For Sale

For Sale: Furry, black and white alarm clock. Guaranteed to wake you up at 6:40 am, 7 days a week regardless of whether or not you just ran a marathon and were planning to sleep in today. Will whine repeatedly until you are awake and out of bed. Very cuddly but snores loudly. Whining is inaudible to men.

Back to bed.

Atlanta part2: Shop til we drop

So, when I last left you we had made it to Atlanta along with half the state of Illinois and enjoyed our first night in our posh room. I actually woke up sort of early Saturday morning (around 8 am). I'm in the love with the big rain type shower we had in the room and I'm determined to find the same one somewhere around here and buy it. We got dressed and walked a couple of blocks over to the expo. If it wasn't for the long line and crowds you really wouldn't have known there was an expo. The Miami marathon (also sponsored by ING) had massive quantities of balloons, signs, and really cute little orange feet leading you up to the expo. We got there right as the expo opened and the line was around the block. Once you got in the doors the line for marathon participants was really short, so we were able to get our packets really quickly. Brent had already decided to run the half instead of the full months ago but he didn't officially swap because for some reason that was a $10 fee. As if. We walked around and I bought some Cliff Bloks for the race and grabbed a few race brochures and free samples. The Waffle House booth was a scam, all the free t-shirts were for later. We did get a free CD from a radio station booth from a nice DJ who empathized with our lack of a decent alternative station here in Nashville, and we greatly enjoyed the wit and sarcasm of the guy stuck in the inflatable fruit juice bottle. The best swag was the free vinyl ING bags. I made a trip past that booth a few times. I would have gone a few more times if I knew they were better supplied with bags than Powerade! Overall the expo was OK, pretty standard stuff. I had fun posing on the ING bench with random people. In Miami they had photographers taking your pic on the bench and then emailing you a link to get your photo online. In Georgia the bench was much more multipurpose.









From there we headed out to IKEA. We had lunch in the IKEA cafeteria and shopped all the goodies for a few hours. Our top find was really cute shaped ice cubes - just like what Colin Cowie uses. We bought several shapes we're going to be using at a cookout we're having tomorrow night. From there we asked a redneck in the parking garage where West Elm was, and he said there wasn't one in Georgia. We found it about a half mile down the road in part of a really cool live/work/shop community full of great shops. We shopped there for a while then kicked back in a coffee shop for a little while. From there we hung out in Little Five Points for a while before driving around some older historic neighborhoods and ultimately having a quiet little Italian dinner at a restaurant we found on the race course. We thought we had hit gold when we saw a Trader Joe's but it was still under construction. I'd love to check out Trader Joe's! (We are getting a Whole Foods here which I'm pretty excited about!)










We turned in early (after making a horrible turn and ending up in a not-so-happy-place) and got all our gear ready for race morning. Of course it took me forever to go to sleep but when the alarm went off I was pretty excited and ready to go. We had some breakfast, took care of business, and headed to the start area. It was pretty much a mess. I'm not sure why they didn't have starting corrals. It's really not rocket science and it makes for a much better start. They had pace groups but people were really standing wherever. At first we stood near the 4:15 group, even though I knew I wouldn't be going that fast. We moved up to near the 3:45 group only because a bunch of people I KNEW I would be faster than kept pushing up past us. I even heard one person say 'let's get closer to the front so we can see the starting area'. Um, yeah. The announcer kept going on about how hot it was going to be and to make sure you drank lots of Powerade, and that it would be available every MILE. Literally, he said every mile. I knew from the course map they said it would be available about every 2 miles, so I thought they had made a wise decision and amped that up due to the heat (foreshadowing people). He also kept going on about how they would start on time, but then the race started 5 minutes late due to a parked car on the course and people stuck on a MARTA train. Obviously someone just needed to take away his mike because he was useless. My favorite pre-race moment came when "Elbows" (the annoying guy standing in front of us who was completely unaware of the breadth of his elbows) wouldn't quit staring at me. I ignored him because I was in pre-race zone. He caught Brent's eye and said "Pretty fancy watches you guys have. I bet they do a lot". "Um yeah." "Do they have GPS?". "Yeah." "That's pretty crazy, I guess we may need to get one of those one day"-he said to his friend. His friend said "Nah,I thought about it and then decided I could do the same thing online once I got home." So what types of watches were they wearing, you might wonder? The online mapper had no watch and Elbows was wearing a dress watch. Seriously. Do they make those with a lap function???

After a short devo where a priest hoped we all got closer to God and called on him at least once during the race (I do believe I called on God many a times last Sunday.....) the wheelchairs were off and so were we........

And until I get my actual race report up you can enjoy the post about the race on our local running board. We actually saw P there (he's our Nashville Strider's president). I think it's pretty sad he had to run into a CVS and buy Gatorade, but I wish I thought of doing that myself! It reminds me a lot of the American Express commercial with Meb!

We bought all new bedding tonight!! Whew, expensive! We went super nice with an 800 thread count down comforter & fabulous sheets! Our new bedroom furntire is being delivered tomorrow and we're also having a cookout tomorrow night. Should be fun & hopefully the rain will hold off. Have a great weekend!

The Road to Atlanta.....or Illinois???

Here goes.....marathon journey #4, part 1 of who-knows-how-many.

Friday I worked a half-day and booked it out of work to leave town. Brent had taken the day off to meet with the contractors for a final measure of the kitchen and to talk about all the electrical, plumbing and gas that will need to be moved. We quickly finished packing, loaded up, dropped Pips off at the kennel and headed out of town stopping in the 'Boro for some lunch at Panera Bread and to get our pre-race lucky muffins. I hope I never get tired of them because I am so over oatmeal, bagels and toast!

For some reason the interstate was packed with cars from Illinois. I mean, PACKED. For a while we felt like possibly we had entered some strange vortex and ended up in Illinois. I text-ed Barb to see if Illinois had been evacuated for some strange reason because it was seriously freaky. We all made our way through the always beautiful Monteagle part of the state. You drive up the mountain and then back down, and it's just so scenic. Fortunately we were able to hit early rush hour traffic in Chattanooga right at 4 pm and then late rush hour traffic in Atlanta at 6 pm. Blah. And as a side note - Chattanooga has crappy radio so bring some CDs. Fortunately we did, and I also entertained Brent by singing the few words of "Georgia on my Mind" as well as any other Michael Bolton songs I could think of. (The blurry road-side pic is the Welcome to Georgia sign. I sort of missed it!)






















And wouldn't you know once we finally got to our exit and were close to our hotel the road our hotel was on was closed due to construction!! That always happens. We ended up circling a few times and finally made it to our hotel-in spite of the massive amount of people downtown for a Hawks game at the arena next to our hotel. We were SO glad to be out of the car! Our hotel was so nice. We're into boutique hotels - I can't stand the massive chains with floral print bedspreads and unlabeled soaps. Ew, ew and ew. We checked in and new we were in the right place when the elevator spoke to us with a British accent and wished us Cheerio! on our floor. (We did ride the elevator with someone else later who was on the 10th floor and she told them Wow! so after that we weren't quite as jazzed with our Cheerio!). The hallways were lined with fake grass and there were even little carpet doormats outside each door. The beds were down and cozy and you could even purchase the little stuffed animal that came with the room. However - you don't want to share this room with your grandma or a coworker on a business trip! The bedroom had a window into the shower with very cool metal beads hanging over it. Very sexy, just like everything else in the hotel.

We relaxed for a bit and then walked around downtown Atlanta. Tons of people were hanging out in Olympic Park playing in the fountains and just enjoying the warm and humid night. We walked around for ages trying to find somewhere to eat. Downtown Atlanta is obviously not a place where you live, most things down there weren't even open although there were tons of tourists about. We finally found a Mexican joint that was pretty good. After dinner we walked back and relaxed more in the room before falling asleep for a wonderful 9 hours of sleep - something we never get to do at home!!!












Well, that's all I have time for tonight, more about the expo and race tomorrow!

Pic of the Day/Links to other race reports

No time to post today, tonight has been full of laundry and having Pippin stretched across me snoring and dreaming away while we watch 24. Poor thing, he came back from the kennel more exhausted than we were. I don't know what he does there, and I don't think I want to. When I walked in and told the guy I was there to pick up Pippin he said "Oh good. He is so ready to go home." Huh???? Did he start talking while we were gone? And I said "Oh, he's pretty hyper, huh". He shook his head and went "Oh yeah. He is DONE with being here and just ready to go. " I really don't want to know what he did while we were gone. It's best not to know.

So, in lieu of a race report here's my fave pic that we've downloaded from the trip so far. This is the half marathon packet pick-up from outside the expo. It wrapped down the block and clear around the building. I don't have a clue what all these people are doing but something about this picture just absolutely cracks me up. I think it's the randomness of the things that go on around you that you never notice. I was just snapping a pic of the ridiculous line and ended up with a lot of shots of humanity. Brent and I came up with at least a dozen stories about the random things these people might have been thinking.

And since I don't have a report for you I found a few new blogs (to me) of people who ran the race on the 'net today. Some of these people had a good day, others not so much. Enjoy!

News article forwarded to me about the "ups and downs" of the inaugural race
http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/stories/2007/03/25/0325raceburst.html

Blog A,
Blog B,
& Blog C,
& Sarah's report

#4

Wow! #4. That was a killer. Not so much the hills - it reminded me of running around here, actually - but the heat combined with them. My skin is still burning and I look a little racoon-y. But, my official time was 4:32-something and I am pretty proud of that because it was a blood bath out there today. I think it was around 81 degrees when I finished. I was fine through about mile 17 and then the absolute lack of Gatorade left for the marathoners really started to take its toll. I was only able to find Gatorade THREE times on the whole course. They were so unprepared today, the race management was horrible and should all be taken out somewhere and drug behind a car on that course on a hot day. They literally had nothing left for the marathoners - at times I had to pour my own water!!!!! It was very demoralizing to run past thousands of squashed orange peels when you're burning alive and just WISH you could have had one. Thank goodness for the kind people of Atlanta whose neighborhoods we ran through though - they were out with garden hoses, bowls of ice, pretzels and the things race management SHOULD have had for us. There wasn't even a banana or orange left at the finish line when I got there - and I'm pretty mid pack. So I took a tray of Oreos, and if you finished after me and didn't have any Oreos left by then just email me and I'll send you a pack. Because I was hot and hungry and that's pretty much all they had besides 80-degree water and soda.

Full race report to come. We got back around 5:45 and the 4-hr ride home was so painful right after a marathon!!! We put our stuff down and literally collapsed on the bed and were dead to the world for 2 hours!!! Thanks for all the comments and for tracking me all day! My main goal in my head was to make it to the next timing mat and slam my size 7's down and send the stats back to everyone! Brent was awesome - he actually ran the half and then came out to mile 19 and the finish to snap some photos. We ran together through mile 4 when the half marathoners split off. ( The half marathoners come back on our course later - that's why nothing was left for us from mile 17 on. We run the same course but the full branched out early so the half runs the 2nd half of the full course. That is such a dumb idea.) Anyway, I've got some unpacking to do and then back to work tomorrow!

Congrats to David on an awesome time today!! Go send him love!

Its over!

Waiting...

Hot-lanta

W'sup!!! We're having a ball in Atlanta. We walked around some last night and have spent all day today shopping & exploring various neighborhoods of ATL. I know we should've stretched out and relaxed all day but considering this is marathon #4 for me and I'm really only in this one for fun, I wanted to treat this more like a vacation. With all the house stuff Brent and I haven't been on a vacation (mini or otherwise) since we went to Miami for my first marathon in January 06! TOO LONG PEOPLE!!! Anyway, we've had so much fun and have really enjoyed the trip thus far. So now I guess we have to run, eh? We've taken lots of pics and have great stories to share with you about our trip and the experience. But for now I'm leaving you with the quote from the magnet I bought at a super cute little shop in Little 5 Points today:

"Take pride in how far you have come and have faith in how far you can go!" - Christian Larson

That's what tomorrow is all about people. A celebration of life and sunshine and hills and opportunity and all that this past 14 months of change have been.

See you on the other side of #4! I'm showered and ready to sleep in our ridiculously comfortable bed.

SHOPPING!

Olympic Park

Made it to the room... Rae may sleep thru the race

Sort of like Where's Waldo

W'sup?????? It's getting downright hot in this steambath. 80 degrees at 5 today!?!?!?! And the forecast for Sunday's marathon - high of 85, low of 57. Huh???? The heat is going to suck considering most of our training runs have been in the freezing cold. Oh well, Miami was the same way. I went from layers to tanks but at least I expected it that time and had been tanning in a bottle for a few weeks. This time you'll just have to look at pics of my winter albino self.

So, for all the tracking bandits out there here are the digits:
I'm bib #2240
http://www.doitsports.com/results/MSG-signup.tcl?sub_event_id=189429

You have to create some sort of account and it will send you updates. I guess on race morning you can probably log in and track online, but I'm not totally sure. And I guess it doesn't matter
to me since I know where I'll be. =)

Note to self: Do not sign up for ANY MORE EST RACES!!!! I hate Eastern Time, it's too early! The race starts at 7 am EST which is 6 am for me. Blah!!! Pacific Time is the way to go. Even mountain time.

Today I printed out all the important stuff - maps to the posh hotel we're staying out, maps to IKEA and other important shopping landmarks! Tonight I'm relaxing and I'm about to start packing. I got 4 miles in earlier, 5 miles yesterday and tomorrow I'll do 2 miles. My ipod is all loaded up and there's not a whole lot left to do except try to relax a little. Pippin's weekend vacay is booked and we're headed out around lunch on Friday.

Today our new wall oven and telescopic downdraft were delivered. YAY! We're starting to have quite the accumulation of appliances in our dining room! On Friday morning they come out to do the pre-consultation which means they're re-measuring and making sure all the cabinets and arrangements we've designed will fit. So, by this time next week everything kitchen related should be decided on. And Brent and I are going to knock out a wall next week, post-marathon. How exciting is that??? We've had two people tell us they "think" it's not load-bearing. Gotta love the thinkers.

That's it for now! Time to do some packing and hopefully not forget anything important!!

Feeling Peachy

Hey!! What's up! Just a quick post before I hop in bed. My goal this week is to get in bed at 10 every night this week, which I've yet to make. Since my alarm goes off at 5:23 I never get 8 hours of sleep, but it would be nice to get a little closer this week. Last night I was an hour + a few minutes late on my goal......Oh well.

We had a great, but ridiculously busy weekend. The art show Friday night was awesome and most Brent sold his piece! Out of the 60 pieces shown, only 6 sold so he was really, really happy! And I was very proud!

I hardly slept at all Friday night and Saturday morning's alarm clock rang way too early. But, we had lots to do and we really wanted to watch the Tom King half. We got up around 6:30, ate a fast breakfast and started running to the Coliseum. The best thing about being a spectator is not worrying about bathroom lines, chip pickups, or dropping stuff back off at your car. We tried to find friends but only ended up running into one former coworker before the race. It was so fun to stand on the other side of the line and see the fast guys just take OFF! We were able to spot both David and Michele when the runners passed but no one else we knew. We waited until everyone passed and then took off after them. We were able to pass a ridiculous amount of runners at a really casual, easy pace. We ran the course for 2 miles and then stopped and cheered for everyone we had passed. One frantic woman came over and had me help her take her jacket off and repin her bib to her shirt. It was in the upper 20's but the sun was warm. Then we turned around and ran back. We got a lot of the more festive slow runners asking us if we were the leaders! =) We made it back to the Stadium around 49 minutes into the race so we sat to watch the finish. The sun was still not warming our side and we were FREEZING!!! About 15 minutes later the first guys came in. They were booking it!!! We cheered for runners as they came in until around the 1:30 hour mark and we were just shaking cold and needed to head back and move on with the day. I wish we had been able to stay and watch the runners we know! We made it back to the house with 8.1 miles under our belt.

Essentially the rest of the day was spent picking out cabinets and appliances. Literally. We left our house at 1 to go and pick out appliances/work with our designer and we got home at a little after 10. Insane. But we have an awesome design and managed to get all the appliances picked out and got really good deals on it all. We've already got the gas range and Advantium sitting in the dining room and tomorrow our single oven and telesc. downdraft arrive!

There's a lot more I have to say but it's 10 so it's time to wind down! I've got my bib# for this weekend's marathon I need to post. You can do all the online tracking for this one - what pressure!!!!!!

Good night!

My Baby is O-fficial!!

Woo hoo! We just got back from Brent's first art show and his piece sold! Yay!!!! And of course we asked the girl who bought it to pose with it for a pic. =) More details to come, we've got some sleep to catch! We've got a half m to get up early for, run to, and spectate/cheer/take pics! And boy am I glad we didn't sign up for the race tomorrow because I am beat from standing at the show all night tonight!! Then we've got a cabinet appointment, fabric to pick up, a possible doggie play date, an art opening, and a St Patty's party - all tomorrow!! I guarantee we'll be late for at least 2/3s of those events.

For now - a pic of Brent's pic! (And if you would like to buy a print they are available at a reasonable price. =) )

Where to Begin???

What's up!!! I hope everyone is having a great week so far! There's so much to talk about but I just don't have the time to do so these days. With beautiful weather who wants to spend a bunch of time on a computer when that's what you do ALL DAY LONG???? I haven't opened my Google Reader in daaaays, and I'm a little scared of what's going to happen when I do.

Here's the short version of the past week:
Saturday: We ran 12 miles on what I call "The Music Box Run" - aka our quest to scope out all three of the new speakers installed inside traffic signals boxes. One by the Symphony Center plays symphony music, the one by the Country Music Hall of Fame plays country and the one by the "park where all the homeless hang out" plays random, loud music. It's weird - I mean really a strange thing. Is it safe to BLARE music at busy tourist filled intersections??? They already wander out into the road like the whole walk/don't walk thing is a foreign thing. But anyway, I have pics from the run I'll have to post later. And yes, I did conduct the "symphony in a traffic box" for all the traffic and tourists at the corner of 4th and Demonbreun Saturday morning. I just had to!

The rest of the weekend was beautiful!! It was hot and in the upper 70's and has been ever since. It's 77 in our HOUSE right now so it's probably about time to turn the thermostat over from heat to air. All the ceiling fans are going these days and it is NICE. I'm in a tank top and shorts right now, yeah!!!!! We went to the dog park, went for long walks, went to the art gallery, went to an art show and worked in the yard all weekend. Of course there are some great pics to share from all that, too.

Monday we had a fab dinner with friend S and yesterday cabinet guy came and measured for our cabinets! In the meantime we've bought our new gas cooktop (got an awesome deal!) and it should arrive tomorrow. We have also picked out the single oven and the Advantium we want, and now we just have to buy it! I also did our taxes this week and we are getting a FAT refund! Yay for selling our house, paying a lot of interest on this one, giving a lot of crap away as well as a decent amount of money, yay for sales tax on new cars and for 401ks and all the other stuff that helped us last year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO HOO!! It also makes us happy that our refund wasn't really from overpayments but from all our extraordinary events last year. As a CPA I really do try to "break even" on our taxes - there's no need to overpay the Gov all year.

Other exciting news - Brent's very first art show is this weekend!! He's showing in the Untitled show here in Nashville. You only get to show one piece, so hopefully we have picked "the right one". I like it anyway! If you're in Nashville and are looking for something to do Friday night come on out! It's one night only. His next show should be more of a gallery show, probably in June.

Anyway, I need to run and get my workout in. With Brent's show Friday night and with ING being next weekend we didn't sign up for the Tom King half this weekend. I do plan on running down and cheering, watching the fasty-fasts and getting a few miles in myself. I know it would be dumb of me to run the half this weekend because I'm not one to take it easy!! I hope I see some of you guys out there!

OH - and if you want to take on Pippin in this year's NCAA pool head over to Barb's and sign up. He made his pics last night......and well - I'm not so hopeful for him this year. According to Pips Florida is going down in Round 1. He REALLY has a long shot for his winner!!! But, last year he certainly cleaned up!!
Take care!!!
Rae

Sprung

Hey everyone! I hope you're all having a wonderful start to your weekend, and hopefully you had some similar weather to ours today! It was a wonderful 75 degrees today, bright and sunny! Too bad most of it had to be spent at work and more of it couldn't be spent just stretching out on the deck. Our daffodils have been in bloom for about a week and a half now, and all the trees are starting to bud and bloom. Our giant hackberry tree in the backyard had some sort of strange buds earlier this week that attracted an absolute gaggle of birds who ate them and promptly pooped them back out ALL over our deck. Our grass has gotten so tall this week we're going to have to mow already! Ah, spring. When I got home today at 4:30 it was absolutely beautiful. I changed into jeans and Pips and I sat on the front porch swing until Brent got home around 5:30ish. All of our neighbors were out and about. I got two cat calls from passing cars and one redneck squealing tires in his Camero. I've still got it. We saw J running, then Mrs J on her way home and later we stopped and chatted with a different J while we walked Pippin. It must've been the afternoon of "J"s in the hood. We took Pippin for a looong walk and just enjoyed watching everyone else enjoying the evening - the outdoor seating at all our local pubs was overflowing and all 50 people who live in the "run-down-looking-house-where-50-people-live" were sitting outside.

It's been a good week workout wise. I've got 18 miles so far this week and ran on all 4 planned days. Tomorrow is supposed to be a big rain event, so this week's long run may be pushed to Sunday, we'll just have to see. Just two weeks and a day until ING Georgia! Am I ready? Not so much, but I'll have fun. No goals, just me and my nano. Since I rarely ever run with music it's going to be SO awesome to turn my tunes on and just sing for 4 and half-ish hours among the streets of Atlanta. My plan is to lose myself in my fave songs and take it step by step. The most important thing is we plan enough time to properly clear out IKEA. Everything else is secondary. And if there's a Crate and Barrel in Atlanta - well, that's going to be a priority, too!

In house news there's a lot going on in this old (former) slave house. Next week there's an interior person coming to measure out the kitchen so we can start selecting cabinets and drawing that remodel out. The following Monday the architect is coming to measure out the upstairs and start drawing out the expansion. We're really excited to hear her ideas. It's going to be crazy here this summer! I'm going to start looking for a doggie daycare for Pippin - he will lose his mind if he has to be crated while contractors go in and out all day. The move nearly sent him to the big house. And most importantly we're going out with friend S on Monday night to see her hot new BMW. =)

I truly have nothing else interesting to say, not that any of that was interesting! My belly is stuffed absolutely beyond full with awesome Indian food right now and I clearly can not think clearly!!!!

Happy Spring!!

Rae

Let them be Red

Hello!! We had a great, great weekend - one of the most relaxing and fun we've had in a while. Why?? No tedious house projects like painting, paint scraping, border scraping or cleaning cat hair and dust out of tiny crevices. We got to do the "fun" house stuff - shopping!! We FINALLY found a bedroom suite we liked - and it is GI-NORMOUS. If it's anything like our beast of a microwave we're going to have to cut some holes in the roof of the house for the posters of the bed to stick out. if it looks big in the store.....well, it's just huge.

It was a weekend of total special orders. The bed is made "just for us" so it will be here in 6-8 weeks. Then we went to Home Depot to order some blinds. Because our windows are so long there are none that can be cut to fit in the store. Out of every window in this house we can only fit one window in the store!!! So, we special ordered blinds for our bedroom and bathroom, since they're on sale this month if we really like them we'll go ahead and order for the rest of the house. See ya later blue-gray aluminum mini blinds!!! Then we went to Joann's to buy some fabric for bedroom curtains. Since the windows and ceilings are so tall we can't buy regular curtains, either! We picked out a lovely fabric that would've cost us $500 to make curtains for our bedroom!!!! SO then we picked out a very similar one that's only going to cost $100. And of course they didn't have 17 yards of fabric so that's on special order too!! We also walked around and started pricing out new kitchen cabinets, countertops, appliances!! It's all very exciting and it's about to get super expensive & super stressful around here. We're also starting to meet with the architect who will (most likely) start the blueprints for our upstairs expansion. See ya roofline! We're at the point where the house is starting to feel so cozy and we just want to be complete with all these major projects. Since we've been homeowners for the past 7 years we know there will always be projects, but it will feel so great to have the biggies behind us.

We also kicked back, watched a movie and hung some art around the house. Our guest bath is so cute now! We have brand new fluffy towels for our guests, art on the walls, and I love my new curved shower rod. It reminds me so much of some of the great hotel rooms we've stayed in on some of our travels.

For running news....there's not much to report. I skipped a few runs last week to work on painting and finishing off the kitchen. We didn't run long last weekend because we just didn't want to. I got some treadmill runs in and that's about it. I don't have any expectations for Georgia, which should be obvious from our (lack of) training. I'm more excited about our posh hotel room and shopping at IKEA than I am running 26.2 miles! If it doesn't go well I'll run the half and then just cheer on the marathoners.

Here are pics of the current state of our kitchen. We took it from electric blue/light blue faux finish with some white walls and a horrible sun/moon/stars border with blue-gray trim on the doors and windows to bright red with a black ceiling, updated light fixtures, and shiny white trim on the doors and windows. Next we'll get all new cabinets, appliances, build out a pantry and change the floor!

Happy running everyone, enjoy the pics!

Here are some before shots:

































And here is After - MUCH better!! It almost makes the really ugly cabinets semi-ok!