Sunflowers & Swim Training

At Ikea today while shopping for Nori's bridal shower gifts, I stopped in the flower section. I'm looking for flowers around my house. I'm not exactly what you'd call a green thumb, but flowers sure are beautiful! My neighbors hang flowers outside their door and it really makes me happy when I come walking home and look around at their potted flowers. So, I think I'm going to join them. But first I'll start with some inside flowers.

I found a sunflower that will go with the bright yellows and turquoise I put in my bathroom. This sunflower put a smile on my face! He needed a home and for $3 I could afford to give him one. :D Sunflowers have always been my sisters favorite. I remember when their neighbor in Carson City used to grow ginormous sunflowers. They truly are beautiful.
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I must be what people call ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Every time I have something going on at my house (like Nori's shower), my place is an absolute mess -- as is the case today. I have about three projects going on at once.

Re-stain the coffee table (which I hope dries by tomorrow afternoon), sweep and mop















Hang picture frames for prints on a bare wall


















Unwrap new pillow cases from Ikea and admire the futon couch with my new, beautiful orange pillow cases - I promise they aren't that orange in real life!


I seem to always "kick it into high gear," getting a lot of things done all at once right before a big moment -- which causes a crazy mess for a few hours, but then I "whip clean." That's the term my mom coined for cleaning up your huge mess in a few minutes -- or in my case, hours. :P

There's a method to this madness. Start with the rooms that most people will be in first (livingroom and bathroom) and make sure it looks great. Throw everything into the other room (which happens to be my bedroom and kitchen) and sort through those things next.

Finally, your house will look fan-tabulous.
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I got an email today that on May 18th there's an Open Water Swim seminar at Eton's Dorney Lake in London and top tri coach Bill Black will be giving open water swimming techniques and how to handle the mass start. Unfortunately, there's no way I'm going to be able to go to this. So my swimming tri friends, what advice would you give a novice? Will you be my Bill Black? (Not to be confused with film star Jack Black).