Trucking along...

Things are slowly but surely being crossed off our never-ending to-do list.

Rob built some temporary stairs to and from the back yard, that will tide us over until we build a new deck next spring.



The trim around the french doors has been completed. It will be primed and painted once the rest of the trim is in place.





The thing with the shelves is complete and primed, but not yet painted. That is our old TV that you see there, that I bought seven years ago at the Great Glebe Garage Sale for $10. We will eventually be replacing it with something slightly more spiffy and with up-to-date technology such as a remote control. Hee.



And, we have figured out our island solution. We didn't want anything that would overwhelm the room too much, so we decided to go with a butcher-block top table. We still are a bit undecided on this, so we might decide to tile the top to match the counter, but we're going to leave it as is for now to see how we like it.





We had a great summer of fun and relaxation. Despite my concerns of schedule-creep at the start of this project, I was glad we took some time off to enjoy life.

Patrick had an eventful summer.

He met his idol...



He did lots of playing in the water...



He got his first ever haircut...



And basically just enjoyed life. Life is good.

I am so it.

Evidently, in my absence, I was tagged. Therefore I am it.

* We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
* Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
* People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
* At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and they should read your blog.

So, hmm. Eight random things about me.

1) I hate bananas.
2) I love my PVR more than is right or proper.
3) I am training to run a half marathon in October. This it the fourth time I have begun training to run a half marathon, however I have not yet actually run a half marathon. The first time I chickened out and ran the 10K instead, the second time I got pregnant and had to stop training, and the third time we started renovating our kitchen and training fell by the wayside. Here's hoping that the fourth time is the charm.
4) If I wake up in the middle of the night, it takes me hours to get back to sleep
5) By far the most useful class I took in high school was typing.
6) I find it really hard to come up with eight random facts about myself. Am I that boring, really?
7) I realized I was pregnant in an airport.
8) My idea of heaven used to involve snow, mountains, and skis on my feet, however this has changed. Snow, mountains and skis on my feet are all still very awesome, but heaven, actual heaven, is an empty house, a pizza, some bits n bites, and a stack of cheesy movies on DVD. Maybe even throw in an US or a People magazine for good measure.

Ok so now on to tagging people. How about :

Suzie
Pattyfaye
Jenn
Smarties
Chelle
Tamara
Monster
JL

And last, but obviously not least, here is a picture of Patrick doing what he does best. The answer would be 'Being cute', not 'Sticking his tongue out with crazyhair':



Thanks to Julie for the photo.

Alive!

Believe it or not, we are still alive!

We took some time off from kitchening to enjoy what remained of summer. But, with summer over, we have revived our kitchen work, and, hence, this blog rises from the dead. With fall barely begun we have already made some progress on the kitchen in the way of trim, and temporary stairs to the back yard before Project Back Deck begins in Spring 2008. Pictures to follow.

In other news, after abandoning our training for the Ottawa Half Marathon in May in favour of working on the kitchen, we have resumed training and will be running the Toronto Half Marathon in October.

Training is coming very well. We are running four days a week, with a mid-week hill training run, and a long run on Sundays. Our long run this week will be 18k. The following week will be 20k. The week after that will be 21k, with a rest week before race day.

I am already exceedingly nervous about the race. To help me overcome my race day jitters, Rob kicked my ass in a 10k race last weekend.





Up next for the kitchen is remaining hardware, trim, plastering, and painting.

We think we have found an island solution, it remains to be implemented.

And, finally, the tiling of the backsplash has been put on hold for the time being. It will be plastered and painted, with tiling to follow at a later date.

That's it for now, I'll get some pictures up this weekend.