Running

I’ve done a bit of a disappearing act, I know!!  Sorry about that…  I’ve been on vacation the past couple of weeks & haven’t spent much time online at all.  One would think that would mean I’d have plenty of time to blog, but I’ve kept myself busy in other areas during this vacation, actually.  One of which has been running – YAY!

I’ve been getting out nearly every day of vacation.  Most days, I’ve been logging 5 mile runs.  It’s been really fantastic, actually.  We had nearly a week of rains, but luckily the rains have been just the rain & no thunder/lightening.  So I had at least 3 runs in the rain the past week – which is by far my favorite way to run in Florida in July, to be honest.  LOL  Next week I’ll be returning to the 5am runs, which will also be on the cooler side.  I’ve been sleeping in this week, not getting out until 7 or 8 in the morning.

Today I’m getting out a bit later, as the manlets decided that they want to start running with me for a bit.  I’m so excited about that, but I’m also a bit leery of it actually happening.  Getting them to wake is the biggest challenge – needless to say, they don’t usually want to wake up when I want to get out the door for a run.  LOL

I’ve had really fantastic luck in my timing & have logged several runs & even a walk with Larry (our local running guru, the flip-flop man).  I love running with Larry, as the time always passes by so quickly & we have such fascinating conversations!!  Joe, he even asked about you the other day, wondering if we’d been talking of late!  :)  I explained that I’ve not been online so much of late, but that I was just thinking about you & meant to check in with ya!  Hee!

I signed up for the Dunedin House of Beer 5k that takes place on Halloween in the evening, too.  It’s their 2nd annual race – I did it last year & had so much fun, I decided to do it again this year.  Mind you, I’m running a half marathon that morning, so it should be interesting to see how well I handle it.  LOL!

Butterbeer, oh my!

Our vacation has mostly been a staycation, where we’re just relaxing at home & not doing a whole lot of anything.  We were going to go camping, but due to unforeseen events, we had to cancel that portion of it.  But at least we DID manage to get in a day over at Universal’s Island of Adventure!  We all simply HAD to get over to check out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, of course!

Universal could definitely stand to learn much from Disney, I’ll say that much.  Pretty much everyone was there just for Harry Potter, so that section was a nightmare of lines for EVERYTHING.  Butterbeer?  Minimum of 30 minutes (though I must admit, it is SO worth it – the butterbeer is FANTASTIC).  Lunch?  An hour in line.  Honeydukes?  15 minutes just to get in the door & totally not worth the wait – the store is tiny & has hardly ANY British goodies.  All of the muggle selections are candies commonly available in the US everywhere – one exception was pear drops, which made the oldest manlet’s day.  Chocolate frogs?  $10 for one.

The ride up at Hogwarts Castle is terrific, no doubt.  We had to first find a locker to store our bags, which took 30-45 minutes.  Then we had to wait in line for 2 hours.  For a 2-3 minute ride, it’s just not worth it!  So if you go, be sure to ride that ride first & don’t carry any sort of bag with you unless you want to run the risk of losing your stuff.  We didn’t even bother getting in line for Ollivander’s – that line was a minimum hour long wait even in the evening.

They renamed the Dueling Dragons roller coaster to Dragon Challenge – tying it in via the Goblet of Fire’s Triwizard Tournament.  We rode both this coaster & the Hulk coaster – deciding that Dragons was much better than Hulk.  Outside of the Harry Potter section & the Hulk coaster, we quickly deduced that IoA really hasn’t got anything else for the 3 of us to enjoy, so we pretty much spent the whole time in HP.  All in all, we’ll definitely go back again, but not until the excitement over it dies down a bit & the lines aren’t quite as horrid.

Knitting

I’ve been knitting tons this vacation, focusing on gifts that I need to get done.  I’m on my 4th shawl now, actually!  My challenge to myself is to knit down my stash and once again make all the various birthday/holiday gifts by hand rather than spending any cash for anything.  I had a wonderful birthday this year & several friends gave me even more yarn, so it’s been challenging to knit away some of it!!  LOL  I’m currently working on a shawl from a gorgeous handpainted yarn my friend Monica gave me for my birthday.  I also have a new sock pattern OTN, but it’s been challenging me again.  I have to rip back on it, as the pattern I had in mind just is not working for me.  :(

Today’s Ravelry Search

So how about some new Harry Potter related patterns?  Are ya up for some?  ;)  These are some of the newer patterns I found on Ravelry – none of these are mine!  As always, the picture links to the Rav pattern page – do go check them out!

I love her socks, I really do! These are probably my favorite out of the house socks, I think.

* Mittens to match Hermione's scarf in HP & the Half-Blood Prince! Awesome!

* This one set me to giggling - the backside has "Naughty Children deserve to be punished"... inspired by none other than Delores Umbridge, of course! Genius.

* From the incredibly awesome Steve Plummer - Harry in illusion! FANTASTIC!

* Cute! The flying keys from Philosopher's Stone! :)

* This pattern is clever - it's a cowl that can convert to a slouchy hat! I love this types of patterns. :)

* Free pattern

Happy Thursday, everyone!  I’m off to hit the trail w/the manlets (hopefully!)!