All you can eat buffet

Today, after spending the day working from home because MEC was complaining of a tummy ache I hoped on my bike a bit earlier than usual and set up outside to get some evening coolness.

35 min into the workout, dripping in sweat I noticed that a couple of mosquitos are feasting on me. I go back in and realize that I was really an all you can eat buffet for mosquitos.

Now I have a sore legs from too much excercize, a bruise the size of a small pancakes and 15 mosquito bite.... yes you read correctly 15!

B has been doing some pest control and has smacked a few mosquito who decided to enter the premises...

Now I'm completely baked, not too sure how I'm going to pull off the 45min run tomorrow followed by the 75min ride on thursday! I have to say though it feels good although I did feel miserable for a little bit!

Boy's room

I would say that it is much much easier to find ideas to decorate a girl's room than it is to decorate a boy's room. MAC had some idea to paint the walls of his room gray and orange or red. However I'm not ready for a total dark cave just yet. He is just starting second grade! He did mention that he would like something new because the helicopter and planes I painted for him when we moved in were a bit "babyish" now.

So I have been really trying to wrap my head around different ideas. First of all he is a very prolific artist but we don't really have a good place to hang easily the art du jour! I was thinking that maybe I could play with some magnetic paint and make some big circles or squares in bright colors for him to display his art and such.

I was also playing with the idea of a mural. But then again his tastes in subject is changing constantly and I'm not ready to invest in painting something big if it will be old by the time I'm

done. Although I have to say I saw a picture of a Napoleon Dynamite mural that was fantastic looking... if you like Napoleon Dynamite.

So with all those ideas twirling in my head and spending quite some time on choosing fabric for the other girly one I decided to start by looking for some fabric to update the curtain. That would help me decide on a color scheme and then we could go from there.

A little bit ago green was my son's favorite color but not anymore, he wants black and orange. Finding this combination a bit too harsh I settled for a dark gray and orange. Dark gray cotton curtain would be great at blocking the light not blackout lining needed and orange would be a nice burst of colors.

Trying to add a little fun into the whole project I was looking for a print of some kind not to girlish and going with this whole color scheme.

This is what caught my eye. I thought it would be nice as an accent to the dark gray cotton. When I consulted B for his opinion he was not very enthusiastic saying that it was not boy enough. MAC plainly rejected the idea. He wanted a "plain old orange" fabric and nothing with circle or dots nonsense.

So I had to chose something less exciting but more to the taste of my little boy

So here we are dark gray curtain with some plain old orange accents. Again in this room the walls will be light colored probably a light tan or sand or offwhite of some kind.

I may try my hand on some spray paint and upgrade the fan in that room since we are not making any progress in replacing the darn thing. Then I'm not too sure what will be next.

All the fabric as been bought and I will be sewing some curtains very soon....

Girl's room

So the kiddos have been asking for their own room. They have been sharing a room since babies but now they would like their own space. On one hand it is hard because we want them to continue to be close and chat at night before going to bed on the other hand I have been antsy to redecorate their room and the guest bedroom/sewing room which has been empty for a while now.

The first step was to sell the futon. Today I made the next step, chosing fabric for their curtains. By chosing the fabric we also settled on a color scheme....

For MEC's room I did have my heart settled on some Annie Selke fabric found at Joann's.

I was going to use both fabric to make a curtain. I was inspired by several posts seen on makeit and loveit blog http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2010/07/decorate-my-home-part-20-gathered-top.html and http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2010/02/decorate-my-home-part-10-gathered.html. After measure the windows I realized that 34$/yard would be a bit costly. The second post reminded me of how much I love Amy Butler's fabric and how daring she is in mixing and matching crazy patterns together.

So after browsing www.fabrics.com site I stumbled upon these fabric from the midwest modern 2 collection.

After consulting Amy Butler's website for ideas of what to use as a second fabric I settled on the following two.

MEC decided on the squiggly... If it is a bit too busy I will order the dots.

With so much colors on the windows we will probably stay pretty simple with the wall color. I'm imagining something off white maybe a tad sandy will be nice.

Once this first part of the project is done, I will probably try to make some comforter cover and some floor pillows.

The other part of this room which is a bit troubling is the big big window onto the first floor of the house. We are currently toying with the idea of a wood shutter that would add privacy to this room without completely removing the appeal of the window. If we were going to go that route we could play with some idea to have a big magnetic board or something.... More to come soon I hope. However in the mean time lots of cleaning up to do and figuring out where to stash the sewing stuff and the remaining books!

To the rescue...

So to help me accomplish my goals of riding 56M at a decent pace in 4 weeks I decided to crawl back to my coach. After a short email exchange I decided that if it was OK with her for me not to race and to keep the training at about 6-8H00 per week I would re-hire her. Frankly 4 months with no Lesley have left me running a 5M at a 12min/miles pace in major pain.

Today from 4:30-6:30pm (not an early riser) was back on the saddle, and 2h00 riding with 4 Torrey Pines hill repeats. I managed 3, didn't do the last one because the back of my knee were painful. Tomorrow morning will be 1:30 mountain biking session and then we are back to a normal training schedule with some running and some biking. I'm giddy with excitement at the challenge. My main goal is to stick to the program as much as possible and do it as long as possible. We will see where it takes me.

I even got new running shoes and then are white and purple!!!! Goody honestly I would have preferred a hot hot pink!

Crazyness

I know I know long time no post... but I have been struggling with the whole posting thing. But here I am again.

Earlier this week I accepted to do something a bit crazy. I signed up for the bike leg of a half ironman. Yup that's right I volunteered to race the 56M of the bike leg of a half ironman in no less than 4 weeks! I'm out of shape because as soon as I stopped training with Lesley well I stopped training and thus I did lose about 99% of the fitness I have been sweating hard to gain over the last year. Today running 1h00 is painful and hard!

So I dusted the cobweb off my trainer, and i put my workout clothe on and well I hoped on the trainer at 8:45pm. I didn't do a hard workout I just did a little spinning at moderate intensity and now I feel GOOD! The joy of working out....

Please if stay tune for more report on that journey. In the meantime I will enjoy my dinner and a glass of wine.