And it works too!

I am a Rock

I am an Island.

Let there be light

And it was Good.

Piano Room (New House Top Ten)

This is the second of ten in a series of the Top Ten things I am most looking forward to in our new House.

The Piano Room is a 14x15 room just to left of our front entrance. Now, some people may simply call this a Living Room, or a Den, or whatever -- but we have included this room in our design specifically to hold a Piano -- and not just any random piano, but a 1909 Steinway Baby Grand.

My father-in-law has been in possession of a family heirloom piano -- and told us quite some time ago, that once we have room for the piano, we are welcome to have it. Now we may not be able to acquire it right away -- it will definitely require some professional piano movers, and since it has not been actively played for several years, it will probably need some rehabilitation.

So, I guess, it is the Piano itself I am looking forward to, not necessarily the Room, but the Room represents the necessary space for being able to accept this beautiful instrument into our family.

Aspirations 2011

So, its time for another year, and another set of resolutions. Some will be carried over from last year -- since I failed in 2010, better make another stab at them this year.

• Still Blogged Down: So, last year, I had set a goal to write a post at least once a week. I knew early on in the year, that I wasn't going to achieve that, but I kept thinking that I was way ahead of my 2009 pace. But when I went to Grade myself on this Resolution, I discovered that I had only gone from 24 posts in 2009 to 28 posts in 2010. So, this one is being carried over to 2011 -- To write at least one blog post per week.
  


• Speed 2: The time and energy I spent on the new House has kept me from doing much running in 2010, so I am pretty much carrying over all my running goals to 2011:
  
  
  
  • Qualify for the top-seeded starting group for the 500 mini-marathon: I have qualified for the second group (Coral B) two years in a row, still trying to get into A.
  
  
  • Complete at least 3 Half-Marathons and at least 4 full Marathons
  
  
  • Run a Half-Marathon in under 90 minutes: My personal best is still the year I ran the 2009 500 mini in 96 minutes, but my pace basically got slower and slower throughout 2010
  
  
  • Run a full Marathon in under 3.5 hours: I actually haven't quite managed to break the 4 hours block yet (best time was 4 hours and 21 seconds).
    
  
  
• Sorting Hat: Time to get organized. I actually started trying to type an explanation of why and what needs to be organized, but realized that will likely be an entire blog post unto itself (perhaps even a series of posts). Suffice it to say that all things, physical and digital, will have their place, and be accessible without disorganizing something else.
  

In case you're actually comparing this with Last Year's goals, you'll notice a couple of other failed 2010 resolutions that I have decided not to carry over. First was our new Home -- Since we did actually get a good start on the new house, and we're only a couple months away from completion, although I can't consider it a complete success for 2010, it would probably be a bit cheating to make it a goal for 2011, since so much of the work is already done. Secondly, I had a goal of keeping us under our medical deductible for 2010. Not only did this not occur, but there is a 90% chance that Christopher is going to need another procedure late this spring (probably once the school year is complete), which will include an average 5 day post-op recovery in the hospital. That alone will probably blow our deductible this year -- so I am not even going to attempt to stress over that this year.

Aspirations 2010 Report Card

Back in January, I posted my Resolutions. For the details on what each Goal was, see the original post. This is where I grade myself on how well I did. I almost hate to post this, because its going to make for a lousy report card, but here it is.

Blogged Down: Well, I haven't even come close to posting once a week, having had several multi-week gaps between posts. I have posted 28 posts this year, giving me an average of 0.54 posts per week. I especially slacked on including technology-centric posts. And this only represented a slight increase from 2009.
Grade: D

On the House: Well, financing was a challenge in itself, but we did finally get a construction loan this summer, and were able to break ground in late August. We haven't finished yet, in fact we're still at least another 6-8 weeks away from being done. But looking at the wording of this Goal in the original post, I didn't actually state that we would finish the new house this year, so I can't call this a big failure.
Grade: B

Health Nuts: Well, up until this Autumn, we were on pace to stay under our medical deductible this year, then Christopher had some setbacks that resulted in a couple of ER visits, a brief stay in the hospital, and a procedure, and that was pretty much the end of the deductible.
Grade: F

Ramming Speed: As work began on the house, the amount of time (and energy) I had available to Run continued to diminish, so I fell short of all of my running goals --
Seeding: Still stuck in level 2.
3 Halves and 4 Fulls: Ran the IU Circle of Life Half Marathon, 500 festival Mini-Marathon, the Geist Half Marathon, and the Sunburst Marathon this spring, but only ran the Monumental Half Marathon this Fall. Making for a total of 4 Halves, but only 1 Full this year.
Half under 90: No joy here. All my times in 2010 got continually slower as the year progressed. My personal best, from 2009, still stands at just under 96 minutes.
Full under 3.5: I only ran the one Full marathon this year, and wasn't really in shape for it -- took me almost 5 hours.
Grade: D

Overall Grade: D

Plumb Start

Well, I am still working on HVAC, but the plumbers finally got started.



The trick is to keep the house warm enough long enough for the pipe solvent (glue) to cure. Once they get all the drain lines, the supply lines should be fairly easy.