Weekly Whimsy – Challenge Your Limits

Ahh, here we are again, with another weekly whimsy post! And as promised, today will include the story of my first triathlon. So for those of you that either follow this spiffy blog or know me in real life, you are fully aware of the fact that last semester I suddenly became spontaneous and joined the triathlon team at my university, something that no one really saw coming. All throughout high school I never really had the opportunity to participate in sports because I went to a very small school and our extracurricular options were very limited. So when I got to college I decided to try something new… and I definitely got that. I found the tri team and started by going to “just a few practices” to see if I liked it… and then one day I realized that I was pretty much on the team. Pretty much from that moment on I started swimming, biking, and running like crazy in preparation for my first triathlon, which happened last weekend. So I’m going to take this section at a time, because that’s the best way to tell this story.

So for those of you who don’t know much about triathlons, we start with a swim. The swim in this case was 1000 meters, or 40 laps. Simply put, my swim went “swimmingly well”… you see what I did there? Ha. I crack myself up. There were 4 people in my lane and I was the first one out of the water, which really helped to boost my confidence for the rest of the race. On top of this, when the times were released a few days later, I discovered that my swim time was 2.5 minutes faster than it has ever been before! Score! I hadn’t been faster than 19 minutes any time that I had timed my 1000 meter swim prior to the tri, and for the race I only took about 16.5 minutes – clearly I was pumped up for the beginning of the race. There were a few bumps along the way in the swim, mostly because one of the people in my lane was much slower than the rest of us and we all kept getting bunched up into a group behind him. Eventually he realized this was happening and let us pass him, but it happened 2 or 3 different times every time any of us caught up to him again. Overall though, the swim went really well. And my time was still faster than it had ever been before, so clearly I can’t hold too much of a grudge against the slower guy in my lane.

As for the bike…. I definitely experienced some issues. Not only did a bug manage to fly into my face and get stuck between my eyes and my sunglasses on TWO different occasions (seriously, how does that happen?), but I also had to hop off my bike once to put my water bottle in my water bottle holder because apparently the holder is not positioned correctly. I also realized that apparently I don’t drink water enough on my average bike rides because I had never noticed this as a problem before. But the bug and water incidents are nothing compared to what comes next. The entire bike ride is approximately 12 miles long, and just about a mile after the turn-around, I ran over something sharp, and completely blew out my back tire. That’s right – big hole, no air whatsoever. As I was riding I wasn’t completely sure what happened, but what I knew was that I was riding on a flat tire and still had 5 miles left to go. I briefly considered stopping and trying to pump up my tire, but because the flat had happened so suddenly, I had a strong hunch that there was probably a hole in the tire and that pumping it up wouldn’t do anything except waste time. So… I kept riding. At one point I even had to get off and walk my bike for a minute or two because I hit a really steep up-hill and literally couldn’t push my legs hard enough to make the bike move. Once I reached the top of the hill, I hopped back on the bike and kept pushing to the transition area.

So on to the running portion now. At this point you probably expect that I was a bit discouraged. However, it was actually quite the opposite. As I was biking on my flat tire, much slower than the other triathletes around me  with properly inflated tires, I was becoming a bit discouraged. However, once I hit the running portion, I was incredibly proud of myself for getting through the bike despite the obstacles I faced along the way. I was ready to get through the run and pass the finish line knowing that I hadn’t given up. So… I started running. Overall, the run went pretty well. There was one mountain trail that went off of the main level-trail that I didn’t know would be part of the course, so it did throw me a little off-guard and I ended up walking a small portion of it due to my legs being on fire from the previous swim and bike. However, I still ended up being in the fastest half of the recorded run times – which is definitely a success in my book. And even with my small amount of walking, my overall time for the run was still less than 30 minutes – which means that for the 5k run I still ran approximately 10 minute miles. Although a 10 minute mile may be considered slow to some athletes out there, I was barely able to run 2 miles without stopping just 2 months ago, so I was incredibly happy with this.

Crossing the finish line was a pretty amazing feeling. I knew that I had worked hard for this, and that I should be proud of myself. I also finished the entire race in 1 hour and 55 minutes. Considering the fact that nearly half of my bike portion was done on a flat tire, I was very excited that I was under the 2 hour mark. As I passed the finish line I had a few friends waiting on the other side, cheering me on. A good friend of mine showed up to support me, as well as my training partner (who completed the race about 20 minutes before I did), and my coach (who didn’t begin his race until later on that day). I wasn’t sure if anyone would be there as I passed the finish line, so having a few people waiting for me really meant a lot. It didn’t really sink in until a few hours after I had completed the race that I had actually completed my first triathlon. I had been preparing for it for so long that it seemed so strange that it had finally happened.

Alright, alright, so you’re probably wondering what ended up happening with the bike. I got back to the dorm room, inspected the tire, and found that yes indeed – something sharp had leaped out of midair and slashed my tire out of spite. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who rides bikes all the time but knows absolutely nothing about how they work and how to fix them when something goes wrong. I had a spare tube and the equipment to replace the old one, but I had never had to do it before. I spent that evening figuring out how to take out the old tube and put in the new one, a process that included various youtube videos, a few screams, a lot of bike grease EVERYWHERE, help from my roommate, and a break in the middle to reevaluate my life since I appeared to be yelling at a bicycle tire. All in all I ended up getting it fixed, with the help from my swell roommate… or so I thought. Later on that week I went on another ride and it blew out again. So at that point I took it in to a bike shop and figured out that either something had still been stuck in the tire, or it simply hadn’t been inflated enough. However, it’s all good now and the bike is working like a pro again.

Anyway, back to the original quote used for this weekly whimsy post….

Don’t limit your challenges. Challenge your limits. 

This quote really describes my new triathletic adventures. At the beginning of last semester I was barely able to run a mile without stopping. Last summer I had never really had the experience of biking for fitness. And 2 weeks ago I had never swam 1000 meters in less than 19 minutes. I have come so far in such a short amount of time, and I can’t wait to see what I can do next, because I will continue to challenge my limits. Up next… my first open water triathlon in Texas at the end of June. I have given myself a bit of a break this past week, but starting on Monday, it’s back to training for Laney… and I’m ready for it. Bring it on. 😉

Oh and of course I need to provide you guys with a picture of this exciting experience… I hope this inspired some of you to challenge your limits as well, because without challenging your limits, you’ll never know what you’re truly capable of! Thanks for listening bugs! Until next time…

Love, Laney-Bug ❤

Weekly Whimsy – Relax

Why, hello there bugs!

So, we are going to start this week with a short story time.

Once upon a time there was a girl, we will call her Laney, who was known among her family and friends as someone who works incredibly hard most of the time but occasionally has a mental breakdown because of it.

Okay, I won’t tell the whole story in the third person. But you get the point.

So I basically do this thing where I focus like crazy on school and everything is totally fine and I’m doing really well, and then all the sudden in one day it hits me that I haven’t sat down and relaxed for more than 10 minutes at a time for the last 8 weeks. Suddenly I start freaking out and basically have a little mini-breakdown. This usually happens about halfway through each semester. Well… that happened on Monday. And just for the record, today is exactly halfway through the semester, so it happened right on time.

I felt okay Sunday night. I felt a little off but I didn’t think it was much of a problem, I just thought I was tired because I’m in college and that’s part of the deal. That is, until my boyfriend informed me the next day that he was legitimately worried about me because apparently I hadn’t seemed myself when we had skyped the night before. He told me that I had been really distracted, looked physically exhausted, and just seemed stressed and anxious. As soon as he said this I realized he was right. I suddenly realized how tired I was and how stressed out I had been. This was around 8:30 on Monday morning, and I decided to skip my 9:10 weight training class, which is pretty big for me. I never miss class – even weight training. I skipped partially because I didn’t want to do something stupid such as drop a weight on my face due to my anxious state of mind, but also just because I suddenly felt that it was really important for me to go back to the dorm and take a nap. And call my mom.

So I did just that.  My mom talked me down a bit because, well, that’s what moms are for. She did successfully calm me down, but I still felt in over my head. After all, that type of stress won’t go away with one phone call.

My roommate also gave me a hug and told me that it would be alright, which helped as well. It’s amazing how much a simple hug can do.

So at noon I went to my next class of the day, then in my 2-hr break I forced myself to at least try to be productive since I hadn’t been that morning. At 3 I went to my last class of the day, and that night I did a little more studying but mostly let myself relax. I didn’t even go to swim practice, which is also pretty big for me. After swim practice I typically don’t get to bed until 10:30 or 11, and I decided that that probably was not the best decision for me at that point in time.

So, after my studying I did a little bit of art (which I will hopefully be posting about soon), ate the last piece of leftover birthday cake, talked to my boyfriend on the phone, and went to bed early.

However, before going to bed I did one more thing – I looked up quotes about stress on pinterest. Because I’m a teenage girl and you’re not allowed to judge me for the fact that this makes me feel better. The quote I have chosen for this week is one of the quotes that I found that night;

You have enough. You do enough. You are enough. Relax.

This really made me reflect and realize that I could chill out a bit without any severe consequences. I realized that I have high A’s in all my classes right now, but that if I totally stopped studying for my upcoming chemistry test RIGHT FREAKING NOW, that I would still probably get a low A. Of course, I didn’t completely stop studying for it because I am who I am and it is pretty much physically impossible for me to stop studying, but I did decide to cut back a little bit. I realized that as long as I do my best it will all be alright, and I don’t want to push myself so hard that I’m not taking care of myself.

While talking to my mom that afternoon I realized that I hadn’t sat down and done art in about a month. A MONTH. There’s problem #1 right there. Art is a major stress relief for me, so I have now made a mental note to make sure to make time for it. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to do it, it’s just that I’ve been so busy that I haven’t gotten around to it in a while. But it’s important to get some of that stress out of my system!

Another thing I realized about myself is that while exercising and training is also a stress relief for me, I need to balance it with my art time as well. Exercising is a stress relief because it gives me something to focus on for a while and get my mind off of my chaotic life. However, art actually makes me evaluate my troubles and realize that they really aren’t as troubling as I’m making them. Both of these types of stress relief are important for my sanity, and I need to remember to have a balance between the two. Just because I’m training for a triathlon doesn’t mean I can ignore my artful side and just focus on my training. I need to do both, so for now on that is what I will do. For the sake of both my sanity and my happiness.

Anyway, I’m doing much better now – my tests for the week are all over and tonight my family and boyfriend are coming into town and I can’t wait to  see them. Next week I don’t have any big projects or tests for my classes so I plan on focusing on spending time with family and relaxing a bit.

Anyway, keep arting bugs, and stay positive! 🙂

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤

Weekly Whimsy – Surround Yourself

Hello, bugs!

So this week I decided on this quote;

Surround yourself with people who encourage you, inspire you, and believe in your dreams.

I really like this one right now, mostly because it relates to how I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve just been thinking a lot lately about all the people that I have chosen to be a part of my life and why they mean so much to me.

So last week was my birthday and I had some friends throw me a “pseudo-surprise party”, meaning that I knew that I wasn’t supposed to make plans for Friday night and that I should “look pretty”, but that was all I knew prior to showing up. At 6 o’clock my roommate got a text from the party planner, telling her that it was party time and that she should bring me down to the lobby. When we got downstairs I had 6 of my closest college buds waiting for me, most of them dressed in purple in honor of my favorite color. First we went to the school cafeteria for dinner, but made it “fancy” by pulling out a table cloth and some fake candles (you know, to make it classy). Then we headed back to the dorm, and I quickly realized that they had claimed one of the study lounges as a party area and had decorated it with party streamers, paper snowflakes, and a giant “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” sign. The two masterminds of this whole event then brought out the cake, in the shape of a lady bug of course. And since I simply can’t finish this post without showing you guys the cake…

We sat around and ate cake and ice-cream for a while, and I had a present or two to open. While this was going on, they surprised me by skyping my boyfriend and placing the laptop on the table across from me so that he was there with us to celebrate, which was a particularly great surprise. Lastly we watched Frozen, my favorite movie of all time, while singing along VERY loudly. Luckily it was a weekend so the quiet hours of the dorm didn’t start until 11:00, and by this point it was only 8 or 9. No one could stop us. Muahaha.

After Frozen we took some seriously great selfies, and then about 4 of us decided to stick around and do an encore showing of Mulan as well before cleaning up and retiring for the night. Overall it was a whole lot of fun, and it made me realize that I’ve made some pretty great friends in the short amount of time that I’ve been at college. We have all gone through the first-year-of-college traumas together, and for the first time I’m starting to feel like I’m really getting settled into a group again. My high school was super tiny and I was really close to my whole graduating class (“whole” being 20 students – told you it was small), so it was a big transition for me to get to college and not know anyone. I’m really glad I have a group again that I feel a part of.

At one point in the party I also looked around and laughed a little bit about how different we all are. We had 3 people from Montana, 1 from Nevada, 2 from California, 1 from Illinois, and of course me as the Texan. We also had a mix of majors; 1 computer science, 3 wildlife biology, 1 music, 1 pre-law, and 2 exercise science. We all have so many differences yet get along so well and I just think that’s a really cool thing about humans. In general I often think that humans as a whole are pretty stupid, but this is one of the things that I actually think is pretty wonderful.

Anyway, linking back to the quote now. The friends who put this party together did it purely because they wanted to get together with friends and have a good time, and because they wanted to make me feel special on my birthday. Those are the kind of people I want to surround myself with – the ones that do things for other people just because they can and want to. The kind of people who are always there for you no matter what, and the kind of people that you can always count on for a good laugh when you need it. The kind of people who encourage you, inspire you, and believe in you – and in one another.

Well, I kind of got sappy with you today but I suppose that’s okay. After all, it is my blog. So ha.

Oh, and of course I have to share a few of the fantastic selfies with you guys; (one serious and one silly, duh)

Take Home Message: Surround yourself with the people that make you happy!

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤

Weekly Whimsy – Something Good

Hello there, bugs!

I hope everyone is staying warm! I don’t know about you guys, but my college town has been very chilly the last few days! On Sunday I made the mistake of looking outside to judge the weather rather than checking the temperature on my weather app. It looked nice and warm and sunny outside. However, as soon as I walked outside I quickly realized that the appearance of the outdoors deceived me and that I was in fact going to freeze to death while walking 15 meters from the dorm building to the cafeteria. Okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. My philosophy is to drink hot chocolate and wear scarves. And run on the indoor track until these absurd temperatures are slightly more tolerable.

Anyway, onto the weekly quote! This week’s quote is about enjoying the little things in life, well at least that’s my interpretation of it; 

Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day

This one kind of reminds me of the week-long calendar that I posted a few weeks ago from my art journal. It reminded me that while each day may not be super exciting, that every day has at least something good in it. I have pretty much been working on homework nonstop since about last Friday morning (with a few short exceptions here and there), so to cheer myself up from that and clear my brain of chemistry and public speaking class, I am now going to think of something good that I have done each day for the last few days, NOT involving homework;

Friday: Had dinner with a friend that I don’t normally get to see much anymore due to conflicting schedules. It was nice to catch up again.

Saturday: While walking into the dorms, I passed the kitchen and saw some of my friends cooking cinnamon pancakes. They let me steal one. It was wonderful. Also this was the one day I really allowed myself to have some fun by going to the movies in the evening with some girlfriends and consuming popcorn and milk duds. Yum!

Sunday: While tutoring at work, I successfully helped someone with a geometry problem that I am not technically a tutor for, and I felt like a genius for figuring it out!

Monday: Ran my new fastest mile this morning before weight training class – 8:09! Woohoo!

Tuesday: I had a chocolate milkshake with my lunch today. And yes, it was delicious.

Well, this exercise actually makes me feel a little better. Because although 95% of my time was in fact spent doing homework, at least there was something relatively notable in each day that didn’t relate to it. Even if it was as small as a chocolate milkshake. What was your favorite good-moment of the day?

Well, talk to you later bugs! Stay warm!

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤

Weekly Whimsy – Dreams are Forever

Hello, bugs!

So, remember last week when I told you that I was working on a plan to post something at a certain time each week? Well, I have a plan. It doesn’t exactly match that description, but I have a plan. This is improvement.

I love writing to you guys – half the time I don’t realize how much I love writing until I’ve started rambling on to you about my most recent creation and I simply can’t stop typing. However, I don’t have something to say every single week. Crazy enough as it is, life as a college student does not always mean that I have time for weekly art projects or even weekly events that are exciting enough to talk about. About 80% of my time is spent doing homework or studying, and call me crazy but I don’t really think you guys want to hear about that. And I don’t particularly want to write about it either, I’d rather write about something that gets my mind OFF of homework.

So anyway, here’s the plan! I now pledge to post on here once a week, with some sort of inspirational quote of sorts. These will range from quotes about creativity to quotes about staying strong while training for something such as a triathlon. Pretty much any quote that really speaks to me and inspires me in my art and my life in general will be up here. These topics that my quotes may relate to include but are certainly not limited to; creativity, health, nature, animals, music, family, friends, love, and life in general. As you have probably noticed, a lot of my art incorporates quotes – so I’m always on the lookout for new ones.

I’m not going to pinpoint this to a certain day of the week, simply because my life is hectic and I don’t want this to be a stress for me – I want it to be something I enjoy. If I just promise myself, and all of you loyal bugs out there, that I will post once a week – then I know that at some point in the 168 hours I get in a week, I will find a 20 minute period of time to type out a quick post about my most recent favorite quote. Oh, and by the way, these posts will be called “WEEKLY WHIMSY”! (Clever, huh? You can thank my boyfriend, since he helped me come up with it and everything he invents alliterates)

Don’t worry your pretty little minds though, I promise to continue posting my art as well. But for the weeks that I don’t have any art ready to talk about, or simply don’t have time to write a longer post, this will do! That way I can stay in touch with all you bugs out there, even if I haven’t had time to create anything new that week.

So today’s quote is from one of my favorite people (or at least I’m sure he would be one of my favorite people if I could actually meet him – he did come up with cartoon dancing penguins, after all), Walt Disney;

“Laughter is timeless. Imagination has no age. Dreams are forever.”

I’m not sure what it is about this quote that I love so much, but it speaks to me. Not in the creepy I-hear-voices way, but more so in the this-is-something-to-live-by way. I guess it just makes me happy to think about the fact that throughout my life, no matter what sort of sticky situation I might be in, the fun parts of life such as laughter, imagination, and dreams will always be there. And if that’s true, then I can get through anything. Not to be cheesy or anything…. (hey, if you’re following my blog, you should get used to cheesy. Cheesy quotes are the best quotes.)

Anyway, happy arting bugs, make sure to laugh today!
And stay tuned for my next weekly whimsy post next week! 🙂

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤