Articles of Faith Children's book

When I quit working as a Technical Designer for a Denim company it was to stay at home with my then 3 year old and 9 month old.  My need to be creative lingered and so I started designing a children's activity book. I have mentioned before that there is a serious lack of LDS spanish retail products.  So I decided that this book would focus on the Spanish speaking LDS market for children.  It is an activity book for children to learn the Articles of Faith with word games. It was a learning experience since I published it myself and went through all the processes an author normally does not have to deal with. I've gotten great reviews from those friends and family who have bought it. Now I am getting the word out online that it is available. Check it out in my Etsy Store https://www.etsy.com/shop/PuebloLamanita?ref=hdr_shop_menu. I am really proud of it. It is in full color with tear out pages, word searches, original illustrations, charts to keep track, stickers and a certificate when all Articles of Faith have been memorized.

Re-painted Carousel Rocking Horse

A few years ago my husband went to a second-hand store and came back with a child size rocking horse. It is wooden and at the time was only stained with plastic eyes glued to it and some twine used as the tail.  It was sad looking. I decided to take it apart, sand it and paint it to look like a Carousel Horse. the taking apart and sanding didn't take to much time. It was when I started painting it was when I started getting interrupted a lot. I sat disassembled in our garage in a box for months. When I finally got to it, all painted white and re-assembled, I started looking for pictures online of carousel horses. I got a lot of pictures of old, run down carousel horses but found a few images that helped. I took a few elements from each and designed the look of the Rocking horse.  My kids really liked it and that made it all worth it, the set backs, the interruptions, the physical work. Here is the picture.

Family Home Evening

My family was having a hard time keeping our Family Home Evening assignments. We started writing our assignments down on a piece of paper. We'd lose it or forget where it was or someone would throw it away or draw on it. So I decided to make our own personalized Family Home Evening chart to hang on our wall.  I shopped around for some online at LDS Websites and Bookstores but not to my surprise the majority was in English. You see my family is bilingual and there is very limited LDS Spanish retail products out there. Even growing up in a Spanish ward there were was nothing. My husband is from Mexico and so are both of my parents. So knowing how to speak spanish is super important for us and part of our heritage, traditions, customs. When my husband & and I were about to start our family we began to speak to our children in Spanish only. We knew that they would pick up English other ways.  This was the way I grew up. I first learned Spanish and then just by watching cartoons or by hearing my siblings, I picked it up and knew how to speak English and Spanish before Kindergarten. My children are all in school now and they are bilingual. Sometimes my kids have told me that they have been asked to translate for teachers or even correct some of the teachers. So back to our FHE assignment craft. I decided to make one for our family, in Spanish. I personalized it and I am really happy about the way it turned out. Hope you like it!

Road to Marathon: First 5K Race

One of the things I wanted to share with you was my first race since starting my marathon training. It was a 5K on Halloween. I have been training since June with a Couch to Marathon program that is for one whole year which I printed from https://www.digitalrunning.com/couch-to-marathon-training-plan/.  I don't have a particular Marathon in mind because when I decided to start training I knew that there would be things that would interfere with my training (i.e., projects, stake activities, menstruation, holidays, vacations, injuries, etc.). And sure enough I have my first major setback with an injury. I have been training mainly on our home treadmill, thanks to my sister has let us use it because her place is too small, and at a school running track. So my feet and legs were used to that. My last couple of weeks of training, before my injury, I was venturing out to run on my long runs (4m, 5m & 6m) on our local city green way trail that has some paved areas and crosswalks.  But I injured myself  while trying to rush home. I ran from the school track to the parking lot and must have stepped wrong in that transition because later on I felt some initial pain in the ankle area.  I kept one training for another 2 weeks and ignored the pain. While running it was fine but once I stopped, on my rest days it was painful when I would stand and start walking on that foot.  Also I accompanied my daughter to her class field trip to Centennial Farms in Orange County and by the end of the day my foot was swollen.  So I stopped running a for about 3 to 4 weeks hoping that by not running I would get better, but it didn't. Finally I went to the doctor to have get an x-ray just to make sure and it is fine. Since I had already registered for the Whittier Spooktacular I eased back into running the week of that race. I am glad to say that I ran almost the entire race. There were a few areas that were uphill where I just needed to walk it. Uphills are not my friends.  My time for the race was 40:11. Not too bad since when I was running pre-injury my mile time was 12:00. So because of the uphill and not wanting to put too much pressure on my foot I raced listening to my body and my goal was to only run it, not win it, as my kids thought that I might (yeah right!). Here is my runner's medal.

My next goal is to run a 10K hopefully January or February

This is my first post and there are so many things that I want to share.  First of all a little about me.  I am from Los Angeles, born and raised. Growing up near all the awesome places in Los Angeles that people only dream of or can come visit once in a lifetime was an incredible experience. East L.A. to be exact.  It was a hop, skip and a jump to places like China town, Dodger's Stadium, the Pasadena Rose Parade, Disneyland, and local beaches.  My high school years was like watching "Stand and Deliver" everyday. I also grew up in the LDS church in a Spanish speaking ward, doing all the stuff kids and the youth did. I went to primary, seminary, Youth Conferences, Road Shows, Girls Camp and I loved it all!

These days I am married and a mom of 3 busy with life.  Crafting things for my home, helping out with school projects, being Troop Leader, and working on my goal to run a marathon. So in my blog I'll be posting about this stuff and sharing what I have done, hopefully inspiring others.