Headbands

Today, my main focus was to just stay busy and stay on track. Today was my rest day, so no running. It was raining all day anyway, so it was a good day to stay busy with a project at home. This morning after breakfast, I made a cup of the Coffee Cake tea I just got from David's. It was really good! I would definitely order it again. It tastes very similar to the Red Velvet Cake tea.

A while ago, I bought some ribbon on sale for half-off, and had plans of making a bunch of running headbands out of them. I made a small batch before, basically making a copycat version of Sweaty Bands. I like them because they actually stay on my head, and they keep stray hairs from getting in my face.

Sweaty Bands are pretty expensive, so I made my own. It's pretty cheap to do a big batch; but the downside is that I have several that are identical, because I bought rolls of ribbon. You only need 16" of ribbon to make them, and with the rolls of felt ribbon, I can get 4 bands. I think they end up costing roughly $1 each to make, if you make them in a big batch. It's not worth it to make just one, though.

Anyway, today I decided to stay busy by sewing a big batch of them. I had everything on hand, but they just aren't very fun to make ;)  I wound up making 14... that will last me a long time!

The headbands are just two 16" ribbons (one velvet ribbon, which keeps the headband from slipping, the other whatever pattern you'd like), stacked on top of each other and sewn with right sides facing outward. The short ends are connected with a 6" piece of elastic.

I was glad to have that done, and I worked on those right up until it was time to go to parent-teacher conferences with Eli's teacher. He's doing really well this year, and I'm so happy about that! Last year, he had a very hard time with reading comprehension. I really love his teacher this year, and he's come a LONG way in just a couple of months. She said she's very pleased with him, and doesn't have any issues that need attention, so I'm glad. I have a conference with Noah's teacher next week.

When I got home, I mapped out a meal plan for a week. I included a lot of slow cooker dinners, because they really help me to stay on track when the house gets crazy mid-afternoon. I also made sure to fit in the Weight Watchers Good Health Guidelines, which made it a little trickier. But I feel like I have a pretty solid plan for the next week, which will hopefully get me back in the routine after all the Halloween candy I ate last week!

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I just realized that there are only 11 1/2 weeks until my 32nd birthday. This time last year, I announced that I would do a Virtual 5K race (3.1 miles) for my 31st birthday. There was such a great turnout, and I LOVED looking at the pictures and reading all the race reports (either blog posts or just a sentence or two on Facebook). I think I'd like to do it again this year! The second annual Runs for Cookies Virtual 5K :)

Last year, I gave away 31 prizes, but I'm going to keep it much simpler this time--maybe just 3 prizes, given by random drawing (of the finishers). I'll post finish times and link to some race reports. I can't even describe how inspiring it was to read about all the finishers from all over the world last year!

Anyway, I'll post more details of that soon, but if you'd like to participate, this is the time to get started training! My birthday falls on a Saturday (January 25th), so it's perfect for a race. Run or walk, I'd love to have you do a 5K "with" me that day :)