Nobody Knows Anything

Here we are at the end of another month, and where are we with the remodeling project? Remember, this is what the house used to look like:

It now fits in to the spirit of the season more:

(Hm. I clearly need to visit only on days when I can stand in the exact same place to take pictures, which I couldn’t do on this particular day because there were construction trucks everywhere!)

And now you can do fun things as look in the front door and see the back yard:

There used to be a coat closet/pantry blocking us seeing anything through the front door: gone, gone, gone.

That bit of construction on the second floor that you can see above the front door: that is the extension we’re getting to our master bedroom.

I couldn’t get into the back yard, but I hope to get pix of the new staircase for next month.

They had to stop for several days because of a hellacious rainstorm we had that came through. The contractor said they put up tarps, which lasted all of about 20 minutes.

When you’re training for a marathon, it feels like the hardest thing in the world. And it is hard, no question. You do a lot of long runs, you wonder why in the hell you’re doing this, and then the day comes and you run the marathon and you’re done and you think, “I just ran a marathon! Now what?”

That “Now what?” turns out to be the actual hardest thing. Because once you’ve reached that goal, there’s the inevitable letdown. Now what in the hell do I do?

In the months leading up to the marathon—April, May, and June—I ran 108, 135, and 116.7 miles. (Subtract 26.2 from June’s total for the actual training miles). In July, August, and September I ran 50, 50.5, and 53.5. That’s me slacking off a lot. I’ve gained about four pounds since the marathon, which isn’t too bad, but you have to nip that sort of thing in the bud quickly, before four turns into fifteen. (I have continued working out with weights, and I still weigh myself every morning, although I’m not as manic about it as I was a year ago.)

I looked at my 2009 mileage total and discovered that I need to run 23.2 miles a week from here on out to get to 1000 for the year. I’m currently at 764.7, in case anyone wants to check my math. I’ll be out of commission for at least one week (that I know of right now), so that 23.2 miles total bumps up to about 25 or 26.

26 miles a week from here to the end of December.

Hey, that’s like a goal. A goal gives me something to aim for. 26 miles a week. A long weekend run of 10-12, then two midweek runs of 6 and 8. If I ever do a longer run, I bank that many more miles toward 1000. (It doesn’t mean I get to slack off on planned runs. That way leads to sleeping in!)

Now I have a plan, an incentive to get my butt out the door and do some of those longer runs. I’m actually kind of excited about getting on the road again

I figured this would probably be a good place to keep you all up to date on how the changes at Chez Nous are going. First, a refresher course of how our house used to look:

Our house, with small boy

The front steps, then and now

The front door, then and now

The kitchen

Ooo, that was a little messy. Let’s try that again. The kitchen, then and now

That pile of wood? Is all of the wood flooring we had put in a few years ago. Easy come, easy go. We’ve donated almost all of our appliances and much of the interior—flooring, drywall, wrought iron—to Habitat for Humanity, which apparently can use all of it in new projects they’re doing, which gives us a three-fer: a warm fuzzy feeling, satisfaction knowing we haven’t exploded the landfills more than we normally do, and a tax deduction. Yay, team.

The back deck

That bit where the red-handled pole is coming out of the deck is where they’re laying the foundation for the new staircase.

Since I’ve taken these photos, they’ve also removed the front porch and the roof. But those pictures will have to wait for next month’s entry.

What’s weird about this whole process is seeing that our big, solid house is nothing of the sort. Easy to change the facade, easy to change all of the details. As I said to Darin, we could have gone from Mediterranean Revival to Tudor if we’d wanted to. (His response: “No, no we couldn’t.”) It’s just a big framework with plaster stuck on the outside.

Yoga sutra number 33, as discovered in Neal Pollack’s essay on being happy for friends’ success instead of envious:

In daily life we see people around who are happier than we are, people who are less happy. Some may be doing praiseworthy things and others causing problems. Whatever may be our usual attitude toward such people and their actions, if we can be pleased with others who are happier than ourselves, compassionate toward those who are unhappy, joyful with those doing praiseworthy things, and remain undisturbed by the errors of others, our mind will be very tranquil.

I love this. If I had already dug the printer out of the garage, I would print this and hang it on the wall.