While browsing pinterest I fell in L-O-V-E with this idea of turning a coat closet into a ‘mini-mudroom’…

Idea & Photos from http://www.housetweaking.com/

I excitedly shared this idea with Mike and let him know we would in fact be doing this. He was thrilled, I’m sure.

Mike recently got a new TV for the Man Cave and this monstrosity was too big for the TV stand we had there. So I suggested we re-use the entertainment center for this new ‘mini-mudroom’ I wanted. How, you ask? Patience my friend.

Here are some ‘before’ of the closet.

The first step was cleaning it out. Done. Next I needed Mike to wire it up so we could hang the mini chandelier I had in mind. He’s such a good hubs.

After that I had to patch up some holes and touch up a little paint. Easy peasy.

Next we had to move the HEAVY entertainment center upstairs and into the closet. I had wrongly assumed this would be easy. Not so much… It didn’t quite fit easily.

So Mike had to take part of it off, move it, put it back together. All while being shushed from me not to wake up the baby. Shhhhhhh! You’re gonna wake Miles up!! Gosh, I’m a pain in the rear. But he did it!

It’s not totally finished, but I couldn’t wait to share it. It still needs a few more hooks and a mirror that will go on the white space where the tv would technically go.

What little house projects have you embarked on? Wanting to embark on any?

I mentioned last week I put a 10 mile race on the calendar. Well it’s time to recap the sorry week of training I just had.

I had good intentions, really I did. But then Monday night I woke up puking. TMI. This carried over into Tuesday and Wednesday I just felt totally run down still.

The 5k on Saturday went decent despite last week’s not-so-great progress. And today I was happy to get in my 4 mile run that I should have done yesterday. I also decided to do 40 lunges which I’m already regretting. My legs feel so tired. Hopefully they recover before tomorrow’s 5-miler. One day at a time…

Friendly reminder — please vote for me in the Mom Central Blogger Grant Contest. I’m wavering around the top 15 and need your votes! Only a few more weeks of voting, please help a gal out!!! You can vote once every 24 hours.

I’ll admit, I am NOT a hardcore weather runner. We own a treadmill and it goes to really good use November through March. But alas, Ohio blessed us with beyond brisk temps this morning and we were registered for a 5k in Avon.

We started our day a half hour late, always great for race day. Luckily I had pre-packed all of Miles’ gear and food and we jumped into some running duds, grabbed the baby and were off. We did a quick drop off at Nate & Brittany’s (THANKS GUYS!!!) and then headed over to the race. It was super convenient that they live 5 minutes from the race location.

Getting out of the toasty warm car was painful, but we went for it. Did a quick jog to and from the bathroom as our warmup and then ran into running buddies for a quick catch up before the race.

Mike got to see his bromance, ManChild… the significant other of Jess. We also got to see Mollyberries and introduce her to Jess IRL for the first time. Love when social media and real life meet!

I also finally got to meet Raymond! Raymond and Molly used to work together and I’ve been reading his tweets for what seems like forever and we have never actually met! Check that one off the list!

The race was cold, the wind sliced right through everything. The worst part of the race was about .3 miles into it both of my shoes came untied. BOTH! I totally forgot to double knot them and my hands were SO cold it took me a good 45 seconds to get them retied! Such a bummer!

Even with the shoe incident I tried to make up some time on mile one. I secretly was hoping to break 30 minutes today and wanted to run 9:30 miles to ensure I met my goal. I came across mile 1 at 9:03. Mile 2 sort of flew by since the faster runners were coming back by us. I got to cheer on all my runner buddies since I’m the slow one of the group. I have some seriously fast friends! I came across mile 2 with a 9:10 mile. I was feeling decent and knew I just needed to hang tight at my pace or even a little slower to reach my goal. I finished with my last 1.1 miles in 10:01 with a total time of 28.14 — good enough for 12th in my age group and 133rd overall. I know you fast runners probably scoff, but I’m really proud of this. Yes, back in the day I’d run 5k in 21-23 minutes but those days are gone and I just have to be happy with what I’ve got going on now.

All my running buddies did so great today! Mike PRed his 5K with a time of 22:56. I may have mentioned before, but Mike is not a runner by nature but has really gotten into it the past few years. I have a feeling he is just beginning to tap into his running potential.

And special shout out to my best buddy Molly who PRed with a blazing time of 19:47 and was the first female finisher!!! I am so proud of her! She’s currently training for the Boston Marathon and rockin’ it. Read her recap of today here.

Though it was freezing today I am so glad we got out of bed and did the race. Starting your weekend with a 5k really puts things on the right track. Good job to all the runners today, and those of you doing your own thing too!

Last night was Twestival, which I mentioned a few weeks ago.

And I learned a lot of things. So rather than write an eloquent post recapping last night… Here’s my rundown…

• Social Media Rocks – I was in tshirt table exile and I sent out an SOS tweet asking for visitors. Low and behold Chrissy promptly showed up and entertained me. She rocks.
• The social media and blogger scene in Cleveland is incredible. We raised $2k last night for We Run This City.
• Speaking of WRTC — what an amazing organization! Seriously cool. They are helping 750+ kids train and run the Cleveland 10k and half marathon!
• lzone is just as pretty, if not prettier, in person as I thought. And she’s totally awesome too.
• AMP 150 is one of the best restaurants in Cleveland. I was too busy to get anything to eat last night but the food I saw everyone else chowing on looked delish!
• Alexa is one of my new favorite people. Not only does her blog rock, but she does too. I even got a photo with her. We’re cute.

• I simply cannot function in heels anymore. I didn’t think the day would come but working from home has ruined me. After about 2 hours I wanted to cry and crawl into a pair of flats.
• I’m glad I’m not in sales. I was in charge of selling the tshirts and my sales skills are not top notch. Luckily for me, the tshirts sold themselves because they were awesome. Thanks CLE Clothing Co!

• People go crazy for raffle baskets. I saw some peeps dropping some serious dough! I guess I can see why though, the prize baskets were AWESOME!

• I LOVE CLEVELAND! Yes, I know I live in Vermilion but dammit I am part of Cleveland too. You all rock.

Have a great weekend all! And for those of you running the Sole to Soul 5K tomorrow in Avon, I’ll see ya there! Bundle up!

Is it even cool to say that anymore? I think it’s played out probably, but I’m going to keep saying it. Well, I got my hair did today.

I go back and forth between brown and some highlights. I have been on a little highlight kick this past year since Miles has been born. When trying to lose baby weight you’ll do almost anything else to make yourself feel ‘pretty’. Here’s the thing though… I like highlights on myself sometimes, but I really like my natural super dirty blonde color so it’s always a toss up. Well I discovered recently the ‘ombre’ trend. Yes, this has been around for a while but since I live in Ohio I claim it was slow getting here. (Really, I’m just behind the times). Well ‘ombre’ seemed right up my ally.

Ombre is basically a gradient… from dark to light roots to tip, usually. There are some extreme versions like this…

But I wanted something a little more subtle like this…

Or this…

Ask and you shall receive. Lindsay at Don Frank Salon in Vermilion did a fabulous job! It’s there, but not glaring. Plus, the top is now my natural color so no stress over keeping up on highlights! Music to a working mom’s ears!

So, what say you? You likely? What trends have you tried on your hair? Did you love it or hate it?