Apple cheeks

Yoga and boot camp yesterday were both great.  To give myself a chance to recover from what shall now be known as "Two-Class Tuesday," I headed out for an easy, gentle recovery run after work.  Today's run include no speedwork, no hills, no anaerobic threshold.  The only obstacle was that it was cold.  When I got home, I learned that it was a 28-degrees-feels-like-20 kind of evening.  Brr.  It was the first time I've gone full tights, hat and gloves this season.

Early in my run, I saw a poster that had been tossed to the side of the road.  I ran past it, and then my curiosity got the best of me.  I was rewarded.

It is a well-kept secret that I once turned a small profit in my own bookmark-making venture back in fifth grade.  I would trim cross-stitching material into a bookmark shape and cross-stitch the buyer's name vertically in the embroidery floss color of his or her choice.  This would run a person 25 cents per bookmark, unless he or she wanted a tassel attached, which raised the price to 35 cents.  It looked like this:

Totally rockin', right?  (And yes, I did just spend two full minutes recreating the product via Paint It.)  Needless to say, I felt a connection to the (presumed) kids.  I hope the bookmark producers discarded their marketing materials because they sold out of bookmarks, not because their business model failed them.

I kept running, and the sun set.  As per usual around the time of year, it was very pretty.  I've never considered sunset-spotting as a reason for why I run, but if this blog is any indication, I'd better add it to my list.

I knew by the end of the run that in addition to being the first run of the season that called for extra clothes, it was the first apple cheeks run, too.  My mom used to send me outside to play in the winter with the order to not come in until I had apple cheeks.  I think her mother passed it down to her.  The summer version of apple cheeks is just not as appealing: think beet cheeks, or overripe tomato cheeks instead.  But winter apple cheeks are just right.  I tried to capture this effect with my camera, but it seemed to photograph as apple face.  Yikes.

Anyway, you know what I'm talking about.  Did you get apple cheeks today, too?