mpm again

Totally slacked last week, so here we go:

Monday - spaghetti w/ turkey sauce
Tuesday - eat out w/ Aunt Linda & Uncle Gene
Wednesday - game night, no cooking
Thursday - Brian cooks - stir fry
Friday - take out - Olive Garden minestrone

me...a runner?

Remember the days when I would talk incessantly about my weight loss? Well, I've been maintaining that loss for about a year and a half now, and I'm about ready to try and lose the last 20 lbs. I need something NEW to do...and over the last month, as I've been walking (occasionally), I've noticed that I can run for 3-4 minutes at a time. I've NEVER been able to do that before.

So, after talking to one of my Kindermusik moms, I've decided that I'm going to try running. I'm going to do this program called Couch to 5K. And I'm starting today. It doesn't look too horribly hard...but we'll see about that now, won't we? Wish me luck!

*Edited to add: OK, I did it. 5 minute brisk walk for a warm-up, then alternating 60 seconds of running with 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes. Sound easy? Try it - it's SO not easy! After the 3rd time running, I thought, "I'm going to die." After the 4th time, I thought, "Now it's worse." And then it got SLIGHTLY easier. I ended with a 5 minute brisk walk cool down for a total of 30 minutes. And I feel great - now, let's make this a habit!*

julie, this is for you

A few weeks ago, my wonderful friends Rob & Julie came to Orlando for Children's Pastors Conference. I used to work with them at Brentwood-Benson. Anyway, this is the third year in a row that I met them for dinner when they were here! It's always such a fun, enjoyable time, and I love catching up on all the gossip from the office. Here we are this year:

And here we are last year (check out Rob! He's lost 104 pounds!):

And here we are the year before(2006):


Let's see. I still need to update about Valentine's Day and stuff like that, but for now, I'll leave you with a few scrapbook projects! I've been a fiend lately! Have a great week, everyone.

mpm; shower update

Real quick, just planning the menu for this week.

Monday - coconut chicken
Tuesday - veggies, mac & cheese
Wednesday - game night, no cooking
Thursday - Valentine's Day - roast w/ red potatoes & carrots
Friday - veggie soup from leftover roast

In other news, our shower is finally coming along. We're still sleeping in the dining room and stuff is still all over the house. But this morning, we got the new shower floor put in. It's a pre-fab floor, so no more tiles leaking!! Monday evening the tile guy is coming over to do the tile. He's also going to do ceramic tile on the bathroom floor - I'm SO thrilled about that!! I will update with a picture soon. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

the mold

OK, here are the pictures of what took place in our bedroom/bathroom on Saturday. The mold was behind the tiles in the shower. It was also all over the liner of the shower pan (the orange plastic you see in the pictures). We are getting a whole new shower! Yay!

Here's a picture from our bedroom side - we cut some holes in the drywall first to see if there was mold in there. There wasn't, thankfully. You can see all the way through to the shower here.

As soon as we took off the first tile, we found the mold. See how the bottom is black? You can also see how wet it was behind the tile. AND - we hadn't turned the water on in this shower for 2 weeks!! It was still that wet! Gross!

Here's when we got a bunch of the tiles off the wall. You can see the orange liner and how moldy it is on the bottom. Water was just sitting in there. It came through a tiny hole in the grout. (I think there was more than one hole!)


Aaahhhhhhh, our shower in pieces. Gotta love it!

Brian shows off the mold.

Eventually, the glass door and glass walls had to come out, along with the entire shower frame. Apparently, there was a ton of gross water inside part of the shower frame. Yuck!! Our new shower is going to be so wonderful! :-)


We are SO grateful to our wonderful friend Pete for all his help! We would not have been able to do this without him. I can't even tell you how much money he is saving us! Thanks, Pete! :-)

In other news, the cats are rather enjoying the bed being in the dining room:

And Sam is loving the dresser drawers on the guest bed:

Yep, nearly everything in the house is displaced right now, but - I'm sure we'll survive. Somehow! Ha!

man, i need to update

Sorry, this is all I have time for right now! :P

Monday - Italian stuffed shells (Dream Dinners)
Tuesday - chicken tacos
Wednesday - game night, no cooking
Thursday - Brian's night to cook, Boca Burgers
Friday - leftovers (chili and or chicken tacos)

The mold project is underway. Our bedroom and master bath are a complete mess. The stuff that goes in those rooms is displaced in all different places in the house. I have pictures...I will try to upload them soon. It's really yucky!

Instead of in the drywall, the mold was behind the shower tiles, and so we have torn apart the shower. The door and window of the shower are out in the yard - there was mold all inside the metal casings and everywhere. Truly disgusting. We are getting a new shower. I will explain more later - but thankfully, the mold was not on the wood in the walls. Yay!

Off to bed. I have an early day tomorrow! I promise to update with more than menus very soon!