House, Life, Travel

By kilax, October 6, 2016 6:43 am

• I ordered the invites for my snister’s baby shower! I hope they turn out good (mostly, that I understood the bleed guidelines correctly).

• I “decorated” for Halloween again. Can you find it in the picture? Ha!

• As part of the work trip I am on, we checked out a bit of ArtPrize (a large international art competition spread across town and open to public and expert jury vote for top prizes) in Grand Rapids, MI. There were a lot of cool pieces! I really liked “Victory (huge figures made out of chairs), “The Smoke” painting (a neat painting of smoke with seven women hidden in it, which was supposed to have an actual smoke machine with it), and all of the beautiful Michigan sunset over the lake photographs. I love that there is a such a huge variety of mediums and styles – it really makes it so there is something to interest everyone.

• I was worried this work trip would be exhausting from being “on” and around people for two days. Luckily, I can be myself around my coworkers! So, it’s not exhausting in that sense, thankfully!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 110

Knitting, Travel

By kilax, October 5, 2016 10:25 am

Every time I travel (or even bring my gym bag to work) I forget one thing, despite making lists and keeping my travel stuff together. The game is “what will it be this time?!” Ha.

This trip? A lint roller!

Eek! I didn’t even think of it! 

I look like this because I’m knitting in the car.

The lint is worth it. I haven’t had time to work on the baby blanket at all and can get a lot done during the drive!

House, Life

By kilax, October 4, 2016 7:04 pm

Like bad things?

Because today was a “three good things” sort of day. In lame, adult, fashion:

Good thing #1: We accidentally washed and dried a white blanket and some stains we didn’t know about set on it. But they came out! WOOT!

(Not this blanket but you get the idea)

Good thing #2: The deed transfer at our old townhome is official. You know, the one we sold in December? Err… after the “sale” Steven would sometimes say he didn’t feel like it was official. Well, he was right, somewhat! We got the tax bill for our old place at the new one and were a bit “huh?!” Researching this led us to find out the deed transfer got messed up, but it’s fixed as of today! We don’t have to pay property taxes in two places, ha (we never really would have, you just worry when you see these things!).

Good thing #3: And speaking of property taxes, we successfuly got our home accessed at what we paid for it so ours will be going down! This is huge, as our taxes are well, HUGE! We were pretty sure we’d have to have a hearing but apparently the evidence we submitted was sufficient! Yay!

And that concludes my list of lame things to be excited about, ha!

Life

By kilax, October 3, 2016 6:12 am

What more could a mother ask for?

(Steven is mixing up different batches of mortar to try to match the one on the house so he can do some brick work, and he was kind enough to make this for me! Ha!)

Running + Training

By kilax, October 2, 2016 9:50 pm

Highlight of the Week: Look at most of those run photos! The highlight was a week of overcast, cooler, “I could run in this forever” weather! Another highlight was running with friends after class!

Monday | September 26, 2016: 5 m run + 1,365 yd swim + teaching strength class
Loc: hood, Temp: 62°/64°, Time: 48:50, Pace: 9:46 avg, Difficulty:easy, Felt: great!
Loc: FitNation, Moving time: 31:54, Pace: 2:20 min/100 yd avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Strength: Body Bars and Soft Balls, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Tuesday | September 27, 2016: rest
Wednesday | September 28, 2016: 4 m run (incl. 10×1:00)
Loc: Lakefront Trail, Temp: 56°/57°, Time: 37:55, Pace: 9:29 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: decent-ish
Thursday | September 29, 2016: 6 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 62°/62°, Time: 1:00:35, Pace: 10:06 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, but so tired (not sleeping well)
Friday | September 30, 2016: teaching strength class + 1,071 yd swim + 5 m run + 4 m run
Strength: Body Bars and Soft Balls, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: FitNation, Moving Time: 26:40, Pace: 2:29 min/100 yd, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: hood, Temp: 61°/62°, Time: 49:02, Pace: 9:48, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: Lake Andrea, Temp: 63°/62°, Time: 37:31, Pace: 9:22 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: surprisingly good
Saturday | October 1, 2016: 7 m ride + teaching fitness boxing + 3 m run (w/Anne & Emily)
Indoor Ride Time: 29:39, Pace: 14.2 mpg avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Strength: boxing and core, Difficulty: easy (mostly observing), Felt: good
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 61°/61°, Time: 40:09, Pace: 13:23 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Sunday | October 2, 2016: 13 m run
Loc: Outlet Mall loop, Temp: 58°/62°, Time: 2:18:03, Pace: 10:37 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: good, better than I thought I would!

Notes:

• On Monday I braved it and went out for a five mile ruu sans water bottle and… wasn’t miserable! Yay! I can’t wait to get back to not carrying it on every run!
• Swimming at 5:00 pm this Monday was quite different from swimming at 5:00 am last Monday! There were so many more people at the gym! And half of the pool was being used for children’s swim lessons, so there was an audience of parents. But I somehow still had a lane to myself, and didn’t mind all the commotion – it made it a more lively!
• Swimming then doing another activity (running, or as it was this Monday – teaching class) feels so weird. Even after a shower, my sweat is all weird and chlorine-y.
• We’ve had a new-to-boxing student at my last three classes, which is awesome! But, I am also struggling to teach someone how to box while also teaching the entire class. I came up with something new to try this week to help with that, and it didn’t work very well. Back to the drawing board (or, really, back to the basics, for everyone!).
• We’ve had rain all week, so I did my long run on the roads to avoid squishy trails. I didn’t wear gaiters, but still somehow got tons of rocks in my shoes (from running in the shoulder) and had to stop so many times to empty them! I learned my lesson – wear gaiters on the roads after it rains!
• September recap! September was a great month! I ran 174 miles (67 more than August), cycled 57.5 miles (4 indoor rides, 1 outdoor ride) and swam laps 7 times. For cross training, I think I may enjoy swimming more than cycling! My coldest outdoor run was 54°F and my warmest was 88°F. I taught 9 strength classes, and did zero (eek!) strength sessions at home. I taught 2 fitness boxing classes and had a blast at them.

Link to Training Week 362

House

By kilax, October 1, 2016 5:54 am

I went outside after my run yesterday to say hello to CK (who we are now also calling Callie) and … wait a minute! That’s not CK!

Who’s this guy?!

He was VERY friendly.

But now I feel super stressed about having two strays outside. I hope this guy being so friendly means he was just visiting from another house!

Running + Training

By kilax, September 30, 2016 4:21 am

Sadly, there is a lot of trash on the shoulder on the main road I run on. It makes for an interesting run, sometimes. Like the time I saw:

A Goliath roller coaster hat!

(I saw this a few days after riding that roller coaster with Anne, funny enough!)

A paddle!

(This did not help me with my run)

A Mexican flag!

A TV remote!

And a little yellow toy cowboy hat!

(I used to see this over and over, and never took a photo. Then the shoulder got fresh rock and now it’s buried! So this is a fake photo.)

Can you guess which item I actually took home? I still don’t think Steven has found it. Heh.

It really pisses me off to see SO MUCH TRASH on the shoulder. I see this stuff, then the regular things like soda bottles, lighters, papers, food wrappers, etc. PEOPLE! KEEP YOUR TRASH IN YOUR CAR AND THROW IT AWAY AT HOME OR ANY OTHER PLACE YOU GO THAT HAS A GARAGE CAN OUTSIDE!

I plan to run up and down this road with a garbage bag and collect all this rubbish before it snows.

Blogging, House, Life

By kilax, September 29, 2016 6:15 am

• I did some major adulting this week at work and increased my life insurance coverage (we’re in a rare open season). Why does making these types of decisions always feel so intimidating (and therefore, get put off)?
• With all the CK talk, Data wants me to remind you that he’s cute, too (even if he forgot his glasses).

• But if you came here for a CK update, she does let us pet her now! It’s been raining hard here, so we tried to get her to come in the garage last night. She came in for a bit but didn’t stay the night. Baby steps.

• I mentioned a headboard we got for our guest bedroom but weren’t sure about… well, we ended up setting it up. It grew on us a bit, and we determined we couldn’t afford the ones we like better. The long term plan is to make a new one when we have a workshop set up. My coworker suggested a splash of color (since I refuse to change out the bedspread we just got) – I think that’s a good idea! The room looks a bit muted now.

• Hey, respect! I used to respond to all of these random emails asking me to promote stuff on my blog with “no thanks” just to be nice. But some of them are so bad I just file them away. And sometimes, they email you again – “did you get my first email? can we work out a deal?” “No, because I don’t promote random sh*t on my blog because someone asked me to… respect.”

• What is the deal with Amazon Prime lately? If I try to order something Wednesday morning, free two day shipping is NOT a Monday arrival. I decided to buy the thing in person, then we found out we couldn’t, so Steven went to order it last night on Amazon Prime (we share an account) and it said it will arrive this Friday. Huh?! FWP.
• Not sure who this is from, but I appreciate the nice words when I woke up Tuesday am.

• And finally, the stormy weather has been so beautiful this week!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 109

House, Life

By kilax, September 28, 2016 12:52 pm

Fall weather arrived in Chicagoland on Monday! Yay!

Lower temps, lower humidity and dew point, cloudy skies and windy! I’m loving it!

Let’s hope the cool weather stays around for the marathon!

Steven and I have A LOT of projects to do around the house before the real cold weather comes – planting grass seed, sealing up the house, etc. I am most excited about the non-crucial project of getting the gas starter fixed for the fire places so we can use it!

(What is looked like before we moved in, ha)

House, Life

By kilax, September 27, 2016 6:18 am

CK knows we’re suckers now and just comes to the dining room door and stares.

And meows.

And tries to come in.

We haven’t pet her yet, but I think we’ll be there very soon.

And luckily, Data is handling it okay!