Can I get a MEE-OWWW

Hey guys! TGIF!! I can't think of a better way to spend a Friday night than relaxing in our house, reading a few blogs and letting you guys know about all the madness we've been up to. It's nice to just sit down, turn the cell off and spend some "me" time right now. (Side note: Stupid Blogger never would let me add pics so I put my pics on Flickr and have links to them where appropriate, sorry!!)

Since Tuesday we've had a lot going on. All the house stuff has really made my running suffer a bit. I've thought of trying to run in the a.m. and walk Pips in the p.m., but I am just NOT a morning person and I can't imagine getting up any earlier than my current 5:24 alarm and still being able to make it to work by 7:30 without passing out! I really admire Michele and Lana for the massive workouts they get in the a.m. Tuesday night I got in 4 miles on the treadmill. It was storming that afternoon and we had some other stuff to do, so it was sort of late before I had time to squeeze in for a workout. Those four miles (two of them, really) put me over 1,000 miles since I've been tracking my mileage. I didn't start tracking my mileage until last September, when I started training for the Miami Marathon. I also ended up with 102 miles for May, a little down from previous months but I did plan for May to be scaled down a little so we have a bit of a "break" before we start training for Twin Cities and Harpeth Hills Marathons later this month. The four miles were pretty uneventful - I watched House Hunters and another home buying/selling show on HGTV while I ran. I LOVE House Hunters!!

Wednesday we met our "buying agent" realtor for the first time. Our realtor has a massive team of people working for her. This particular agent (S) works with people to help them buy a house. We had selected 4 houses we were really interested in, and she was able to book 3 appointments for us (of course the realtor for the house we're most interested in didn't return her messages!!). We met her at their office here and then followed her the 20 miles into the heart of downtown. Every afternoon we've had these massive "monsoons". It's been so warm (90+ every day) that the weather just pops and we get these massive pop up thunderstorms pretty much every afternoon now. Wednesday was no exception. It was sunny out here in Suburbia, but a few miles in the bottom FELL out, and traffic on the interstate started creeping, which is strange considering we were headed into the city while most of the traffic was headed out. Considering the massive rain, thunder and lightning we figured there was a wreck. In reality, the interstate was flooded due to the "flash flood" nature of the storm". Craziness. Traffic had to crawl through one portion where water was pretty deep on the freeway, and then we were back up to speed. It was so hazy and stormy you couldn't even see the skyline even though it was right in front of us!

We stopped at the first house and walked through. It was pretty cute and has been restored quite well. The main thing we didn't like about it was the master suite. Most of these houses have had the attic turned into the master suite, and at this one the master suite just had no personality. It was very cold and all the materials they used up there were the ugly cheapo stuff you can buy at Home Depot. It just didn't look very cozy. But the second house - OMG. This house had been reduced $30K, which we thought I was strange because houses in this neighborhood go pretty quickly and typically don't need to reduce their prices. It's also purple and has a concrete countertops - which if done right are pretty cool. We walked in and were immediately greeted with a STANCH (southern for "stench"). The source of the smell was obvious in short order - cats - and helluva lot of them. There was no furniture in the living or dining room, but there was a cat pillow, and two cats walking around. We proceeded into the "dog ugly" kitchen with concrete countertops on oak cabinets (???? very ugly!!) And guess what....another cat was walking around on the countertops. The smell was insane. It just smelled like these cats hat peed everywhere. We kept walking around just to see the house, but that smell would be impossible to get out. We went upstairs to see the master suite, and when we opened the door there were THREE more cats. One of them was on the edge of his cat tower thing and was perched like he wanted to pounce on us and scratch our faces off. It was freaky. Brent took some video. The woman talking is our realtor, and the guy talking is Brent. It was crazy. There was a minimum of 6 cats in this house, but the way they were walking around it was pretty difficult to count them. I swear we smelled like cat pee after we left there. That house will never sell!!!



The third house we looked at was also one of our "top pics". We love the location and the street it's on. We walked in and it was gorgeous!! Beautiful tall ceilings, original pocket doors and baseboards - just beautiful. The original features in this home are awesome. Lots of fireplaces and 1920's charm. But some of the things the current owner had done are insane. He did a great job remodeling the kitchen - great granite and tile countertops, exposed brick, a nice gourmet kitchen. But some things were just WEIRD. In the middle of the laundry room there's a toilet. Just in the middle of it. No door or anything to that room. A small second bedroom was built half assed, and the master bath has a black shower and black toilet, and some sort of old pipes with a washcloth stuffed in them. He also has phone jacks in all the bathrooms which is just GROSS. And he put down a hideous green laminate floor in the master bath. The expansion space in the attic doesn't have a staircase going up to it, so it would be difficult to finish building it out. The sunroom has big cracks around the windows, and would have to be replaced immediately. There's a lot of work to be done in that house, but it is beautiful. It's one to think about because of its potential, but it just doesn't have a lot of practical living space for us. Our realtor is taking us out again to look at 10 more houses Sunday, including the one we're most interested in.

So Thursday - the circus around our current house started. Our TV went out last weekend, but it's still under the extended warranty from Best Buy. They came Thurs afternoon to "fix it" which really meant they were taking it to ALABAMA for two weeks. WHAT?? We live in Nashville???? Why would they not have a local repair company? I don't get that. I don't really care about the TV, but I do care about the large empty spot a 53 inch wide screen TV leaves in your living room when your house is going on the market in 4 days. Shortly after they left another one of our agent's staff came to drop off a packet we have to fill out and to take a pic of the exterior of our house. One nosy neighbor (also our yard guy) was STARING. I can't wait for them all to start talking!! Of course he then came over to start mowing our yard - right as the pressure washing company came to clean our house. What a ZOO! And, to top it off, our daily afternoon monsoon kicked it into high gear. The poor cleaning people put on some panchos and just kept on going. I'd like to say they did a great job but they really didn't. I had to call and complain today because they totally didn't wash the cleaners off the backside of our house and all the windows on the back look downright sticky. She called me back to say they couldn't come out to fix it until WEDNESDAY. I told her that was completely unacceptable so they will be back tomorrow (we'll see). They'd better be or I'll be stopping payment on my check ASAP. I hate companies like this one, they are just jackasses.

So this weekend we have a few more house projects to do (gutter cleaning and packing mostly) and I'd like to get a nice long run around the neighborhood in tomorrow morning. Hopefully the weather and temperatures will cooperate!

Have a great weekend everyone! Good luck to everyone running marathons this weekend - San Diego and Deadwood!!

Rae

Exercise-
Tues - 1 mile am walk/run with Pips, 4 mile treadmill run
Wed - 1 mile am walk/run with Pips
Thurs - 1 mile am walk/run with Pips, 4 mile treadmill run
Fri - 1 mile am walk/run with Pips