Home Work

The days are getting shorter, which is always sad to me, but this year it means that my toddler is getting ready for bed earlier. Yahoo! We still keep working on the house, inside and out. But pay no attention to the lack of anything at all hanging on the walls. It takes me a while to decide finally on where to make nail holes in those mostly flawless walls. Thank goodness the movers banged up a few so I won't be the first to leave a ding like I did in the hardwood floor (like 1 week after moving in. It's an 18 inch gouge through the finish. Yep). We got the front plantation shutters installed and I love them! We are doing our bedroom next, as much as I hate to take down the fashionable $6 paper black out shades.

Jeremy has his hands full with screening our lower deck. We must've tried to get estimates from 10 people and nobody wanted to do it. Not discouraged from the implied difficulty, handy Jeremy took the task into his own hands. With all the help Hunter is giving, it'll be finished in no time. Actually it may be a relief to Jeremy for Hunter and me to go visit Nana and Granddaddy in Germantown later this week. Maybe he can get us out of the house long enough to also finish building in the "built in" shelves in the playroom too. It is taper week after all.

The screen is quite an undertaking. And are you sure you want this stain?

We are going to try to help fill the grandchild void that was left a few days ago when Megan and family flew over to work for a month in Kenya. Hopefully they will updating their blog regularly, so check it out!

So back here in the States, I've been working on a couple of Hunter projects, including his growth chart ruler (thanks Pinterest) that he stood so proudly next to. 

And this is how tall I will be someday, Dad.

And I want all toddlers who visit to know of our house rules; please be aware. So glad I got it finished before he graduated high school. It was looking iffy for a while, and "Rules for Adolescents" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

The handprint: real, and very permanent.

Of course there are obvious exceptions to most of these rules. DRAW ON WALLS, but not with permanent marker. LIE IN THE GRASS, but not over there by the chiggers. SCREAM AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS, maybe not in the middle of Target when people will think I'm torturing you? EAT PLAYDOUGH, the homemade kind is preferable. MAKE MUDPIES, but leave them outside if possible. RUN BAREFOOT, but not right after they've sprayed ant poison on my yard (ack!!).

Now for that whole pesky running thing. It's going a tiny bit better, although the "long run" isn't happening so much. Jenny and I got in a good 14x400m workout this week. It was supposed to be at 10k pace but I ran a bit faster and was able to keep it up, so I kept on. How frustrating is it to have a 200m jog recovery when you're not on a track and instead using a Garmin? It doesn't go to that many decimal places, so I shortened it to a 0.1mi jog. That way my math challenged running brain wouldn't get too confused. 

Instead of doing too much running, I of course added in a bike ride and a couple of swims. I know I'll miss the bike and outdoor pool in the winter so I feel the need to cross train a lot. Maybe a 2 day break Thursday and Friday will be the remedy for the running blahs. Any other suggestions from the crowd?