS: LOOK AT MY NEW SHOES LOOK AT MY NEW SHOES LOOK AT MY NEW SHOES

And yesterday I put these pretty things on my feet and went out for a slow and steady 13.6 miles with my training buddies.  It was followed nicely by another lunchdate - delicious sweet potato sandwich and hot cup of tea.  mmm.

And here's an absolutely irrelevant photo of some dried chillis from our chilli plant.  Give me a break, it's Monday, and I have spent a large amount of it consuming imitation meat with egg.  I need to lie down now.

Cats, cards, peanuts and porridge

Hey Cool Cats! Are you making it through the week in good spirits?  Despite it being super cold and frosty here in Manchester there's been some beautiful blue skies, which never fail to make me want to smile and dance.  What have you been up to?  I've been here packing up your orders and designing a few new products for you to see.  There's still a few of the oldies but goodies hanging about:

(My man got made to model aprons at the weekend.  I think he did a great job, hey?  Turns out taking 5 MINUTES BREAK from watching golf on the tv didn't cause him to keel over and stop breathing...)

Speaking of tv, if you happen to be in the mood for something way more entertaining than grown men knocking their balls across the garden, there's a new show which I worked on last summer with a really awesome animation agency.  It's called Let's Play and it's for kiddies.  I got to draw the backgrounds for the different worlds that the characters visit, alongside two other illustrators chosen for the job.  The animators turned our illustrations into awesome 3d scenes for the real-life characters to walk around in.  You can see my handiwork next week on Tuesday, the 'Doctors' episode is on at 10.30am/2.30pm on CBeebies (SKY channel 614).  You'll see all of the pretty backgrounds I drew.   Then the 'Farmers' episode is on Wednesday at the same time.  There are 26 episodes in total, and I am pretty excited to upload some of the artwork onto my website for you to see.

In the meantime, if you're in need of Valentines Day cards, there's plenty in my etsy shop including these foxy foxes who are also stocked at Bowery on Otley Rd, Leeds.

And I guess you'd also like to hear my Janathon update! So Monday my hips were feeling a little angry with me after my 14 mile jog on Sunday.  I did some leg stretching and a lot of walking but as it was a recovery day on my training plan I did just that.  Tuesday at run club I did 5.8miles worth of tempo running, and yesterday involved a super sweaty 90 minute Bikram session.  I got my 3 mile run out of the way this morning before my egg breakfast... I beat my 5k pb on today's run, so I guess that means I get to celebrate with chocolate covered peanuts.

I'll leave you with a photo of my chocolate protein porridge from the other day with apple, flax, sunflower & pumpkin seeds, linseed and cacao.  I'm much better at drawing cats than I am at making porridge, and I'm not very good at drawing cats.

Which one of you party animals has run 100km so far this month?

OH HAY.   I see you there standing around waiting for me to write another garbage blogpost.  Well here it is, my friend - sit back and get this in you.  (Be warned, I will talk garbage and there will likely be unicorns.)

Where did we leave things? Ah yes, I remember.  We were on the topic of unicorns.  Of course!

You can now in fact buy mini unicorn drawings in my etsy shop.  Funny, hey.  (not funny at all really.)

I have been doing a month of activities, as you may know.  If you'd like an update on my athletic movements since my last post, it looks something like this: Thursday, I ran 3 miles and swam 900 metres.  Friday I did a pathetic 200 crunches.  Saturday I ran 5 miles and Sunday I ran 14 miles.  YEA, I DID.

(token photo of clean hair to prove I do actually sometimes wear things other than dri-fit and lycra and sometimes even wash my hair)  (but it's not that often.)

Back to running related matters:  I've setup a fundraising page for my marathon, as it's happening in April.  I'm raising money for a small charity based in Yorkshire who work their buns off to help dogs and cats in crisis situations.  If you'd like to donate, you can click over to my page.  This babe has volunteered to kiss every person that donates.  Wow! Thanks, hot babe.

Speaking of displays of affection, a Malaysian-based online magazine wrote some words about moi today. Gahh people being all nice and stuff.

Ah yes and lastly we went to see Django Unchained on Saturday night - have you seen it? It's brilliant. There are numerous amazing coats worn and a spectacularly dashing black man in a cowboy hat.

Bye 4 now, friends!  (Ps: the answer to the question in my blog title is: ME) ok bye

What chu know about me

I know you want an update on my exercise, January.  So your update is this: on Monday I did loads (loads) of crunches.  On Tuesday I ran 4 miles.  Today, more crunches.  Are you bored? Don't worry, it's over.  And as a reward, here's a Unicorn sticker:

I'm selling them in my etsy shop.  I'm also popping them in with lucky orders.  PLAY ON.

VALENTINES CARDS there I said it.

I have a pack of miniature LOVE cards now for sale.  I think they're brill.  There's four cards in the pack, because I know you have multiple lovers deserving of nutso Valentines cards.  x

12 miles, cheese love and poncey powders

A couple things that made me feel emotional this week:
1. Got to Dance.  Just pretty much all of the contestants always ever, dunno why but I cry at every single one.
2.  My mom and Dad moved to France to begin their dream of running a business and living a sustainable life together.  Mom tells me they have been given fish pie by the neighbours and my dad has told me to download a new app called 'whatsapp.'  I feel confident in saying they are going to be just fine.
3.  My freaking aprons only went and got a total big deal blog mention last week and sold out.

Turns out, PEOPLE LOVE CHEESE hey.  There were some funny comments on the blogpost specifically one person who adapted a Beyonce song to incorporate cheese. Of course.

Oh if you want to buy aprons, you still can do.  Just click over to my etsy shop.  

I also chose a winner for the giveaway on my facebook page.  Well, two winners because two is better than one (unless you're talking measures of spirulina cuz that stuff stinks and I mean it's mega whiffy) 

So yeah I'm excited to send out some love to these ladies.  Oh and speaking of sending love in the post, check out Creative Pay it Forward.  I got involved on facebook and if all goes to plan I should be receiving something handmade and also sending out some goods to old pals I've not seen in a while.

And speaking of old pals, I may have to reward my legs with denim this week as they covered some mileage this weekend and deserve a present.  2.5 mile yesterday and 9.6 mile today.  That's a new jean-worthy 12 miles. Go legs! I love you. Now please, choose expensive jeans and I shall buy them for you guiltlessly.

Last week I was having some issues with hydration/moodswings but it seems a combo of some crazy healthfood powders I can't even... Baobab (how is that a thing?) and Spirulina (don't even) along with my other protein/crazy diet stuffs my post-run hunger rage seems under control and I'm not getting major thirst headaches anymore.  Was really hoping to avoid sugarfilled sports drinks and fingers crossed I might be on the right track.  

Alrighty! Off to eat some fish, pack up some aprons and hopefully finish the book I'm reading.  Thanks for being wonderful.  It's been emotional but nothing some new jeans can't fix. 

You really are.

It's the best day of the week!  Fried-egg day! Woo. We love Fridays. Usually they mean the day before two days of relaxing, watching tv, doing a bit of work and hanging out with my best manfriend.  Right now Fridays are the day before one day of a shortish run and one day of a long run. But guaranteed I'll squeeze the other activities in with loads of chowing on food in between.

Janathon is going well so far, I got my Missy Elliot on last night at a street dance class (I'm so street!) and today my marathon training plan called for just a short 3 miler so I took my ass out pre-breakfast to get it over and done with.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have Valentines cards to design! Thanks for reading. YOU'RE A GOOD EGG!

Dehydration, yoghurt, men in a box

Did 5.8 miles tempo run last night with run club (5min/90sec recovery  4min/90sec recovery  3min/60sec recovery, 2min/60sec recovery, 1min/60sec recovery, 1min/60sec recovery, 1min/60sec recovery, easy run home.)  Felt great. Did drink too much water before bed in effort to rehydrate- needa work on the electrolyte situ. Been chowing on toast+yoghurt this morning.  Not tried it? You'll be amazed how good it is.

Been packing up a bunch of orders again today.  Seems peoples are getting sorted for Valentines Day early this year.  I'm stocked up again on aprons, and don't forget you can get a discount if you buy two!

And I updated my 'about' page in my etsy shop.  Check it out.  Hope you're having a wonderful Wednesday.  I've got a one mile time trial to do later today.  That calls for a snack-tastic afternoon.  Oh, did you enter my giveaway? It's still on. 'till Friday, yo. 

Kenneth gets around!

Had a lovely surprise the other morning when the postman brought me a copy of 101 Woonideeen, an awesome Dutch interiors magazine who have featured my pocket manfriends.

Ain't he handsome.  So brave, being there on the products page with all of the other cool things to buy.  Although I can't read it, the rest of the magazine is super pretty and has loads of awesome ideas and things to buy.

In my haste to find the products section I flicked through the magazine and found my beardy man and got distracted by all of the lovely things.  And then went on to ask google translate to tell me what the (real nice) writeup said about my pocket fellas.

So it came as even more of a surprise yesterday when I went to photograph the magazine, I flipped open to the very first page and saw another photo of Kenneth staring back at me.  Seems this charming guy couldn't help but hang out on the same page as the letter from the editor! Saweeeeeeeeet!!

So ain't I lucky having my pocket manfriends not once but twice in one awesome magazine.  It's a great day! 

Running and gangsters and cake

Hello! It's Tuesday.  Yesterday's errands and drawing and making vegetarian chilli didn't really count as exercise so in the spirit of Janathon I did some crunches and thigh work (while the Simpsons was on the tv...) last night.  It was a 'rest day' on my marathon training plan and as I had done 9 miles on Sunday with run club I felt I owed my legs a day off.  But hey my 100 crunches must count for something.  Especially since my taco kitty tote bag was featured in the 'treat yo self' etsy newseletter (ayyy!!!) on Sunday and I was feeling in the spirit.

Today I spent the morning packing up orders and listening to UhhYeahDude.

Did you see my illustration for issue 105 (December 2012) of Whitelines Magazine?  This is it:

These cats sold out over Christmas.  This week calls for some sewing and stuffing (and maybe some cake.)

Run club again tonight.  My legs are ready.

Vitamins and purple food

Did a 6.5 mile run this morning.  I crammed some real sugary fruitcake (for breakfast? I know, I'm so healthy) in my gob and downed a protein shake pre-run and then afterwards took down a brew (love a brew after a run) a banana, walnuts, peanut butter, followed by massive mushroom+chicken sandwich.  Sometimes the feeding/nutritionising can be more tiring than the exercising itself.  Will there be enough time in the day to get all the food in, when I'm up in the 18 mile distances in March?  So boring, remembering to eat all the gosh darn time!!

I'm thinking of doing another Vitamin/nutrient chart.  This one helped me process all the info I was reading when I was training for my first half marathon.  I turned it into a tea towel late last year, for kitchen exposure!

In the meantime, here are some photos from my instagram feed of my colourful daily graze.  I guess as my training goes on I will have to start tripling my purple smoothie intake and use it as an excuse to bake more rainbow carrot muffins. (and of course an excuse to take more photos of my food. As if I don't take enough already.)

In other news, you can now order custom tote bags and custom pet portraits through my etsy shop.