Friday, December 10, 2010

King, queen, rook, bishop, knight and pawn...

I completed a 5K this morning... okay, it was on a treadmill in the gym in my building, but still -- 5K is 5K. (And 5K is actually not that far -- just 3.1 miles. So "5K" sounds more impressive... :)) I think I've figured out that the best time to go down to the gym is right around 8:30 or 9 -- that's right after all the "before work" exercisers have left, and right before the "close to lunch hour" exercisers show up. In fact, the gym is usually empty when I arrive, and then a few people will start showing up as I get to the middle of my workout. I really prefer to work out alone, lest anyone make fun of the girl (who is clearly not a runner) attempting to run on the treadmill... but I can't be picky right now...

I definitely needed to get in a workout this morning, because I spent the evening at Eric's place last night making Christmas cookies... although to my credit, I did not sample one single cookie while I was baking. I didn't even eat one after I'd whipped up some buttercream frosting and started the all-important Christmas-cookie-decorating process. I had amazing restraint, if you ask me. Because I make some GOOD Christmas cookies. (I did, however, accidentally eat one for breakfast. Hey, it was only one! And then I went right downstairs and worked it off on the treadmill! :))

So tomorrow we're checking out a few condos for rent, in the hopes that we can ditch this tiny little apartment and move to a place with a little breathing room. This apartment really isn't that bad, but we seem to have a couple issues -- one is the fact that Rick works from home now, and this "home" doesn't have anything even slightly resembling an office. We don't even have a table. We do have a coffee table, but it's really not conducive to work -- it's too low... you'd have to sit on the floor. This is something I discovered myself this week, as I was attempting to complete some freelance proofreading work -- I'm used to having a big desk or table where I can scatter paper in a rather haphazard (yet completely logical) fashion while I work. Here, I had to juggle everything on the couch (at one point accidentally dropping all 100 pages on the floor by the end table), and it felt a bit disorganized... Rick has the same problem... plus, as I've already mentioned, I can't use any of our insanely loud appliances while Rick is on the phone...

The other issue is our adorable little fuzzball Riff. I really DO think he's adorable, but this cat is driving me crazy. If I make any sort of move toward the kitchen, that cat is immediately up on the counter to investigate. Cooking is nearly impossible unless Rick corrals Riff and keeps him out of the kitchen. I never had this problem in our old house, so I have to assume that Riff is really, really bored because there's not a lot to keep him occupied here... so he likes to expend energy by jumping up on the kitchen counters... (And my counter space here, by the way, is about the size of a chess board... I have a chess-board sized space in which to work, and that cat is constantly yelling, "checkmate!!")

So we'll see what we find tomorrow -- hopefully I'll be posting another photo tour in the not-too-distant future... 

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