Master Bedroom Update

This was a house project that I’ve been meaning to do for over a year. Our master bedroom used to have shelves on the walls, like in this picture:

But I was getting tired of the knick-knacks and then one of the shelves fell off the wall at least twice and ended up breaking. Time to replace them (12 months later).

I made my anniversary map project with the plan to hang it up in the master bedroom eventually. Last summer, I found a bunch of plain wooden frames at a garage sale for 25 cents each and this summer, I bought a can of off-white spray paint to redo them. With some other cute wall decorations on sale at Kohl’s and Hobby Lobby, it came together.

On the left side:

(Obviously, I still need to replace one picture but I haven’t been able to find a vertical picture for it yet.)

On the right side:

 

The ivory frames in this picture are the ones I spray-painted.

Also since the time when the first picture of this post was taken, we have painted 2 of the walls in our bedroom blue (because we replaced the windows) and installed dual rods, so that we could still have the sheer curtains but also have heavier ones to block out the light in the morning:

It felt good to get that project done! One down, 100 to go.

 

 

Our Busy Weekend

Some more pics from Saturday’s race (courtesy of my dad):

(Those last 4 are stills from video that my dad took, so that’s why they’re not the best quality. I included them because I actually look like I’m running!)

After the race, we walked around the Taste of Louisville festival for a bit before deciding to redeem the coupon on our race bibs for a free margarita at Old Santa Fe. Travis and I put on flipflops and changed our shirts and we enjoyed al fresco dining. I wasn’t very hungry so I ordered guacamole and chips, which were delicious.

Then we went home, showered, napped/watched TV until we decided to go do some shopping. Our first stop was the auto parts store. Our Focus died a few weeks ago and Travis has been hard at work trying to fix it. Nothing he did seemed to work so he finally gave up and brought it to a mechanic. Turns out that the things Travis had fixed actually had been broken but there was one more piece to the puzzle. It’s a tough part to get in and out (as Travis and my dad discovered first-hand on Sunday) so instead of paying $500 for the mechanic to do the work, Travis decided he and my dad would tackle it together.

Our next stop was Sam’s Club to look at Garmin watches. For my birthday! My parents are SUPER generous and said that they wanted to buy me a Garmin for my birthday (in July). Since they wanted to make sure I got the one I wanted, we picked it out together. Sam’s Club didn’t have any though.

Then it was off to Walmart (I had seen Garmins on their website but they’re not in the store). No luck there. On to Gordman’s, where my mom and I spent a solid 45 minutes deciding which pillows to buy for our new couches (as an anniversary present from my parents – they think of any excuse they can to buy us things ). We were heading to the register with our final selections when I noticed one of the pillows had a tear. After calling to another store and finding out they had one, we went over there to buy pillow #6 of 6. Depressingly, those pillows didn’t end up working out so we had to return them anyway. But the others worked great!

While at the second Gordman’s store, Travis and my dad went to Home Depot and bought a stand-up, rolling tool chest that Travis had wanted. I told Travis he could buy one since he officially PASSED his Professional Engineer’s exam! Since they took a while doing that, my mom and I wandered around Gordman’s and found some shoes to buy. After my successful purchase last summer of b.o.c. sandals, I decided another pair for $35 (instead of $60) was in order.

Finally, we were on our way home. Unfortunately, I had had a massive headache for the previous hour or so. When we got home, I went straight to bed, only getting up to eat dinner. Not sure why my head hurt but it could be a combination of not drinking enough water, not replacing electrolytes well enough and not taking a nap.

………………..

The next morning, I felt better. We went to church and then ate lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, a salad bar place. Travis had talked to our friend that works at REI about Garmins and learned that REI sells them in the store. So after returning the pillows that didn’t work to Gordman’s, we headed downtown to find me a Garmin.

After much hemming and hawing, I decided on the 210. I had previously wanted the 405/410 until I learned that they’re no longer making them (and REI didn’t even have any).

The 210 comes with a heart rate monitor. It tracks all the basics: pace, time, splits, distance. You can view your elevation after uploading your data.

I also looked at the 610 but it was too expensive and I didn’t feel like the extra features were worth $150 to me (though they might to someone else). I decided against the 310 as well. Even though it being waterproof made it appealing, I didn’t feel that made up for the less-than-appealing humongous square display. Plus, it would probably be too big to wear with a wetsuit during a triathlon anyway – so what would be the point?

I think the 210 is really cute.

I took it for my first test “run” last night (I ended up walking most of the 2.5 miles because my legs were so tight/sore!). I really like how it fits and the distance/splits seem accurate but I was a little frustrated with the pace display. Thought I think that’s because it was displaying my average, not current, pace (which would explain a lot). I’ve been too lazy to actually get out the manual and figure out how to work the thing so I can’t really make a judgment until I do that.

In addition to the Garmin, my mom bought me a shirt to wear for the marathon.

The last picture is loading weird, but the lines are actually horizontal on the shirt.

The shirt is REI brand and is actually designed for backpacking, so I can get double use out of it. It’s 90% Polyester, 10% spandex so it’s very stretchy and is wrinkle-resistant. I also LOVE that fabric “texture” and figure that I can probably get away with teal + pink for the race. I’m going to test the shirt out on my 12 mile long run this weekend.

Post-REI, we headed home so that Travis and my dad could work on fixing the Focus. While they did that, my mom and I shopped for and hung a picture collage in the living room. When we got new couches, the arrangement of our living room changed quite a bit so the pictures had to be moved around. This is what we came up with:

One of the frames we bought (that will go in the middle on the left) didn’t have a wall-hanger so I have to work on that still – as well as putting pictures in some of the frames.

The canvases on the right need to be put in black frames and then they’ll be hung up above the loveseat.

The car and picture projects lasted until about 8:30, when we finally grilled up some elk burgers. Around 11, we went to bed and my parents (sadly) left the next morning to fly back to Minnesota. It was a short but sweet trip! Thanks Mom and Dad for your overwhelming generosity with everything. We are very blessed by you.

Happy National Running Day!

Clothes and Couches.

Clothes

Our care group is having a little BBQ this Saturday and since it’s supposed to be 84 degrees, I’m planning to wear my new dress:

I LOVE this dress. It’s so comfy, casual and for some reason, I’m smitten with the orange/tan color combo.

As for the trendy vs. timeless pants, longevity and comfort are the winners this time.

The skinny jeans fit me well… standing up.

But they’re a little iffy for bending over or sitting down, meaning I’d always have to wear a belt. And since I don’t like being limited like that…

Dress pants it is.

The dress pants are the Aubrey cut from Gap (a quick Google search shows that they’re either only available at Gap outlet or have been renamed). They’re the perfect size in both the waist and hips (hard to find!), perfect length to wear with either heels or flats, and they’re machine washable. Best part, I got them for 50% off. I feel like $30 for nice dress pants is a very reasonable price.

After much contemplating, I mailed my “marathon shirt” back yesterday. I did exchange it for a large and while it fit better, it was still really long and a little tighter than I would prefer:

One of my friends is an amazing seamstress (I was going to write “sewer”, but somehow that didn’t seem right…) and I was thinking about asking her to shorten the shirt 2-3 inches. But the more I thought about it, it’s just not the right shirt. So back it went, much to our wallet’s delight.

Speaking of our wallet, I have not bought and am no longer planning to buy a Garmin just yet. A new pair of running shoes had to come first (somehow, they seemed more essential) and our Alaska trip has pretty much eliminated any wiggle room beyond that in our budget. But it’s a small price to pay for the trip of a lifetime.

So what am I planning to wear for the marathon? Well, after way too much thought and deliberation, I’ve (almost) decided to go with this short-sleeve shirt if it’s a warm day:

 Malibu Half 2010

Or this shirt if it’s chilly:

On the bottom, I’ll wear my pink running skirt over my 2XU compression tights. The other bottom option I’ve been thinking about is my running skirt over my Aspaeris compression shorts (just in case compression tights would be too warm) but then I’d want to wear compression socks and not only would that be more $$ to spend, I’m not sure it would be any cooler than the tights in the first place. I’ll probably change my mind 10 more times before the race and end up bringing along 5 different options anyway. Le sigh. #firstworldproblems

Travis laughs whenever I bring up the majorly important and hard decision of what I’m going to wear during the marathon. “When I ran my marathon {Twin Cities 2006},” he said, “the night before the race, I realized that I didn’t have a drifit shirt. My roommate said he had one I could borrow, and that’s what I wore.”

Boys.

Couches

We are LOVING our new couches that we got from our friends who just sold their house to travel around the country:

You almost can’t even see Charlie on the loveseat… but she’s there. All. the. time. Luckily, besides a minor mishap (looking at you Katy) in the first 36 hours, the couches have remained intact. But the dogs still lick them every chance they get. ?!?!?

I broke into my own house.

It’s a Friday. Things were pretty slow at work (when are they not?) so I headed home at 4. I was anticipating a delicious nap in air-conditioning while the dogs were roaming outside so they wouldn’t wake me up. I was feeling pretty good about my mad traffic navigation skills, too, as I was able to avoid practically all of the jams I saw on my way home (side roads are where it’s at).

I went through my usual routine of parking my car in the driveway, opening the garage door with the remote, and grabbing all of my crap to carry in. But when I reached the door to the laundry room, the knob didn’t turn. Thinking it was just stuck, I jiggled it a few more times. Nope, it was locked. That had happened to me one other time. Since it’s the kind of doorknob that you turn the notch to lock (see pic), sometimes the notch gets turned just a little bit every time you use it until bam, the door is locked.

No problem, I thought. I’ll just go through the front door. Well, unfortunately the recent re-addition of our screened door put the kaibosh on that. It was locked as well. No key for that door.

Hmmm…

While the dogs were whining and pawing at the door to get out, I called Travis and told him the predicament. He suggested I take the pins out of the hinges of the door.

Good idea!

I was able to get the pins out fairly easily but then the dilemma was, how do you pull a door off that is still locked? Those skills were beyond me. So I got out the cordless drill and removed my side of the doorknob. When I couldn’t figure out how to get the door unlocked even then, I remembered my friend Carrie’s story about a friend’s little boy locking himself and his playmates into her daughter’s room. Apparently, he only knew how to lock it but not unlock, so she also resorted to removing the doorknob. I remembered her saying that didn’t work, but I couldn’t remember what actually did work. (Maybe she coached them through how to unlock? Do you think that would work with my dogs?)

While I was standing there jiggling the knob, I could feel the cool breeze blowing from the laundry room into the hot, sticky garage. Taunting me.

Finally I gave up on that door. It was of no use. Maybe there’s a window open!

Indeed there was. And luckily, it was my bathroom window, which had yet to be replaced with the new kind with screens designed to only come out from inside. Instead, the screens were homemade (we think) and held in place by some plastic clips that you turn to remove (see pic).

Between a nail and a putty knife, I was able to turn the plastic clips enough to push the screen out and into the bathtub.

Then I got out the ladder. Carefully straddling it over one of our beautiful shrubs, I climbed up.

Now, as you can see, our windows are pretty high up and fairly small. Good thing I don’t weigh 200 lbs or I would’ve been cooking in the hot sun until Travis got home from happy hour.

So the question was, Should I go in head first or feet first?

I decided feet first would be the safest route so I lifted my left leg into the window and straddled the sill. I stared down at the hard, porcelain bathtub. Whatever you do, don’t get hurt.

I kicked off my flipflop so I could better grip the side ledge of the bathtub. Now, how to get my right leg inside too? I pushed aside the shower curtain and leaned down onto the toilet tank. Holding on to the window frame, I was able to wrestle my right leg in too.

Whew! I’m inside.

Time for a nap.

Sunshine and spring.

I love spring. Especially spring in Denver, where you don’t have to deal with mud and puddles as the snow is melting. (Although you do have to deal with wind, which is just as annoying.)

The view out the office window

I can’t help but be in a good mood when I wake up, go into the office with my cup of coffee, and see the shadows of the evergreen boughs dancing on the west wall in the early morning sunlight. That is a delightful sight.

I just love sunshine and light. When Travis and I watch TV at night, he always wants all of the lights off, with just the TV illuminating the room. I prefer to have all of the lights on. Light makes me feel cozy; darkness makes me lonely and cold.

Though I love our cute little house, I wish our office had a bigger, south-facing window. Right now, it has one small one that faces east. The sun only shines into the room until about 9:45 at this time of year. I absolutely love the office that the character Erica (Diane Keaton) has in Something’s Gotta Give:

Look at those windows! And the flowers on her desk. And the hydrangeas out the window with a view of the beach. Sigh. It would be so wonderful to work in that office everyday.

If I do end up making a career out of being a writer, I am going to move our office into our guest bedroom, which has two windows, one east-facing and one south-facing. It is sunny in there almost all day long. It’s a wonderful room. The only problem right now is that the windows are very old and leak cold air into the room, so it’s always freezing in there. But Travis is planning on replacing those this spring or summer… so maybe around that time?

On a happier note, the tulips I planted last fall are coming up!

I planted white, yellow and red tulips. Can't wait until they bloom!

So about that…

I’ve been struggling lately.

I didn’t get in the Word once while in Columbus (at a Christian conference no less!) I got in the Word Wednesday and today but out of sheer willpower. 

I encounter the cards with my memory verses on them every time I open my Bible. There they are, tucked neatly between the pages of Romans. I feel a twinge of guilt as I stuff them back between the pages at the end of my quiet time. I’m still writing verses on cards every Sunday. I’m just not memorizing them.  

Every time I go to the bathroom (excuse me if it’s TMI), I am reminded (and grossed out) about how dirty my bathroom floor is. Once I notice that, I start glancing around at the other surfaces and notice that indeed, they are all just filthy.

In this year’s election, I voted for Obama. But I am just now familiarizing myself with the changes he’s made and policies he’s created…oh and giant bags of money he’s handed out. And I majored in journalism. Yeah, I know, I would suck at being a journalist. Politics to me is like sports–I find it just interesting enough to care but not interesting enough to consistently pay attention.

[Side note: I am sooo glad that I am not the President right now--or really anyone that needs to make decisions about our nation's future. When I read about the financial situation of the global economy, I want to crawl into bed and pretend that the problem will just disappear on its own. I bet you're glad I'm not the President too.]

My vacation to Mexico is a week from this Sunday and I haven’t felt more bloated and flabby than I do right now in a long while. Eating chinese for dinner tonight didn’t help. I honestly tried Intuitive Eating from when I wrote my last post about this until yesterday…when I broke down and logged my calories on Livestrong. “Just until after Mexico…” I tell myself. Uh huh, right, just keep telling yourself that.

I volunteered to translate articles from English to Spanish with Gospel Translations and while I’ve had the article sitting in my inbox since February 16th, I just started working on it Wednesday night…And I only translated 3 paragraphs.

Well, this blog post wasn’t meant to turn into a Woe Is Me lament. I’m just being honest–this is where I am right now. I am a messy, ambitious but lazy, paradoxical, confusing sort of person.

Some people have willpower of steel. They have to force themselves to take it easy (and even then, they don’t really take it easy). 

Some people are always laidback and chillaxing. They have to force themselves to do at least one productive thing during the day so they can say it wasn’t a total waste.

I am a pendulum that swings back and forth between the two. Sometimes it takes me a month to swing from maniacal to couch potato. Sometimes it only takes a day. You could say I’m slightly bipolar. Or you could say that I’m just your average woman. Both would be accurate.

Pathetic little cold.

I think I’m getting sick. On Tuesday night, I started to get a sore throat. Yesterday my nose started to stuff up just slightly. Today was pretty much par until tonight when I got a headache and feel exhausted. I’m thinking that maybe aerobics tomorrow morning is out of the question (Fridays are tough so I have to be on top of my game to survive!)

I told my women’s group tonight that I’ve been asking God to either make me better or make me sick enough that I can justify staying home from work. Then I could watch House all day long.

Glorious.

But then I realize I would only enjoy it for about 2 hours before wishing I was just better already. I am too active a person to lay on the couch all day long. Even back in July when we were just moving into our house and I went to the ER from work because I was having trouble breathing and my chest had stabbing pains (turned out I suffer from acid reflux!), I still helped paint the walls and trim and move our stuff the next day (never mind the fact that I couldn’t sleep at night because it hurt to lay down and I couldn’t bend over because it caused stabbing pains.) I’m tough.

But when it comes to work, let’s just be honest. Everyone needs a good sick day now and again. I mean, no one wishes for any serious illness of course. But a wimpy, day-long cold every now and then? Bring it on.

Then there’s the kind of cold I have–enough to wear me out but not enough to knock me out. In short, just annoying. Boo.

Ok, well I’m going to go to bed now in case I do feel well enough to go to aerobics. And if I don’t, I really hope I don’t feel well enough to go to work either. Hey, it’s Friday. Can’t I dream a little?

An anomalous day

Today is strange. I don’t have anything that I have to do…and yet, I feel like I shouldn’t just spend my time lying on the couch watching TV. It’s a weird feeling really. This doesn’t usually happen to me… usually I have lots of stuff to do or I don’t want to do anything but lie on the couch and watch TV.

So far, since coming home from church, I have cleaned out the coffeemaker with vinegar (something that was LONG overdue!), watched our wedding video (for old time’s sake), painted the wooden box I’m going to hang in the bathroom when Trav gets home, and folded the laundry. I have a canvas that I want to paint our wedding vows on but I feel like I should have a stencil instead of just doing it free hand. I could work on my memoir but I just really don’t feel like it. I think I will read…and possibly take a nap

Meanwhile, here are the pictures of our wonderful new patio furniture–that we have yet to use since it’s cold here already! We also have an orange umbrella that goes with it but we haven’t taken that out of the box yet…

We chose the lowest maintenance furniture we could find.

But the chairs are actually really comfy!

The chairs rock--literally

The lone tree in our backyard is finally turning yellow!

That’s it for now. I’m off to read The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever.

Funk Free

The funk I was in a couple weeks ago is gone!!

I have been going to aerobics classes at our neighborhood Rec Center. The 2 classes that I’ve gone to so far have both been some version of step aerobics. The first one was 5:30-6:30 in the morning. It’s hard to get up for a class that early but I did–once. It was a good class–it was mostly 30 and 40-year-olds. I was by far the youngest one there. It was a little challenging (mostly to figure out what the instructor was doing!) and the ab workout was killer.

The other class I went to was from 5:30-6:25 PM and it was a younger crowd. There were probably 3-4 other women my age, others in their 30s and 40s, and 1-2 looked like they were even older than that. The instructor wasn’t a skinny minnie–she had a little extra weight on her. But man, did she have endurance. It was an entire hour of high-intensity aerobics. I kept up for the first 30 minutes but after that, I was seriously contemplating just getting up and leaving. But it was a good workout and I know that it will get easier the more I do it.

So I’m interested to see what the class is like tomorrow…hard or moderate? I’m sure it won’t be easy but I hope that I can at least keep up with these old folks! These aerobics classes are kind of like hiking–I think that I’m in pretty good shape until I go hiking or to one of these classes. Then I’m like “Man! I really need to work out more!”

On a completely different note, Travis and I went out to eat tonight and then to the Avs preseason game against the Chicago Blackhawks. I’m pretty sure the Avs lost (we left early). And now, I’m going to go watch Season 2 Disc 1 of House!!! We got through one whole season!! (But sad day, I missed the new House episode this past Tuesday. I’m hoping that NBC still posts past episodes on their website so that I can catch up before the next one).

Update 10.4.08: I went to the Cardio Kickbox class this morning and it was SO fun! It was challenging but I kept up with most of it (there was one point where I was so out of breath that I had to stop moving but other than that, I kept up). We got out the clappers and pounded them with jabs, hooks, uppercuts, and kicks. I had never done that before and it was really fun! I will definitely go back.

I rule.

All of my recent posts have been self-loathing and bemoaning my laziness. But this one will champion my productivity and ambition! A good change of pace if you ask me…

What did I do today exactly? you may be asking. Well, let me tell you.

1. Read my Bible and Day 31 of The Purpose-Driven Life

2. Went to church

3. Went to Walmart and bought toiletries, a plant, a pot, and some soil

4. Went back to church for a children’s ministry meeting

5. Potted new plant and repotted old plant

6. Emailed 3 of my old friends to see what they’re up to

7. Went shopping for hiking pants and scored a $9 North Face t-shirt as well as awesome-fitting ski pants AND hiking pants (I have such a hard time finding pants that fit, that whenever I do find pants that fit, I pretty much buy them regardless of cost. The hiking pants are The North Face and were $50. The ski pants are Columbia and were $65 on sale. Was it my shopping day or what? See pics of my finds below).

8. Called 3 girls from care group to catch up

9. Made 3 cards–a baby shower one, a sympathy one, and a so-sad-you’re-leaving one

10. Went to Home Depot to buy Travis a part he needed for his DIY plumbing job (more about that below)

11. Did laundry

12. Cooked dinner and did the dishes

13. Researched identity theft and submitting a fraud report to the Social Security office (one John Glenn has his name under my SSN! He hasn’t yet spent the millions of dollars I don’t have but I don’t want some guy’s name under my SSN!!)

14. And now I’m blogging!!

It has been a very productive day, I must say. And I love this feeling!! I don’t think I’m quite out of my funk (especially the eating junk food and exercising part) but at least I wasn’t a bum today!

So here are the pics of my way-awesome purchases today:

My sweet-o snow pants and new t-shirt

My ski pants from the front

Close-up of my $9 t-shirt score--LOVE IT!

My hiking pants from the front

From the back

My butt--to show how good they fit!

They're amazing!!

Travis was very productive today too, except he has only been working on one stinkin’ project since we got home from that church meeting–installing a pressure-reducing valve on our main water line. The water pressure in our house is something like 130 psi–twice what it’s supposed to be!! So in consideration of our pipes and water fixtures, we’re putting a valve on the water line to reduce the pressure. He’s also putting a water shut-off valve in our coat closet so that we don’t have to go all the way into the crawl space to shut the water off in an emergency. Travis had some defeats at first with the soldering but he’s gotten a long way–as I type, the water is shut off so that he can connect the PRV with the main water line. My fingers are crossed for him!

Our coat closet currently

Travis is down there in the crawl space!