Today I travel from Feasterville, New Jersey to Midtown, Manhattan

This is the beginning. I start to travel into NYC with my husband and my bike. Last night we consolidated our clothes and gear into a semi manageable blue milk crate which holds my transition gear and serves as a chair for changing shoes and easy lift off, and one suitcase. Now I have to remove my Vita Wildcat from the backseat and put the tire on her to make the trek to Manhattan and the athlete hotel, the Hilton. This is a culmination I'd a year long goal. If lost a lot of inches and everyone keeps telling me how good I look. I'm 53 years old and I started training a year ago. I've "competed" in 5 sprint Triathlons, the first in Oldham County and 4 in Shelbyville, Kentucky. Now I'm doing my longest race in NYC. I am so glad I did this. If you want to get in shape and meet some pretty interesting people, start participating in triathlons! There are lots of young people and people that are young at heart. It easy to talk to them, because there is instant conversations all around a sport we enjoy.

2012 Race Schedule...smile

This year I'm getting in shape. As a 53 year old woman it's never too late to start moving. In the last 6 months, this what I have done: Sept, 2011, sprint triathlon; November 5K; Jan, 2012 sprint triathlon; Feb, sprint triathlon; March, 10k.

I am signed up to do: March, sprint triathlon; 10 miler; April, sprint triathlon; May 5k; July, an Olympic distance triathlon.

Then I will take a break. I will make a tshirt quilt out of all these tshirts after that. I think I'll try to do the September triathlon, the one that began this journey...smile

Get out there and exercise people!!

It's been a long and busy couple of weeks.

Like this woman, I was scratching my head-you know, just another weirdo that makes it all okay.

We've returned from NYC for the 4th time this year. We were there for a week and then my mom visited for a week, so I've got a lot of work to do, but, I just don't wanna do it! So, I'm catching up on my blog writing.

I took over 600 pictures, with my trusty, indestructible camera so I have a lot to write about and will do so over time. But, to begin our time in New York, one of my new discoveries was Brooklyn. It's only a short walk over the bridge. The industrialists took over Brooklyn first, they left, artists moved in. The artists are currently in residence. But the rich and wealthy are saying, hey that's our Brooklyn, so they are buying up all the artsy places and the artists are protesting. I hope they can hang on to the rustic beauty of Brooklyn, but, in the end, money will win, so you better get there while it still has a lot of inexpensive charm.

After crossing the bridge from NYC, we had pizza at Carmichael's, it's under the bridge-classic NY pizza-thin crust and real Mozzerlla cheese in squares, not shredded and thick crust, like I'm used to, I didn't care for it that much. I musta been the only one that didn't like it, cause that place was jam packed with people. I guess I'm a deep dish girl at heart. After our very pricey meal, next we continued on to explore Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Botanical gardens is my one of my new favorite places in NYC. I guess, technically, it's not NYC, but, it's only a hop skip and a jump across the Brooklyn Bridge. Then a short walk from there.

There are many different types of gardens, some formal and some not. We went in the fall, so there's not a lot of flowers to see that are not in the water, but, don't let that stop you from enjoying the tranquil Japanese pond garden with a large artistic structure jutting out of the pond, imposing itself in every photo like Santa Clause in a parade. One of my favorite things about the BBG is the Bonsai museum. Some of these plants are over 100 years old. You know I'm a quilter and that is an art form that requires the patience of a butter churner. I'd like to learn the art of bonsai. It's sculpting plants-so artistic and lovely, like a statue, almost.

We were given directions to walk up to the BBG by way of this fountain that is in front of the Grand Army Plaza.

I hope you have enjoyed one segment of our week in NYC. Tomorrow, I'll pick a new topic to write about, maybe my mom and me making a quilt for my DD #2's geology club's fund raising raffle quilt. I call it Paris Kitties.

NYC, Quilt show and Job Shadowing...smile

This is what quilting looked like in the 1850's. Can you imagine? All that stiffness, not to mention how hot it must have been under those skirts. This is a picture at the Chester County Historical Society's quilt show. This is an excellent show and I highly recommend going. It is not large, but it has very well documented information about the quilts and the makers of the quilts. Sorry about the glare on this civil war era quilt, but, it was in a glass case...anyway, it was beautifully made in the mid 1800's. I really like the printed pictures in the centers of the blocks.

I've always liked making feathers in my machine quilting designs, but, I'm going to try this willow tree designthat was hand quilted in a whole cloth white quilt from 1802. It was a little discolored with age, but, you could see the detail of the quilting very well.

The collection included a lot of fund raising signature quilts.

The skill of the signatures is amazingly beautiful in it's own right. These 1800's beauties haven't been seen in 10 years and are only on display until September. Besides the quilts, there is a wonderful grandfather clock collection from the 1700's to 1800's. Lot's of eye candy here.

We made the trip to New York City, in order to bring our daughter, Chelsea, to Columbia University. Oh and guess what...IT'S FLEET WEEK!

Just another thing to add to the list of worries about her time away from us...yikes! She's supposed to be at the American Natural History Museum learn about a meteorite. She wants to be a geologist. I hope there's not a lot of distractions...yeah right! Our other daughter, Jennifer, was thinking about being a teacher and she got to shadow her aunt Kathy while she taught a special needs class in Pennsylvania. If you or your kids are considering a profession, this is a wonderful way to get some insight into a given field. Just spending a day at work with someone, might not give the complete story, but, it'll give a good sample. She has lots to consider. The job of being an English teacher failed in comparison to being a French teacher after a day spent observing, at least as far as my dd was concerned. She also was interested in being an English as a Second Language teacher. Oh well, it's another cog in the wheel of the decision making clock...smile.