Random Thursday Thoughts

If I blogged half as often as I think about sitting down to write a post, you would be so sick of me.

We're having a freak week of summer this week. My car said it was 94 this afternoon, which I am definitely not ready for. Fortunately it is only supposed to be in the upper 70s tomorrow, so at least it isn't sticking around.

I signed up for Jay Johnson's semi-personal coaching for my fall marathon. I'm so determined to feel good about my race this year.

Unless I can't count (which is entirely possible), marathon training starts up next week! It feels really early to be starting, but my training plan is 20 weeks long, so it makes sense.

The pooches have been joining me for some long walks lately. They love it. Scout doesn't know what to do if I stop to let them take a break and I end up tangled in leashes.

He's also super helpful when I try to stretch.

This is the floor of what will eventually be the hall/guest bathroom. We've kind of been ignoring it for a while.

I decided to pretend I know what I'm doing and made a little progress last weekend.

I ran out of thinset, and needed a break, so I didn't get it finished. Once we get all the little squares filled in it will be ready for tile!

Let's not talk about the fact that we also have the area around the tub/shower to tile, or the fact that we haven't even started on the master bathroom floor...

Have you used Thredup? I have bought a few things from them, and today I sent in my first "cleanup bag." It's basically an online consignment store. It got a bunch of clothes out of the house and may bring in a few dollars. Feels like winning to me!

Baby Trees!

You can't really see anything in this picture, but we got some new plants for the yard!

Our county had a seedling sale with native plants, so we decided to order some. Then we let them sit in the garage for a week after Tom picked them up...oops!

To add to the apple trees we planted last year (we have a honeycrisp, a red delicious and a granny smith) we added two baby pear trees today. 

Tom put tomato cages around the baby trees to keep Scout from playing with and/or destroying them.  Sticks are Scout's favorite thing in the yard.

The apple trees survived the winter and losing several limbs to Scout. They even have blossoms!

There are also baby eastern white pine trees which will one day form a wind break for the yard.

It's going to be a few years though, they're pretty tiny!

The dogs were sad they couldn't be outside while Tom mowed the lawn this afternoon, so they found the sunniest spot in the house to nap. Please ignore the piles of Scout hair on the floor. The second I vacuum it up it just comes right back. He's been shedding like crazy and I can't figure out how he's not completely hairless at this point. 

New Floors and a Rainy Run

Tom started putting in the hardwood floors in our new master bedroom the other day. They're SO pretty! He finished up most of the bedroom and hallway and will probably have time to get the rest of it finished later this week. 

Buddy does not like all the sounds involved in installing hardwood floors.

He does like when he's allowed on the couch.

This is pretty tasty. The tangerine flavor is subtle, which I like. Some fruity beers taste like juice mixed with beer.

I finally had a successful run on Sunday. I actually felt mostly normal again. It was drizzling a bit when I left, but at mile 3 of 4 the clouds opened up and a serious downpour started. I stood under some trees until it got a little less intense and then did a little speed work for the last mile home. I beat the first rumble of thunder by about 5 minutes.

I tried to take a picture to show how rainy it was, but mostly that's just runoff from the roof since the addition doesn't have gutters yet.

Buddy loves when we have the windows open so he can check out all the smells from the comfort of the living room.

He's pretty cute.

Painting Madness and New Shoes

I've been on a mission to get the rest of the addition painted this week. I painted the master bathroom and ALL the white in the last few days.

Today I taped and painted the accent wall in our new bedroom. It still needs another coat, but it's starting to look really nice!

I decided it probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world to be teaching classes in my retired running shoes. My calves/shins have been unhappy with me lately, even with my zero week, so I'm wondering if that's a contributing factor. I ordered a new pair of work shoes while I was stuck on the couch last week.

I also got new running shoes and promptly realized that my pink Saucony Zealots might be on their last leg, even though they only have about 300 miles on them. Comparing the new ones to the old ones really shows how much they've broken down.

New shoes are so pretty!

And because no post is complete without Buddy:

I Love/Hate Running

I have not been behaving like a person who is running a half marathon this weekend - but I am. I'm running the Hook Mountain Half Marathon on Sunday.

On one hand, I have been trying to take it a little easier to let whatever is happening with my calf/shin totally heal, but I could definitely be running more than I have been.

It's not like I have been just sitting around on the couch - I have been doing a lot of work around the house, and I'm still doing yoga and some random youtube videos. But I have definitely been using more excuses than usual to skip out on runs.

This is how Buddy lets me know that it's his dinner time:

I bought a kettle bell the other day. I've used it once, so that's something. I'm really trying to do more strength training, because I know it's good for me. Consistency is not my strong suit.

Tom's mom came up and helped us paint again today. It's good that she came up because it got us to actually paint. We powered through and finished all the primer in the addition. Now we can actually start painting the new master bedroom and the new bathrooms.

Tom pulled the recessed lights down so we wouldn't paint them, they're not some fancy/weird spotlights.

I can't wait until this bathroom is finished - that 6 foot bathtub is calling my name. 

Progress is exciting :)

Our New (Old) Living Room

Things have been a little crazy around here lately. We got a lot done in the house though.

As a reminder, this is what the living room at the back of the house looked like before we moved in.

There was dark wood paneling, filthy carpet and not one, but three doors to the yard. The wood paneling has been down for so long that we actually forgot that it used to be there.

Tom powered through the rest of the painting over the weekend and on Tuesday we pulled up the old carpet. It took a while to pull up all the tack strips and staples from the carpet pad, and there was enough sand to fill a sandbox - for some reason. 

After a lot of swiffering and mopping, the floor is mostly clean now. This was before it was clean.

We even ended up moving things back into the living room last night. It feels so much brighter now! We still need to get the trim and the baseboards in, and we'll probably end up getting a bigger rug, but it feels good to see progress.

Marathon News and Paint

So, I didn't get into the Marine Corps Marathon for this year. I'm not terribly sad about it though. I already registered for The Steamtown Marathon and have hotel rooms reserved.

Part of why I'm excited is that Steamtown will be during my mom's visit in October, and she's going to come with us! It will be fun to have here there, and then I won't be trying to train during the rest of her visit. We usually only get to see each other once a year, so I like to be able to make the most of her visits.

I have been taking it easy this week when it comes to running. In fact, I've only actually made it out the door twice this week. My calf/shin, which gave me a pass for the race over the weekend, tightened back up early in the week so I am trying to actually let it recover.

My next half is only a couple of weeks out at this point. There really isn't a lot of information out there on how to train in between races, but I found this website and have been loosely following the 3 week plan.

We started getting the living room ready for painting the other day. I swept the drywall (including the ceiling) to get the majority of the dust off and ended up looking a little grey.

Tom's mom came over and helped us get started painting today. It went pretty quickly with all three of us painting!

We have the primer up and will hopefully have the room fully painted by the end of the weekend. I took these pictures while the primer was still drying, so there are some patchy looking areas.

Buddy has been helping me with my yoga lately. He's not in the way at all.

Good thing he's cute.

Rocks and New Shoes

The days have really been sneaking by lately!

I haven't been reading my usual blogs, and I haven't been posting. I don't really know what has been keeping me away, but I just haven't been spending too much time on my computer this week.

A few highlights (and lowlights) for you:

I ran my long run solo on Saturday. I have been running with people for long runs lately, and let me tell you, 11 miles go a lot faster with friends. My watch randomly had a GPS glitch that it mostly corrected. At about 7 miles it said 5.8, a couple of minutes later it jumped up to 7.3. One of my mile splits was under two minutes. Yeah, that seems right...

We ran out of oil for the furnace on Saturday. I discovered this fact when I went to take a shower after my run. We were having dinner with our neighbor so I couldn't not shower. I took the coldest shower ever and tried to keep most of my body away from the water while I washed my hair.

On Sunday I was randomly possessed by a yard work maniac and spent at least 5 hours digging up rocks and cleaning random bits of glass and other trash out of one of the giant rock piles in the yard. Now it's a smaller giant rock pile and it isn't full of garbage.

It was a nice night, so we had a little fire in the fire pit.

Buddy has been loving the warmer weather we've been having, because it means we hang out in the yard when I get home from running.

I got new shoes today. I ordered them the other day and I was delaying my run until the mailman came. They're Brooks Launch 2s - the 3s are out now, so the 2s are on sale - they were really comfortable right out of the box and I didn't have to adjust them at all on my run today. We'll see how they do on some longer runs.

What are your favorite shoes right now?