We’re heading into a dark, dark forest once again for our Second Annual Moms on the Go Camping Trip. Being a fair-weather camper, I couldn’t be more happier about the forecast this weekend with highs near 80, lows in the 50s and not a drop of rain expected. You couldn’t ask for better than that! And of course, it’s perfect running weather too!
S’more when I return from the dark, dark forest!
My daughter definitely inherited my love for party planning and with her obsession over Harry Potter, she planned a whole party around the theme of the books and the movies.
Her magical grand design included a Hogwarts dining hall with a table for each house (Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Slytherin), a sorting hat, a potions lesson by our resident witch (me) and a Quidditch match, of course.
When sharing her master plan, she told us that she wanted to decorate the entire house to resemble Hogwarts. Upon entering the house, the guests were to walk through Diagon Alley to find their necessary supplies and then report to Hogwarts.
As much fun as that all sounded, I couldn’t stomach the idea of 1) decorating my ENTIRE house the day after Halloween, 2) spending all the money required to decorate our entire house and 3) having about 40 children in my house. So, I convinced Allana to scale down the party a bit and offered to rent our community’s clubhouse, which is available at a very modest price.
Between races and other commitments, October is always a busy month for us, therefore, I tried to keep everything as simple and basic as possible, but still honor Allana’s request. For the invitations, I downloaded the Lumos font from MuggleNet.com and modified text in the Hogwarts acceptance letter from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
In honour of
Allana’s 8th Birthday
Sunday, November 1, 2OO9
2:OO P.M.
Our Clubhouse
777 Our Street Drive
We await your owl by no later than October 26.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
On the front of the invitation, I added the Hogwarts seal for authenticity. Allana loved it and even commented on how “it looked so real”.
For the party decorations, I found everything I needed with one trip to the local dollar store. We set up four tables (one for each house) and covered the tables with black vinyl tablecloths. At each place setting, we set a purple plate, a purple napkin and a plastic purple spider goblet for each child, which would be theirs to keep after the party. Each goblet held a goodie bag filled with an assortment of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans to represent Bertie Bott’s Jelly Beans. Then, I covered another table with a purple tablecloth for the presents and hung spooky paper chandeliers from the ceiling to finish the Hogwarts dining hall look and feel.
Of course each Hogwarts student needs a wand, so I found a cheap frugal wand craft on-line that consisited of pencils, pipe cleaners and star wire.
Our little wizards could make assemble their wands while waiting for other guests to arrive. 
Allana insisted that each child be sorted as they arrived. I dug up two black witch’s hats from our dress-up clothes box: one to be placed each child’s head and the other to hide our baby monitor. When the guests entered the room, we asked them to sit in a chair near the door and placed the “sorting hat” on their heads. On the other side of the room, Dad held the baby monitor. Speaking into the monitor, he pretended to be the voice of the sorting hat and selected a house at random for each child. The children giggled in delight upon hearing our talking sorting hat.
As the guests made their way to their tables, we served chips and filled their goblets with Butterbeer (Root Beer). Then, to begin our Hogwarts celebration, we sang “Happy Birthday” and served the cake at the start of the party because the planned activities would take us outside and give the children a chance to burn off the sugar high.
For my potions lesson, I told my students as I assembled the ingredients, “I’m not a very good witch and I always mess up my potions, so I don’t know what may happen here. Sometimes the results are very explosive!” I poured in a cup of powdered bat’s bones (baking soda) into a cauldron. I added a drop of frog’s blood (red food coloring) and then poured in some ogre sweat (white vinegar). The students squealed with delight as the concoction erupted out of the cauldron.
After our explosive potions lesson, Dad lead the children in a quick game of Quidditch for Muggles. No broomsticks required, but it was a fun game of controlled chaos.
At the end of the day, Allana exclaimed, “THAT WAS THE BEST PARTY EVER!” Although, she’s said that before, it felt good to hear it again this year.
On Halloween night eight years ago, groans and moans filled the air, but not by any spooky creatures of the night. These terrifying howls echoed through hospital halls as a first time mom felt the pains of childbirth. The howling carried on through the night until 2:50 a.m. when our precious baby girl entered the world on November 1.
As I held our tiny baby for the first time, her big brown eyes looked up at me and I cried tears of joy. She was so beautiful. Even then, she looked just like her dad, Allan, and we knew that her chosen name, Allana Rose, fit her perfectly.
It’s hard to believe that 8 years have passed, but as the years have flown by, I’ve treasured watching our Allana Rose blossom into an amazing young girl.
Happy 8th Birthday, Allana Rose.
At our Moms on the Go Halloween party, Allana proudly posed for a picture with a cupcake that she cleverly designed all by herself. While the other children simply smeared on icing and sprinkled a few toppings on their cupcakes, Allana created a bootiful masterpiece. With a dab of vanilla icing, she created a small ghost. She added two sprinkles for the eyes and another for its mouth. The candy corn represents a tombstone in a graveyard. Isn’t it spootacular?
Any girl with a shoe fetish will tell you, you never throw away the boxes. These stylish ladies save the boxes and neatly line their closet shelves with rows of shoeboxes.
As for runners, there’s a never ending supply of shoeboxes or at least a new shoebox every three months or so.
During my life as a running SAHM, my shoes consisting mostly of running shoes, Crocs and flip-flops which I wear too often to keep neatly stored in rows of boxes, but rather piled in heaps on the bottom of my closet.
Although I don’t save the shoeboxes to store my shoes anymore, I do save the boxes for a charity first brought to my attention by my friend, Lori. I credit Lori for introducing me to two things: running and Operation Christmas Child. Under her direction, our moms group, Moms on the Go, began an Operation Christmas Child drive every November.
Throughout the year, my daughters save the toys from their fast food kid’s meals specifically for this charity. Naturally, they each prefer to fill a box for a girl and I fill a box for a boy. If our boxes seem a bit empty, I take the girls to the dollar aisle at Target and have them pick a few more items to add to their shoeboxes. This year, my girls will include drawings, photos and a letter telling a little about themselves.
For the first time last year, I pre-paid the postage for our shoeboxes on-line. After our boxes were delivered, I received an e-mail from Samaritan’s Purse naming the destination of packages. The e-mail included a link which highlighted the destination on the map and from that same link, my girls and I viewed images of children in Guyana holding their small treasure chests. My girls found the photos gratifying and I appreciated the brief geography lesson it offered. Most importantly, I truly appreciated the larger lesson Operation Christmas Child has taught my girls year after year: Our small boxes of joy have a huge impact on another child.
Thanks to Lori, my girls and I look forward to Operation Christmas Child every November. It brings us such pleasure to fill another child’s life with joy and love.
My oldest daughter, Allana, loves the Harry Potter series and even dressed as Hermoine for her school literacy parade. At her request, we celebrated her birthday yesterday in true Hogwarts fashion, but I’ll post more on that later.
To feed honor my daughter’s obsession birthday, I found a Harry Potter music video featuring The Fray’s How to Save a Life with some clips of the Harry Potter movies. The song has been featured on many shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Cold Case, but this muggle thinks it works well for wizards too.
On the last Saturday in October, we celebrate Guavaween which is Tampa’s (actually Ybor City’s) Latin version of a Halloween Mardi Gras. Throughout the night, young and old parade the streets in slutty creepy outlandish costumes.
Year after year (many moons ago before marriage and children), I found myself dressed in costume and beer crawling through the crowded streets of Ybor City with thirty thousand of my closest friends.
As crazy as it sounds, Guavaween will always have a special spot in my heart.
Dressed as a Brownie on a cold Guavaween night fourteen years ago, I traded Girl Scout cookies for beer. Then, at some point during that crazy chilly night, my girlfriend and I found our way into the Green Iguana to escape the crowd and warm my cookies.
While warming up in the bar with a cold beer, I smiled at a young lad standing across the smoky room. He smiled back and proceeded to walk over to introduce himself. As he gazed upon me, my knees went weak and I knew I was looking into the eyes of my future husband.
It was truly love at first sight. He says my smile entranced him, but more than likely it was the cookies hanging out my shorts and my belted fishnets that caught his attention.
Since there were so many great costumes at Gauavaween, I always traveled with a camera to capture some of my favorite ones on film. I also happened to capture the moment I met Allan.
Although it was all too cliché and too surreal for me to process, we chatted for a while and before we parted our ways, he asked me for my phone number. Since it seemed silly to meet a decent fellow in a bar, the rational side of my brain instructed me to not wait by the phone especially for a guy who hits on your in a bar on Guavaween.
However, he did call a few days later and we arranged for our first date on November 1, which years later would be recognized as another noteworthy celebration when our first daughter was born on that same date.
Since becoming a grown-up and a mom, I’ve gotten away from Guavaween, but I still celebrate the event every year in my heart as the night I met my true love. And of course, we I still celebrate it by parading around in costumes.
It’s mornings like today that I’m grateful for a running partner who forces me to get up and tortures me with speedwork keeps me accountable. Honestly, the way I felt this morning, I would have rather stayed in bed a little longer and I probably would have if I faced speedwork alone. When the alarm rang at 5:00 a.m., I dragged myself out of bed and moaned every step after that.
Since we skipped our speed drills last week due to avoidance scheduling conflicts, Tiffany and I knew we had to make up for it this week even though we both dreaded it. Our virtual coach, Hal, instructed us to do 8 x 400. UGH! Eight yucky, sweaty, hurts like a mofo sprints!
I seriously was not feeling the speedwork today and neither was Tiffany, but two negative attitudes equal one just get it over with attitude. So, we started with an easy half mile run.
0.48 miles
Time 5:08
Ave Pace 10:39
After our warm-up run, we started with our sucky sticky sweaty sprints and Tiffany marked each sprint with our nifty little sidewalk chalk tally chart again. After just two sets, I needed my rescue inhaler. The humidity was killing me.
Lap 1 – 0.25 miles
Time 1:50
Ave Pace 7:27
Lap 2 – 0.24 miles
Time 1:46
Ave Pace 7:17
Lap 3 - 0.26
Time 1:57
Ave Pace 7:39
Lap 4 – 0.24
Time 1:56
Ave Pace 7:56
Lap 5 – 0.24
Time 1:55
Ave Pace 7:54
Lap 6 – 0.24
Time 1:48
Ave Pace 7:26
Lap 7 – 0.25
Time 1:53
Ave Pace 7:38
Lap 8 – 0.25
Time 1:52
Ave Pace 7:31
Thankfully, there was no dog poop or commuter traffic for this morning’s speedwork. We did, however, have to dodge an armadillo that played possum as we ran past him. Silly, Armadillo. If you’re going to crawl through our track, then you are going to have to run like the rest of us!
After hurdling armadillos, we ended with another half mile run.
0.49 Miles
Time 4:42
Ave Pace 9:40
My times were not the greatest. I’m sure it had to do with me dragging my feet and not wanting to do sprints from the get-go. But, I prefer to blame it on the humidity, the armadillo and the Cheeseburger Happy Meal and candy pumpkins I had for dinner the night before, which isn’t the best food fuel for sprints. However, I did wash it all down with my new favorite beverage, Budwesier Select 55 and a wedge of lime. After all, it is the “lightest beer in the world”. I thought it might help make me a little lighter on my feet, but not so much.
At the Sweetfields Farm this past Saturday, my family and I hopped on a hay ride, ran through a hay maze, explored a corn field maze and pumped water from a trough.
We love visiting pumpkin patches during the month of October, but this was our first time at the Sweetfields Farm. All the fun activities there made this pumpkin patch a perfect pick.
With a little over 3 weeks left until the Women’s Half Marathon, I have been showing some steady improvement.
10/20 Tuesday
4.70 miles
Time 47:25
Ave Pace 10:05
10/21 Wednesday
4 miles
40:04
Ave Pace 10:01
10/22 Thursday
3 miles
28:29
Ave Pace 9:30
Then last Friday, running at 10 a.m. in the blazing sun seemed like a good idea. Can you believe we are still hitting highs in the upper 80s here?! But like I told my virtual running partner, Lori, you have to train in all kinds of weather (rain, wind, cold, heat, etc.) because you just never know what weather to expect on race day. Nonetheless, training in the heat forced me to walk more during my run.
10/23 Friday
5.01 miles
53:02
Ave Pace 10:35
On Saturday, Tiffany finally hit double-digits again. It’s been a long road getting back to ten miles, but it felt so good to reach that distance once more.
10 miles
Time 1:50:52
Ave Pace 11:05
But like I said, I’m slowly improving and I’m moving at a steady pace under 9mm. Although my walking water breaks throw off my times numbers, when I get moving again I’m clocking under 8:00-8:30 mm.
10/26 Monday
5.01 miles
Time 47:57
Ave Pace 9:32
This week, Tiffany and I will try our hand at another set of speed drills. Then, according to our virtual coach, Hal recommends a 15K race so we’ll try to run 9 miles at pace some time this weekend.
Even though I didn’t schedule a race this weekend, quite a few Striders are running in the Inaugural Halloween Half Marathon this Saturday and Larisa keeps harassing me to run with her. With a little more planning and foresight, I would have loved to join my fellow Striders, but then my Halloween weekend is already full of tricks and treats. I honestly don’t know if I could have squeezed in a race, but it would have been fun to get one more wear out of my Lady Gaga costume! Although I can’t imagine running with all that hair sticking to me and my sweat causing my lovely blue lightning bolt to streak down my face. That would not be a pretty sight. Besides, does Lady Gaga even wear running shoes?
Keep up with a mom on the run
 | Tiffany on In a Dark, Dark Forest |
 | Modern Mom on A Bootiful Masterpiece |
| In a Dark, Dark Fore… on A Crummy Camping Trip | |
 | Run DMT on Shoeboxes Filled with Love and… |
| Run DMT on A Harry Potter Party |
