I would run 73 miles and I would run 73 more... Hopefully

Hello loyal people,

Sorry that the title of this blog doesn't quite fit into the song by the Proclaimers... Oh well.

So, I have not been consistent lately with my artwork or blog or website AT ALL for the past few months. You see, I have been trying to achieve some balance in my life. Being a college student, taking summer classes, working and managing my art, and general life necessities, I needed something extreme.

So I've taken up running. Seriously, Me: running!!!

Having congenital heart defects, and three open heart surgeries, there are serious risks to increasing my exercise. And due to my heart defects, I don't think I've been forced to run more than a few yards since I was 15 (nine years ago- jeesh!). I am an active walker and yoga-doer, but tire easily and usually don't try to push myself. So I've had to go at a snail's pace with running in order not to injure myself and in order to get to the point where I'm relatively ok at the darn sport.

So I started logging walk-jog miles in my Nike+ app. And since May 2nd, I have completed (are you ready for this?) 73 miles-- MILES! 73!!!! Not even joking, you can look at my Nike+ App if you don't believe me. Most runners might find that to be a very low milege, actually. But for me, it's kind of ridiculously awesome.

So now I am obsessively running at least 3-5 times a week. I feel more energized and while I'm relatively trim and didn't have much weight to loose, I've started to notice that my legs and arms actually do have muscles! Who knew? The BEST part about my running is that it is a serious stress-reducer. As a college student who works and manages an art career, my stress levels are ridiculously high. And lately, I have had no drive whatsoever to create art. None. Being that my career is an artist, this is not a good thing.

So for the past (almost) 2 months, I have been putting all my effort into running. Obsessive effort, like reading running magazines and researching information about form and work outs and races and I even bought running shoes and am signing up for a 5k! (My running shoes are the most expensive shoes I have EVER bought in my whole life btw.) Happy to say, it's been paying off in a big way. Not to get nerdy and cause you to stop reading, (just skip to the next paragraph if you get bored) but carbs are apparently a runner's best friend. Being an Italian at heart and having pasta, bread and bagels and rice being all that I eat normally, this is one of the greatest choices in the universe that I could have made to keep my jeans size. Also, if you do a big workout, then you actually have to eat MORE FOOD in order to fuel your body in a healthy way (bwahahahaha!). For anyone who knows me, they know that I love to eat and that I basically never stop eating, ever. Sometimes I bring whole meals to class and my classmates gape at me as I pull out coffee, yogurt, fruit, a bagel, a muffin, granola, almonds, etc from my schoolbag. And in the 73 miles that I've run, my app tells me I've burned over 6,ooo calories. (Though I had at least two or three celebratory chocolate milkshakes with whipped cream during that time which probably added up to 6,000 calories anyways.)

Anyhow, as I was online today, and skimming over some of my favorite artist's blogs and paintings, I realized how much I missed drawing and creating. Sometimes that's all one needs to get going again. I do apologize for my absence, it has been very touch an go for the past year (mainly from my classes) but I believe that I with this new stress reliever, I can get back into my regular obsessive artwork (if it's not one thing, it's another!)

More blogs to come this week! We've had writing assignments in my summer class that I'll probably post along with possible new doodles AND -- MY COMPUTER IS COMING BACK TO ME!!!! My lovely webguy Matt, has fixed my comp and I can pick it up this week and hopefully scan in some old pieces in next week!

Bye for now~