The Next Project

Moving along into summer, we've been enjoying yummy snap peas, and more fresh garden salads than I can count, the tomatoes are green and growing, I see my first pepper and the zucchini and bean plants are thriving. I think it might be one of our best gardens yet.

I have tried once or twice in the last two months to take up running. I don't know if you can even call it that, but 3 or 4 times in the last 6 weeks, I have moved my legs at a faster pace than a walk and worked up a high heart rate and the beginnings of a true sweat, resulting in sore legs the next day. One impediment to being more consistent is the fact that Gracie can't keep up with me! And this is me, one of the slowest runners in the world. I had a friend once tell me that I was the slowest runner she had ever run with (a great friend, really, just brutally and obliviously honest). And once, I ran a St Patrick's day run in Portland, and got passed by the walkers! Can't believe I just admitted that. Anyway, so I was shocked that I had to slow my pace and walk to wait for Gracie to catch up. So now she is my cool-down buddy. But I still find it hard (especially on work days) to make the time to do both (run and walk the dog). The upside to running here in the Willamette Valley of Eugene, is that it is blissfully flat. It is easier to get motivated to run if you don't have a daunting hill to dread or have to drive somewhere to run. So we'll see where this goes. I need to get Keith involved, especially now that we've entered a bit of a weight loss competition with my mom and dad(?). There. You are really committed now, mom.

Mom and Dad came down for a visit last week. I think they had a nice time. Since we don't own a house yet, they had no projects to work on for us, so I think they might have even gotten a little bored. We kept them busy though with strawberry picking, jam making, garage-saling, bike riding the river paths, a trip out to Fall Creek, playing Blokus (thanks Paul!) and lots of deliberation on a house we were deciding on purchasing.

We've been pretty pathetic about taking pictures lately. Even with my parents here. But here are a few from our hike along Fall Creek.

An interesting old dead tree.


Our lunch spot.


A very, very large wad of roots.


Gracie displaying her obsessive-compulsive disorder:


Did I say something about buying a house? Yep, it looks like we're heading that direction. The inspection/contingency period has passed, and the appraisal is done, so we are committed. It's a fixer for sure, which is what we've been looking for. It is not our dream home by any stretch, but should be a good investment. It sits in a reasonably good neighborhood, needs lots of updating inside (soooo 70's), and uh...yeah, the foundation needs to be leveled. Say what? Long story, but we got this house way under market in exchange for an "as-is" sale as Keith is quite sure he can do this work on his own for significantly less money than the $30K bid the owner was given. We shall see. It's your typical 1970's rambler, 3 bed/2 bath in a working/middle class neighborhood on a dead end street. It is a slight risk, but we are both excited to be owners again and to have home improvement projects again (I know....we're kind of weird that way...). Pictures will be up soon. We should close within a week or so.

In other news, we decided to save $60 and do Gracie's annual haircut ourselves. It didn't turn out half bad. Of course we didn't get a good before and after shot, but here is a scintillating action shot...she did not really enjoy the whole process.