Life in the Bubble

Today I went for a five mile run in the morning, right from my house. With my Garmin watch, I figured I'll just go until my watch said 2.5 miles, and then run back. I didn't run 18.6 miles with WCRR, because I'm running the Seattle Half Marathon at the end of June and just didn't see why I needed to run 18.6 miles. Plus I'm not in good enough shape to run that long. Apparently I should have started running earlier in the morning, because it was hot by the time I got to two miles. It is warm this weekend! Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the low to mid 80's. This is on the way downhill to the middle school, which is about where I turned around. This is my turnaround at 2.5 miles. I live on the other side of the mountain. But don't worry, I don't have to climb all the way up and down it to get back to my house, just part way! On the way back there was a large and long hill that lasts about a mile. I willed myself into a trance-like state and stared at the ground right in front of me and kept going until I made it up the hill! After my run, I went home and joined Todd in a total house cleaning. Even though I had vacuumed on Sunday, the house was dirty and dusty again from the remodeling. We decided to put some decorations away for the remodeling so they don't get dusty again. I dusted all the furniture and workout equipment, and vacuumed. It felt so good afterwards to NOT feel like we're living in a dusty pigsty. This is how we live now, in a bubble! This bubble gets sealed off during the day when they work on the kitchen, so that our family room doesn't get filled with dust/dirt. Except I found this open twice last week when I came home. That's why I think the family room got so dusty. We decided to take all our curtains off because they were just getting dusty. We're fortunate that our backyard is a large hill so nobody can really see inside our house. Tonight we went over to our friends Anne & Gilbert's house for dinner. Todd cooked Spicy Sweet & Sour Chicken over there, since we don't have a kitchen now. Before the remodeling started, our grand plan was to cook at different friends' houses and eat with them twice a week. But we didn't realize how tired we would be from working all day, and having to deal with the remodeling. So I think weekends are more conducive to cooking at friends' houses. Here's Todd and Anne and Gilbert about to enjoy dinner! We watched Anne's favorite movie "Saint Ralph" during dinner. It's about this 14 year old boy who tried to win the Boston Marathon in 1954. It is funny and inspirational, and very well-written and acted. I enjoyed it so much and can understand why it's Anne's favorite movie. It's about running and child-like faith. And miracles. Two thumbs up! Oh, Anne & Gilbert made strawberry shortcake for dessert and it was delicious! I'm bummed I forgot to take a photo!

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It's Electric!

The remodeling is progressing along, but I only have boring photos to show, since it's all electrical & plumbing work the past couple of days. I think it'll be more photo-friendly in a few more days. I got to call Eric the foreman/project manager today for updates and questions, since Todd was stuck in a meeting all morning. Eric is really on top of things. They have several other jobs going on at once, so I don't know how he remembers what's going on at each house, but he does. And whenever we've called him, he always knows what's going on. And when we've asked him multiple questions in one call, he always remembers what we've mentioned before. At the end of my conversation with him this morning, he asked if I had any other questions or concerns. He's got really good communication skills for someone working in construction. We decided to pay extra today for them to run a copper line from the reverse osmosis drinking water system we're getting, to the refrigerator. Some more electrical and gas line work. This will be the wall right behind the oven, cooktop, and exhaust hood. See what I mean about boring photos? These are photos that only a homeowner would love, LOL. After work we decided to check out a new Korean restaurant in our neighborhood. Todd had BBQ steak plate and I had Bi Bim Bop: After dinner we went to Home Depot to check out more stuff we have to purchase for the remodeling, like sink faucets, sinks for the other bathrooms, mirrors, vanity lighting, etc. We didn't buy anything tonight though, we just looked at what's available and took note of the prices. After that we picked up some fruits and frozen dinners at Vons. I feel pretty tired tonight, it's been a long week. I'm not sure if I'm running tomorrow morning or not, since Todd is still nursing his right knee and not running. If I go by myself I'll probably just run five miles. My running club is running 18.6 miles tomorrow. I'm not in shape to run that long, and since I'm only running a half marathon (13.1 miles) in June, I don't feel the need to run 18.6 miles tomorrow. This weekend we are socializing with some friends on both days. I'm looking forward to it! :)

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Very Busy Day Off

Today we took the day off from work, because there were still many items that we needed to pick out for the remodeling that we hadn't done. So we met with our designer Kim at Bedrosians Tile & Stone at 9:30 AM. We spent the next two hours looking at tiles and stones and came up with a plan for the bathroom tiles and the kitchen flooring tiles. It was very productive and I was so relieved to get it done. :) Stuff we picked out today:

• Kitchen floor tile
• Kitchen and bath cabinet stain colors (they'll be different)
• Exterior shower tiles
• Interior shower tiles
• Shower floor tiles (more like rocks)
• Bathroom floor tiles
• Bathroom backsplash
• Bathroom quartz counter

Todd is holding the floor of the shower. Kim is holding a trim for the outside of the shower. Notice Todd's t-shirt? That's Lane's band's name on the show "The Gilmore Girls". Todd was a big fan of that show and it was one of the shows that we watched together every week. Meanwhile, back at the ranch... (our house, that is), Luis continued with the new plumbing for the shower and the new position of the kitchen sink. He also capped off the old shower and tub drains and finished making the new shower drain in the middle. After picking out the stuff with Kim, we headed to lunch at one of our favorite pizza places, Bongiornos, which happened to be nearby. We saw our favorite pizza maker Tracy (a guy) there. We each got a couple of slices and a drink. Yum-yum. I was gonna take some photos but I ate all the food before I realized I didn't... oh well! After that we headed to Restoration Hardware at Fashion Valley Mall in Mission Valley. Kim had told us to go there and look at the mirrors and hardware for the cabinets. However, we were disappointed at the selection and high prices there and didn't stay for long. We bailed out of Fashion Valley and went to another place recommended by Kim, San Diego Hardware. This place was more like it! Rows and rows of hardware (pulls and nobs) for the cabinets, plus other stuff. I took photos of some stuff we liked and wrote down some stuff, and left. When we got home Luis was finishing up. We looked around on the internet for bathroom faucets. Then it was time for an early dinner of microwave frozen stuff from Trader Joe's. I had some kind of chicken and veggie sesame noodle bowl, while Todd had some verde burritos. They were both decent! After dinner we had to hurry and drive down the block to our new friends' Jennifer and Shawn's house. I had hula dance class with Jennifer from 6-7 PM. Todd brought his Wii console and games so he and Shawn could play it. Todd took some photos of the hula class but the couple of photos that turned out good didn't have me in them. After hula class, Jennifer and I joined Shawn and Todd in the Wii fun. We played Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Tennis, Baseball, and Boxing. Here's Shawn and Todd: Jennifer and Shawn boxing, it was pretty funny! After Wii we chatted a while. Around 9:30 PM everyone got tired and we left. It was a very full day considering we took it off from work, but we got a lot done so I'm very glad.

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The Upside of Things

The upside to today is that no workers at the house used MY bathroom when we were at work! :: clap clap :: I think my sign on the door works. I wanted to thank you all for the encouraging comments. I know that in the grand scheme of things, all these annoyances are not really big deals. Sometimes I have tunnel vision and let those things get to me. Well, I think it happens to all of us, and I promise it won't be the last time, LOL. Today they did more plumbing work for the new shower. They put more copper pipes in for the hot and cold water. They put all the valves in. They put a new shower drain in the middle of the shower, and they're in the process of taking out the old drains. We went to Todd's favorite BBQ place, Brett's BBQ, for dinner. Todd loves the pulled chicken sandwich with BBQ sauce there, and the sweet potato fries. LOVES it. I think they'll be seeing us quite often during the remodel, LOL. I caught up with my Project 365 layouts last weekend but forgot to post them here. I usually do them every two weeks. I find it easier to coordinate between the left and right pages (I'm putting these in a book) by doing them at the same time. Week 13: Full credits here. Week 14: Full credits here.

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Project 365 - April Template Giveaway

The April template for Project 365 is here.


**Download link no longer available**

If you're linking to my blog about the freebie, please link directly to this post, rather than my blog in general. That way people who are only interested in the template don't have to scroll through all my posts. Thanks!

Today's photo:


I came home from work and basically freaked out. Your home is your sanctuary and mine isn't right now. We had asked the people working in our house to use the downstairs bathroom and not the upstairs one, which is our bathroom, now that we don't have a master bath. I discovered that someone used the upstairs bathroom again today. It really made me mad. So I made a sign that says "Please use downstairs bathroom. Thank you." and put it up on the door to my bathroom.

Then there's the story of the canned lights in the ceiling of the kitchen. I have always told them that I wanted under-cabinet lighting. They never put it in our estimate and statement of work. So when I brought it up again two weeks ago, the owner of the company, Tom, said that he had planned 9 canned lights in the kitchen, and 3 pendant lights over the peninsula counter. He said that seemed like an overkill of overhead lighting for a kitchen our size, so we can put less canned lights in and use the money to pay for the cabinet lighting. Today I came home and found that they've installed all 9 canned lights in the kitchen. Todd's going to call Tom tomorrow and straighten it out. I don't wanna spend another $800 for cabinet lighting. It just frustrates me so much that they weren't listening to me! We have mentioned at least twice that we wanted under-cabinet lighting. GEEZ.

So because I basically freaked out and couldn't function like a normal person, we had to cancel our dinner plans with our friends Anne & Gilbert. I just could not socialize after freaking out like that. I'm so sorry Anne, I hope you guys will take a raincheck!

So I've officially had Freak Out #1 over the remodeling.

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