Christmas Dinner

In my new frilly owl apron (oops, forgot a photo) I made Christmas dinner to the music of Tango on Pandora (Tango the type of dance...turns out it inspires many wonderful meals). The menu: roast leg of lamb in a citrus rosemary marinade, butternut squash apple cranberry bake, and a wild rice pecan salad with an orange dressing on top.

I cut up butternut squash and apples and layered them in a baking pan and then sprinkled on fresh cranberries. I drizzled it with agave nectar and sprinkled it with whole wheat flour, nutmeg and a little salt. I dotted it with coconut oil and put it in the oven. This is how it looked when it came out:



While that was baking I made the rice. Wild and brown rice mix, with dried cranberries, pecans and green onions. When it was ready to serve, I poured in the dressing made of grated orange peel, lemon juice, olive oil, agave nectar, salt and pepper.

The roast was last to come out of the oven:



While I cooked, I danced to the tango music playing, drank the last couple glasses of Naked Merlot that I had (un-oaked) and nibbled on small wedges of brie. When it was all finally ready, I set my plate at the dining table using the good "china" (it's not really china) and good silverware (not really silver). I opened up a very nice Malbec and had a fancy dinner for one in front of the wood stove.



And for dessert I had a piece of Enstrom's chocolate almond toffee that my aunt and uncle in Colorado got me for Christmas.

Ok, maybe I had two.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and everyone is doing well! Goodnight!

Living Room and Dining Room Makeover

I have the HGTV Instant Makeover software for my computer and it has helped a little in choosing paint colors. Mostly it's just been fun to play with. I got back into it yesterday for some more in depth work and came up with some really great makeovers for not a whole lot of money.

Here's a view from my dining room into my living room, as it is now:

And here's a computer generated image of the makeover.

I simply painted the trim, covered up the ugly ceiling tiles and added handscraped laminate flooring. Oh yeah, and I painted the living room gray instead of blue.

Here's a view of my dining room from the living room.

My living room wall is not really that blue. It's the lighting. And here's after the update:

Envision it with crown molding, a big decorative mirror over the buffet and maybe a decorative rug under the dining table. I had a problem sizing the crown molding in the program, so here's an image I managed to get to work. This is in the dining room looking into the guest bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Just looking at the flooring, molding and trim.

I'm working on the kitchen but I've got less vision for that room, so it's pretty overwhelming. I think I'll leave it alone for now. I did do one on just some small updates to my reading room (back family room/ withdrawing room) but apprently I didn't save the changes. I'll post that later.

Any thoughts on the trim and flooring? I've recently discovered that the trim is most likely not the original trim to the house, so painting over it would not be as big a crime as I previously thought.

Culinary Updates

Have I been cooking? Of course! And I've been taking pictures but have just been too busy to post them. It's winter, so I've got more time to cook. I also just got a cute new apron for Christmas from my friend Crystal, but I don't have a photo of that yet. I'll take some tomorrow as I cook Christmas dinner.

For Thanksgiving I went to my aunt's house in Arizona. I'm proud to say, the boys all liked my cranberry sauce (perfected last Thanksgiving) and they are not cranberry sauce people. It's the Cranberry Extraordinaire on Allrecipes.com. I would like to say that I come up with my own recipes but I don't. I just make other recipes well.

On my way home from Arizona, I got stranded in Denver due to weather in Medford. My uncle came and picked me up, and my aunt and I got to spend the next day roaming the streets of Boulder. We stopped in a really cool cooking store and since I couldn't take new pans and knives on the plane, I settled for a couple cookbooks. One of which was 50 Best Crepe recipes.

I don't cook with flour. It's far too close to baking. I don't bake. We won't get into that. So I was really surprised with how easy and healthy crepes could be. I got 100% whole wheat flour instead of white flour and used coconut oil instead of butter.

For the first crepes I simply added greek honey yogurt and sliced bananas. For how simple and healthy it was, it was so delicious! I also experimented with goat cheese and walnuts as well as almond butter, bananas and chocolate sauce. Amazing! You can go sweet or savory with crepes, simple or complex. And you can make them as healthy as you want!

Well being as I was getting into using flours, I naturally decided to attempt whole wheat flour tortillas, again with coconut oil in place of lard.

There was flour everywhere, but they turned out very soft and scrumptious. I ate a few while I cooked and then one thing led to another and next thing you know, I was eating homemade quesadillas. Delicious! What's really great is that both the tortillas and crepes can be made ahead of time and filled later, which makes life a little easier. Next on my list of flour foods is yeast free bread and pizza crust.

So today is Christmas Eve and I used one of my Christmas dinner recipes for lunch today, since I didn't have much else planned and needed some healthy food. I got this recipe off of Simply Recipes and it's called Golden Beet and Pomegranate Salad. I didn't have red wine vinegar so I used apple cider vinegar, and I replaced the Triple Sec with orange juice. I also substituted agave nectar for sugar and used no salt. It turned out so awesome! It's beautiful, simple and so flavorful!

For the white wine I used a Gewurztraminer which is pretty sweet. I also drank a glass (or two) with it.

On the menu for Christmas dinner is a Roast Leg of Lamb with a citrus rosemary marinade, Butternut Squash Apple Cranberry Bake and Wild Rice Cranberry Pecan Salad. All of these recipes actually came from Simply Recipes.

Successful run!

Well then. I just finished an 18 mile run on the treadmill and I have to say, it was a bit easier and more pleasant than running in the sleet and wind for 18 miles. I am happy to report that nobody's dog chased me, no cars honked at me and I did not have to plan my run around a rest room...because it was right there the whole time.

I was wondering how this was going to go being as the view doesn't really change for almost 3 hours, but to be totally honest, it's going to be boring to run for 3 hours regardless of where I do it. And I actually do quite well being alone with myself for that long.

I didn't end up listening to the audio book, I didn't think I could handle it. Instead I went through a couple of my playlists on my MP3 player. After about 6 miles I jumped off the treadmill and ran to the bathroom. The treadmill doesn't go over 1 hour so I reset it and went another 6 miles. As I took my headphones off to hit up the bathroom again, a buddy I work with showed up and got on the eliptical next to me. We got all caught up and 20 minutes later he left. I was off to fend for myself for the last 3 miles.

Two young kids were horsing around behind me while their dads played basketball in the gym. One came up to me and said "How long have you been here?"

I laughed. "For...EVER".

"How much longer do you have to go?"

"Less than 2 miles."

"Well how much have you already done?"

"16 miles." I looked at him. "16 miles and another 2. How many is that?"

He considered it for a second and nodded.

"18" I filled in for him, just in case he thought about shorting me. "18 miles."

When I finally finished (the last 2 miles were horrid) I walked for a few minutes and then hobbled off.

The kids returned. "How long did that take?"

"Almost 3 hours".

"Wow. I thought it was 4. But that's when the gym closes."

I laughed. "Yeah. Nope, only 3."

Three is enough for now. It was actually a little under 3 and that includes my 2 bathroom breaks. Not too bad. And I messed with the incline a few times to mix things up. Putting in some small hills here and there.

Well I better hop in the jacuzzi before I fall asleep.

Today is the day!

I'm doing it! 18 miles on a treadmill. For some reason I am more excited than I should be. Maybe because for the last few weeks I have been dreading my runs because of the weather, and now, I have no weather to deal with because I will be inside.

Pretty boring right? Who cares! I'll be warm and er, comfortable? Maybe not comfortable. I thought about getting up and just toughing out another outdoor run but the thought made me pull the blanket over my head. Right now I suppose you could say the weather is "not that bad". It's in the 30's, overcast and only slightly windy. But it's supposed to snow today and get gusts up to 30mph. I went out to bring in some wood and concluded I absolutely did not want to run in this.

So I'm not.

The gym doesn't open until noon on Sundays, so that's when I'm starting. Hopefully I get the treadmill with the window view and not the wall. I'm charging my MP3 players and I put new batteries in my portable CD player....and bought a Stephen King audio CD. Hahaha. We'll see how that goes. I've got 3 GU's lined up and will have a couple of water bottles right there, and best of all, a restroom 30 ft away at all times.

This could be the beginning of a great relationship with treadmills. Or it'll be a disaster: I'll hate every second of it and never get on one again. There's only one way to find out.

Winter Blues

This has been coming for a couple weeks now but I didn't see it until it smacked me in the face this morning. Winter. Ick. I forgot how much it affects me. People around here get excited for the snow because it means a return of winter sports. I dread it. I do have fun when I go snowboarding, but I have to be dragged out of my house. It's cold out there!

I haven't seen the sun for days. And last year I purchased a light lamp but didn't see much of a difference. I didn't suddenly get motivated or feel happier. So I think it ended up at the thrift shop. Supposedly exercise and going outdoors is supposed to help. I exercise for over 12 hours per week, half of that outside...in the rain/sleet/snow/wind. It's not doing anything but making me want to stay inside more.

This morning I peeked out the window and it was snowing. For about half a second I thought, Oh, how beautiful. Then it was gone. I think I was in denial that it was ever actually going to snow up here. I think it's late this year. We got snow maybe a month or so ago but it went away. Now it's back. And this morning I got the feeling that this stuff is here to stay for a few months. It sent my soul spiraling down to the depths of hell in  a hurry. And I knew it would only be a few hours before I would have to head outside to get wood and wood pellets.

A couple weeks ago I noticed my lack of motivation with some house projects. I thought maybe I was tired from my new workout schedule. I get plenty of sleep, exercise and eat well. The projects were not large. We're talking a 4 inch by 4 inch patch that needed to be painted on my ceiling. And it took me several weeks to work up the motivation to do it.

At work when I'm scheduled to run, I watch the weather out the window and dread having to go out in it. When it's over, it's fine, always. But before and during it's pretty miserable.

What really made it sink in was that today is Saturday. Saturday is a good day. Nothing really on my list of things to do. Except some Christmas stuff. While working on my Christmas stuff, it occured to me that I needed to go to Walmart to accomplish Christmas.

That did it. I envisioned all the Christmas shoppers that would be at Walmart right now. Walmart is the only place in town for people to buy Christmas gifts...ok, not the only place, but probably the most likely. We don't have a mall. We have one or two small town gift shops and a Walmart. So not only is it gray and white outside, cold and slippery (I slipped brining in wood this morning- caught myself) but there would be a ton of shoppers in Walmart.

I haven't gathered up the courage yet. This is going to be a tough winter.

18 miles on a treadmill?

The thought is both terrifying and a big relief at the same time. Let's start with why it's a good idea.

I'll just throw this out there and get it over with. Many long distance runners develop issues with their stomachs...or uh... bowels. I don't know, it seems that no matter what I do, I've developed a need to use the restroom around mile 3. Sometimes mile 4 or 5. In any case, around Montague there are no bathrooms. There are no bushes or trees. There are wide open pastures with about 5 inch tall grass. And enough traffic that just squating on the side of the road like a dog or cow (ok, cows don't really squat) would get me arrested. Running at a gym provides ample restroom opportunities. That's a huge relief...no pun intended.

Weather. This is a big one. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. I've been extremely lucky with weather on my runs lately. It hasn't been extremely cold or windy on my long run days. I think this is about to end. There's currently a light snow going on outside the window, but I hear it's supposed to dump this weekend. Especially Sunday...which is the day I'm scheduled to run 18 miles. It also gets VERY windy in Montague being as it's part of the large Shasta Valley that is unprotected and gets wind funneled through there regularly. Running 18 miles in a blizzard is not fun.

I also just tore my only pair of winter running pants. Yesterday on my 9 mile run (among bears). Sooo... I have no winter running pants. I have sweat pants, but anyone who's ever run 18 miles will tell you that sweat pants are not the most comfortable thing to run in. A 3-5 mile run in sweat pants? Sure. As a matter of fact, that's what I'm doing today. 5 miles in sweats. I just ordered a new pair of running tights but they won't be here for another week. Maybe I'll have them in time for my 20 miler. If I run inside on a treadmill, I'm wearing shorts. And a tank top. And I'll be staring out the window at the blizzard going on.

So the cons: really for my situation right now, there's only one. Boredom. I am not a great treadmill runner. I'm pretty sure the longest I've ever run on a treadmill was 4 miles. I took a poll on Facebook and some of my friends have run 8-10 miles on a treadmill which is valiant. One of my friends has run 18. That's Shelly. She's crazy. She ran 18 miles on a treadmill because it was 20 below zero (-20) outside. They all mentioned tv and music.

Here's the problem. The tv's at my gym are sort of off to the side. I am physically incapable of running on a treadmill and looking to one side. If I have to look to the side, I first have to grab the side bar. This prevents me from falling over sideways and face-planting on a moving conveyor belt. That would be bad. And embarassing.

I do not have an iPad or an iPhone or really any sort of iThing. I have a few MP3 players and I think I'll bring all 3. I have a Kindle but I can't read while running. Attempting to focus on a stationary page while my head is bouncing up and down is a quick way to get a massive headache. I was thinking of bringing my French audio cd's and my portable cd player and learning some French while I run.

This run will take me between 2.5 and 3 hours to complete. I hope. The gym is only open for 4 hours on Sundays. 2.5-3 hours on a treadmill. Hopefully the one in front of the window is open. There's 2 rooms with treadmills at my gym. In one room the treadmills are about 2 feet from the wall and they look right at the wall. There are tv's to the left and right, but well...yeah. So I'd be staring at the wall for up to 3 hours. The other room has two treadmills side by side facing a window that looks out to a quiet street. I saw this morning that one of those treadmills is out of order. I suppose at some point in my run I can just up and move to a different one. You know, mix it up a little.

This is going to be fun.

I can survive a power outage!

It was just past 4:30am. I know because I had just turned off my alarm clock and rolled back over to bury my head in my pillow. The fire from the pellet stove glowed and flickered. Then I heard an annoying beep coming from the pellet stove. When I lifted my head I saw the fire dying. Out of pellets. Must've been a really cold night.

I decided to let it go for a minute, but then it beeped again. I glanced back at my alarm clock and saw there was no power to it. Hmmm, electricity must've gone out. This happens fairly often in the winter. We need underground lines. My pellet stove needs electricity to run. I figured the wood stove in the dining room was probably down to its last coal. I was right. I piled some wood in and got it going again. I found a big jar candle and lit it and placed it in the kitchen.

Coffee. I would need some coffee. Stove is electric. Microwave is electric. My Jetboil is at work. Woodstove. I've never attempted to boil water on the woodstove before. I set the pot on top of it and made sure the wood was burning hot. I left it for a moment to go make my bed.

It took awhile for the water to boil, I think mostly because the stove had cooled down quite a bit overnight, but it finally did and I poured it into my French Press and a bowl of Irish Oatmeal. I went about getting ready to go to the gym (after I checked online and verified that Yreka had power). It was slow going getting ready by candle light. I still had hot water in the water heater, so that was nice.

My oatmeal was cold again by the time I had gotten to it and it had too much water in it. Normally I would throw it in the microwave, but that wouldn't be happening this time. I wondered if it was ok to put it on top of the woodstove. Only one way to find out.

I put it on top of the stove and stood there trying to stir it around. It was pretty hot trying to stand over that thing and stir. After about a minute I gave up and picked it up off the stove. The sides weren't all that warm and I put my hand under the bottom to hold it better...and burned my finger. It blistered. I quickly put the bowl down on the carpet and lay there in front of the woodstove eating my oatmeal. It was quite a bit warmer. And so was my finger.

When I finally got to the gym, there was a lady in the locker room washing her hair in the sink. There's a couple showers right there, so I'm not sure why she was using the sink. To explain herself she said the power was out in Montague. I told her that's where I just came from. She told me how she's on a well (her water comes from a well, not city supply). For those of you who don't know, water has to be pumped out of the well and into the house by electric pump. You no longer have to lower a bucket into the well and carry it to the house. Those days are gone. Anyway, so no electricity means no pump and no pump means no water. At all. That's a bummer.

So during a power outage, not only do I have the means to heat my house (woodstove), I also have an endless supply of water and the means to cook food. If my food in the freezer starts to thaw, I only have to place it outside where it will be kept nice and cool. I would only have to protect it from critters. I'm pretty proud of myself. Who needs electricity?

Speaking of critters. Went on a 9 mile run today at work. Saw a ton of bear tracks and bear scat. Fresh (the tracks and scat both). Scat is poo, people. Bear scat = bear poo. On the road I was running on.... all alone. Tomorrow I shall bring my radio on my 5 mile run so I can call dispatch and let them know I've been attacked by a bear and am bleeding to death and to please send help. It was a paranoid run to say the least.

My power is back on, my house is warm and I am sleepy. I think I may cancel my shower for the night being as I will be the only person at work tomorrow. Showers are overrated.

Added note: I now realize that the title of this post probably made some of you think "Power outage? So what?" I forgot to elaborate that it was 20 degrees out. There's certain climates that power outages can be dangerous and that would be very cold and very hot climates. I would say 20 degrees with sub-par insulation can be scary. It reminds me that not everyone has a non-electrical means of heat. I didn't when I lived in Yreka and my heater broke. In the middle of winter it was 50 degrees in my house until someone came and fixed it. There was nothing I could do but wear a jacket at all times. A down coat inside your house. Consider that.

Another Tough Run

Today's 12 miler should've been a piece of cake since it was 4 miles shorter than last week's long run. I do have a hard time getting out of the house when it's cold outside and I've developed the habit of waiting until it warms up to head out. This might make it worse. Instead, as I plod about the house all I can think of is having to do this run. It's not even that far of a run, but it's 30 degrees out.

I cleaned up the house a bit and then went out back to split wood. I recently procured some small rounds of oak and hadn't split them yet. Oak is a much harder wood than fir so it's a little harder to split, especially since they were the rejected pieces from the guys at work. They had large knots in them or were otherwise shaped strangely as to make them harder to split. I've got no shame, so I took them home.

So after cleaning the house (a bit, not done yet) I set out to split some of that oak. It went ok. Until I hit a piece in a bad spot and it flew off the splitting round and on to my foot. I was wearing boots but that really only put a small strip of leather between my foot and the flying round of oak. Lovely. 12 miles due today and I may have broken my foot. I gathered up my wood and hobbled into the house.

Upon inspection it was not broken but merely bruised. I figured I better get on with this ridiculous running thing. Due to some stomach issues that I (along with other long distance runners) tend to develop as my runs get longer, I planned out a 5 mile route that ended back at my house where I would refill my water bottle, use the restroom and injest some GU.

Off I went, aching foot and all. The cold hurt my nose and lips, even though it had warmed up to 36 degrees. It wasn't long before I came across a loose dog. Great. Part pit bull of course. It ran across the street towards me so I stopped running, put my hand out and yelled "No!" He stopped in his tracks and watched me. I tried to keep walking but it made him bounce around towards me again. He seemed fairly playful but I didn't want to find out the hard way that that was just how he acted before he killed his prey. I kept yelling "No!" and "Go home!" to no avail. I was getting frustrated. Thankfully it wasn't long before he was distracted by another dog and I snuck off.

I continued my run and turned around at the corner I knew to be 2.5 miles from my house. I thought about how training for a marathon is a lot like other things in life. You don't get to just stop because it gets tough. I tried to pretend that made me feel better and that I was getting tougher.

A car approaching from behind me blared their horn and swerved across their lane and into the other one towards me, to prove a point I suppose. What a jerk! Who does that?! I was on the opposite side of the road, going against traffic so I could see cars coming toward me. I purposefully picked a quieter road today with less traffic. There was no one else on the road at the time and the person had no right to be angry that I was out there on the road too. We have free range cattle, horses, dogs, tractors and deer in the road all the time. Do you mean to tell me that one fairly small girl running on the opposite side of the road is ruining your day? Why don't you get your lazy, angry ass out of your car and run with me? Probably because you can't. I'm not hurting anybody and I'm bettering myself. Just because you don't have the drive and dedication to be out there making something of yourself does not give you the right to be mean to those who do.

I continued on and only muttered to myself. I've been angrily honked at before on my bike. I don't get it. We live in an area where one car might pass by every 3-5 minutes. Do you mean to tell me that it's that big of a deal for runners and cyclists to be on the road? Geezo.

I made it home without too much else going on, went to the bathroom, ate a GU and refilled my water bottle. I took off for another 7 miles. Again, just a few minutes down the road, I came across another unleashed dog. A big one. Bigger than the last one. I crossed the street to the other side and calmly walked away, watching the dog the whole time. He got up and came after me. Of course. Again, I held my hand out (like stop) and shouted "No!" I saw a car coming and decided if he came running at me at this point he'd probably be hit by a car and I wouldn't get attacked. I used this time to keep walking away until I got to where I didn't think he'd come after me, then started running again.

People. Leash your damn dogs. Whether or not this dog was going to lunge at my throat with teeth baring remains to be seen. I could totally sue you if he did attack me. But even if he was friendly, he just ran out into the road to chase me which could've gotten him killed. Some people do dumb things. If you've got an animal like that it is your responsibility to keep him safe and others he might go after.

I managed to make it home without being attacked or run over. As I stretched, my mind drifted to what else I was supposed to accomplish today and a voice in my head responded, Carrie, you don't have to do anything.

That's more like it.

Friiidaay!

I may not make it through the day, I'm so incredibly exhausted. I went a little hard on working out yesterday, and being as it's the end of an entire week I'm pretty much done.

Usually I work out twice a day Monday through Friday and do a long run on Sunday. I ran 16 miles last Sunday. Monday morning I did leg weights and abdominal exercises and then did the stair stepper at work. On Tuesday I did upper body weights and was supposed to run 4 miles but ended up working outside all day in the rain and when I got back there was no way I was going back out into the rain to run. So on Wednesday I went to the gym and did my regular leg weights and abs and then ran on the treadmill for 3 miles. I have no recollection of what happened at work. I would guess that I did not do another workout.

Yesterday I did upper body weights before work. We had a guy coming out to interview for a job and then a couple of us took him on a hike up our short PT hill (around 25 minutes one way). I pushed really hard. Until a few weeks ago I've never been up it under 25 minutes, and at that time went a 24:38 which is good, but only about crew pace. Yesterday I went up in 23:52, which is really good. Then later in the day I ran 8 miles up the side of our mountain. I didn't last long when I got home. I unloaded oak rounds from the back of my jeep and just dumped them in my backyard to be split later. I split some fir and stocked up the woodstove and carried in another 40lb bag of pellets for the pellet stove. I made a quick dinner, showered and went to bed.

This morning I crawled slowly out of bed at 4:30 and went to the gym. It was heavy weights on the legs day. It was slow going. I also did abs again, a little stretching, and off to work. I'm pretty sure I'm on my 4th cup of coffee and I'm just not sure I'm going to last the day. I have a 5 mile run planned for after lunch and it's going to be a rough one. Same mountain road, just not as far. It's been awhile since I've been this tired. I'm guessing I'll be in bed by 7pm tonight.

But Saturday is my no-workout day. I'm excited for that. Sunday's run will be shorter since it's a recovery week (haha). 12 miles. Very nice compared to 16. Hmm. Maybe. I guess it's only 4 miles less. Oh well. Saturday will be a lazy day. It's my favorite day lately.

It Pays To Be Handy

I'm really thankful that growing up, my dad made me help with things around the house such as re-roofing and on my car, such as changing out hoses and tearing apart the engine. I can't say that I've retained a whole lot of it, and I wish I did. If he were around today I would certainly pay much more attention, ask more questions and really take advantage of his knowledge and experience.

I'm also thankful that I've got a lot of guys around to bounce ideas off of when I'm starting a new project. But being as I don't have a guy around my house, I'm also thankful that I'm not afraid to tackle things when I have to.

I can split wood. Fairly well. And haul in 40lb bags of wood pellets every night or two.

When I got home from Thanksgiving with the fam, I found my back yard fence blown over. With a lot of brute force and a little bit of ingenuity, I hoisted it up and bungeed it to a fence post and the gate. It still stands. Four days and counting.

The toilet in the guest bathroom does not fit and the previous owner put a hole in the wall to make it fit. I switched the toilet with the one in my master bathroom and I think it might just work... except I now have to patch the wall before installing the toilet... and I just ran 16 miles so as it turns out, that probably won't happen tonight.

After my run I went to go get in the jacuzzi... and couldn't open the door. Upon inspection, it would appear that the "expansive soils" that my house sits on has caused there to be pressure on the door which in turn put pressure on the bolt in the door knob so that it would not slide out of the wall.

I removed the door knob which did not help. Still could not pull the bolt out. I tried putting pressure in different directions with screw drivers because I don't own a pry bar.

I removed the pins to the hinges and then was at a complete loss as how to follow up on that move.

I googled the problem. Someone mentioned a vehicle tire pry bar thing...and then I remembered, with my car jack, there's something resembling a pry bar. I caused a little damage to the trim, but managed to pop the bolt out of the wall by prying next to it, and of course forgot that I had removed the hinges and almost ended up with a glass door on my head.

I now have access to my jacuzzi room, but no door knob on it. Oh well. Really makes me think how much work owning an old home is. I'm deciding between different samples of handscraped laminate flooring and discussing with my boss how to go about installing them. He mentioned I would have to remove the baseboards.

People. Big houses mean big work. Removing baseboards in my entire house is going to be a pain.

I have to replace my fence. That's a big job and not one to tackle during the winter.

I'm not even halfway done with painting the outside of my house but can't do anything about it. When it's warm, it's raining and when it's not raining it's too cold to paint.

My house is a mess and needs to be reined in. It's quite the project, although I did just fix my shop-vac so I'm already setting myself up for success.

I've still got to get dinner in the oven, split and bring in wood and bring in another bag of pellets. Then I might clean a little. Maybe. I may need a drink first but for the past half hour I've been trying to decide between a glass of wine and a hot whiskey. Don't worry, that's for after splitting wood.

Ah yes, and one more thing. I've never owned my own Christmas tree, but I've wanted to get a fake one for awhile. I really don't need the hassle of a real one. I'm always gone for Christmas so it's been low on my list. I went into a Habitat for Humanity ReStore (very cool, check them out!) and came across this little guy for $2! I couldn't resist. After all, he needed me.

Behold, the best Christmas tree ever!

 

 

For those of you who don't know, that is an official Charlie Brown Christmas Tree complete with Linus' blankie wrapped around the bottom.

Rough Flight Home

Flying home from Arizona, I had a layover in Denver which is kinda in the wrong direction. Due to weather in Medford they ended up cancelling my flight and rescheduled me for the next night. I have family in Denver so I called my uncle to pick me up and spent the next day with my aunt until it was time to go back to the airport.

As expected, little by the little the flight developed delays much like the day before, due to a storm in my new layover city- San Francisco. San Francisco always has delays. It wasn't long however, before we boarded the plane and were clear for take-off.

I've never really been afraid of flying. I get a little tense during landing. I expect turbulence, but when those little tiny wheels hit the runway, you can really feel how fast the plane is going and even worse, you can feel the pilot's attempt to slow the plane down. At that moment I feel like the plane is on the verge of losing control and cartwheeling down the runway in a firey blaze of death. It has never caused me to cry out loud and profess to all the other passengers how afraid I am. I believe in keeping a calm demeanor, even when fear grips me hard. I press my fingertips together in my lap, close my eyes and exhale. When the plane finally slows down, I open them and breathe again.

I'm ok with a fair amount of turbulence. I understand the dynamics of how the air works and how we get uplifts and downdrafts in addition to the side to side tossing. A very small regional jet flying from San Francisco to Medford during the winter can get tossed quite a bit. I'm not entirely sure how much is normal, but I get that it's supposed to be a bumpy ride.

About ten minutes from landing, the plane hit some nasty turbulence. And I mean nasty. It wasn't full of passengers as it was a late night flight into a small airport. Two rows ahead of me was a pilot getting flown to Medford either to go home or get set up for the flight out the next day. I couldn't see the flight attendants because it was too dark, but this pilot had left his reading light on.

A young lady a few rows back cried out "Oh my god! What's going on?!"

I was busy trying to breathe and none of the other passengers were making anything more than a gasping sound every time the plane lurched in one direction or the other. The strangeness of the moment almost made me laugh out loud, but then the plane dropped about ten feet and the urge to laugh disappeared. The lady across the aisle from me gripped the arm rest but maintained a hold on her magazine. There was no one next to me. Behind me was a 19 year old girl who had been telling her life story to the woman sitting next to her. They were now silent.

I looked at the pilot sitting in the cabin and he had his ankle crossed over his knee which told me he was still fairly relaxed. I decided I would watch him as a cue for when it was appropriate to panic or accept that death was immenent.

As the plane continued to be tossed about like a beach ball at a football game, the girl a few rows back continued to cry out all sorts of things and I felt the panic in me jump a few decibels. That in turn, made me angry. If I was going to plummet to my death in this tiny airplane, I certainly did not want to listen to her panic the whole way down. I just about yelled at her, but realized my yelling would increase the tension in the plane and it certainly didn't need that.

We bumped about for another minute or so and then jumped so hard that it knocked the magazine out of the lady's hands sitting across from me. "Oh! Woah!" as she also began to lose her composure. At that point the pilot sitting in the cabin sat up and looked out the window. Here we go. This is it. I wanted to explain to the girl who was continuing her panicked tirade that turbulence is normal and it's only like bumps on a poorly maintained road, but I was beginning to be fairly convinced that this was no longer normal and that we were all going to die. I continued to take deep breaths as silently as I could.

The plane dropped maybe 50 feet and most of the passengers started making frightened noises at that point. Short of my deep breathing exercises going on, I believe I was fairly quiet. I thought it was ironic that I had made it to within a few minutes of my destination and now I might possibly die.

The turbulence let up a little and the passengers became silent. I looked out the window at the twinkling lights of Medford and thought at least it's beautiful. I kept thinking about how when I die I don't want to be cognisent of it happening and I certainly don't want it to take as long as it would to die in a plane crash. Too much scary stuff happening that you get to be aware of. Front row seats to your own death I suppose. It's just not how I want to go.

I watched the lights of Medford get closer and then we hit another pocket of turbulence. The panicky girl started right back up again. "What's going on?! We're not on the ground yet? What's happening?!"

Lady! You're on a damn plane! You are either experiencing severe turbulence or we are all about to die! Either way, you are not helping the situation!

I glanced at the pilot who was now sitting a little more rigid and kept my thoughts to my self. Deep breath.

A few minutes later the runway appeared underneath us, the wheels hit with a thud and I felt the brakes struggle to slow the plane down. I let out another breath and could hear all the passengers do the same. I watched the pilot in front of me as we listened to the conversations of the other passengers.

"Oh my god, that was the scariest moment I've ever had on a plane."

"My heart just dropped!"

The young girl and woman behind me let out a nervous laugh and sigh. "I'm Mary." "Mary? Oh, it was nice to meet you! I was so scared, I'm sorry." "No, I was scared too." Their continued nervous laughter made me think that for those last ten minutes, those strangers were holding hands. I felt that laugh well up in me again but only smiled.

As we disembarked, the two pilots that had flown the plane we there to greet us at the front of the plane. One was a lady I had seen earlier in San Francisco and she glanced up at me as she put her jacket on. Her facial expression said she was expecting some sort of comment about the flight, but we were on the ground and I was walking out under my own accord so I just said "Thank you, have a good night".

When I stepped out of the airport towards the parking lot, I was hit by a big gust of wind. That explains it, I thought and that little laugh bubbled up again and as I let it out, I was surprised to feel it turn into choked back tears.

As I drove home, I replayed the incident in my head over and over. I thought the girl's panicked reaction to be somewhat disgraceful, but I also couldn't quite decide how bad the situation had been. Was it just normal turbulence, or were we momentarily in danger? I guess I was upset by how easily the girl's panicked cries had caused me to panic a bit more as I had felt fairly calm until she continued her tirade. I feel it's the responsibility of everyone on the plane in a moment like that to try to remain calm so as to help others remain calm as well. If we all crash, we only have each other and I would rather be on a plane full of brave people than panicked ones.

But on the other hand, on a plane with maybe 40 passengers, she was the only one who displayed her panic, so I think it should surprise me more that the others did not.

On the drive home, the wind tossed my jeep back and forth across the highway and I decided that I was probably not in much danger on that flight. It was just a small plane in a big sea of turbulence.

When I went out to the woodshed for more wood I saw that a portion of my fence had been blown over by the wind. All night as I tried to sleep, the wind howled and shook the house. Gusts of over 50 miles per hour. Winds high in the air are usually quite a bit more significant than winds on the ground, so I can only imagine what those winds were like in the air during that flight.

No, on second thought, I can do more than imagine. I was there. They were brutal.

Sitting at the airport...

I'm in Medford, Oregon sitting at the airport. I got here early, expecting a big Thanksgiving crowd and arrived to find my flight delayed by 1 hour and 45 minutes. That left me 3 hours before my flight took off. Looking at my layover in San Francisco, it's possible that I might still make my connecting flight.

There's a news camera set up outside the security check-point and it makes me laugh. Every year, all the news stations cover the crowds at the airports. Every year it's the same: there are crowds at the airports. Hmmm.... big news. Look, it's a crowd at the airport! Fast forward a year or so: look, it's a crowd at the airport! Our society is lame. The sun came up today. It'll probably come up tomorrow as well, whether or not I'm here. I wonder what a news station would be like if it only covered news that made any difference. News at 7 pops up and the news caster says there's no new news today, here's a free movie in our place, see you tomorrow. Interesting concept. We might all adopt a more laid back lifestyle.

So after spending a weekend up in the Bend, OR area visiting my friend, Gwen, I've got some new ideas about dealing with the projects around my house.

First of all, the trim in the old half of the house is a finished wood. Believing it had some sort of historical significance, I didn't want to paint over it, but it needed to be refurbished. Refurbishing old trim is a "dirty bear" (haha, inside joke, sorry). So I put it off. I stare at it every day and it irks me. Not only that, but all the trim in the new half of the house is white, so it doesn't flow so well. The house needs flow.

A week or so ago, I was in the work shop in the back yard and found an unfinished corner block for the trim. It is certainly not 100 years old. More like 5. Which leads to the conclusion that the trim in the house is not 100 years old. Since it has no historical value and looks old and weathered, it will now be painted white, without any sort of guilt on my part, and the house will look refreshed. Yay!

My toilet conundrum. I probably mentioned it in a post early on in my house move. In the guest bathroom, the toilet is not the right size for the space so someone cut a hole the size of the tank in the wall behind it and it is now embedded about a inch into the wall. And of course it isn't done neatly, it looks like crap. So I decided I would have to buy a new toilet, get rid of the old one, patch the wall, texture and paint the patch, and then I can go ahead with painting the bathroom.

Gwen has a toilet that sits too far from her wall. We got the great idea that I would go home and measure the toilet and if it fit hers, we would switch.

I measured it, and it is not a standard measure...well the bolt to the wall is not. The toilet is standard, some one installed the drain in the wrong spot, by about an inch. Stumped again.

I sat down to watch DIY network for awhile. It allowed me to clear my mind a bit. Sometimes when you have a tough problem to solve, walking away and forgetting about it sometimes helps.

It did. My mind wandered around the toilet issue while watching whatever his name is crash some lady's backyard.

I have three bathrooms.... three toilets... the toilet in the master bath sits too far from the wall...

I jumped up off the couch, grabbed my tape measure and ran to the master bath. Bolt is 12 inches from the wall....the back of the tank lid sits 2 inches from the wall...12 minus 2 = a 10 inch toilet. Bolt to wall in guest bathroom... 11 inches. Ha! Bolt to back of tank on guest bathroom toilet- 12 inches... so if I switch the two toilets, they should both fit in their new homes! I grabbed a few different size crescent wrenches, turned off the water supply to the toilet...and then decided I should probably google how to do this. I watched a Home Depot video and figured out I needed two new wax rings, but other than that, it's a very simple thing to do. Yay!! I'm saving that for after Thanksgiving.

Gotta go see the gate agent about my connecting flight.

Oh, and by the way...I've been looking at wood floors, and am excited to find out that handscraped laminate flooring is a fraction of the price and looks and feels the same! I ordered some samples.

'Tis the season for ugly runs

I don't know if you all noticed, but the winter storm named Brutus is upon us up here in the north. Somebody talked me into running a marathon in January... in San Diego of course, where it's awesome weather all year round. Although I should be thankful it'll be over at the end of January, when the weather is really getting bad.

Today the weather was calling for rain and snow, and a mixture of both. Looking at the weather it looked like the morning would be cold but dry and then worsen as the day went on. Usually I wait for it to warm up before my run, but I figured I would get my 6 miler in before Brutus reared his ugly head.

I got to work and one of my coworkers was going to run 8 miles, but said he was running around 2pm because it was going to be nicer then. We watched the "hourly" prediction on the weather like a hawk. It kinda seemed he was right, but it didn't look that bad out. I should follow my intuition. I let him talk me into running later. Around 11am I decided to go ahead and eat my pot-roast and be fine to run by 1 or 2. Around noon, my coworker started getting ready for his run, deciding he better get it over with before it got bad. I didn't think my stomach could handle it, so I thought about waiting.

From the window he shouted "Oh man! Maybe I'll wait, it's really coming down!"

I looked out the window at the cold rain. It looked miserable. Damnit. I knew I should've run this morning. Argh!

We looked at the hourly weather again. It didn't look very promising. I hemmed and hawed about it for awhile while he put on his shoes. "Do you want to be a better marathoner?" he asked as I stared into my gym bag.

Ugh. Ok, fine. I grabbed my shoes and changed, came out of the bathroom and he was gone. Must be hiding somewhere. I put on my rain coat and my ear warmer headband and walked out into the rain. It was 40 degrees tops. Probably lower. Snow was predicted down to 3,000ft and I was starting out at 2700 and running uphill.

As I ran up the mountain hill, I could see a clearing in the clouds and had hope that I would soon be free of this freezing rain pelting me in the face. Soon enough it stopped and I relaxed a little. Until about 2.5 miles into it when I got hit in the face with sharp icy rain. I yelled out loud at the rain (still no sign of my coworker). Just before my turn around spot, I came across a lone horse in the road. I slowed to a walk so as not to spook it. Below the road on a steep slope was a cow. And below the cow were two very unhappy looking individuals. It's round-up season around here and everyone is rounding up their free-range cows. I wasn't far from the corrals where I was to turn around, but I figured if I kept going I would spook the cow, and boy would those people be pissed. I wished them well and turned around to head back.

And boy did I get a killer pot-roast-side-cramp. Argh! I wanted to run faster to get back but the sharp pain in my side had me barely shuffling back up the hill. I finally made it back to the station and walked a little to cool down. I got one of those weird "how did I get here" feelings and wondered where on earth the last 6 miles went. Funny how that happens sometimes. Must be a coping technique.

This is just the start of many agonizing winter runs. I've run in worse though, and I'm sure I'll run in worse before I finish this next marathon.

Mrphf

I'm watching the election coverage and it's like watching a really close football game where they keep taking time outs. I should really just turn it off and check the results tomorrow. There's nothing I can do about who wins and watching only draws out the suspense. I voted a week ago. Due to my gypsy nature, I never know where I'll be on election day and I cannot commit to just one polling place. So I'm a permanent vote-by-mail person. It's very convenient.

Anyway, so a couple things I thought you guys would get a kick out of. Number one- I think I want my room to be silver. Grey/silver. I think for now I'll just change my linens to the blue ones and see how I like the brown with a little more color in the room. I hope I don't change the exterior color as much as I have changed my bedroom color. Like how about never? I took yesterday off work to receive my new phone from FedEx who will not deliver a phone without a signature. And Verizon refused to believe that my work address was a real address. So I stayed home. I put a second coat of paint on wall number two (we're talking exterior now) and a first coat on wall number 3. If I remember correctly, there are 10 walls. Some are larger than others.

I also pulled a very large awning frame off the back wall. Apparently some one thought it would be a great idea to put up an awning over the windows of a sun room. I've been putting off taking it down because it's very large, and I assumed (correctly) very heavy. Not something that I could just pull off on my own. Well yesterday I had enough. It was coming down. I'm a little off topic here, but anyway. I am proud that I thought to tie one corner of the frame on to a strong beam that leads to the carport, with 3 different bungee cords. Yes, I am a genious, thank you. I figured there were a few things that could happen. It was most likely going to come crashing to the ground, which was scary being that I had to be up on a ladder to lift one side out of the brackets and hopefully lower it to the ground without killing myself. The second possibility was that when it came crashing down it would nail two large windows and completely shatter them. So one of the bungee cords was in a position to pull it in the opposite direction of the windows. The other two simply would hold one corner up.

I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I got in place on a ladder on the far side and lifted the frame out of the brackets. Somehow it ended up crashing completely to the ground. Apparently I was smart enough to let go of the thing. There was a large thick tile on the ground that was completely shattered, the other end hung from the bungees and the windows were all in tact. I was too, at the time.

So the far end still hung from the beam that I had secured it to, and now I had to somehow lower it down without killing myself. I unhooked the one with the lateral support first. I'm not sure if that was the one that did it or not, being as I just carried on afterward, but somehow in the first two bungees, I removed a large piece of skin from my pinkie knuckle. Officially an avulsion. Meaning not quite an amputation of a large piece of skin, just mostly off. Of course the pinkie is a small digit, so relative to the rest of the body it wasn't much. Relative to my pinkie...well the knuckle is now a thick flap of skin. I ignored it briefly while removing the rest of the bungees, and managed to lower the frame to the ground.

Looking at my knuckle, it was pretty bloody, ready to start dripping on the ground. Not a scrape people, an actual avulsion of the knuckle. I have no idea what all you could see under there because I went into the house, rinsed it out, replaced the flap of skin, put antibacterial ointment on top and then taped it up. As I went about painting, I could see the blood seeping through.

And you know what? I never lifted the flap to see. Last night I cleaned it off again and wrapped it up. Today I changed the band aid and it's really hard to tell. I'm wondering if being so quick on replacing the skin might allow it to heal back together? I'm not sure. I guess time will tell. It didn't get scrubbed real well which worries me a little, but we'll see.

Anyway, back to my amusing house issues.

I got a wood pellet insert for my fireplace. For those who don't know what that is, let's start with the insert part of it. Fireplaces are pretty, but very inefficient on heat. Up here, that matters. So you can get an insert for the fireplace that will heat your house much more efficiently. Wood pellets are very small pellets (think hamster food) of highly compressed saw dust. This pellet stove adds little pellets to a bowl inside the stove depending on how you set it. If you put it on low, it will add pellets more slowly than if you put it on high. It's amazing how much heat these little pellets put out, and they leave very little ash behind. The cool thing is, I bought a remote thermostat with it, so I can set the room at 70 degrees and it will turn off and on depending on the temperature. I just broke the remote by the way, so I've been operating it manually. On Thursday, the fireplace guy will be here to hopefully fix the remote.

So the problem is this. Actually I have a coule theories, so here we go. I have an alarm clock that is a synthetic sunrise. I set the sunrise for the length of time I want. I like 15 minutes. So 15 minutes before it's time to get up, this alram clock starts getting brighter. It's got a big bulb thing on it. It starts very dim and gets brighter and brighter until it's time to get up. Then it ends with an annoying beep like most alarms. Optional, but I like the back up. I wake up to light. One of the reasons why I can't really sleep in and I get sleepy when it gets dark. I've had this alarm clock for maybe 6 years. So I've definately trained myself to wake up with changes in light.

I was really excited to get a stove insert for my fireplace, so that I can enjoy the warm glow of the fire while falling asleep. Plus the heat. You can't beat a warm house in the middle of winter.

Warm glow = light. Flickering light to be exact. And now I can't sleep.

The first night I had it on, I instinctively rolled over to turn off the alarm before it went into beeping mode. It was around midnight. That continued throughout the night. After that I turned it down to 68 degrees so it turned on less. Then I tried loading the wood stove in the dining room to the point that it was too warm for the pellet stove to kick on. That was even better.

Then I broke the remote. So I put it on low and it burned all night...and now I'm not sleeping. I'll have you know I've been sleeping fairly well for the past 5 months, until recently. Maybe a metabolism thing. Could I have been sleeping better while eating more fatty foods in the southeast? It's possible.

So to sum it up, I painted my room again and I don't think it's the right color and I finally got my wood pellet insert that I've been saving for for a year and it's keeping me from sleeping. Bah! So I've got the wood stove going so I can turn off the pellet stove when I got to bed. Geezo.

To the Salon Lady

I let you leave my hair curly, because it seemed to make you happy:
the way you scrunched and ruffled and smiled at me in the mirror
and said "You're lucky to have curls."
I paused at the door after giving you my sympathies
and gave you one last smile
because I knew the moment the door closed behind me
the silence of the room would envelop you
and you would be forced to absorb the grief that the morning had brought you:
the loss of your own father.
I didn't tell you about mine because you were holding yourself together so well
and I didn't want to have to explain all that comes next,
but I could feel it in the air-
all the formalities come first, the arrangements, plans, condolences, too many flowers,
cards that say all the sappy things that people don't know how to say themselves.
People will come by and offer help
and food
and ask if there's anything else they can do; there probably won't be.
And then it will stop.

Because sympathy has an expiration date,
and grief does not.
And you'll again be sitting in your shop
staring out the window and watching the world go by
and something or someone will remind you of him
but you'll brush the tears away to answer the phone and greet another customer
and smile like you don't still hurt.
Days, months and years will go by.
You'll move on with your life
but always with a blanket of grief draped over your shoulders
that no one else can see.

I've been summoned

After what seemed like the longest week EVER, I pulled into my driveway and was already reciting in my head the many reasons why this very moment...the moment of me unlocking my back door and placing my stuff on the kitchen floor... was absolutely fantastic. It's Friday evening, tomorrow is Saturday morning, I have no workouts tomorrow (rest day!), it's Friday night....tomorrow is Saturday as opposed to Monday, and so on. Anyway, good deal. As a matter of fact, as I closed the door behind me, I actually said out loud "Best Day Ever!". While not exactly the best day ever, the moment of the day was the best day ever. Anyway, Friday is great, we all know that. Friday after all obligations are done and gone is even better. Magnifique.

I put my things down and walked out front to check the mail. The mail lady does not usually bring me anything exciting, sometimes she brings me bills which I'm not fond of, other times she brings me all sorts of gifts that I forgot I ordered because it took so long to get here. Today she brought me an ad from Overstock.com, a water bill and a Jury Summons.

Ugh. Jury Summons suck. I have some mixed feelings about Jury Duty, mostly "Jury Duty Sucks" sort of feelings, but then logic sets in. This country would have no justice system if everyday people like me refused to do jury duty. I would hope if one day I was arrested for robbing a bank, a jury of my peers would gladly step up and vote me not guilty and allow me to go about the rest of my life in relative peace. It's too bad I'm not a cop. Cops rarely have to do jury duty. Unfortunately I don't think that flies for firefighters. Firefighters are more fair. If it were the summer that would be different, but it's been raining up here, so I don't think they'll buy me stating that my job needs me right now. They really don't.

You know what sucks the most about jury duty? I did not plan for this. It is not on my calendar. If people need me to be somewhere, they need to request my time a couple months in advanced. You do not say to me on Friday, "Be here at 9am on Wednesday" and expect me to have my schedule clear. Seriously people? How long have you had this trial scheduled? Yes, of course I have Wednesday free. I mean, I don't actually, I have to work, but work can do without me for a day. I'm more concerned with the fact that on Friday I will be driving up to Oregon to see my friend and will not be back until Monday evening and if the Superior Court of Siskiyou County thinks they're going to change that, they've got another thing coming.

I am also not cancelling my Thanksgiving plans to accomodate their schedule. I will be out of town for an entire week, not the two days that they'll adjourn court, but several days after that. No, I am not coming home early to do my civic duty and throw some jerk in jail.

And the first week in December I will be in Chico, CA to recertify my wilderness EMT certificate. Not canceling that either.

But yes, I do know that it is my civic duty to perform jury duty, and everyone is busy and has other things going on in their lives just like me. But in all honesty I really do not have the time for this. I put my family and friends on the back burner all summer long so that I'm available to go fight fires. I expect to be able to use my time in the winter to spend time with other people and not have to commit my time and energy elsewhere. Is that too much to ask?

And as it turns out, I now have at least two strips of poison oak on my left arm. It's showing up right now. From pile burning yesterday. I took a digger into the side of the hill which I'm sure didn't help, and then ate it again today going back and checking the piles. Face first into the rocks and poison oak. Twice in two days. I suppose that calls for a shower. Maybe. Right now though, I'm enjoying a glass of Batch 88 Starboard Dessert Wine from Quady. And scratching my arm. Poison oak sucks. Almost as much as jury duty. Yeah, I'd actually rather have a bad case of poison oak than go to jury duty.

Hmm...after reading this over, it's Wednesday the 14th, almost two weeks from now. Still, I do not have that time free, it has already been claimed by some ones who are more important. Maybe if I'm really loud and obnoxious they'll send me home.

Finally getting the hang of this

Last year around this time, it started to rain. I drive the Klamath "River Road" to and from work everyday, and it's notoriously a very unforgiving road... for several reasons. It's very windy (winding?- like squiggly), there's always deer in the road, large logging trucks hauling butt to make as many trips as they can and a very good chance that if you go off the road, you're taking a large drop into a fast moving and very cold river. It's also very steep and rocky above the road so every time it rains, there are rocks in the road. Sometimes it becomes a very large slide and closes the road, most of the time it's just a few rocks in the road large enough to put a hole in your tire. And the road is too curvy to get a glimpse of the rocks before it's too late.

The year before last year I left the gym and was driving to work when I came up on a CalTrans vehicle- something like a plow except more for rocks. He pulled over for me and let me pass since he was going to have to drive fairly slow. I continued on and came up on a pile of rocks, too fast to stop and on a curve so I couldn't get out of my lane to go around them. I went over them at about 40 miles per hour. Not long after, my steering started to feel funny until it was getting hard to steer. I pulled over and discovered a flat tire. Ugh. The rock remover guy drove past me several minutes later. The guys at work laughed.

This year, driving to work to meet up for a fire, I drove over a rock and the air let out of my tire so slowly that I made it work and let it sit there flat for a couple weeks before coming back from the fire and having to fix it.

This morning I was driving to work after leaving the gym, and due to the rain, had left myself plenty of time to get to work. Up ahead I saw flashing yellow lights....it was the rock remover guy! By the way, I think it's the same set up that removes dead deer from the road, we've had a lot of those this week. I slowed down and stayed well behind so as not to encourage him to pull over and let me by. He drove in front of me at about 30mph (speed limit is 55) for about 10 miles before going off in another direction, scraping rocks out of the way for me. It was very nice of him, and I didn't have to change a tire.

I'm starting to get this. If I recall correctly, I have had 3 flat tires in the 3 years I have lived here, all caused by rocks on the river road.

Accomplished!

No, I did not paint my house... but I did manage to do a 7 mile run.

I'm training for my third marathon (26.2 miles) and Sunday is my long run day. I run 4 days per week doing shorter runs on all other days. The long runs are called LSD's "Long Slow Distance" in which you should run a little slower than your goal marathon pace. I don't really get that, but it's not a big deal because my legs don't know any more than one pace anyway...which reminds me, I need to start doing some sprints and interval training on my short days.

I had a lot of demons to contend with for my run today. I ran a 10 miler last Sunday, so I figured it should be no big deal to run 7, but it was the motivation part that nearly did me in.

This morning the weather was so gloomy that all I wanted to do was crawl back in bed. I decided if I wasn't going to run or accomplish anything around the house, I could at least go grocery shopping. For some weird reason I was completely exhausted. Like exhausted to tears. I leaned against my cart as I roamed the aisles trying to get what I needed. I walked through the coffee aisle hoping to get energy by aroma alone. I paused at the coffee makers and then pushed on. As I headed for the lemon juice, the last item on my list I realized I was absolutely crashing. I headed back to the coffee aisle...which housed the lemon juice to my surprise, and got lemon juice, and espresso. $15/lb espresso so it better be good.

I was so incredibly exhausted that I went home and took a nap. I knew if I didn't do my run today, I could always do it tomorrow... but that would mean running hills. Home is flat, work is mountainous. I got back into my pj's, crawled under the covers and fell asleep. It was close to 1pm.

I dreamed something about needing to run but it was Thanksgiving and people kept sending me on errands. I made it to the campsite/ fire ring and the turkey wasn't there (?) so I figured I might as well get my run in now. I only had one hair tie and my hair wasn't in a braid. I can't run without my hair being in a braided pony tail. This was not going to work. Then there was something about a Spanish language monopoly gameshow... and I still needed to get my run in.

I woke up and was way too hot. I kicked off the covers and pulled my pant legs up. I tried to peek out the window to see if the sun had come out yet. I couldn't tell. I buried my face back into my pillow. I thought again about my run, thought about having to run 7 miles up the side of the mountain tomorrow and decided I'd give today a try. Maybe I would have some of my new espresso? I would have to eat something before I ran. Then I would have to let it digest for awhile.

I got out of bed and mixed up an instant iced coffee and reheated a pork chop and sat down to check the weather. 58 degrees and sunny. Yes, I could see sun outside my window, but sun in the north can be deceiving. It can be sunny and 10 degrees. I downed the ice coffee and sat down to read my Muscle and Fitness Hers magazine while munching on the pork chop. I texted Debbie to make sure she had registered for the marathon yet. I studied maps of the marathon.

Around 4pm I took off for my run. I tried to keep my head quiet at first. No sense in getting all worked up at the beginning. It never fails to drift to calculating the distance left versus energy left. I couldn't find a 7 mile loop to run, so I just did an out-and-back. Out and backs are nice in that you get yourself out there and have no choice but to get back. So really all I had to do was run 3.5 miles. And then run home.

My long sleeve shirt might have been a bad choice.

I ran south towards Grenada (California, not Spain).

I crossed over the Little Shasta River, across the railroad tracks and curved around to head straight toward Mt. Shasta. The cows stopped what they were doing and stared warily. Sometimes one will get up and run and spook the whole herd. Today they mostly stared. One day while running at work, I was charged by two cows. The gate was open and they started charging after me. I heard you weren't supposed to run from animals, so I turned around and stopped and stood my ground, looking them in the eyes. It worked. They stopped and we had a stand off. I slowly backed away and they left me alone.

Around mile 3, a large bull (no horns?) stood behind a gate that looked smaller than him, looking pretty ready to jump the fence and come after me. My grandmother says cows can jump fences. Wild ones anyway. This one didn't look wild, but then again, what does a wild cow look like? In any case, he stood his ground and I made it off safely.

I passed a farmer that I waved to. He said "Nice day for a run, isn't it?" I replied "Oh yeah, beautiful!"

In December and January I will be doing long runs over 15 miles in snow storms. I try not to think about that. I mean, how does one run 20 miles over icy roads?

I turned around at Freeman St and headed home. Only 3.5 miles to go.

The sage brush has a pungent smell like urine.

The farmer's house smelled like a wood stove.

At one point I smelled a very dead animal....and passed by many more.

I crossed back over the railroad tracks and Little Shasta River. I ate a GU. Caffeine free Lime Sublime. I chugged some water and let the sugar gel kick in. The road sign said "Montague, 1 mile" but I had a little over a mile to go. I still had to run down main street and another block to the east.

I passed the taxidermist and storage facility and Shasta Valley Tires.

I passed the man on a horse across the street from the post office and turned right.

Passed the Montague Volunteer Fire Department with their engine bay doors open and shiny red trucks inside.

Passsed Martin's burned down feed and tack shop.

My watch beeped half a block from home. Done. Time to walk.

I walked in the house, downed more water and stretched. I rolled out my IT band (the side of my leg) on a hard foam roller and stretched some more.

Now I've got ice on the side of my leg (maintanence only) and sitting in my reading chair. It's starting to get dark. Runs are always better after they're done.

For crying out loud.

The weatherman around here is lousy. We were supposed to have great weather this weekend, but instead it's...well, lousy. I had big plans...now I might just go back to bed.

This weekend was supposed to be another big push at painting the exterior of the house. We're in the season where days for that will be few and far between, but the weather this weekend called for mostly cloudy or mostly sunny (it varied depending on the website) with a 10% chance of rain. It's been cold and rainy for most of the week so everyone has been really excited about a nice weekend.

Yesterday I woke up to some threatening looking clouds, but the weatherman promised me some sun with only a 10% chance of rain (I check it around 6am). I had breakfast, watched some tv and kept watch on the weather outside. It was getting worse. I checked the weather online again. Suddenly it became a 40% chance of rain! What?! You don't just get to change your weather forecast by the minute just because you looked outside! I, myself, could do that. Doesn't take a special degree to look out your window and say, hmmm, looks like rain. I gave up hopes of painting the exterior and went to work on repainting my bedroom.

It took all day, but I managed to paint the ceiling "Off White" and paint the walls two coats of "Old Basque Brown". I cleaned everything up and went to work cleaning the house. I finished that, had two glasses of wine and a pork chop and called it a day.

Today would be an all-out exterior paint fest. I checked the weather first thing: currently fog, warming to 71 degrees today, partly sunny, 10% chance of rain. No big deal. That fog will lift and I'll do my 7 mile run and paint the house.

While waiting for it to clear up, I decided to clean out my workshop that is an absolute disaster. I started clearing it out and putting everything outside, but the fog was so thick it was getting everything wet. So I put everything back and came back inside and finished off my Ghirardelli chocolate squares.

I should probably just shower since I'm not entirely sure when the last time that happened was. This weather makes me not even want to do that.

The master bedroom when I moved in:

It's first paint job:

Now:

New Coffee Supplier

I recently read this really great book about coffee: Coffee Basics: A Quick and Easy Guide, and learned a heck of a lot about coffee. I realized I didn't know much about it. For example, French roast does not come from France, and Italian roast does not come from Italy. It actually describes how long the coffee beans are roasted. Who knew? Ok, maybe you guys did. I guess I never thought about it because when it says "French Roast" it usually also says "Dark" so I suspected that they had to do with two different things. Not so.

Anyway, I also learned that coffee beans come from several different regions of the world, are shipped here green, go to the roasters and then to the stores or people. Different green beans from different climates and elevations have different characteristics. A lot of the mass market coffee we find in the store is "Robusta" from the lower elevations, "Arabica" is grown in higher elevations. There are "specialty coffees" pulled from single origin plantations and roasted to their perfect level (each has a different ideal level) or to the level you desire, if you go through a roaster. I was intrigued to hear that coffees from different regions taste very different from each other, and I was excited to start trying them all.

I looked online at all the different roasters out there and picked a few that carried the coffee I first wanted to try, which is Yemen Mocha Matari. I ordered from a place in Atlanta: Martinez Fine Coffees- a Yemen Matari and a Puerto Rican something or other. The Yemen Matari was very good, the Puerto Rican was ok.

Next I was looking for a place that sold the Sulawesi (from Indonesia) at a decent price, and Martinez didn't have it, so I went with Storehouse Coffee Company out of Hendersonville, NC which is a 20 minute drive  from where I was stationed this winter. Who knew? I ordered a Sulawesi and one from the Congo. With my receipt in the package was a hand written note thanking me for my order. This is a nice touch hat I've seen some companies do (I order a lot through the mail since I live in the middle of nowhere). The thing I dig the most about this place is that they roast it to order (you choose the level of roast for each coffee that you buy) and they write the date it was roasted on the bag. I just got 3 more pounds and they were roasted on 10/22. Today is 10/25. I like this place. On the receipt was another note:
Hi Ms. Bowers, Thank you for the follow-up order! Another great selection, and I hope you enjoy them. All the best, and some signature I can't read.

Ok, I'm sold. There's something to be said about the little things you do for your customers. I know, it only took a second to write that, but they took the time. Selling ploy? Maybe, who cares? I dig it. So here's what I got (since I obviously have fabulous taste in coffee).

Mocha Java, which is a blend. The mocha is probably misleading. No, it is not chocolate and Java is not just coffee. Mocha is the area in Yemen that the coffee comes from and has somewhat of a chocolate taste to it, but does not actually have chocolate in it like a Mocha you would order at Starbucks. Java is a coffee from Indonesia. The Mocha Java is supposed to be a pretty awesome blend (not single origin) so I wanted to try that.

Kenya French Mission AA- a very highly rated coffee and supposedly very flavorful. Single origin from a single estate in Kenya.

Papua New Guinea- This is an interesting coffee. Years ago, the most prestigious coffee you could by was Jamaican Blue. Apparently due to short cuts in growing and processing, it's no longer worth the $25-$50 per pound that it sells for, but people are buying th reputation, so it continues to work. The coffee in Papua New Guinea started from seeds from Jamaica... and continued. So coffee from Papua New Guinea is the same coffee as the prestigious Jamiacan from years ago...except grown in a different place. So this coffee is supposed to give me a taste of what the Jamaican Blue used to be all about.

They're all very exciting and I can't wait to taste them. There is a such thing as coffee tastings but I don't think there's any around here.

The book is fascinating and I use it for reference all the time. It was a truly enjoyable read, and it wasn't too long either. It goes through the history of coffee, regional flavors, how it's grown, how it's processed, the really cool roasting process and how to choose a supplier. Again the book is  Coffee Basics: A Quick and Easy Guide by Kevin Knox and Julie Sheldon Huffaker.

Click HERE to visit my new found coffee roaster!

Finally!

Fire season is finally over and I've accrued over 1300 hrs of overtime. Overtime alone. We basically work 80hr weeks for months on end, so you can probably guess why I'm so excited that it's over. We had our crew party the night before last night and then the temps and apprentices on the crew packed up and left yesterday.

I'm still here. Along with a few others. Since we're starting a different work schedule I've only got one day off this week, which would be today. (Right now our air raid siren just started going off... not really, it's our volunteer fire department call that alerts the entire town that there's a call....why don't they just switch to pagers and cell phones? It's 5:30am. Anyway...) We got off early yesterday so I hit the river again. Not only did I not catch anything, but I lost 3 rigs in the rocks. And to top it all off, several boaters drifted by and it turns out, everyone (but me) is basically catching their limit. After shouting back and forth at one boat, one of the guys said "Don't give up!" and then almost as an afterthought "They're everywhere!" and I wonder if it was in response to his buddy saying something like "How can you not be catching something today?"

So today is a new day and I've decided to write off salmon for today. I'm heading to the Iron Gate Reservoir that feeds into the Klamath River. I apparently do much better at still water than swift moving water. We've got a cold front moving in which usually sends fish on a feeding frenzy (apparently). It's currently 34 degrees which is a little less than exciting. I checked out the weather report and clicked on the hourly weather. I forgot that it's coldest just as the sun comes up. So 34 degrees is warm. Ugh! It's supposed to get to 27 before 8am. I'm dressing warm for sure. Tonight it's supposed to start a long week of rain and snow. Summer is gone.

Salmon are obnoxious

I set off early this morning for the river to catch me some salmon (or bass, trout, catfish....anything really). I pulled into a turnout on the side of the road and scouted around for a path through the thick vegetation to the river. I found a decent one with a little casting room and set my stuff down. There was a loud splash that scared the hell out of me. I turned and looked at the river in time to see a salmon leap out of the water, shake about and smack down into the water.

I set about hooking up my tackle but was so excited and nervous that everytime a fish jumped I messed up my knot. They were everywhere! Huge salmon jumping about and rolling up by the surface, flashing their fins like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

Let's just get one thing clear. These guys weren't eating. At this stage in their life, they are not hungry. They swim way up river from the ocean to spawn and to die. They do not want what's on the end of your line. They snap at it because they're irritated and want the thing out of their face. Like you swatting at a fly, except salmon don't have hands. So if something is whizzing around by their head, they eat it in hopes of making it stop.

Or they just have an instinctive reaction to whatever you're putting in front of them. Either way, no matter what I tried, no one wanted a piece of it. I tried jigs, lures, spoons, spinners, and every configuration I could think of (that was currently in my tackle box). These fish were jumping around right next to my line. Surely they could just take a second to look over and nip at my tackle. One guy surfaced a mere 4 inches from my line! The bastards! It was like they were laughing at me. Displaying how close they could get to me without me being able to do anything about it.

I changed locations along the river a few times. Salmon were everywhere. I tumbled down the bank into a new spot, looked around and saw something coming towards me in the river and thought "surely that is not a salmon sticking it's head out and watching me". No, it wasn't. It was a river otter! He gave me a nonchalant glance and slinked back in to the water....where he probably ate the fish that mocked my line. Good for him.

I had to pick up my meat from the ranch at 10am, so I gave up for the morning, vowing to be back later in the afternoon with a vengeance. As I was leaving, I took note of all the cars parked by the boat ramp. I wasn't sure if they were from boaters or not (who were launching their boats up river and drifting down...no power boats allowed). I walked down under the bridge where I met up with a fisherman who showed me his setup. He wasn't catching anything today, but a week ago he caught two on his two current set-ups. He was using roe and a three way swivel attached to a weight that allows the roe to go with the current but not go down river. I don't know why a salmon would want to eat salmon eggs, but whatever, I'll give it a try.

I drove home....took some amazing photos of Mt. Shasta along the way....picked up the meat, went into town to drop off my keys at the mechanic (clutch issues), went grocery shopping, ran 9 miles (that's right) showered, and went back to the river with my new tackle and roe.

The fish were still jumping and swimming about but not with the same frequency. Later, as it started to get dark, they got more active again.... but not a single one took my line. I was exhausted, so I headed home about an hour before sunset. Next weekend if they're still running, I'll head further up river toward the hatchery. If not, I'll head to Iron Gate Reservoir. I think I tend to do a little better with a hook on a worm. We'll seee.

So during my run, around mile 2, it occured to me that a 9 mile run was just over 1/3 of a marathon. That didn't seem that bad at all. All I had to do was run this route 3 times. My mind started to drift back to my last marathon and the training leading up to it. Oh man, what have I agreed to?

At about mile 3, I realized that 9 miles was a long way to go.

When I turned around at 4.5 miles, I squeezed my Lime Sublime GU in my mouth and chased it with some water. It was a long way home.

At mile 5, 4 miles didn't seem like such a bad deal.

At mile 6, 3 miles seemed like a piece of cake.

At mile 7, 2 miles felt like forever and I would've walked except that it would just take me longer to get home.

After I finished, I ate a pop-tart while sitting in a cold bath tub (to fight inflammation)...and of course 9 miles didn't seem that bad.

Ugh.