Diggin’ It- Life Edition

Wowsers.  This week has been busy.  I’m too lazy to pester Nate and Ike for their weekly favorites so we’ll bring that back next.  Today I’ll share with you awesome things happening in our lives.  Most of the photos are from Instagram.  If you don’t Instagram it, it didn’t happen.

I added some fall goodness to the front entry.  I should photograph the whole thing but the darn Boxelder bugs swarm our front door and will not die.

The fall colors in our town are quite stunning this year.  This was taken on our nightly walk.

It’s also harvest time. I love the Midwest.

You want to know another reason why I love the Midwest?  Tenderloins bigger than your head.  Lyndsay had no clue what the following masterpiece was.  I didn’t realize that pork tenderloins were a Midwest only type of thing.  I don’t know how one lives without the pork tenderloin in their life.

Speaking of food (this post has some focus issues), I have a deep love for pumpkin this fall.  I’ve never been a huge pumpkin fan before.  But this fall.  This is the fall that I only shove pumpkin…and tenderloins in my mouth.  Like these pumpkin chocolate chip muffins I made last Sunday.  And yes, I am going to have to up my workout routine.  Doh.

Eating reminds me of the kitchen.  Ike was concerned that we would never be finished tiling the kitchen backsplash.  It was a valid concern.  No worries little buddy, the tile is now up waiting for grout on Sunday!  Lots of kitchen posts coming up soon…ish.  If I can get my blogging act together.

Speaking of Ike, he just wants to say “hi” and he hopes you have a happy week-end!

How are the fall colors in your area?  Have you had a tenderloin? Could you live without them?  (It just seems wrong.)  How about pumpkin?  Who’s pumped to see this backsplash that has taken us four years to install?

The Color Run- Tips

I made a New Year’s Resolution way back in the beginning of this ol’ year of 2012…If you are invited to do something.  Do it.  Unless you have a legitimate excuse.  New Girl premiere.  Not legit.  Work. Legit.

Why this resolution?  Because I am 110% an introvert.  And good at math.  People suck energy out of me.  I don’t want it to be this way.  But it is.  I needed an extra push to get me out of the house.  Luckily most of my friends are extroverts so this resolution works out nicely.

When one of my favorite people in life called me in May and told me that I needed to sign up for The Color Run in Des Moines in October, I did it.  After some hesitation.  Maybe I’ll have something important going on in October.  What if it’s cold?  What is I don’t train enough?  It is a 5K.  I can totally just sign up later if needed.  My friend swore to me that it would sell out fast and I needed to do it.  She was right.

So. Much. Fun.

We started the day in our nice and clean white shirts.  We being Nate’s sister (Lisa), one of my favorite people in the world (Melissa) and myself.

It was 44 degrees at 1:00PM.  There were 27,000 people racing.  You know, the entire state of Iowa.  I don’t do cold or crowds and yet I still had fun.  I think the massive amount of people helped raise the air temperature a bit.

We were released in waves of 1000.  So many people.  Obviously cool things need to keep coming to Iowa because we come out of the woodwork for this stuff.

At each kilometer were splashed with powder.  The powder is colored corn starch.  Completely safe.  This is what the first kilometer color site looked like.  Ooo, orangey.

Oh hey, Nate! Thanks for being our personal photographer.

The blue was really pretty.  As was the race course.

As were we after a couple of kilometers of The Color Run.

We ran jogged most of the 5K.  There were so many people that it would have been extremely hard to run the entire race.  I’d say about 70% of people walked the whole thing.  If you want a serious 5K, The Color Run probably isn’t your best bet.  We walked through each color station.  The people that ran through the stations had very little color on them at the end.  What fun is that?

At the end there is a big ol’ explosion of color.  At the beginning of the race you are given a packet of color to save until the end and then there is a countdown to throw the color in the air.  Very cool.

At the end we took a bunch of nerdy photos…

Moral of this story…introverts, get out of your house!!

I do have some tips for those planning on running The Color Run or pondering it.

• If The Color Run is coming to your city…or state…do it!!
• Sign up for the first wave if possible.  There is so much anticipation of what is to come. If you’re in the second wave you already see how the first runners look, what the end color explosion looks like, etc.
• If you live in Iowa, have many different white shirts options.  I am still freezing.  I will not be warm again until June 2013.
• You many notice bandanas in the pictures.  There were quite helpful on reducing the amount of corn starch inhaled.
• Have your husband photograph. 
• Wear sunglasses.  I can only imagine how much fun corn starch to the eye is.
• I mentioned before that most people walked.  Anyone can do this.  There were even kids in strollers….most were screaming sad screams though…so there’s that.

Have you ran The Color Run?  Do you plan to?  Any fellow introverts trying to make it amongst the energy sucking extroverts?

Behind the Couch Feelings

Do you have one of those rooms in your home that you just aren’t sure how to decorate?  Yeah, me too. 

That room is our office.  It continues to baffle me.  It’s the only room left on our main level that needs a loving decorating touch.

Here’s what it looks like currently…

Well, minus the curtains. They went to live with my parents because there was just too much ivory going on in the room. You live.  You learn.  The parents did give me life so it was only fair they get my hand me down curtains.

I think we are going to purchase the Karl sectional (the smallest version available) from Ikea.  My brother purchased it and it’s comfy.  This room doesn’t get a ton of use but we would like to use it a little more for lounging and a semi-inexpensive sectional seems like a good fit.

I think I’ve decided that I actually like the wall color.  My laziness may be working it’s magic on my brain too.  I can’t tell for sure.  How do you feel about it?

My biggest conundrum now is what to put behind the couch…or soon to be sectional.

I ponder this space while running 30 minutes three times per week.  I’ve got nothing.  That’s 90 minutes per week for the past 4 months and no ideas.  Okay, fine…probably more like 30 minutes of pondering per week. The other 60 minutes are focusing on not dying.  But still.  (I highly recommend decorating rooms while you run.  It’s amazing how fast the time flies.  Seriously.)

There’s art.  But what kind of art?  I like things to have a purpose.  A map would be an obvious choice but that seems a little themey to me.  I had pondered some kind of word art but word art can turn cheesy real quick like.  And what word?  I thought about shelves with photos but I want something a little unique. 

Maybe I just need to run more.

What are your thoughts?  What’s your go-to behind the couch solution? Help!  Share those genius ideas! 

Do you have a room that needs help that you would like Décor and the Dog readers to assist you with?  E-mail me at decorandthedog (at) gmail.com.