Hi everyone! I hope you had a great weekend! Mine was…interesting. It all started last Tuesday, when it began snowing and didn’t stop until Wednesday morning. Wednesday night we noticed water dripping from the bottom of one of our kitchen cabinets. I left to go to a Barre3 class, and came back to pots and pans under every cabinet. The top of one of the cabinets was bowing under the weight of the water! I was horrified and we made sure to move all of the expensive items like the microwave and Keurig out of the kitchen just in case the leak got any worse. On Thursday, the roofer came by to shovel the snow off of our flat roof to prevent any more leaking, but by Friday morning it was so bad that we had to take some drastic measures. My husband called me at noon on Friday and told me to take a half day at work because this was happening:
The leaks had ruined our cabinets beyond repair, so they had to take them out. They also had to tear down the outer wall and rip up the floor. The water was dripping so bad that it had also ruined my downstairs neighbor’s kitchen and was dripping down the basement walls!
What the inside of our walls look like…
So what does that mean for us? Our kitchen will be dried out using a machine. After a week, the insurance adjustor will come to assess damage, and it could take a week or two to come to an agreement on what needs to be done to fix it and how much it will cost. And then it will take a week to repair it and get us a whole new kitchen! After that, they’ll begin repairing the kitchen downstairs! It’s a mess, and it means that our kitchen is basically unusable for a month. Our refrigerator has been plugged in on the opposite wall of the kitchen and it still usable (although not until the kitchen drying machine is done drying out the walls!), and we’ll be able to use our microwave in the living room, but there are going to be quite a few issues with food prep. We will have to use as few dishes as possible to avoid doing all of our dishes in the tiny bathroom sink, and everything we make needs to be something we can heat up in either the microwave or the toaster oven. Plus everything from our kitchen is basically all over our apartment now and it’s so difficult to find anything! If you know of any healthy recipes that can be quickly and easily made in your own living room, let me know!
Obviously this means that there will be a lot of changes in our day-to-day lives for the next few weeks, including the ability to cook when and what we want. We also had to leave my dog at my parents’ house due to all the construction going on, which made me really sad. So when it came time to sit down to write this post, I have to admit that I wasn’t feeling very motivated. I was tired, angry, and overwhelmed by how much of a mess our apartment is (and will be for a while!). And on top of all that, I had a 10 miler on my training plan! Almost no streets are fully cleared around my house or my parents’ house after the most recent round of snow on Saturday, so there was only one option for getting this long run done: my treadmill. So imagine my horror when I came back to my apartment Sunday night and discovered that we couldn’t plug in my treadmill while the kitchen drying machine was on! After stomping around and being angry for a while, I decided to do a few smaller Barre3 workouts from YouTube for an hour (by the way, mixing together shorter workouts online does NOT come anywhere near the awesomeness that is a Barre3 studio class!) and called it a day. So here’s my motivation for this week: Sometimes life messes up your workout plans. And all you can do is make new plans and move on. Sometimes a long run just isn’t meant to be, and it’s not going to ruin my training plan or cause me to not be able to run that half marathon. I’ve just got to keep on staying positive and do what I can to stay on track with my training plan until Disney Princess! I am not going to let life win this round!
Here’s to hoping that I can do a long run after work today or tomorrow! They might be able to turn the kitchen drying machine off by then!
Have you ever had to cancel a workout due to unforeseen circumstances? Have you ever done a long run after working all day? Do you have any non-cooking dinner suggestions for the next few weeks?
Mom in the Mtns 
I’m sorry about your kitchen, what a pain!! I had to empty everything out of my kitchen cabinets a month ago when pest control came, and I found that immensely annoying to have dishes and food all over the house for 2 days. Hang in there- just think a year from now this will make a great story if anyone ever complains to you about a leak 😉
I’ve found at least a couple times a year I miss a scheduled workout for some reason or another. It doesn’t bother me anymore, because I know I’m doing what I can and one missed workout every few months won’t affect my training. Stay positive 🙂
Thanks! I had to miss today’s run too since the stupid machine is STILL plugged in! So even though I’m doing other workouts I’m still going stir crazy! And yeah, i can’t wait until this is a funny story to tell. Right now I’m still furious!
Wow. That is not a fun situation to have to deal with, but I love that you’re staying positive!
All I’m going to say is that I am feeling less positive today. I hate feeling like I can’t do what I want in my own home! I think I’m going to go do some yoga to calm myself down…
Ugh! What a mess! Keep that positive attitude alive. I hope that this process goes quickly for you.
I hope so too! Today they kept the machine plugged in so we’re not off to a good start. Hopefully I can use my treadmill, microwave, and hair dryer tomorrow if they decide to unplug it!
Subway is my go-to for healthy eating on the go!
Good idea! I ate a sandwich at Wawa today but I think Subway will help me mix it up until I can cook again!
OH NO!!! I’m so sorry about your kitchen. 😦 I love your optimism though and this will definitely not get in the way of your training. You’ve been doing so great so far!
I miss work outs from time to time because of my husband’s ridiculous schedule. It is what it is. 🙂
This actually made me feel a lot better! If you go into the SPA Run group you’ll see that I’m not really optimistic anymore and I’m slowly going insane. I haven’t run since Thursday so I’m really worried about losing my running stamina! I guess as long as I do at least one 10 miler before my half marathon I’ll be okay, right?
Oh man… sorry to hear about the kitchen. Maybe you can use someone else’s kitchen to prep some meals to reheat in your microwave? That might help with keeping some sense of normalcy. Good luck!
We actually were going to do that at my parent’s house this weekend, but then we found out we won’t have access to our refrigerator for a while 😦 Hopefully the kitchen dries soon and we can at least get into our fridge which will make meal prep easier!
I am so sorry to hear about that! I am glad you are trying to keep your spirits up though! Sometime life does get in the way of running. You gotta do what you gotta do!
I’m trying, but still no chance of running today. I’m going stir crazy! I think yoga needs to happen tonight so I can calm down and not kill anyone at work tomorrow with all my pent up energy and frustration!
So sorry to hear life has obviously handed you some really big lemons! I’ve lived without a kitchen (and even without a refrigerator) for six weeks and it’s really not nice. I was almost going crazy by the end (and that was way before I was interested in healthy eating). I hope it will all work out soon and you don’t have to live without a kitchen for too long.
And I hope the noise of the drying machine won’t drive you crazy!
I survived the drying machine! We can now use our refrigerator (yay cold water!) but we still can’t use anything else in the kitchen since nothing else is left in there! I’m hoping it will be shorter than 4 weeks but we still have to wait a while for the insurance adjustor to come by. Hopefully I have good new soon!
Love that lemon quote. OMG can’t believe that happened to your kitchen! It’s so hard not to dwell on the crappy things that happen, but it sounds like you’re looking for the positive which is good. I hope everything works out for you guys! Maybe you’ll have an even better kitchen in the end (?). It’s always good to be flexible with a training plan too because sometimes life just gets in the way!
I’m not going to lie, I actually built in a few weeks in my training plan in case something would happen! I assumed snow would be the cause and I guess technically I was right! I think as long as I do at least one 10 miler before the race I’ll be okay, right?
Wow. When it rains, it pours. I am SO SORRY! This happened with my condo…but luckily (or unluckily) before we had moved in. Air conditioner exploded AND so did the fridge. Had to get new floors, new walls, new A/C, and a new fridge. UGH. I hope that you figure out something…. if your parents live close enough..can you use their house for food prep for the week? That way then you can prepare meals you can just pop in the microwave or the toaster oven when you need them!
Oh man that sounds crazy! I hope you didn’t have to pay for all of that! We get half price rent this month since we can’t use like half our apartment but I can’t imagine having to pay for all this! And that’s a really good idea! We finally are able to use our refrigerator again as of a few hours ago and I’m totally going to meal prep at my parent’s house every weekend! They live an hour away so it’s not too bad.