Monday Montage #141

What an incredible and crazy weekend I had!! Holy COW!! Is it possible for one person to get heat exhaustion AND sprain their ankle TWICE in the same 24-hour period??? Why, YES ... YES IT IS!!! But more on that later ... right now it's time to see what the Monday Montage girls are up to!! We are a little short staffed this week, as we have had a handful of friends who were making quite merry for Father's Day and such!

My father in law has impeccable taste. And he is better at what he does than just about anyone I know. Over 40 years ago he started his own business. Having apprenticed with a upholsterer in Germany as a young man, he honed his craft and his natural ability for shape, design, style and color. I can honestly say that there is no one else on the planet who can do what he does as well as he does it. He and has sons have built a wonderful business that has a stellar reputation and can handcraft the most exquisite furniture.

Having said all that ... a-hem ... I tried to make a card worthy of his taste. He is also a master appraiser of fine art. While this card is FAR from what I would consider any sort of "fine art" ... I did make an attempt at watercoloring my images. Basically I stamped and off-stamped each image and then used an aqua painter to kinda blend everything together. Even if it's not perfect (or even close), when I showed it to my husband he said, "How did you DO that??" Hahaha!! Like, REALLY?? Does he now know by now that I am AMAZING and AWESOME and can do #allthethings??? Bwahahahahaha!! That's what I keep telling myself!! Not really ... but this card was fun to make at least!

Stamps: Waterfront, Tasteful Textures (which I used to add a little something to the water), Itty Bitty Greetings
Paper: Crumb Cake, Mellow Moss, Watercolor
Ink: Balmy Blue, Pacific Point, Highland Heather, Garden Green, Crumb Cake
Accessories: Classic Label Punch, 5/8" Burlap Ribbon

Here's a blog roll just in case you get "stuck" trying to hop around ...

Monday Montage Hoppers
Amy O'Neill - Amy's Paper Crafts - NOT PARTICPATING THIS WEEK
Breelin Renwick - Craft-somnia Momma
Cathy Casey - Sugar Shack Designs
Charlet Mallet - Painted Orange
Cheryl Curtis - Pomp and Sustenance - NOT PARTICPATING THIS WEEK
Dani Dziama - Dani's Thoughtful Corner - NOT PARTICPATING THIS WEEK
Elizabeth Price - Seeinginkspots
Julie Warnick - Julie Warnick Stampin' Up! Blog - NOT PARTICPATING THIS WEEK
Melissa Stout - The Stamp Doc
Wendy Weixler - Wickedly Wonderful Creations - YOU'RE ALREADY HERE!!

I joined a team with 11 of my friends for the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay race this past Friday and Saturday. This was my fourth Ragnar race. They are done at different venues all over the country. I am lucky to live in Utah where this race originated, as the Wasatch Back was the very FIRST one. Suffice it to say that I ended my running season with kind of a whimper ... I came down with heat exhaustion after my first leg (which was only 4.4 miles). I felt SOOOO good when I started. My first mile was completed in 9 minutes 28 seconds ... which is STELLAR for me if I am NOT running downhill!!! The entire leg felt like it was slightly uphill. Anyway ... I knew I was in trouble around mile 3 (it was 80 degrees and I was running mostly on asphalt). Just let me tell ya that heat exhaustion is NO JOKE, my friends. I was able to finish the leg, but had an average heart rate of 169bpm and my body temp was WAY above normal. Luckily for me, I had some AWESOME teammates and had a medic helping me out within no time! My second leg, which began at about 2:10am and was 8.3 miles long, was a BEAUTIFUL run. I spent a good portion of it running along Echo Reservoir. The view with the moon sparkling on the water was FANTASTIC!! Alas, since it was a trail run the terrain was a bit uneven. And in spite of wearing a headlamp, I managed to step in a little hole and make a spectacular "graceful" fall to the ground (according to the runner behind me) whilst twisting my ankle. I finished the run. I was frustrated with myself, but vowed to finish my last leg, which was scheduled for about 1:15pm on Saturday. We were able to grab a 3-hour nap while we were waiting for the second half of our team to finish their legs. I slept like the DEAD those 3 hours. It felt so good. But my ankle was cranky. And, as happens in these relay races, my start time was bumped to about 1:45pm. It was another hot day. My last leg was 5 miles. DANGIT! I wet down my hair and wrapped my head in a cold and wet buff and off I went. My ankle was cranky. Did I mention that already??? I ended up somewhere between a quick walk and a slow jog. I was VERY aware of my temperature, and my teammates were being SUPER cautious and keeping a close eye on me. The good news is that I FINISHED! The not-as-good news is that it took me an hour and 18 minutes to complete five stinkin' miles!! SHEESH. And to top it all off, as the rest of my teammates and I were waiting for our last teammate to finish the very last leg so that we could all run to the finish together (another fun tradition of this type of race), I was a little over confident in my ankle's ability to hold me together whilst running through the grass that last 100 feet. Everyone was so excited and running at a pretty steady clip. In normal "Wendy" fashion, I rolled my ankle AGAIN and basically rolled my way toward the finish line. A couple of the guys on my team ended up carrying me across. How EMBARRASSING!!! But I can say I feel exceptionally blessed to have been surrounded by so many wonderful people. We laughed ourselves silly through the entire 28-hour journey. And we all raised a mess of money for cancer research. And we all like each other. And we all ate a ridiculous amount of junk food in the vans while we were driving from exchange to exchange. I even had a Coke slurpee and red vines for breakfast on Saturday. So there's that ...

THAT was a saga, wasn't it???

Click "Next" to see what Bree Renwick has created ... and "Back" to check out Melissa Stout's ... check out their beautiful creations!! And I DO mean BEAUTIFUL!!