Being glad

I don't know what the weather is like where you are but here in Manchester it's horrendous.  Grey, rainy, blustery.  We've not had rain like this in a very long time!

But today so far has been wonderful.
A morning yoga class with Claire in Bramhall realigned me and gave me some space.
I bought two new striped items of clothing.
And some blueberry licorice and sparkling water.
Three treats before noon.

I don't know about you but I feel so grateful for every day, even when it's blustering like hell outside.
(new cushion.  If you love it as much as I do you can purchase one over here.)

Make your guests do yoga

A quick Juneathon catchup.  Sunday was totally a sweaty Sunday.  My bestie was staying and as Rich was playing golf we got to drink smoothies and fresh juice, do some yoga and things even got really wild and we did a NTC workout in my front room.  We're so cool, sometimes I can't believe quite how insanely cool we are.

As if that wasn't enough fun (seriously though, people will stop coming to stay at our house soon) we went on a 4 mile run down the canal and up to Chorlton Water Park to find some hills.  It was actually (if you like running and hills and aren't normal) really fun.

On Monday I did loads and loads of stretching while watching Breaking Bad.  This counts because my hamstrings are super tight at the moment and I'm almost through series 3 and gahhh my favourite character is Gus don't you agree?

Yoga In Manchester

I recently designed these tote bags for Clare who runs Yoga In Manchester.  The totes are available directly from Clare, so you'll have to go and do some headstands at one of her awesome Iyengar classes if you'd like to buy one! (or get in touch with her via her website or twitter, she may be able to sort you out!)

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.

Work more, sweat more, and win cats

You made it through the first week back in the real world!  So did I! This calls for chicken hoagies.  Hope you're feeling the newness of the new year and enjoying laying down the law for hows it gonna roll in 2013. I'm making a conscious effort to make more bad drawings.  Here's one I did yesterday. 

Some good words to live by.

And in celebration of reaching 1,000 fans, a giveaway is happening on my facebook page.  Because I like you.  You can win a bumper pack of greeting cards, some rad stickers, a big cat print, a Ms Spanner print, a blue faces coaster, one of the original pocket girlfriends, a Motel California tea towel, an 'I love you so much I could fart' pocket mirror and two mini drawings.  What you can't win are my feet.  I need them!

Today involved 90 minutes of hot yoga at Bikram Yoga Manchester.  Hot damn it was good.  So sweaty and so good.  Yesterday started with a fresh early morning 3 mile run.  I'm alternating my Janathon updates between here and my instagram account so's not to get my blog too sweaty or my instagram feed too running-obsessed (you know I want to though.)

My Be Obscure tote bag showed up on the etsy front page this afternoon. Wowee!!

And lastly, there's a shiny new (she's shiny and colourful) runner on my running blog. If you'd like to contribute to We Do Run Run please get in touch!

Happy Friday to you. x