9 Miles!

This morning I ran 9 miles with my RunOn! group.  9 miles.  I can't believe I can actually go that far.  The first time I tried to run the entire 5k I thought I had reached my limit.  Apparently not!  It was definitely a hot day today but the RunOn folks treat us well and provide water and gatorade every two miles or so.  On mile 7, someone was out there giving out popsicles and ice cold wet rags.  What a treat!
I'm officially proud of myself.  I may not be super fast but I ran the whole time.  I don't have a single family member that has run more than maybe 2 miles.  Who would have thunk it, that I would become the runner in the family.
I see my miracle doctor the day after the Too Hot Too Handle 15k and if I finish the race, I'm pretty sure he'll be proud of me.

2012 US Open

Last Tuesday, Dad and I flew out to San Francisco to watch the US Open, a Christmas gift from Mom.

We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, walked around Fisherman's Wharf, saw Alcatraz (I didn't leave Dad there but I did think about it), saw the shrinking Sea Lion Colony, and bought Matthew way too much salt water taffy.  We spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at the golf course.

Monday-Wednesday are practice rounds so you get to take your camera.  I took my little camera so the pictures didn't turn out as great.  I've been to 2 US Open's before and have literally about 500 pictures of my favorite golfers so I didn't take very many pictures this time.   There weren't a lot of people there on Wednesday and we were able to follow Tiger Woods for about 9 holes.  Even when he sucks, he's a ton of fun to watch.  He was looking really strong on Wednesday and I was hoping he would pull out a win but he choked on the weekend.  We didn't see Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, or Bubba Watson on Wednesday.  I was a little disappointed about.

Here are a few pictures I took (mostly of Tiger)

Funny Story:  Hole 8 is a Par 3.  Pictures and tv cannot to this course justice.  This was an incredibly tough layout with steep hills and very small greens.  The Right side of hole 8 is a giant hill that spectators were allowed to sit on.  A very steep hill.  It reminded me of the grassy side of the Lake Waco dam.  We loved sitting up there because of the great view and the laughs from all of the people sliding down the hill.  On Thursday, Dad and I set out or area on the hill.  I placed my chocolate chip cookie down except i didn't put it down on the side.  Instead, I accidentally put the cookie on the edge and it rolled all the way down the hill.  It went past the ropes and landed just in front of the right bunker right in front of the marshall.  When I saw the cookie roll down the hill, I started to run to catch it but quickly realized I would end up rolling with it.  I cautiously walked down the hill to grab my cookie.  I grabbed my cookie right before Ernie Els' group walked up to the green.  It was pretty funny.  I think it was a been there moment to really understand what happened.  :)

2012 Spring Piano Recital

Last month I went home for Kaylee's piano recital.  She is taking piano from my former teacher, Amy.  Amy asked me to play a duet with her at the recital so the day before the recital we picked out a song a practiced.  The sound quality isn't great.  Not bad for learning and playing it together the day before.  She's asked me to come back for the Christmas recital.  We'll pick out the duet this summer so it should be much better.  And of course, Kaylee nailed her piece :)

 

Not A Weekend Project

A little over a month ago Matthew and I moved into a town home.  When we first looked at the place, we knew it was pretty out of date but it wasn't that big of a deal because the rent was a decent price and the location was perfect!  The owner said we could repaint the bathrooms as long as it was a neutral color.  I took on this challenge thinking it would be good practice for when we move into a house next year.
The place was built in 1984 and still has all of the original wall paper.  The owner had the kitchen re-painted but hired super lazy people and they painted over the blue duck wall paper.  I know this because the painters missed a few parts.
Anyway, here are the pictures of the bathrooms that were going to be my first project :
The bathroom downstairs, just a toilet and a sink

The bathroom in the guest bedroom.  It isn't the best picture but you can tell that the wallpaper is straight from the 80's or early 90's :

The master:

I decided to start with the bathroom downstairs since that's what most of our guests will see.  My plan was to remove the wallpaper this weekend then apply a paint primer so that when I get back into town, I can paint it.  When you apply wallpaper, the best thing is to add some sort of paint/primer/coat to the drywall so that when you remove the paper, you don't remove the drywall.  Whoever did the wallpaper didn't do that.  That's right.  So when I was removing the wallpaper, sometimes the first layer of the wall paper came off, sometimes all of the wall paper came off, and other times, the drywall came off with the wallpaper.  Grr.  So now, we have to find a sander to sand off all of the extra paper, we have to cover the bathroom and create a ventilation system so that we don't get dust all over the place, then we have to fix the drywall, sand again, and then start to paint.  A weekend project has now turned into weeks long project.  Cool.

I don't think I'll be painting the other bathrooms, especially the master.  I'm okay with living with the outdated and ugly wall paper for a year.