one day late: Happy Birthday!

Here's a cute dog kiss for Cara, whose birthday was yesterday.
Happy Birthday Cara, and may this year be fabulous!

training

Last week I worked out 6 days. I've been doing better with my swimming, but I find it hard to swim when there are lots of people in the lanes. I'm constantly worrying that I'm going too slow, and so I speed up, but then I get tired really quickly. there are three double lanes at the pool. Their names are slow, medium (or intermediate?), and fast. Prior to today, I have only been swimming in the slow lane. It means I have to occasionally pass people, but hey, swimming in the slow lane definitely decreases the expectations people have of you. Today the slow lane was really full when I got there and there were fewer people in the medium lane, so I decided to take a chance. I'm really not sure what I was thinking.

Morning swimmers are pretty hard-core.

While there were maybe 2 swimmers in the medium lane who were slower than me, the rest of the swimmers definitely didn't understand why I was taking so many breaks. I much prefer swimming on the weekend, when the lanes are fairly empty (only 2 or 3 others to share the lane), and I can focus on technique rather than worrying about whether I am not following the proper swimming etiquette. I have only been swimming once after work, and I think it was less busy than the morning, but more busy than the weekend.

Anyway, I followed a workout Jodi sent me and did:
100 yd warm-up
300 yds of drills
200 yds steady swim (30 sec rest before next
200 yds steady swim
Then 4 x 25 yd sprints with 20 seconds rest in between and
finally a 100 yd cool-down.

It was great to have a plan instead of just going in there and doing some laps. I found it easier to keep track of things when I was counting them in groups rather than the number of laps.
All this to say, I'm enjoying swimming more than I thought, and I think I probably need to get over my social desirability bias and just swim the pace I want to swim.

progress

When we moved in last summer I noticed that we had a rose bush that looked really sad and straggly. I had no idea if it would even bloom again. I cut it back a bit and removed all the creeping vines that seemed to be trying to suffocate it. Well, as you can see below, the rose bush is alive and blooming! It is not a cute tight little bush but is all over the place. I wish I knew more about plants to know what to do for it.

A close up of one of the flowers. They smell really good!

Here is the bathroom floor status. On Rriday all the tiles that didn't need to be cut to be put down were put down. The spacers are still in even though the mortar is dry. This floor should be completely mortared down by the end of today.

And here is the completed kitchen floor. The slate looks great and I think we chose well on the color. It has these nice warm brown tones that give it some character and lightness that just a plain black floor wouldn't.

Here is a bit more of a close up. The tile in the front is the granite tile we will be putting on our counter tops. I have to say, we did a really good job picking it all out! I just couldn't stand the idea of having the same black granite countertops as everyone else, so we found something unique and beautiful.

Need feedback

Okay, so many of you know that David and I are going to Hawai'i in June for work and fun. We have a couple of extra days and would really like to solicit people's ideas for where to go and what to do.

The first 4 or so days we will be on Oahu in Honolulu for the conference. So the things I've been looking at as interesting there are:

• Waikiki Beach
• USS Arizona
• Lolani Palace
• Diamond Head Crater Hike
• Dole Plantation
• Eating off a shrimp truck

Question 1: Are there other or better things to do on OAHU?

Then, we were going to hop on over to another island. David really wants to do the volcano thing, but as far as I can tell, there are volcanos on many (all?) of the islands. But we haven't decided which island...so:

Question 2: Which island do you recommend?

Question 2a: What do you recommend for that particular island?

We really need to book our hotel for the extra days and possibly a rental car. I've heard that the rental car is the way to go.

a few notes

I've been delinquent, I know. The end of the quarter is sneaking up on me and my final for my class is due next wednesday and I've got lots of work at work to do too. Anyway, as I may have told some of you, our tile layer was supposed to start on monday. Well, monday he wasn't feeling well. He came on tuesday and put down the backerboard in the kitchen and thinset skim coated the bathroom floor. Today he was supposed to put down the tile in the kitchen except that he called David and told him that he hurt his back. So now he said he is going to bring a helper to do the work and he will supervise. ARghh...everyday this week I've had high hopes that by the time I got home I would have tile laid on my floor. Everyday so far I've been disappointed. Anyway, below is a picture of the slate tile we will be using on the kitchen floor. We laid out a few of the more colorful pieces to see what it would look like. You can see the rest of it sort of laid out in the dining room. It is a really pretty slate tile.

And here we have the soap niches David built in our tub surround. The red is that redgard stuff that I mentioned earlier that dries into a rubber like substance. It is kind of a slasher film red. Not the kind of red that makes you relax, but the color red that quickens your heart and makes you think of bad things. I can't wait for it to be covered with white tile!

can't wait to mop

I never thought I would say this, but I can't wait to mop our floors. We have had the drywall people in all week and today should be their last day. The dust is everywhere and it is making me crazy. Assuming they are done today, I am going to go home, get out the vinegar and water, and mop our floors. I hope the dust hasn't hurt the floors. We did put tarps down on heavily travelled areas so that should help.

Also, I wanted to send a shout-out to Ann to tell her that I hope she is feeling better. Mom told us that things went well, and you are probably home by now. I hope the recovery is quick.

And last but not least, drying my hair using the hand dryers at the gym is getting really old. I have one bad hair day after another. Today I've got wings and earmuffs on my head--It couldnt' decide whether it wanted to flip up or flip under. So it did both. And I have so litte control. Maybe I need to invest in a small hairdryer I can bring with me to the gym. Isn't that a novel idea?

working out

I feel so lucky to have a sister who knows all about triathlons. Jodi has done so many and it sounds like she might be doing 4 or 5 this summer tri season. I arrived in Denver on Friday and on saturday Jodi and 2 of her friends took me on a bike ride which was basically 45 minutes of a long slow climb up a mountain, and then 15 minutes of riding down the hill and trying not to go too fast. After the bike ride we did some "brick" training, which means that we went directly from biking to running. I guess it is called a "brick" because when you first start running your legs feel like bricks.

Then on sunday we went to the pool, and Jodi gave me a bunch of tips for maximizing my distance with less energy output. It was really good to have her, a master swimmer, watch my different strokes and give me tips on how to do it better. She said that while there were certainly things to do better, overall my strokes looked pretty good. That made me feel good.

My first day in Boulder I went for a run along the boulder creek and that was great. I did more running than walking so I was really happy about that. Of course during the last two days, I haven't been able to do any exercise, so I'll have to get back into it when I get back to seattle.

blind coffee roaster

I'm in boulder CO today and while I was waiting for my room at my hotel to be available, I went for a little walk to get some coffee. I went into the first coffee shop I saw and ordered my non-fat decaf vanilla latte, and started to check the place out. I hadn't realized, but the name of the shop is something like Blind Coffee. I chatted with the owner for a little bit. He has been blind since a very young age, and started his coffee roaster company called "the unseen bean" in 2003. He just opened this coffee shop about 7 weeks ago. He would say hello and goodbye to regular customers, without them even introducing themselves. I heard "have a good day Carlos" when as far as I could hear Carlos didn't say anything except to order and chat with the barista a bit. His name is Gerry and he seemed so happy. I really hope his coffee shop does well. It is very convenient to my hotel- and near the pearl street mall, so the location should work.

He just impressed me so much, and his seeing eye dog was very sweet as well. Anyway, that is my note for now. I'll write later about the workouts Jodi put me through-- she is a great coach.

am I a pansy?

As "transcribed" by one of my co-workers.... (read:  this is not me writing)

"so i'm eavesdropping over my cubicle on a conversation between liz and 'x' over how to explain to someone that no, we can't release confidential data. 'x' said something about how we don't want to be labeled uncooperative and here is how the conversation went:

me (co-worker): i want to be labeled uncooperative!
"x": i know you do.
me: so do you!
"x": true. that's why people ask my staff and not me for help because my staff is a bunch of pansies.
liz: hold on there!
"x": well, liz is starting to harden up...

it's never dull here when "x" opens her mouth. "

a few pics of our remodel

Here are a few pics I have been meaning to post.



I had to post one picture of our new lawnmower---It is great. so quiet and non-polluting!

The infamous Honey Bucket in our driveway.

The sub-floor in the kitchen after ripping up the plywood and layers of linoleum this weekend.

Kitchen plumbing for the sink and dishwasher. We also ripped out the drywall this weekend in the bathroom and kitchen.


Kitchen with no drywall.

Other side of the kitchen without drywall.

This is our plumbing in the bathroom for the sink.

I know it is not that exciting to see these pictures, but it will be even better when we are done and I post some before and after photos.

early morning swim

Now that we don't have a shower, we have to go to the gym to shower. So this morning, we got our butts up extra early (6am!) and even though at one point we seriously considered just showering and going to work, we both did about a 30 minute work-out. I swam for about a half and hour, and I believe David ran on the treadmill. The swimming was harder than the last time I went. I was feeling really inadequate, I think. Even though I always swim in the slow lane, there were people in my lane who were much faster than me and who passed me.

I'm getting a little concerned about the triathlon. I head to Denver/Boulder in about 1 week for work, and before my work thing I'm supposed to train with Jodi and other folks doing the Danskin in Boulder. I am so not READY! This is hard.

barely running

That's right, we will barely have running water for the next few days. We didn't realize that we would be without all of our sinks. The plumber has set up a spigot in the garage with cold water running to it, but that is all we get. I guess washing dishes is out of the question too. And this morning was our last shower in the bathroom for a few weeks, probably.

Last night as we were removing the bathroom sink from the wall, and opening up the drywall around the plumbing, we found something really interesting. In our medicine cabinet, there is a little slot that says "razorblade". David and I always assumed it meant you hung up your razor there so it could dry out or something. Well, that isn't what it was used for. Instead, when we opened up the wall, we found about 50 years worth of razorblades in the wall! I had never heard of such a thing. Why throw used razorblades in your walls? Why not in the garbage? David said there were "thousands" but I will wager there were definitely hundreds in there. It was kind of surreal to see this mound of razorblades that have been hiding in the wall. Maybe the next wall we open up we will find a sack of money?!