Wednesday 17 October 2007

Ceramic Buttons, Fundraisers & an Interview

Cynthia Guajardo Porcelain Buttons
Porcelain Buttons

This past weekend was a busy one! In addition to running on an ING Marathon Relay team, I participated in a small craft fair at my daughter's school on Sunday afternoon. It was the school's annual Fall Carnival - one of several annual school fund raising events and the kid's favorite. It's normally held outside; however, this year we awoke to freezing rain and temps in the high 30's. Needless to say the event was held inside which was actually quite fun - though noisy.

I brought my ceramic jewelry and buttons to the event. After running that morning, I had no desire to lug my pottery over to the school. As it turns out, the jewelry was the perfect choice. I sold a little bit, with 20% of the proceeds going back to the school. There were other Moms/crafters selling a variety of items including handmade balms, felted purses, sewn purses and belts, jewelry, cards, kid's art smocks and little dolls. I sold the buttons (above) to the woman making sewn purses and belts and she ordered 5 more custom buttons to use in her creations. I purchased some organic lip balm from Tulip's Balms who began making organic creams and balms for her son. It's fabulous and a product I highly recommend.

Meanwhile, did I mention that I ran the first leg of the Denver Marathon - 6 miles in the freezing rain and cold? I wouldn't have chosen to run in the rain, but you get what you get on race day. I ran strong (for me), 6 miles in 1:05. While that is a sub 11 minute mile, it's much faster than my leisurely 12-13 minute miles I run with the ladies in my training group! We're a chatty group and very social - not hard core running machines. Instead of talking about fartleks, interval training, carbo-loading, favorite sports gels etc., we talk about the newest cupcake shop or Italian restaurant to open. We share stories about work, family, and favorite recipes. It makes those 2 hours Saturday training runs go so much faster! My training season is over now, and I now go into maintenance mode - solo runs 4 days a week. I plug in my iPod and veg out to the latest Craftcast.

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos to share right now. I did feel special, however, because I was running with 3 ING executives and got to go in the VIP tent - I even saw some of the elite runners! That's always amazing. ING is the title sponsor for the next 5 years, so there was quite an ING presence. Our team finished the marathon in 4:03 - not too bad for 3 execs and a middle aged woman. I was the slowest person on the team. Since I was running with the big guys, I had company from the ING New York employee, Chris Solarz and his fiancee, who doubled as official ING marathon photographer. There should be a slide show coming soon to the ING website. I'll post a link when it becomes available.

Oh, I almost forgot, Nancy Van Blaricom asked if she could interview lil' ole me for her blog a few weeks ago and you can read about what we talked about on her site. Thanks Nancy!

That's it for today - I must go tend to my glaze firing now,

~Cynthia

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