[Wednesday 9/26: 3 miles with track workout; Saturday 10/01: 6 miles; Monday 10/3: 3.2 miles]
Our flooring guys finished up a week ago and I have re-installed baseboard in the guest bedroom and the office. I need to apply caulking and paint. That pretty much consumed the useful remains of the old baseboard, so I also need to procure some new stuff for the hallways, living room and master bedroom. Also I’ll be doing shoe molding in the closets and the sunroom. We are really enjoying the new floor. The house feels much more homey.
I’ve been doing track workouts on Wednesday evenings over in Starkville. I believe my work so far is on track to put me back in the same performance level as I had at the Iowa games last summer. I would like to say I’m 10 lbs lighter, but that isn’t happening.
I’ve joined a software development group at work and that’s a new experience writing production software. I finished my first “sprint” today and was able to get a small project completed. I hope to catch up and be useful. I understand that I will probably go into another group when they are ready.
Our church is searching for a new pastor. While we were in Iowa the former guy went on to a different position. We aren’t plugged into any kind of leadership role, so I don’t really know what is happening. But that is ok. I’ve been through the pastor search process twice, once in Des Moines and once in Estes Park. It is kind of a harrowing experience. The church does have good leadership and I expect them to find a good person for the position.
I’m working on a couple of other home improvements projects. We have hedges on the east and west sides of the house. They’ve grown up much too large. So the east ones I drastically cut back over the course of the summer. I did them one or two at a time, reducing them to stumps. And they’ve sprung back. The stumps have all sorts of little shoots on them. Now I need to tackle the even bigger bushes on the west.
I was pretty sure they would grow back. I have one bush I have tried very hard to kill and it keeps coming back. I cut it off well below ground level and it just came right back up. The leaves on the new growth on that one are different, leading me to think they had a root stock and a growth stock grafted together. So for these others, I didn’t cut them back that far.
The other project is to put in a patio in the front of the house. We have a front “porch” which is really just a small extension of the slab beyond the front wall. We have a sidewalk which goes straight out from the front door and then turns right to the driveway. So we have a square of grassy area enclosed by wall, porch and sidewalk. I want to get that all filled in with some kind of plant impervious substances. Right now the plan is to pour a series of sidewalk blocks of concrete, each about 15″x30″. I poured the 2nd block tonight. I plan to have some strips of decorative brick in there also.
But the #1 house project is to get the baseboards in and finished.