home improvement

The winter is a good time to get stuff done. Less daylight allows for less time outside which gives me more time to dislike the whitish coloring of the interior walls. I say whitish because they are more of a yellowish/brownish color because the previous owner was a bit of a smoker.

First, the kitchen. The dilemma: what color? Grey? Maybe. Blue. Maybe. Bright blue? No. Dark Blue? Well, if it's in the morning when there's plenty of light in the kitchen then yes, but at night, it will be way too dark so maybe not. Ok, what about something in the middle? Ok, great, but which middle hue of blue would you propose?

This dialog went on for longer than I care to admit. I have an irrational fear of choosing the wrong paint color - probably because I know the color is going to be around for a LONG time as painting is not on my list of "super fun things to do when I have time off".

Eventually, a color was chosen from a Lowe's paint chip and I went to Home Depot to go pick up some paint. News Flash - Home Depot and Lowe's do not have the same paint chips! Your eyes will trick you into picking the wrong color! You have been warned. So that's what I did, I brought home a gallon of paint that was WAY darker than I thought. Instead of going back to Home Depot to get them to lighten it up, I grabbed the leftover gallon of white paint that the previous owner had left in that garage and started dumping it in.

And this is what I got.


I can live with it.


In the near future, beadboard is going to be added as a pseudo blacksplash. I say pseudo because the real reason is to hide the giant gap between the counter and the wall that I discovered when I started pulling up the ugly trim. Oh, it IS there for a reason...huh. Weird.

The dining room (still without dining table) was a whole lot easier because: 1. Dave picked a palette of green that I didn't argue with and 2. I went to LOWE'S and gave them the correct paint chip of the chosen color.


I still have the living room and the giant hallway to go. I'm not even going to think about the bathrooms.

knoxiecross

The first of three Knoxiecross weekends is officially over!! No frostbite or anything! I tried my very, very hardest to avoid 'cross this year, but I really feel like I should support the local series and go suffer with everybody else. Last years 'cross season started way back in October with the MSG series in Bristol and Johnson City. But this year, house projects, prior committments, and just plain laziness got in the way. But better late than never, right?

Saturday saw varying degrees of rain and temps in the high 30's for most of the day. Sunday saw colder temperatures, but luckily the rain gods spared us...finally. I tell ya, Knoxville is paying the price for that amazing November weather!!

pictures were sparse from Saturday due to the rain, but you can see the effect the rain had on the course and my clothes.



After I crossed the finish line on Saturday, I was met with heckling and questions on why I was so clean. "What!?" I said, "I'm filty!" And I could not understand why anybody would think I was clean. Take a look at the picture though; I'm far and away the cleanest of the bunch. What did you people do, swim in the mud?







Although there was no rain on Sunday, there was still plenty of water and mud on the course. Actually since this was day two of racing the same course, the conditions got worse.

Walking aka sinking in this mud was not a pleasant experience. Nasty, nasty, nasty.


I figured it would be a good spot to take pictures until I realized that the racers had very little say-so in how they got down the hill. I chose being injury free over a good photo op, but here's one of Dave that I captured before I ducked into the brush.


Since I am a freak and seem to never get cold while riding, I was very comfortable during the races except for my frozen right foot. Somehow it got wet. Hmmm.