The Reorg

We have a small guest bedroom on the first floor.  It also kind of serves as an office we don't use, a general dumping ground for clutter (think lots of AG awards (now old ones)), and my husband's dressing room (he uses that room's closet).

Last weekend we finally rearranged it so it looks much neater and more spacious when you walk past it.

As seen from the hallway:

Before:

After: 

So for a vast majority of people who come to our house, that photo above is all they'll see of it.

For anyone who actually goes into the room, it's roughly an equal amount of mess, but in a better arrangement with less wasted space. 

From inside the room:

Before:

After: 

In other news, I got a huge blister (half-dollar sized?) on my right heel during yesterday's "long" run (12 miles).  It popped at some point during the run but it is insanely painful now.  No idea how it happened.  No new shoes or socks. 

Same story

Somehow, I scratched my eye again.  My eye doctor thinks I need to shift to wearing daily lenses, which are apparently even softer than the soft contact lenses I usually wear. 


It happened late in the day on Sunday, which was a bummer, because Sunday was actually one of the best weekend days in terms of productivity that I've had all year.


I got up early as always to meet my friends for 10 miles.  I am running with a new group right now, I was so tired of dragging @ss behind my usual running buddies, that I decided to take advantage of the fact that we run with a very large program with a variety of paces.  And I'm actually assistant coaching this group (the number of certified running coaches in the program isn't huge, so I'm always willing to help if they need it).  But before we started running, I was meeting another running friend who was dropping off a shirt I'd ordered.  So by 5:45 a.m., I'd paid for and gotten a new running shirt, gone to meet my friends, and already run more than a mile! 


It set the day's productivity bar high.


I was supposed to meet my running buddies for coffee afterward, but my mind was on auto-pilot and I just drove home.  Oops.  I had breakfast and my husband talked about going grocery shopping.  He decided he'd wait until I went to Chinese class so that we could hang out for the morning together.


I bet he regretted that! 


I told him I wanted to rearrange the downstairs bedroom.  It's been on my mind for months, and since I have a jam-packed weekend ahead and my brother is coming to visit the following week, it was really Sunday or nothing. 


Colossal project. 


Take all the books (and knick-knacks) off two bookcases.  Take everything off and out of the desk.  Move the bookcases to the desk's old home.  Vacuum under the spaces previously occupied.  Jimmy the desk into the bookcases' old home.  Reload everything.  We managed to throw a bit of clutter away in the process, but not a lot.  It wasn't my goal.  Then we had to move the bed and filing cabinet.  And more vacuuming. 


So worth it though.  The room looks awesome.  Much more spacious and it looks so much less cluttered!  When you walk past the room from our front door or garage now, it looks so organized. Instead of seeing a cluttered desk (the messiest thing in the room), you see the side of a bookcase.  You have to step all the way into the room and look in the corner to see the desk (which looks slightly less messy somehow). 


After moving all the furniture, we went to a restaurant on our block that we rarely choose but always enjoy.  We picked it because they had wi-fi.  Why we didn't just do all the wifi stuff at home I couldn't tell you.  Anyway, we got a booth, sat on the same side, ordered lunch, and then spent time looking at plane tickets.


And we did it! 


We bought plane tickets to Europe for October!  Woot!  We are flying into Madrid and out of Milan.  We'll still have to figure out everything in between, but the big ticket items are done.  The plan is to go south from Madrid and spend the first 5-7 days in Andalusia, Spain.  Then take a ferry down to Morocco, and spend the next 5-7 days in Tangier, then Fez, then Marrakesh.  Then we'll fly to Italy (into Lamezia), and we'll spend the next 5-7 days in Lamezia with my husband's family, or in Pizzo, the town where we got engaged and married (only about 20 minutes away from Lamezia).  Then we'll fly up to Milan for a day, or even just an afternoon or an evening, then we have a morning flight out of Milan, with a connection in Miami on the way home.   Having a connection stinks.  We have a direct flight to Madrid, and I'd much rather connect at the beginning of the trip instead of the end, but this just worked out better.  So excited! 


We stayed at lunch too late, and by then, I was going to miss Chinese class.  So we headed home and my husband went to the grocery store and I started cleaning.  I cleaned the rims on my car and did some serious cleaning in the downstairs bedroom, blinds, a bit more decluttering, filing, etc. 


That was when my eye started hurting.  I think I'm allergic to cleaning!  I could barely sleep Sunday night because it hurt so much.  Monday morning, I was back at the eye doctor right when it opened.  He put drops in my eye to numb it and said come back as needed.  I decided to work from home, and basically went back every 2 hours for more drops.  My doctor commented on what a low pain threshold I had, but geez, it hurt like a mother!  I took some sleeping medicine last night that knocked me out, and it was good.  I woke up this morning to some pain, and a lot of light sensitivity, but I'm actually at work now.  I've got the lights off and the blinds and the door closed (but we have a glass wall, so there's still light).  I figure I'll try to make it a few hours in the office, then head home early and get more drops if necessary. 

In Another's Home

One fun thing about staying in someone else's house is seeing what strikes you as odd or unique or noteworthy.  I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but here are the things I noticed at my friend in DC's house.

First, TWO blenders.  Both functional.  Because sometimes you need two? 

And TWO remotes.  Not unsual of course, but when you're staying with someone and she goes to work and you're home alone, enough of a mystery to require photos and texts to figure out how to operate it all. 

But most notable was the books.  Hopefully you can zoom in on these photos.  100% fitness, diet, exercise, and/or self-help books.

More cookbooks:

More cookbooks: 

More cookbooks:

And yeah, more cookbooks, since 5,525 other titles isn't sufficient: 

 

Haha, but for this friend, it makes perfect sense.  She's super-healthy, she cooks a ton, and she's great at it.  She's a friend from law school, but it wouldn't surprise me if she ended up as a dietician or nutrition coach or something similar one day. 

 

I wonder what people would find notable about our home.  I should have photographed my best friend's house in Charlottesville.  Thousands of shot glasses in her collection! 

Winter of my Discontent

What is the exact definition of the term "mid-life crisis"?

Reconsidering all your choices?

General dissatisfaction with your world?

Wanting a fast(er) car way outside your budget?

Well, if this is the winter of my discontent, at least it won't be a snowy, cold winter:

Maybe national running day will pull me out of my funk?  I ran this morning, which is you know, a given for most people who run, but to celebrate the holiday, tonight I'm doing a massive "inter-faith" national running day event.  By inter-faith I mean a bunch of largest running groups in Dallas are joining forces for the event and it will be huge -- over 400 people to be sure, possibly well over 500.  The biggest running programs here are basically competitors with each other, so it's particularly awesome I think that they're all doing a joint event.  Kind of like an inter-faith coalition of running.