Long Time, No Write

Seems like it's been forever since I posted here. The past 5 months have been horrendous, to say the least. My mother was diagnosed with terminal brain and lung cancer. It was quick and VERY aggressive. My husband, Casey, and I pretty much put our lives on hold to see to her care. Sadly, Not nearly 3 months after diagnosis, she passed away. It's a very strange, new reality.

My swim teammates have really kept me going throughout the whole ordeal. I think if I hadn't had a swimming pool, I would have jumped off a cliff by now. Just a month after Mom's passing, the team took a big trip to the 4th Annual Rowdy Gaines Masters Classic in Orlando, Florida. It was a three day meet. All of us piled into 2 cars and took off. We had SO MUCH FUN!! In addition to the beautiful October Orlando weather, the meet was terrific too! It was the biggest Masters meet that I've ever attended, so it was a challenge to get my anxiety under control.

I got the opportunity to be a total fangirl and meet Rowdy Gaines! He is such a nice and genuine guy. He didn't mind at all the fan adoration and took time out with anyone who wanted to meet and chat with him. It turned out to be great fun, and I'm SO glad that I got to go! Here are some shots of us at the meet.

Me and Rowdy Gaines

Me and Katie just being really silly and pretending we had no pants on!!

Me, Katie and Pam getting ready for our 50 Breaststroke event!

On deck for the backstroke!
Definitely need to work on my arms!!

Busy, Busy, Busy!!

The last couple of weeks have just been a whirlwind! This is the end of the semester, so things are really wild at work and in class. Last week, was really CRAZY for me. I had my skills test in my Water Safety Instructor class, the Masters Swim Club had to attend the Sports Club Awards Banquet, then the next day was the Awards Ceremony!

The Masters Swim Club was presented with a Service Award for having the most community service of any of the Sports Clubs. We were also awarded with an Outstanding Sport Club Award for 2012. Our Coach, Katie, and Morgan, one of our new officers, attended the banquet with me. We had a great time!

Me, Morgan, and Katie at the banquet with our awards.

Our Outstanding Sport Club Award

Back in March, I got a letter telling me that I had received the Nancy Hill Robertson Scholarship Award! I am so excited. This scholarship is going to pay for me to go to school full-time for the next year and finish my degree in Recreation Administration! Last Wednesday, the College of Behavioral and Health Sciences held their Awards Ceremony, where I was awarded the scholarship.

Me and my advisor, Dr. Joey Gray, at the Awards Ceremony.

My Award.

This week is finals week, so I took my final in WSI class. I've also spent the week, tying up loose ends and getting my summer class schedule set. I have a whole week break, before my May-mester class starts. The good thing is that it only lasts 10 days. Somewhere in there, I have my first LC swim meet in Nashville. I also have a class in June. Once that's over, I get an almost 2 month break, before fall classes! Looks like another busy summer for me!

Blue Wave Raider Spring Home Meet

I can't believe that I haven't posted this yet!! My spring swim meet went REALLY well. I was so worried about being slow, since I had been so sick and hadn't practiced much. Imagine my surprise, when again, I beat all of my times!! I was SO excited! The race that I'm proudest of was my 100 Back! I dropped my time nearly 6 seconds! We've been invited by the Nashville Aquatics Club Masters for a long course meet at the end of May. There are several of us that are going to go! I can't wait to try it.

Here are a couple of videos of me swimming at our home meet. The first is of the 50 Back. I was the only woman to swim in this heat, so it looks like I really got stomped, which was not the case.

This one is of my 50 Breast. I'm not a fast breaststroker, but I really like to race it. I still have a lot of work to do on this stroke!

Special Kids 5K

This past weekend, I ran the 1st annual Special Kids 5K race with a couple swim team members. I've run the Fenton Payne & Fred 5K for them the last couple of years. This year, they had their very own race. I ran with a couple members of the Blue Wave Raiders swim team, Morgan and Katie. We all had SUCH a good time!! We are already planning our next 5K! Special Kids does SUCH good work for the children! I try to support them all I can!

Here are some shots from Saturday.

My traditional "after the race" goofy pose.

The cool race tech shirts.

Me and Katie being goofy after the race!

With swim teammates, Katie and Morgan after the race!

5K finishing medals.

Gettin' Nervous!

Well it's now two weeks, until our next home meet! I'm starting to get really nervous about it. Last month, I had the worst bout of bronchitis that I've had in years. It was so bad, that I'm still not right from it. The fatigue has been awful. By the time I get to the weekend, I usually have to stay in bed all day on Saturdays. I'm always fine by Sunday. This exhaustion has got to go! I've been taking vitamins and definitely getting plenty of sleep, so I hope this doesn't last much longer!

I've only been back to practice a grand total of 3 times! I'm still not able to do any sprint work either! I have managed to get in distance practices. I've decided to drop my events in the 200 Back and the 100 Back. I know that I just don't have the lung capacity for it right now. I'm just going to do the 50 Back, 50 Free, and the 50 Breast. I know I won't see my best times, but I'm prepared for that. This is just making me nervous! Here's hoping that I'll have really great practices for the next 2 weeks!!

Girly Girl!

I'm not quite sure what's happened to me lately. I have a new hobby/obsession. It's nail polish and nail art. I've turned into such a girly girl. For the last week I've looked forward to payday, so I could go and buy new polish. In the last year, I went from having 2 polishes total to having probably over 30. My favorites are glitters and metallics. I very rarely use creams. Anyway, I happily went shopping last night for my very first OPI polish purchase. I ended up with one from OPI's Katy Perry collection called Teenage Dream and another called Princesses Rule. I'm in the mood for spring, so pink was the color of the day. Since I swim constantly, I've discovered that the OPI polish really stands up to the beating. I can wear it for practice all week, and it still looks good!

Here's the photos of the colors:

Katy Perry's Teenage Dream

Princesses Rule

Both very pretty pinks. The Princesses Rule is shimmery with pink and gold tones. It's very sheer, so it really suits my swimming schedule. It's very forgiving, when it does chip. The Teenage Dream is LOADED with glitter, and I just LOVE it! I tried my very first gradient manicure last night. Not a total success, but it's pretty anyway. Here are some shots.

This was made in lamplight only.

This in the bright sunlight.

As you can see, it has high sparkle in any kind of light, and I absolutely love it! Now, I can't wait to try the blue in the Katy Perry collection, Last Friday Night! I'm officially and addict! Now if you all will excuse me, I have some gummy bears to eat!!

I'm Swimming 100 Miles to Support the MS Assoc.

I love to swim and participate on my local United States Masters Team, the MTSU Blue Wave Raiders. I want to swim for all of those affected by MS and their families, but especially for one of my closest friends, Linda. Linda is in the advanced stages of MS, and uses a power chair for her mobility. I have watched her battle and struggle with this devastating disease, and I want to help find a cure for her.

Since 2012 is an Olympic year my goal is to swim 100 miles, before the start of the London games on Friday, July 27, 2012. Help me reach my goal and support the fight for MS!  Please consider making a donation to my cause!!

http://support.msassociation.org/site/TR?type=fr_tribute_fund&fr_id=1050&pxfid=9090&post_id=13930&bpg=rlist&pg=fund

Spring Season

The Spring season is well underway. We've got our practices going and on schedule. I'm enjoying getting back to the routine of it all and being with my team. Coach Katie is back, and we're having a great time! I just wanna get faster! I'm working really hard in practice. I'm even doing fly and IMs voluntarily this semester!!
 Here's two viral vids that pertain to swimming that made me laugh out loud this week!

WKU Meet Wrap Up

Saturday's meet was an absolute BLAST!! I still had a small case of the nerves, beforehand, but I managed quite well (thanks to Katie's good humor)! I am disappointed that the video camera had a SNAFU, so we didn't get any footage. I think I may have figured out the problem, and hopefully it's not broken. I'm proud to say that I swam faster than I ever have at this meet! I ended up taking 2 first place events (200 medley relay, I was backstroke leg, and 50 Breaststroke) and 2 second place events (50 Freestyle and 50 Backstroke). I am the most proud of my 50 Backstroke! I'm still dropping time! The entire team did REALLY well too! We all had a great time!

Another boost on Saturday was the local paper had an article on the team. They decided to take the pictures last week, and everyone is still on winter break. So, I was the lucky photo subject. The article and the pictures both turned out really nice, and I'm really proud of them. Here's the shot that was included in the article.

Here's the link to the article, written by my really good friend, Nancy DeJennaro.

Swim into shape | The Daily News Journal | dnj.com:

'via Blog this'

Catching Up!

WOW!! I can't believe that I didn't post once throughout the Christmas season! It WAS really crazy. We had a death in the family the weekend before Christmas, so that week was just jam packed with relatives and visitors. It was great to see everyone, but I wish that it had been under different circumstances.

Now, let's see..the Christmas wrapup. We had a GREAT Christmas! Mine actually started the weekend before in Atlanta. Casey had bought me tickets to USA Swimming's Duel In the Pool. The entire Olympic Team was there competing against Team Europe! It was SO much fun! It was really nice to see them all in person. I managed to get Rebecca Soni's autograph and also Chloe Sutton's! Casey also bought me an event t-shirt to wear! I couldn't have asked for a better gift! Here's some shots that I made at the meet.

Team Europe(In Blue) and Team USA (Red)

Missy Franklin getting ready for her event.

The closest I could get to Ryan Lochte! HAHA!

As you can tell, I had a GREAT time!

The rest of Christmas was wonderful too! All spent with friends and family. Casey gifted me with a really pretty swimming themed bracelet, which I LOVE!

The dogs even had a big Christmas! They received a HUGE box and many more Christmas cards than me in the blog holiday exchange! They were so cute opening their presents. I'll post those in the next few days.

The next big thing on the agenda is this Saturday's swim meet at Western Kentucky University! This was by far one of my favorite meets last year. It didn't hurt that I took home my first swimming ribbons there too! I've registered for 3 events, the 50 Backstroke, the 50 Freestyle, and the 50 Breaststroke. All of my practice pools have been closed over the holidays, so it's definitely going to be a "wing it" meet. I'll post later on how it all goes!