So, what I learned from listing my favorite runs is that my two basic requirements for good runs are views and million-dollar homes. Hmm. Apparently, who needs bike paths? Natural areas? Quiet, car free spaces? Not me!
So I should clarify: all of my favorite runs DO involve bike paths, or at least parklike medians. Also, my key criteria seems to have been whether or not a run made me want to drag myself out of bed at 5:30 a.m. I'll point out that otherwise great runs that involved ANY stretch of running along a busy road or along a dank secluded river, even if I would do them in a second and have never had ANY safety problems, didn't make the cut. It's how the run looked in my mind, you see. It's easier to actually power through a poorly lit underpass, especially when I'm right there and can suss out potential hazards, than to imagine running there. Especially if I am in my safe warm bed.
In other words: I love ALL my runs. Except for the ones I don't.
Happy Monday.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Friday Favorites: Best Short Runs, 4 miles or (usually much) less
1. Boulder, Colorado. From the 6-person condo I had a room in to the foothills and back. Best moment: crossing north Broadway at dawn, looking south and east over the whole city and the Flatirons. Best at dawn.
2. Greenwood Village, Colorado. My three-mile loop up through the million-dollar houses and down through Cattail Park. Great views of the foothills and the plains. Best at dawn.
3. Fort Collins, Colorado. From our rental on LaPorte over past the Cemetery and down Mountain Avenue, past all the cute little Old Town Victorians and uber-designed gardens. Best at dusk.
4. Near Belfast, Maine. Down the dirt road a friend lives on, out onto a gravel road to the dead end and back. Past a nineteenth-century cemetery, two-hundred-year-old farmhouses, and pine woods. Best midday.
5. Boulder, Colorado. From east Arapaho Road, south past the golf course into the open space and back through the leisurely 2-acre east Boulder suburbs. Best midday.
2. Greenwood Village, Colorado. My three-mile loop up through the million-dollar houses and down through Cattail Park. Great views of the foothills and the plains. Best at dawn.
3. Fort Collins, Colorado. From our rental on LaPorte over past the Cemetery and down Mountain Avenue, past all the cute little Old Town Victorians and uber-designed gardens. Best at dusk.
4. Near Belfast, Maine. Down the dirt road a friend lives on, out onto a gravel road to the dead end and back. Past a nineteenth-century cemetery, two-hundred-year-old farmhouses, and pine woods. Best midday.
5. Boulder, Colorado. From east Arapaho Road, south past the golf course into the open space and back through the leisurely 2-acre east Boulder suburbs. Best midday.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Yellow: Should We Hate It?
Sources Say Yes.
So, I spent all last week painting the kitchen and TV room yellow, and I hate it. Also, I'm so tired from painting in the first place that I'm not sure what the best fix is anymore. Simply repaint it? No way. The yellow will STILL BE THERE. I'm thinking torch the house and start over.
So the deal is, I thought I liked yellow. Since we moved in I've had in mind to repaint the kitchen a pale, summery yellow, something to feel bright and good-morningish as the sun streams through the house and the water heats for coffee. I've even painted a few other rooms in the house yellow--the hall bathroom and the hall. That's where the trouble started. I liked that yellow, but in certain light it seemed a little cold. Not quite enough sunshine, a little too much overcast polar sky. So, I thought, let's still go with yellow. Let's just warm it up a bit.
Unfortunately, I didn't really process the mechanics of "warming up." You warm up a color by adding red, or, since we're dealing with yellow to begin with, you add orange. Technically, it seems, you warm up yellow by adding the cheese powder from boxed mac and cheese.
So the past week I've been painting the walls of my kitchen with the fake-cheddar sauce yellow of mac and cheese.
Grok.
It's gotten to the point where I can't look at any yellow anywhere without feeling slathered in butter. The yellow of the hall and bathroom? Looks like banana taffy. Yellow houses I used to like? Yech. Even Helen's pretty yellow dresses have something unbearably margarine-y about them.
So, I spent all last week painting the kitchen and TV room yellow, and I hate it. Also, I'm so tired from painting in the first place that I'm not sure what the best fix is anymore. Simply repaint it? No way. The yellow will STILL BE THERE. I'm thinking torch the house and start over.
So the deal is, I thought I liked yellow. Since we moved in I've had in mind to repaint the kitchen a pale, summery yellow, something to feel bright and good-morningish as the sun streams through the house and the water heats for coffee. I've even painted a few other rooms in the house yellow--the hall bathroom and the hall. That's where the trouble started. I liked that yellow, but in certain light it seemed a little cold. Not quite enough sunshine, a little too much overcast polar sky. So, I thought, let's still go with yellow. Let's just warm it up a bit.
Unfortunately, I didn't really process the mechanics of "warming up." You warm up a color by adding red, or, since we're dealing with yellow to begin with, you add orange. Technically, it seems, you warm up yellow by adding the cheese powder from boxed mac and cheese.
So the past week I've been painting the walls of my kitchen with the fake-cheddar sauce yellow of mac and cheese.
Grok.
It's gotten to the point where I can't look at any yellow anywhere without feeling slathered in butter. The yellow of the hall and bathroom? Looks like banana taffy. Yellow houses I used to like? Yech. Even Helen's pretty yellow dresses have something unbearably margarine-y about them.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Friday Favorites, painting related
1. My favorite part of painting a room: pulling off the masking tape in long delicious strips.
2. My least favorite part of painting: finding that the paint leaked under the masking tape, or that the tape pulled paint off of the already-painted part.
3. Favorite paint color in our house: the pale olive green in the bedroom (name: emulsion. Not QUITE unsavory enough to nix my love of the color, but close). Favorite paint name: trailhead (a pale yellow).
4. Second favorite paint color: the bright reddish-orange wall in the TV room. Okay, going on it looked exactly like canned tomato soup, and I did have an "OMG is it too Seventies?" moment, but overall it works, and makes the space warm and cozy without seeming oppressive.
5. My actual real favorite part of painting? Being done. And I'm not there yet. So adios, amigos. Back to work.
2. My least favorite part of painting: finding that the paint leaked under the masking tape, or that the tape pulled paint off of the already-painted part.
3. Favorite paint color in our house: the pale olive green in the bedroom (name: emulsion. Not QUITE unsavory enough to nix my love of the color, but close). Favorite paint name: trailhead (a pale yellow).
4. Second favorite paint color: the bright reddish-orange wall in the TV room. Okay, going on it looked exactly like canned tomato soup, and I did have an "OMG is it too Seventies?" moment, but overall it works, and makes the space warm and cozy without seeming oppressive.
5. My actual real favorite part of painting? Being done. And I'm not there yet. So adios, amigos. Back to work.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Countdown Begins
Summer's almost over: the days are cooler, I'm starting to get emails and phone reminders from the elementary school, the school bus drove through the neighborhood today, checking its routes. By this time next week the kids will be in school and I will be frantically readying for work.
Here's what I want to finish up before I start work:
1. Painting the kitchen and laundry room. People, the hardest thing about painting walls is the prep, and these rooms, with their windows, cabinets, shelves, appliances, et cetera et cetera and so on, have MASSIVE amounts of prep. To the point where I stand in front of the wall that will definitely be prepped today and start to get headachey just thinking about it.
2. Trimming up the bushes on the sides of the house. The folks we bought the house from basically stopped trimming bushes about five years ago. The house is being smothered.
3. Organizing the basement. Right now it's just heaps and heaps of stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else. Kitchen stuff, camping stuff, fishing stuff, Christmas stuff, boxes of happy meal toys I had secreted away, hoping to stealthily dispose of, and which the kids have found and have strewn about.
4. A thorough house-clean.
I also want to go for a hike, laze about, finish some writing projects, and who knows, perhaps invent a cure for cancer. Also organize the tupperware cabinet. Part of me knows it's silly to think that life as I know it will end when I go back to work--but part of me doesn't think it's silly at all. The last time I felt like I had to organize the tupperware cabinet was just before Helen was born, and that's a lot what I feel like now: like I'm nesting. Life will still go on, with beautiful sunrises (of which I will get to see QUITE A FEW during my morning commute) and good meals and whiny evenings--I'll just have a lot less energy to spare for upkeep. Also, I sort of want to have a home space that is restful, vs one that is nagging me to do something about that empty suitcase in the middle of the bedroom floor or the pile of papers on the sideboard.
How about you? Last time you started a job, what did you have to finish up/ square away?
Here's what I want to finish up before I start work:
1. Painting the kitchen and laundry room. People, the hardest thing about painting walls is the prep, and these rooms, with their windows, cabinets, shelves, appliances, et cetera et cetera and so on, have MASSIVE amounts of prep. To the point where I stand in front of the wall that will definitely be prepped today and start to get headachey just thinking about it.
2. Trimming up the bushes on the sides of the house. The folks we bought the house from basically stopped trimming bushes about five years ago. The house is being smothered.
3. Organizing the basement. Right now it's just heaps and heaps of stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else. Kitchen stuff, camping stuff, fishing stuff, Christmas stuff, boxes of happy meal toys I had secreted away, hoping to stealthily dispose of, and which the kids have found and have strewn about.
4. A thorough house-clean.
I also want to go for a hike, laze about, finish some writing projects, and who knows, perhaps invent a cure for cancer. Also organize the tupperware cabinet. Part of me knows it's silly to think that life as I know it will end when I go back to work--but part of me doesn't think it's silly at all. The last time I felt like I had to organize the tupperware cabinet was just before Helen was born, and that's a lot what I feel like now: like I'm nesting. Life will still go on, with beautiful sunrises (of which I will get to see QUITE A FEW during my morning commute) and good meals and whiny evenings--I'll just have a lot less energy to spare for upkeep. Also, I sort of want to have a home space that is restful, vs one that is nagging me to do something about that empty suitcase in the middle of the bedroom floor or the pile of papers on the sideboard.
How about you? Last time you started a job, what did you have to finish up/ square away?
Friday, August 14, 2009
Friday Favorites
1. Favorite pet: our dog (sorry, birdies. Also, sorry, Gerbie. If you're still alive.)
2. Favorite plastico crap toy now littering the house: the Playmobil Cabin. People, it comes with a tree, and on that tree is a woodpecker. With approximately the right markings. It warms my birdgeekophile heart.
3. Favorite boat: the sunfish. Not that given the chance to commandeer one, I'd be able to pilot it. I just like to see them, floating about on whatever body of water we happen to pass.
4. Favorite gross thing: baby poo. Specifically, nursing-baby poo. Which thing is made significantly less gross and more endearing in that I won't have to actually encounter it until such time as my kids have kids themselves. Or I get some more nieces and nephews. No pressure or anything, siblings.
5. Favorite kid's book: Mickey and the Night Kitchen.
6. Favorite child: whichever one will let me read them Mickey and the Night Kitchen again. Oh, it's on, kiddoes!
2. Favorite plastico crap toy now littering the house: the Playmobil Cabin. People, it comes with a tree, and on that tree is a woodpecker. With approximately the right markings. It warms my birdgeekophile heart.
3. Favorite boat: the sunfish. Not that given the chance to commandeer one, I'd be able to pilot it. I just like to see them, floating about on whatever body of water we happen to pass.
4. Favorite gross thing: baby poo. Specifically, nursing-baby poo. Which thing is made significantly less gross and more endearing in that I won't have to actually encounter it until such time as my kids have kids themselves. Or I get some more nieces and nephews. No pressure or anything, siblings.
5. Favorite kid's book: Mickey and the Night Kitchen.
6. Favorite child: whichever one will let me read them Mickey and the Night Kitchen again. Oh, it's on, kiddoes!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Random Conversations; Also, Bathroom Pix
Three random conversations around the house:
1. Me: Silas! Is there a more respectful way to ask Helen to stop talking to you than shouting STOP?
Silas: No!
2. Me (to unnamed child): Please, hon, if you want to wipe your boogies on your own bedroom wall, that's your business. But other places in the house it's not okay. Not the car, either.
3. Child: Mom! Mom! Mom?
Me: I'm back here, hon.
Child: Moooomm? MOM! MOM! MOM! MOOOOMMM!!!! MOMMMM!!!
Me: I'm here, hon.
Child: MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! There you are. Why didn't you answer me when I called for you?
Me: What do you want, kiddo?
Child: What? Oh, I forget.
Siigh. I'm ready for school to start, and almost ready for the job to start. I'm frantically trying to get the house ready and my other affairs in order; I'm painting walls, cleaning windows, trimming bushes, organizing stubborn corners of messdom. What I am very glad for is that our bathrooms are completely done. Behold, our bathroom, a year ago:
With a bonus view of our basement crawlspace.
As of three weeks ago, we finally have this:
1. Me: Silas! Is there a more respectful way to ask Helen to stop talking to you than shouting STOP?
Silas: No!
2. Me (to unnamed child): Please, hon, if you want to wipe your boogies on your own bedroom wall, that's your business. But other places in the house it's not okay. Not the car, either.
3. Child: Mom! Mom! Mom?
Me: I'm back here, hon.
Child: Moooomm? MOM! MOM! MOM! MOOOOMMM!!!! MOMMMM!!!
Me: I'm here, hon.
Child: MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! There you are. Why didn't you answer me when I called for you?
Me: What do you want, kiddo?
Child: What? Oh, I forget.
Siigh. I'm ready for school to start, and almost ready for the job to start. I'm frantically trying to get the house ready and my other affairs in order; I'm painting walls, cleaning windows, trimming bushes, organizing stubborn corners of messdom. What I am very glad for is that our bathrooms are completely done. Behold, our bathroom, a year ago:
With a bonus view of our basement crawlspace.
As of three weeks ago, we finally have this:
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