Sunday, May 11, 2014

The post about a dank basement and a Happy Mother's Day


This is my dark and dank basement. That's a newer high efficiency furnace!
 
  • First, right off the top, my house has not been sold. There have been two return potential buyers that have come back with contractors to make a bid on the basement. Geez. People are acting like the house is inhabitable with the basement the way it is. It is damp and old. One hundred and twenty four years old to be exact. But it is not moldy and the foundation is not crumbling. I spoke to my real estate agent on Saturday and burst into tears because I am so stressed out right now. She was great in reassuring me that everything would be fine. She told me that she has sold homes with much worse basements than mine and that we will find a buyer for my house. My basement looks no different than the day I bought it. And even though we knew the basement was ugly, I fell in love with my house right away. We use the basement strictly for storage and my cat's toilet. It has never flooded. It is a cellar. And in my opinion, the pluses of my home far out weigh the negatives of the basement. This is a century home. They have dark, dank basements.
  • Yesterday my husband's Uncle John came by and started cleaning up the wiring in the basement. He put four additional lights in for me, started to remove the dead knob and tube wiring and installed an electrical outlet. The only outlet I had was attached to an old light fixture. The whole job cost me $22 (for electrical supplies). He won't take money from us. He's a saint that Uncle John. He'll be back in a couple of weeks to finish the job. And this has relieved a bit of my stress. Thank you Uncle John!
 
This is the second season that I can fit back into my maintenance spring/summer wardrobe.
 
  • The anxiety that I'm feeling right now has caused my eating and running to be off. I'm not eating well. And by not well, I mean not enough. I have gotten a few comments saying that I have lost some weight. That may be true, I haven't been on a scale in months. My pants are a touch looser. But I don't think there's a big change in the way I look. I'm not eating enough and drinking too much coffee. And my sleeping is completely effed up. I'm still going to bed by 10:30ish. Sometimes it's 11:30 before I get into bed. Either way, I still wake up between 3:30 and 4 am. That's when the coffee drinking happens and I wait around to run when the sun comes out. 
  • I've been running every other day. Not my strict 5 days per week like I do when I'm training. When I run, I think too much and thinking too much causes me anxiety. I just want to sell my house so I can get back to my regular routines. I feel like I'm in limbo right now. And my runs have been brutal. I was running much better before the Around the Bay 30K. I ran that at the end of March and even though it was much colder and snowy during training, I felt more confident then than I do now. I'm struggling and I'm sure it's due to anxiety. Hopefully things will get back to normal over the next couple of weeks and I can focus on training again.
  • I went to the chiropodist last week. They gave me temporary metatarsal pads for my orthotics. In theory, this is supposed to help with my crampy toes from the Morton's Neuroma. I ran in them on Saturday, and they came off! I'll have to go back this week and get them re-applied. I've had them on my orthotics before, but because they didn't immediately cure my issue, I gave up on them. They placed them in a spot they think will be most beneficial to me, but the jury's still out on whether or not they will help at all.

Mother's Day brunch a day early with my guy:-)

  • Let's change the direction of this post to a happier one shall we? Hoping all the mothers had a good day today. I celebrated Mother's Day over two days. It started on Saturday. We had to be out of our house for a 10am showing, so we went to have an early Mother's Day brunch. It wasn't crowded and we got to enjoy our meal without the chaos of crowds. It was a good decision. Eating out on Mother's Day is always a headache, and sometimes impossible to do because you just can't get a table.
  • Then today was celebration day number 2! We had to be gone by 11am for a showing. We went to my in-laws for the day. I got to spend the day with a bunch of special people. Although Mother's Day is a celebration of my relationship with my beautiful boy, it's also a day of reflection about the two women who have impacted my life the most. My adoptive mother and my birth mother. Both played pivotal roles in my life at different times. They have both passed on. And even though I miss them and think of them every single day, my memories keep them alive. They are always in my heart:-) xxx

Some snaps from today. A family pic, my sister-in-law, Julien's gift to me.