Running down a dream

Well, we're now just days away from my first marathon.

Once upon a time, after I started actually becoming a runner, I decided I wanted to run a marathon by the time I was 30. I'm cutting it pretty close. :-(

But on Super Bowl Sunday (no, I won't be running in my Dallas Clark jersey, that's for after the race during the beer-drinking portion of the day) I'll take to the streets and beach paths of Huntington Beach, California for the 2010 Surf City Marathon with hopes of not dying. I'll be accompanied by fellow runner, friend and fraternity Brother Chris Clemens, a man of many marathons. Kari will be doing the 1/2 marathon the same day.

I feel like my training has gone well, though my two 20-mile runs were less than inspiring, and my taper feels great. I did miss a week of running due to crazy rain and being sick, which took a little out of me, but I think I'll be OK. That break came right after my PR in the P.F. Changs Rock 'N' Roll 1/2 Marathon here in Phoenix. I ran a 1:39:38 which was a 3+ minute best (and finished 857 out of 21,560) and puts me on pace, theoretically, to be able to run a 3:30 marathon.
I'm just hoping to finish. Actually, that really is my first goal. Finish. Then do it under four hours, then under 9-minute pace, then, if all goes well, run it 3:45 or better.

Here's to hoping my legs hold up and I can look this joyous when I cross the finish line Sunday.

All warmed up

Thanks to everyone who came out to our house warming party. We had a great time and are very glad to hear that you all seem to like what we've done with the place. For those of you who couldn't be here, here are some updated pictures of where the house project is now (pretty much done except for the master bath remodel, some landscaping work and new windows and doors):


Master bath (sorry, no pic of the vice grips)


Master closet (we prefer curtains over doors)


Master #2


More master... look mom, I made my bed!


Office #1


Office #2


Office #3


View down the hall at our Playbills (with more rows to come)


Close up


View from living room towards front door/kitchen


Living room (clean this time) with new fan


Kitchen (croc-potting up some wings and meatballs. yum!)


Fish room off the kitchen (Note the light coming in through the new patio doors that don't have tint on them)

Let there be light

Recent home improvements have us feeling less and less like vampires these days (sorry Twilight fans).
Mark "the godfather" Jensen helped me install new patio doors which not only open all the way, always a plus, but are not covered in automotive tint. The previous doors, despite being under a 10-foot roofed patio, must have had a 5 or 10 tint on them that was peeling and scratched up from the previous owners dog. Now we have nice clean new doors that we can see through. It actually scared me the first day we put them in because in the morning I saw light coming into the kitchen and looked over and saw the yard not a big black wall.
We also now have two new ceiling fans that don't feature spot lights. These don't hang down as far, have remotes, are quieter and seem to be pretty bright. We replaced the one in the living room and put the other in the "fish" room so now we have some light in there. Jason from Apple Tree Electric (referred to us by the godfather) came over to help install that one and a new light over the dinner table. He had to do some rewiring so that we could turn the table light on and off as well as make a few adjustments so the fan would be stable and properly wired. A $75 I was glad to spend.
We were trying to get all of this done before our housewarming party Saturday so it's good that's it's checked off the list now.
And the pictures:

Welcome home!

So we're finally getting settled in despite our busy schedules. Work has been a little slow on the house as Kari has been working long hours getting ready for and during the holiday rush. I've been logging a lot of miles preparing for my first marathon in February which has kept me from my manly duty of fixing things.

Most of the house has been unpacked finally. The part not in the "most" is the office, which kind of looks like we're having a garage sale. We still need to do some paint touch-up and some other small projects — which I get to do next week while I'm off of work for Christmas break. We also need to get some decorations up on the walls, etc. as well.

We have two big projects that we're looking at tackling after the first of the year. The first one is to replace the broken, half-tinted back patio doors (no reason to tint patio doors) with some nice French doors. The other is a complete remodel of the master bath. It's called the master because it's attached to the master bedroom but there is nothing masterful about it! It's small, has green and gold marble slabs in the shower with gross green tile (and some of my handy patchwork white tile around the drain), a shower head pipe that points upward and a handle that looks suspiciously like a pair of rusty vice grips. Add in a few dozen inexplicable holes in the wall, vinyl flooring, a door with a hole from a dead bolt and a second door just for good measure. So yeah, we need to address that bathroom ASAP!

Anyways, I'm including before pictures, some during pictures and some pseudo-after pictures for now. We'll post more after pictures as rooms get completely finished.

UPDATE: We're having some issues getting photos off of our camera, so for now you get the before pics only that we have on the computer already.

Front of house and our awesome backyard and pool


Before and after of main living room


Office after

Guest room before and after


Guest/master closet remodel and after




Master before and after

Kitchen before and after

Family room before and after

Slow going

Sorry for the long delay between posts, things have been super busy which means work on the house as been, well, slow going.
We are making some progress though. We've been able to get just about everything put away in the kitchen (now if we only had some lights). I finished putting in the baseboards and have filled the nail holes and caulked the tops and seams in most of the rooms.
We got the fish tank up and running again, sans fish (Einstein died during the move) and I built a new IKEA cabinet for the bar area. I just have to anchor all the book shelves into the wall and then we can start filling them up again and get rid of some more boxes.
The office is still kind of a disaster, but the computer is up and running and we have internet now! The guest room still needs some TLC as Mark J. will have to come back and do some more work on the closet to accommodate the mirrored doors.
I have all the air vents painted and ready to go back in and Kari got all new switch plate and outlet covers for the whole house. We still have a good amount of touch-up work to do on the paint, but things are coming together.
We still haven't hung anything on the walls yet besides the TV and the key holder so it looks a little bare in that sense. But, I'm done with high school season now so I'm able to dedicate more time to the house and hopefully get some stuff caught up pretty soon.
Once we get some things finished up we'll start posting some pictures and hopefully we'll be able to blog more often.