Monday, November 26, 2012

Creative Juices.

Breaks are the best. For a couple short days you finally have time to do...well, nothing. I always come back from the breaks with a new sense of creativity and less baggier eyes. Sitting in front of a computer all day being asked to come up with new and different designs can sometimes wear down on your creative juices a bit (whatever creative juice really is). You start staring at a blank screen and eventually find yourself clicking over to Pinterest for some great outfit ideas mind stimulation. So thanks to this long awaited Thanksgiving break...my mind is now so full of ideas, I can't even begin to start organizing them. *sigh*

In other news- got to work today to find these gems waiting for me. New XEN-TAN stationary printed with gold foil! I am in love.


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

I will never make fun of fanny packs again.


After walking in the Susan G. Koman 3 Day Walk, I thought it would be helpful to whoever might be participating in the future to know a couple tips that I picked up on as a newbie.

- You will NEED a fanny pack with water bottles attached on the side. Nice big jugs if you will. :) While walking you are literally sucking water down every 5 seconds to prevent dehydration. The last thing you want to do is faint and bust your face up on the concrete next to a major highway while cars honk at you as you walk by. Can't be cool doing that. Always fill one water bottle up with water and the other with some kind of sports drink. The fanny pack will hold everything from your cell phone to blister pads and its surprisingly comfortable to wear....I may bust mine out just for fun. Kidding. Maybe...

- "Eat, Pee, You Don't Want an IV" You should be peeing at every Stop and Go and Pit Stop available and eating on snacks high in sodium all day. If you find yourself not having to go to the bathroom then you are not drinking enough water. It's important to drink water even when you don't feel thirsty. These Stop and Go's and Pit Stops are located about every 2-4 miles apart and they will be your best friend.

- Battery Operated Blow Up Mattress: Carly and I thought we were so smart walking into camp with a 1 inch thick egg crate until we saw women blowing up air mattresses. Apparently they have battery operated ones and if you don't have one....You will envy and hate the women who do.

- Portable Speakers: All weekend long we would walk up on somebody who was blasting Justin Bieber, Katy Perry or Rihanna on these portable speakers hooked up to their fanny packs and you literally just wanted to follow them the whole time like a creepy stalker. Sure, talking to your friend all day is fun, but singing and fist pumping to Black Eyed Peas can sometimes be refreshing as well. So if you want to be followed by a mob of people and feel like a rockstar....bring some portable speakers to jam out to. The speakers below are ILuv's and are sold at Kohls for 18.00!
-Go up a shoe size: When picking out your shoes that you will be walking in- its probably a good idea to invest in some that are a size or two larger then what you normally wear. Sounds crazy I know...but walking on your feet all day can make them swell big time which can make for a LONG day if they are crammed in your normal size 8.5 walking shoe. Trust me, I found this out the hard way.

- Lambs Wool will become your best friend.: I didn't get a single blister the entire weekend but I contribute it to wrapping my toes in lambs wool each morning and putting blister band aids on my heels ahead of time. Don't wait till you actually SEE a blister or a hot spot forming to start preventing them. One woman at a Stop and Go decided to show me her 25 blisters that she had. Don't be that lady. Ever.

- Your fingers will look like sausages.  No alarm- this is normal. Your fingers will swell like crazy due to the fact that your hands are hanging by your side the whole time you are walking for hours upon hours and all the blood is rushing to your hands. It's important to keep your hands above your heart a couple minutes at a time to decrease the swelling. You may look like you are praising Jesus or "raising the roof"- but nobody around you will care because they have sausage fingers too.

If you are thinking about walking in the Susan G. Koman 3-day and have more questions about it! Feel free to email me at bethanytoney1021@gmail.com for more details! 

Monday, November 12, 2012

a few of my favorite things


I may be what they call a "product junkie". I don't mind the title really because if boys get to have their toys then girls should be able to have 8 sticks of lip gloss in their purse and 27 shades of nail polish under the bathroom counter. In the end, it all balances out I think.

What are some of your favorite things this fall?

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

60 miles in 3 days? I DID that.

This past weekend I walked 60 miles in 3 days. That's right people...ALL. SIXTY. OF THEM. 

I had moments where I wanted to cry and moments that I laughed so hard I did cry, but all in all- It was a great experience that I won't soon forget. 

We started off the weekend by gathering up at Collin Creek Mall for the "Opening Ceremony". It was such a great rally and a wonderful reminder of WHY we were doing this in the first place- to find a cure for breast cancer and honor those who we were walking for. But within an hour Carly and I were off walking our first 20 miles for the day. 


Now when you think of walking 60 miles in three days it sounds easy and doable, right?? Because it's just walking, right??? And we walk everyday, right?? 

                           Well that's what I thought too- until my feet hit mile 14 for the day. 

Ill be honest- I didn't train properly for the walk like many others had, so I knew I was in for some pain from the beginning, but thankfully I was walking with my life-long best friend who kept my spirits high and distracted me from my aching feet and knees.

At the end of day one, we were both spent but feeling good. Walking into camp that night was such a great feeling of accomplishment. We had some help from the Brookehaven College baseball team in pitching our pink tent up at camp which was such a blessing. After walking 20 miles in the heat, the last thing you want to do is pitch a tent...even if it is pink.


At camp, we ate dinner and got in line for the showers that were located INSIDE an 18-wheeler truck. Yes, you read that right. The whole set up was actually genius and as long as I had hot water I didn't care where I was washing my hair or how long I had to wait to get in one. Later that night at dinner, we were told by a random couple who sat in front of us that Day 2 of walking was going to be the worst since we would be walking more than 20 miles that day. So we went to bed around 8 PM trying to get our feet as much rest before the next day!

That next morning we got a late start walking around 8:30 AM and by lunch my poor feet and knees were screaming at me. I would have moments where I would look over at Carly and go, "I'm gonna be honest- I'm struggling right now." Normally these struggle moments took place when we were walking with the sun directly on top of us while being right next to a major highway with cars honking and zooming past us. These were also the moments of sheer delirium which made for some good laughs as well. 


{Best feeling in the world.}



{Beginning steps of day 2}

Throughout the walk, you would come up on "cheering stations" ,which literally were life savors to the spirit. People lined sidewalks and cheered and clapped for you as you walked by while wearing the most ridiculous outfits just to make you crack a smile. It's amazing what the words "Thank you for walking" or "You are my hero" can do for the broken down spirit. People had posters that said, "Do your feet hurt? That's because your kicking cancer in the butt!" or "My right boob thanks you!" Those cheering stations and the random people giving you water and food in front of their house made you keep putting one foot in front of the other. So I knew when I had hit what I thought was my limit on Day 2 (about half way through the overall 60 miles), I had to have my family waiting for me at a cheering station to encourage me. Thankfully my mom and dad brought me a 5-hour energy which saved my life and my brother gave me a much needed back massage because he is the best.


When we finally reached camp Day 2, I fell into our tent and literally layed in it not moving for about 30 minutes. At one point I couldn't even sit up and I thought I would have to lay there until Carly came back from dinner to help me stand up. I was a pathetic sight. Finally, I got up the energy to roll my body over and push myself up on my feet so I could make my way over to the Bank of America tent which had foot massage machines. While walking over, I had at least 3 women ask me if I was in pain. Note to self: Don't ever ask somebody if they are in pain if they do indeed look like they are in pain. It just reminds them of how much pain they truly are in and how you can't do anything to make it go away. I took this as a sign that I needed to go over to the stretching area, sit down on a yoga mat and copy whatever everybody else was doing to make my legs feel normal again. 



Day 3 was like a walk in the park compared to Day 2. That morning we packed up our tent and loaded onto a school bus that took us over to Highland Park. Those neighborhoods were so relaxing and quiet to walk through and it was such a nice change of scenery. We ended up on the Katy Trail and then somehow to Fair Park where all the walkers where taken to a "holding station" so that we could all walk to the closing ceremony together. Walking into Fair Park literally felt like walking into the Promise Land. You brain doesn't even have time to process the fact that you just walked 60 miles within 3 days because all you can think about it sitting down and taking your swollen feet out of your shoes. After getting our "yay you did it" shirts and taking our picture taken...we collapsed against this concrete wall. I just sat there and thought "I cant believe I just freaking did that."



{My proud dad holding posters up for me as we walked in!}



{My brothers g/f has some mad drawing skills.}


{Mrs. Shirly Letcher. A breast cancer SURVIVOR and amazing woman!}

No blisters, no trips to the medical tent, and im still able to stand up.

The closing ceremony was amazing and was proof of why I did this. Together, the walk raised 4 MILLION dollars towards breast cancer research!! SAY WHA!?! 



{Balloons that we let go at the end of the ceremony!}

I would encourage anybody interested in doing this walk- to do it. It is such an amazing experience and one that was worth every painful step. Within the next couple days I will be blogging on tips and tricks for people who think they might want to walk in this in the future. You learn a lot of things while walking the 3-day that "newbies" like Carly and I didn't know about.


Thursday, November 1, 2012

We walk for them.



Tomorrow morning at 6AM I will begin my 3-day journey of walking 60 miles in three days. I am asking whoever reads this blog to please lift up my best friend Carly and I in your prayers that weekend. Pray that we will have energy to complete this walk without any injuries and that our little feet don't fail us. Pray that we sleep well at night because sleeping in tents is not something us "Plano raised women" do.....ever. Pray that when our feet say "stop" our brains say "go". But most importantly pray that we have divine encounters with women during the walk and get to show them the love of Jesus.

We are walking this weekend because we have seen how breast cancer has effected many families, loved ones and friends. Ironically, when Carly and I decided to partake in this walk last December- we had no idea that in the following months many people we know and love would soon be faced with the news of having breast cancer themselves. So we walk for them. We walk for the thousands of women who have fought and beat this cancer. We walk so that the money many of YOU have donated to can go towards breast cancer research and eventually help find a cute.

We walk because if they can face breast cancer head on then why shouldn't we be able to 
walk 60 miles in three days?