Pictures of our hard work!

As a refresher, here's what the back of the house looked like .... and this was taken while the house was on the market. There's a picture below that shows how tall most of the stuff growing around the porch had gotten. Oh, and take notice of the huge evergreen tree/shrub on the far left of the picture...

Yeah, we finally went ahead and cut that tree down! Now we just have to get some grass to grow, and pull the stump out. (All after we rake all of the leaves that are falling like crazy now!) Next spring/summer we'll continue working on the "beds," if you can call them that, around the porch. I hope that this time next year, the picture of this same space will really start to look like a nice, manicured yard, instead of the crazy overgrown mess we bought into!

Ok, so I'd be lying if I said we both spent equal amounts of time on the porch and back yard this year. Well, I focused mainly on pulling out bushes and other "landscaping" while Joe spent way more time than I did working on the porch. Phase 1 is done (yes, it's now a multiple phase project!), which means that all of the wood supports have been torn down, rebuilt and stained, the porch has been screened, the ceiling has been pulled down and carpet (for now) has been laid. What's left, you might ask? We need to rehang the ceiling fan, which will require some rewiring, installing the new ceiling, and finishing some exterior trim pieces that just don't fit right. We initially wanted to lay tie , but for the time being decided to go with cheap outdoor carpet to make it look more finished. I'm also really excited about our new doggie door - it's doing a great job at keeping most of the falling leaves out of the porch!

Here's a view from the kitchen door of the porch. My camera ran out of batteries before I could take more pictures, but you can get the idea. And yes, every single one of the vertical wood supports were replaced. The only thing Joe left was the header...

The old porch.... (note how crazy the overgrowth is around the corner of the porch! It seriously looked like a jungle out there!)

So that's where we stand. And yes I do still need to post pictures of the bathroom, but I wouldn't say it's anything incredibly exciting. We're still hoping to find the time and money to actually redo it in the future, so we're not putting much into that space right now.

What's next, you might ask? Well, this winter we are thinking about rearranging the basement to do a partial finish of the space that doesn't get wet when it rains. Around here finishing basements into a "loft style" space has become quite popular and is rather economical. People aren't putting up ceilings; rather, they're painting the joists, subfloor and other stuff above, installing track lights, then laying inexpensive carpet, put up a couple of walls and voila! a new basement rec room. Someone in the past had done even less of a finish down there, but there are electrical outlets, along with all of our new basement windows that we had put in earlier this year. So we're going to explore this option as another space for us to hang out this winter.

Ok, I lied

I forgot to take my camera home last night. Regardless, I wouldn't have captured much, since it was dark by the time I actually got home. Today, the camera's already in my purse, so I will take pics and post them!

We finally got word that the pictures taken at the half marathon last weekend are online, so I'm going to sort through them and see if I can't find any of us. For those who didn't know, Joe, our friend Kyle, Ashley, Mikael and I ran a half marathon last weekend. It was the first one for all of us, and I think we all did quite well! Our finishing times for the 13.1 miles around Kansas City ranged from 2 hours, 14 minutes to my 2 hours, 35 minutes. I don't care how slow it was, I was amazed that I finished at all, especially since I hadn't run in the two weeks leading up to the race, due to being sick.

Now Joe, Kyle and I are training for the Disney World Marathon in January.... 26.2 miles is WAAAY longer and scarier than 13, so we're going to be running non stop to get ready for that race!

What have we been up to?

Wow, I knew it had been awhile since I'd posted, but didn't realize just how long ago my last post was!

Since then, Joe and I have been focusing primarily on two things - finishing the screened porch, and training for various sporting events. After volunteering at a triathlon in mid July, I decided it was time for me to try one. I signed up for the Olathe Medical Center's Women's Only Triathlon, on Sept.13, thinking it would be a great first race and give me a few months to train. They only offered one length, a sprint, which consists of a 500 meter swim, 13 mile bike ride and a 2.6 mile run. No big deal! I started training right away, and managed to stay with it right through the end.

The night before the race we had crazy storms, torrential downpour and even a tornado near the area where the race was to be held! It continued to rain all night, and when Joe and I got up at 5 to head to the race, it was still looking ominous. (Ok, who's kidding who - that early in the morning, we couldn't see anything... but we could tell the rain hadn't cleared the area!) Joe and Kyle were planning on volunteering to support me and the others who had ventured out for the late season race. Once I got my transition area all set up, it started to pour again. 30 minutes before the race, the race director decided to cancel the bike portion, due to the weather. We went ahead with the swim then proceeded directly to the run, which had lots of standing water on the course. My times in both event were far less than stellar, but my finish time was average, and hey, at least I did it! I hope to keep racing in 2009 as I really enjoyed the training and think I would have had a much better feeling about the race had the weather not imposed.

We have finished part 1 of rebuilding the porch, which looks quite nice. I will take the camera home tonight to take pictures, esp. since I spent most of yesterday cleaning the house! Joe came home, noticed how nice it was to have everything clean, and we vowed to work much harder and cleaning up a little every day so I don't have to spend hours and hours cleaning on my day off!