Michael & Liz are Bloggable

The kitchen is looking bangin', but it's not quite done. We are done painting the top cabinets but we still need to work on the lower cabinets. There's also some finishing touches on the top cabinets left to do. We need to put on some knobs, put on little rubber stoppers behind the doors so there's a small barrier between painted doors and painted cabinets, and then we still need to paint below the cabinet above the refrigerator.

So here's some mid-kitchen progress, and yes, they are as awesome as they look.

You can see little paper towel rolls stuffed between the doors and cabinets so they don't stick until we get some tiny rubber stoppers.




The last picture is of the cabinet above the fridge. That cabinet used to have an empty space above it where we put plants just so it would take up space. I'm kinda proud of how that looks. It's not quite as seamless as I intended, but it looks good in the picture.

One thing I have always wanted is a running dog. I am pretty sure the next time (which I hope is 20 years down the line) we get a dog, I'll consider exercise into the equation. 

The last two days I've taken the dogs around the neighborhood. One thing has become blatantly obvious to me, every time I try and run, Gryffin outruns me and doesn't stop until forced to. I have never given him a chance, but I honestly think he's a runner, and I'm going to give him a chance.

Yesterday Liz and I took the dogs for a walk. I took them individually and did a little jogging with each one. Not much of a distance at all, but enough to get their heart going for sure. Today I went on a run with them. This was not an easy little stroll around the neighborhood, it was meant to be at most a constant jog, and at the very least a walk/jog combo.

To be honest, Daisy enjoys running as far as the fun of it will take her. She's a little chihuahua, what do you expect? When we start out from the house, she runs for a good minute. It's fun, she bounds around, and bites Gryffin along the way. She LOVES it at the start. From that point on though, every time we start to run, she'd go about 10 seconds and then stop and sniff and analyze every grass blade. If she gets tired, she'll walk at her own pace, and I have no chance of rushing her. She's made it very clear that she's in control of her own exercise.

Gryffin on the other hand continues to show an interest in running. Tonight's run, it was go-go-go the entire time except for about 3 moments where he did his #1's and a #2. He wants to run fast and for a long time and rarely slows up. In fact, not only does he run fast, but he pulls on the leash as if I'm a sled. Tonight was only a mile run but the dog has energy.

I am actually contemplating taking him on a longer run (2 miles) at a slower pace to see if he could do it. He's got short legs, but big muscles and an even bigger heart. I seriously never imagined loving this little boy as much as I do. He means so much to me, so the last thing I want to do, is put him in a situation he can't handle. But Gryffin's actions are speaking loud and clear. He wants to run, so as a runner myself, I can't help but nurture that. 

*DISCLAIMER* - I am well aware of how ridiculous this challenge is. I am not taking this seriously. It is 90% fun.

Over the past few days, while petting the dogs, I have noticed they are a little more pudgy than I think they should be. The vet actually keeps telling us, "they are slightly higher than they should be, by maybe a pound or two". Which for two dogs as small as them, a pound or two is a LOT.

Well lately I have also been meaning to drop a few pounds so I figured what's better than making it a challenge. Me vs. Daisy & Gryffin.

It's basically like Biggest Loser, who ever loses the most weight percentage wise wins. They dogs will count as one person, so their weights will be combined.

This morning I weighed them and Daisy weighed 13.4 pounds and Gryffin weighed 18.6 pounds. This is where my "DISCLAIMER" is important. I won't be starving them, I won't be working them out in any abnormal way. I will keep their food the same. What I am going to change though is the amount that I walk them.

These days, we are lucky if we take them on a walk once a week. When I say walk though, I mean going all the way around our 1.2 mile neighborhood. They do plenty of running around in our backyard and house but for this challenge, I am going to make it a requirement that I take them on 5 walks around the neighborhood every week. So if I do it every day, Monday through Friday, that's good enough. I also intend on taking them to the dog park more often, but I don't want to set a requirement for that.

I thought of this idea yesterday, so I started this morning by weighing the dogs first thing when we woke up. This challenge will go until October 29th, which is Halloween weekend. I love Halloween so having a goal set for that weekend is very fitting.

My goals here? Realistically I think the dogs each can lose 1 pound. Doing the math, that would mean I'd have to lose 12 pounds from my current 184. OOF! That's a lot of weight, but I'm going to try!

What am I going to do? I'm going to get back to my daily healthy routine and also do a lot more than just running at the gym. I need to switch up my cardio by doing some stair master and also lift some weights.

Wish us luck!

I totally forgot to blog about the completion of this challenge. I doubt anyone cares but the obsessive person inside of me could not leave the blog incomplete. So here is how I finished out the month:

August Day:	Miles:
1	3.5
2	1.8
3	1.2
4	3.5
5	1.2
6	1.2
7	1.2
8	1.2
9	2.7
10	3.2
11	1.7
12	1.2
13	1.2
14	7.5
15	1.2
16	1.2
17	4
18	3
19	1.2
20	4
21	1.5
22	1.2
23	4.6
24	5.5
25	4
26	1.2
27	1.2
28	1.2
29	5.6
30	3.6
31	9.5
Total:	86
Average:	2.77

An average of 2.7 miles a day isn't bad. I really enjoyed the month. I found out the last 3 days that I had to run 26 miles in order to hit a 3 mile a day average. I thought about trying to do that but didn't want to make myself miserable so I took it easy.

I didn't officially make a challenge for September, but I'm thinking about starting one soon, and believe me, it's absolutely ridiculous. I need to run it by Liz first to see what she thinks. I'll let you know.

We're making it official now, Liz is pregnant and is due late March. Weren't you wondering why we were making our 3rd bedroom "livable"? (all 3 of you).

We won't find out the sex of the baby until our appointment in late October. But for now we just wait and fix up the house. We're going to be painting the baby's room a light turquoise color so that it's gender neutral. Liz has already started hunting for deals on cribs and baby seats and stuff.

We couldn't be more excited about it!! I'll blog more about stuff later, this is enough information for one post.

So last year, for the first time ever, I ran the Blue Ridge Relay. You can have all your "what is that" questions answered by this post I made last year. There are some pretty amazing things that happen over the course of the race. I also posted about that last year, and you can reference those with this post.

This past weekend I ran it again. It was absolutely amazing and I have a bunch of pictures and info to share, but I will post about how the race went later. Today is all about my specific legs. I was runner #3 of our 12 person team. We started the race at 7:30AM on Friday, and my first leg happened around 8:50AM. It was 5.2 miles and labeled as "moderate". That part is funny to me, only in the Blue Ridge Mountains would this run be considered "moderate". It's all relative though, believe me!! Here is the outline:

The hills are as brutal as they look. The last part of this run was beautiful, just rolling country side with small homes lining the road. At one point I was running by a house with an older woman sitting on the porch knitting. The house was close enough so I yelled "Good Morning!" and she looked up with a smile and said "Good Morning!" back. It was really cute, I felt like a southerner. It's all about the enjoyment of the race, and enjoy it I did. I finished this 5.2 miles in 39:49. Under an 8 minute mile? I'll take it!!

My next leg didn't happen until 8:15PM that night. Matt, runner #2, had a brutal 10 mile run up Grandfather Mountain. He claims it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be, but I don't want to hear it.Any run up hill for 10 miles is a bad and brutal run. So what did that mean for me? I got to go downhill. I got to go downhill very very fast. It was only 2.3 miles to the next town. Here are the specs:


My strategy? Start out sprinting and then ease into a pace slightly slower than that. The "Easy" label is an understatement for this run. Most of the time I was trying to slow myself down so that I wouldn't completely wipe out if I hit a weird crack in the road. I was keeping such a close eye on my watch too because how long was this run supposed to take? A sneeze should have taken longer. My goal was to hit a 6 minute per mile pace. The 2.3 miles took me exactly 13:52. That's a 6:01 pace, good enough.

My last run was certainly the worst of all 3. I had been dreading it all day. I estimated I was going to be running around 4AM and it was a daunting 9 mile run mostly up hill. I don't do very well with sleep deprivation. In fact I'd argue I am the worst person I've ever met when it comes to staying awake past 10PM. Fortunately I was able to get a good 3 hour nap in right before the run so I was refreshed. Here is the leg info:



I bet this would have been a gorgeous run had the sun been out, but unfortunately the entire run was done in the dark. I started at 4:28AM on Saturday morning. I was passed by one runner in the first mile but then over the next 20 minutes, I passed 8 other people. From that point on, for the other 50 or so minutes, it was just me, the road and darkness. I saw absolutely no one except for a van that passed every now and then. It's a very surreal feeling. You're running down a road with a headlamp and blinking lights attached to your hip. It's pitch black behind you and all you can see is what your head lamp illuminates. You are heavily relying upon the signs on the road to guide you to the next exchange zone. If you miss a turn, you are in a lot of trouble. It's the most amazing experience.

Finishing this leg felt absolutely fantastic. I have been struggling over the last month with running. I had taken all of July off from running after the marathon in June, so I was struggling to get back into running shape. I might not have lost anything physically, but I certainly lost a lot mentally. I needed to get it back.This run was exactly what I needed. It ended up taking me 76 minutes, which is almost exactly a 8:30 minute per mile pace. That's not good enough in my mind, but it is what it is.

My next post about the relay will have pictures and more fun information about the trip.

I have so much I need to blog about, but lately we have spent a lot of our home time painting. I just have to say... WOW. I built these shelves a month or two ago, and I knew when painted that they would look good, but I'm so excited with how it's turning out. Here is some mid-kitchen progress!! In not too long, our kitchen will be bangin'!

Back to work...

Now that I'm done with all the wood work that needs to be done in the kitchen, my girl is stepping it up and painting like a mad woman. We took all the upper cabinet doors down and she's spent a few hours in the garage both yesterday and today painting up a storm. Now I just gotta get crackin' on the inside cabinet part, that was my job.

We're using Low VOC primer and no VOC white paint for the kitchen. I don't know anything about it but apparently it's an environmentally responsible and less-stinky paint to use. The only down side is the higher cost, but if we're adding less pollutants in the air, the small extra we have to pay is worth it. We are so super psyched. Can't wait to have this kitchen done and looking awesome!!

I might just go buy an air compressor and nail gun tomorrow... so much excitement in this house.

 This project started on Wednesday afternoon when Liz sent me this email:

This is what I have in mind for the shelves above the tv:

http://www.amazon.com/Burnes-Boston-LL2932-Level-Black/dp/B000B50F18/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314797349&sr=8-1

There should be 3 of them, just like this set includes.  I'd like the longest one to be the same length (or as similar as can be) to the length of the entertainment center (50-ish inches I think?).  the second should be maybe 3/4 of that length, and then the smallest one being roughly 3/4 length of the middle one. 

Also - just like in this set from amazon, they should have a little lip in the front so I can prop things up and they won't fall over. That's probably obvious, but i just wanted to point it out.

I've looked all over the internet and in stores for these, but I can't find any long enough.

Is this do-able?

The only problem with starting this project this week was that I knew I would have to give back the nail gun, compressor, and miter saw to Bobby on Sunday because I've held onto them way too long now. He has no idea how much I've appreciated borrowing the tools. Now that I've had a little test drive and a taste of life with sweet tools, I'm starting to hunt craigslist. Our house just might explode in woody goodness if I owned them permanently. After the last month of building things, I can't go back to the stone age of non-miter saw/nail gun life. 

The shelf lengths we decided on are 50", 30", and 20". They have crown molding around the bottom and then a piece of wood inside cut at an angle so it sits down below the top. She wants a lip, then a lip is what she gets.All in all this project took me 2.5 hours yesterday and cost $57 at Lowe's for the wood. Crown molding is shockingly expensive.

I actually have to go out on a limb and say this was probably my favorite project I've ever done. Not only did the project produce something usable, but it's also decorative and good looking. Here are the pictures: 





I had to include an up-close look at the lip. You can see the small brad nail holes that I'll have to touch up. They should be almost invisible with wood filler.


 The small gap at the top between the wall and shelf really bothers me, but I don't think I can get it any closer. It's the hangers that I bought that do not allow for any tighter of a hold. Oh well, from a distance you can barely tell, it's only from up close like this that it looks a little weird. I've already gotten some dark wood filler and after a day of drying, I should be able to stain these bad boys a dark mahogany brown just like our coffee table and put them back up.

Now if only I had a table saw to make the long wood lip angle cut easier... oh to dream...

I should probably blog about something relevant to our lives or something that may be worth while to yours, but I'm in the mood to blog about something completely irrelevant.

Today I started thinking about 2 places that make me really uncomfortable. These are common places that usually wouldn't do that for someone my age.

First of all, the bank is a very awkward and uncomfortable place for me to be. At the beginning of every month, we "refresh" our cash budget by going to the bank and withdrawing a certain amount so that we have money for the month for food, personal money, dog expenses, and toiletries. It's a great way to keep spending in line for the month.

That may sound like a natural situation to go to the bank, get money, and leave. My problem with the bank though is that it's anything but private anymore. You stand in line with a bunch of people, most of which I wouldn't trust with a butter knife. For some reason, all other bank patrons feel to me very untrustworthy and sketchy. Then you get to the counter in their non-booth like, one long counter experience where everything you say echos in their massive ceiling buildings.

When we refresh our cash budget, we get out a pretty large amount, enough to last one month. So I quietly whisper how much I'd like, but then the woman responds with a loud "What kind of bills would you like? $100's? $50's? what?". And I quietly whisper how much I want of each bill. At this point, I feel like the very close line of untrustworthy people is watching as the teller slowly pulls out money and thumbs through it on her desk. Then she hands me a massive envelope (because I like getting lots of $5's and $10's) and I feel like I was just granted permission to leave with what I just robbed from the counter. I quickly stuff the thick envelope in my pocket and pray I make it to my car safely without any interaction from anyone. "I HAVE A WAD OF MONEY IN MY POCKET PEOPLE, GET OUT OF MY WAY!! (I say inside my head)".

Maybe I'm alone with feeling this way, but banks these days have become a very awkward and non-discrete place and I don't enjoy going.

The other place that makes me feel awkward is the ABC store. I'm 9 years past the drinking age and I still feel like I'm breaking the law. There's always someone at the register you'd never interact with outside the confines of the building. There are signs all over making it clear that "Alcohol is a controlled substance!" and "It's a state law to do anything ever". On top of that it takes me roughly 49 minutes to find a label on any bottle that I recognize. There are even sections of the store that are foreign to me (cognac) so I move along for fear I may have to pronounce it later. I feel like the whole store is designed to make you feel uncomfortable, rushed, and as dumb as a box of rocks.

Then, half the time, there's a police officer awkwardly staring around, possibly judging you, as you do a summer sault inside because you recognize the large white malibu rum bottle. "I recognize it and it's delicious" (a 21 year old girl might say). Despite the fact that I have 9 year's experience in the alcohol shopping genre, I still constantly think to myself "am I acting the way I should act if I was over 21? Am I acting in a way that may make them think I'm 19?! I hate that I still look 16."

I can't be the only person who feels like these two establishments are awkward. I'm sure there are more places I feel awkward in, but none come to mind right now.