Our last adventures on the trip

Better late than never right? Well, Brad wanted to try horseback riding, so I called up to Cottonwood Cove and made us reservations. He got this nice slow horse named Cinnamon. He had to kick her to make her trot every once in a while because she fell behind. I can't remember my horse's name, but he was not slow. I had to hold him back pretty much the whole trip, because if given a choice he would like to rest his head on the butt of the horse in front of him. We had a good trip and Brad liked it except for the trotting part. I told him that wasn't really fun. Also, he complained about being sore for a few days afterwards. Pfft, boys and their weak ass thighs, I had no problems. So here's a picture of us on the hilltop we rode up and around and back down. It was a really pretty ride and it was nice to be back in the saddle after(how many years has it been since summer camp?)




The Friday before we left: July 31st, 2009, was Mom and Dad's 38th Anniversary. Brad and I got them train tickets on the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad. We took a train from Alamosa up La Veta Pass to Fir, Colorado. There we disembarked to watch a concert which included many people and ended with Michael Martin Murphy. It started to pour shortly after he finished and we hid in the cabin until the train came back 1/2 an hour later. Then we re-boarded, tried to wrestle our seats back from some old people(unsuccessful) and road back to Alamosa. So here's the happy couple on their day enjoying the music at Fir.

And just for the heck of it here's a picture of me fishing. Dad and I went out on Wednesday. I caught nothing of legal size, but he did pretty well. Luckily he'd been out on Tuesday already and we'd had fish for breakfast that morning.

Monday in Creede

Today we went hiking on Deep Creek. Brad allowed me to drag him a whole 5 miles before he declared that his heart might explode. Poor Pup all unuse to the altitude. He did pretty well, but he's never been at this altitude and he's never been at a very high altitude at all for more than a weekend. So, almost 9,000 feet was a little rough on him. He motored along quite well with only a few breaks and then we turned around and headed back down the trail after a little over an hour. So here's a picture of Brad and I,and one of the view.

New jewelry

So, I am not trying to show off my cleavage, but I am actually trying to show off my new necklaces. My friend Amanda made these. They are fun and kitchy and, as you can see, you can wear them on a variety of chains. Luck for me, I have lots of random silver chains sitting around just waiting fro someone to make pendants to go on them! Thanks Amanda!


In less fun news, the puppy has been thoroughly traumatized. First it was the early fireworks on the 3rd of July. (Zoey really hates loud noises and fireworks and lawn mowers are high on her bad list.) Then the actual fireworks on the 4th of July. Luckily here she'd played with 3 year old Ian in the backyard for a couple of hours and fell asleep a bit early. Then on the 5th we had a big thunderstorm. Even after the rain and thunder stopped I couldn't get her to go out. Well, by Monday morning she seemed all better, but ever since the night of the 3rd, she's taken to sleeping under the bed and she's still sleeping under the bed. She comes out during the night to sleep in her bed, but we're not sure when. Poor puppy!

My Beautiful Yard!

A great weekend. Brad and I took Zoey for a walk along the 5K cross-country trail at Blanchard something something Park. She drug us the whole way. Brad worked outside on the weeds around the creek and I decided to take pictures of all my flowers. So I have placed my lilies, my rogue azalea that's been blooming for a month, my hydrangea, and a shot of the elephant ears that are threatening to take over the creek. Zoey's pretty sure they're a puppy forest.

Soccer is Dangerous

Brad has been refereeing soccer now for about 1 1/2 years. He started with just club teams and mostly children, but now he refs adults, kids and lots of high school games. He even reffed at 4 high school playoff games this year. A few more and I told him he could quit his job and ref full-time. Well maybe not. He's been hording all the money in a special fund to use as our vacation cash. So no Roomba for me,(everyone else here just got one) but I do get to to enjoy my vacation knowing it will not be on my credit card when I get home, Yeah :-)

So the proof that soccer is dangerous is the picture of Bradley to the right here. I took this a few days later, but if you can image the dots there by his eyes as bloody cuts it helps. Also his black eye healed up nicely. A 14 year old kicked a soccer ball at him. Apparently not on purpose. He bent his glasses all out of shape, and bled everywhere. He looked like a mugging victim when he got home. (I might mug someone in that ref outfit too) Anyway, he's been telling everyone we see that "slipped in the shower" while pointing at me. Like I'd ever try and break his glasses, you know how much those cost to replace without insurance?

Family Hike I

Mom and Dad are in town this week visiting. So for Felicia's birthday we decided to take a hike to Parson's Mountain. The hike was lovely. About an hours drive into South Carolina. We hiked about 4-5 miles around Parson's lake and then up to the mountain top, elevation 832ft. Mom was worried about hiking up a mountain, but we noted that in Kansas that elevation was know as a low spot. The hike was a little warm and muggy, and a lot ticky. We found more ticks in this one hike then on the previous three Felicia and I have taken. We voted unanimously to postpone any further sister hikes until the Fall. We will be looking into sister kayaking, but I wouldn't expect any pictures from that one. Below is Felicia as our Trail Stewardess, showing us the way, then Danger Position, which is a whole other blog entry. See more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/lindsayblake10607/SisterHike#

Seen outside the hospital by the old smoking hut. Everywhere there are white azaleas blooming away. But here there is one pink bloom in the middle of a white bush. I've never seen this. Right next to it is a mostly white flower with one splash of pink. They were so pretty and unexpected, I had to take a picture.

Masters - Tuesday practice round

Better late than never, my first Master's experience. Tuesday's practice round. The National is a beautiful course. Rolling greens, trees and flowers everywhere. You'd never imagine that there would be so much once you got inside. It seems a lot bigger from the inside. And once you're inside you're in a totally different golfing world. It's some kind of fairy land for golfers set off from the rest of the world. Once you're in there it's like nothing else exists.

So as you may infer from the photos, it was cold. Very cold, especially for Georgia in the Spring. Especially since Tuesday it was in the 40's - 50's and Wednesday it was in the 80's. Ha and all you Kansas people thought that only happened out there huh? We camped out at the 16th hole. Our view is the center picture. Here you frequently see turtles sunning themselves, as in the left photo. Also, on practice round days, the golfers will hit one real shot and then come down to the pond and try to skip their shots across. Lots of them skip tot he shore and then sink, some make it to the green, and one, by Vijay Signh actually made a Hole-In-One. Pretty good!

Sister Hike III

OK, so I've actually had things happening in my life and have just neglected to blog about them. Bad me! but it has been busy around here? Yeah that's it.

Well Felicia and I headed out on our third sister hike this past weekend. Felicia decided we should take these to replace our monthly sister lunches. It was healthier she said. OK by me. This month was her choice and we headed up to South Carolina and Lick Fork Park. While Felicia had a number of locations picked out we chose this one because a) here GPS could find it and we had no SC map in the car, and b) we could find it, eventually.

We chose to take the Horn Creek Trail which was a roughly 6 mile loop. Mostly moderate hiking. We saw only one snake, which I had to swear up and down was a garden snake, so Felicia would relax, a few geckos that promptly ran up the nearest tree and a pair of cardinals. Otherwise it was very quiet. No people on this hike, which is nice because you never know what we may be discussing:-)

Next hike Parson's Mountain when the parents come to visit.

Spring!

Although the weather has yet to settle, I have decided it is Spring. As evidenced by my lovely Azalea bushes in the backyard.


We've had one lovely weekend, followed by one where the temperatures nearly hit freezing, then 70's again, then rainy mess. I expect this will continue well through the spring. Well, at least the flowers are coming out and looking lovely and of course we could always use the rain. Except in my yard which does not drain and just sorta seeps. It looks like we have nuclear waste under our yard and I have no idea why. More on that next week.

Happy VD!

Happy Valentine's Day! I got flowers from Brad! and I got him a card, made by our medical illustration students (you didn't know there was a whole degree to draw all those posters in your doctors office? Surprise!) That said "VD is special" on the front. Then Happy Valentine's Day inside.
:-)

Stupid Comcast

First I would like to report that my spots are better(see attached photo)



Next, I would like to say that it is not due to the fact that I'm been getting plenty of rest. Tuesday night around 1am, I was awoken when our tiny 50 house, dead ending neighborhood became Grand Central Station. This is Never the case since our neighborhood is in a dead end, so no one goes in there unless they need to. A nice very low traffic area, right? Usually.

Tuesday night night there appeared to be a fleet driving back and forth in an apparently random manner. This might not have woken me if they had not been getting out of their cars and talking, thus waking every dog in the neighborhood. (and we have a lot of dogs in our neighborhood.) Dogs barking ment Zoey had to bark too, you know in case we weren't awake and aware of the danger already. Such a good little watchdog.

Eventually, the people put their dogs inside, the men continue to drive about and talk, Zoey growls periodically. Then one of the trucks park in front of our house and the engine running was accompanied by clanking and the slamming of doors. Lovely. I finally got up to see what the noise is and it's a Comcast truck, two in fact. One parked in front of my house, one two houses down. Fixing stuff or something.

Brad finally got annoyed enough to call and complain. (I voted that he go out in his boxers and yell, but he vetoed my idea:-( He was told there was a major outage(so why are they in front of my house at one am, I just closed my account) and they would put the complaint on our file(again, Yeah! oh wait we just closed it)

45 minutes after the debacle started the guys pack up and leave for good. Zoey eventually settles back down and we actually get some sleep. However, Comcast is not high on my list and I doubt another of my pennies will grace their doors.

My Time at the Gym

So, as usual Brad drug me to the gym last night(I mean this is the most loving way possible) My desire to go to the gym is probably well known. I range from actually being drug to complaining and sulking. On two memorable occasions, I felt like going and asked Brad to get ready.(This really throws him off) Anyway, we were there last night and after I read on the bike for a while I decided to do a few weight machines then some ab work.

They have these neat little benches, that are inclined with foot holds, so you get a greater range of motion and don't move around right? Since I hate doing crunches, I've been holding a weight to my chest to make it harder and thus I have to do fewer. Right now I'm on a 10lb weight. My abs are in great shape, but you can't tell under the tummy fat I still sport. Ahh well.

So while doing my crunches on the bench and guy comes over to use the other bench(there are 2 and they face each other) He asks if I always use weight. And I said yes and told him why. He then told me that adding weight like that will add to your love handles. What?!? Now he seemed to want to be giving helpful advice, but addressing a woman's love handles is really not the way to go about it. Especially when he calls them love handles. Umm, can't you just say your sides? Are you looking at my love handles? Are they more than just sides now, you're saying this because they are love handles huh? Do I have a lot to love? Bastard.

He finished up by saying if I switched up my ab exercises then I wouldn't plateau t fast and wouldn't need the weight. He appeared to be in good condition, so maybe he should know. Maybe I should have said thank you, but he mentioned love handles, so now he's on my bad list. The bright side of this story is that I have decided I can no longer do crunches at the gym. It'll make me fat. It's always good to look at the silver lining right?

Spots

OK, I've been all over Facebook with my story, but I will now chronicle it for everyone else too.

January 21st - A pretty normal day. I go to work, I go home, Brad drags me to the gym where I manage to run 2 miles in 20 minutes(Woohoo me!) We go home and I grab some of the black bean soup I'd made in the crock pot and head over to Felicia's house. She's meeting my parents and her husband(whole nother story here) on vacation in Mexico for the next week, so we're going to hang out before she goes. We have some salty black bean soup(my fault), some seriously dense cornbread(Felicia's fault(well I didn't have any milk left, so I used water, humm)) and some sketchy chianti(screwtop, she should have known better) We chat, she cleans I pet the insistant cats, I go home around 10.

I notice after my shower that I appear to have spots all over my torso. Weird, we'ren't there when I changed for the gym earlier. I now begin my internal debate on whether or not to tell/show Brad the spots. They look like chicken pox(but I've had that) but they don't itch. However, Brad is a hypochondriac and I'm thinking he might kick me out of bed for possible contamination reasons. I show him the spots anyway and as a compromise(though I don't think he's terribly convinced by this) I take my tempurature. When it comes out normal that means(in Bradley world) that I'm not really sick and thus safe to have in bed. To me this means I'm not infected with anything, it's just a reaction(maybe to that sketchy chianti)

Thursday and Friday come and go and everytime I go to the gym, my spots get worse. They don't get better in between, but there are definitely more of them after every gym visit. This gives me a whole day reprieve (for testing purposes) from the gym. (What can I say Brad's a tough task master) Regardless, the spots continue to make headway across my tummy and back. I now look like this:
This brings me to Monday morning and a visit to my doctor. "OK, let's see what we have." "Oh yeah, that's Pityriasis rosea. Textbook case too. Can I bring in a medical student to show? We were just talking about this a couple of days ago." Sure, why not. If I'm going to have weird spots why not show the medical student. I've shown half of my co-workers already.

The long and the short of my spots is this. They are viral, but no one knows what causes them to appear. They are not contagious. They will go away on their own in 4-6 weeks and will likely never trouble me again.

So now two weeks later my spots are fading. They are actually peeling, so it looks like I have little sunburn spots all over my torso. Pretty huh?

Did I also mention that my hypochondriac husband has still instructed me to keep my clothes on at all times? Big change there:-)

The Floor Part 2

This is our floor as of Friday morning. The guys came to start on Wednesday morning around 10am. After 2 hours of attempting to pull op the wood, they announced they were off to lunch. Also that they couldn't pull up the wood without pulling up pieces of the concrete floor as well. So they were going to get a new blade for their skill saw, chop up the floor and then water it. he idea was that this would loosen the glue and they could pull up the boards the next day. Thus the wood sticking tot he floor in places and many small pieces of wood everywhere. Anyway after lunch they spent another hour sawing and watering before leaving at 2.

Friday they did manage to pull up the floor int he living room and dining room. Then they put down an epoxy to fill in and holes they'd made in the slab and help the glue stick better or something. Then they had to let it dry, so off they went. 8am - 2pm. Saturday back at 8am and the whole living room laid. We had high hopes they could just finish it out, but one of the guys son had a baseball game so they finished up around 3pm. Right now we can't walk on the floor and they haven't put down the quarter round and it's apparently all held together with painters tape anyway. Ahhh Well, soon all will be done.

House projects are so much fun:-)

To follow the progress go to my photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/lindsayblake10607/OurLivingRoomFloor#

The Wood Floor Saga, Part 1

Our Beautiful New Wood Flooring is RUINED! Yes, life is sad all over but not quite so sad as seeing your 1 year old flooring buckling. So, the long and short of the story is this: our A/C has not been checked since, well who knows, we've never had it checked anyway. I didn't even know you had too have the A/C checked regularly. Geez people, someone needs to tell us these things, I've never had my own house, I've always lived in apartments. See this is the practical life lessons stuff they should teach you in home ec. Not that I took home ec, but I digress.

Well, the point is we figured out the A/C was leaking all under our floors because I noticed they were getting all puckered looking. I was all for blaming this on Bushie, Felicia and Nik's Black Lab. He came and stayed with me the weekend before and spent the entire time ignoring the puppy and panting all over our floor. and shedding too, but I doubt that damaged the flooring anyway. So we figure out the A/C is leaking and turn it off and Brad bravely volunteers to stay home until it's fixed(really this is both brave and just lack of trust in me to get it fixed in a timely manner, Brad looooves him some A/C)

The nice A/C people come and clean out system and find out our condensation coil is clogged. How this happens is a mystery to me, but I thought it might be best not to know. Anyway, all better. The nice flooring people came to give us an estimate, the nice insurance man said "Yes, of course we will pay to replace your floor even though it's your own stupid fault for not knowing how to take care of your house and it's not like we're giving those poor suckers in Ike's path any help or anything." OK, maybe not the last part, but mostly accuarte.

The flooring people take a couple of days, but finally get us an estimate for the damaged parts, then call a few days later and say ohhh, that floor is discontinued, let me see if I can find some extra boxes packed back in some warehouse. A few days later: "Yeah, um, no, no one has any, you'll have to replace the whole thing with something else. " The nice insurance mand says yes we will still cover it, just make sure it says the old flooring is discontinued. No Problem!

So we're getting a whole new floor downstairs! We only have to move everything! Yeah! OK, no that part sucks. To anyone who thought this was actually going to be a short story, You don't know me very well do you? WTF are you doing reading my blog?

Return of the Hamster and other Tales

Yes, we can step down from the Oatmeal Alert. Hammy has returned home and the feared abduction turned out to be an escapade behind the kitchen cabinets. See the above photo of possible suspect with accomplice at a chain restaurant in Arhus, Denmark and the following news item:

Martinez, GA - Escape hamster Hamdini "Hammy" Blake was recaptured last night at 10:25pm. Reports put Hammy at the original scene of his escape, his cage. Captors cleverly placed the cage near his hideout in hopes that hunger and thirst would drive him back. "I told Zoey it was a good plan" Mrs. Blake was quoted as saying. Zoey was said to bark in agreement.

So all is well. Hammy is safely restrained and immediately tried to re-escape upon realizing his mistake in going back to the scene of the crime. Alas, my clever hamster trap failed, but my clever putting his cage by where he was hiding did not. I knew he couldn't resist coming back for his nut stash.

In other news, Bradley is back! Yes, my husband arrived in one piece from Copenhagen, via the Atlanta airport. I picked him up just after 7pm on Sunday night. He'd been up since like 2am our time at that point. He did manage to eat dinner and shower. He attempted to fall asleep in from of the TV, but I made him go to bed. It was 8:30. He woke up around 4:30am then, and spent the morning with the puppy. In hopes of pulling his schedule back to normal I forced him to stay awake until 9:30.(I know I'm so mean!)

He must have been awake when the puppy woke up at 6:50 this morning because he got right out of bed and took her downstairs. He returned ten minutes later with coffee for me:-) I could get used to this. Normally, I take the puppy down because he is so dead to the world, he doesn't even notice her trying to jump on him. And then I make my own coffee. I could get used to this, maybe I should let him go to bed at 9pm. Hummm.

On the side, for your entertainment are pictures from Denmark. A picture of the canal and the National Library.

OATMEAL ALERT!!

Well of course when Brad is out of town the puppy will play. But last night I came home and let the puppy out and then noticed something was weird with the hamster cage. In fact it appeared that the wheel was no longer attached. AHHHHHH!!!! Hammy the escape artist has done it again! Hammy is our affectionate name, but he was early on named Hamdini after his favorite role model. Seen here on the right.

So, I began the search. It's important to know, when searching for hamsters, their weaknesses and also all small holes in your house. I figured Hammy probably escaped sometime Wednesday night, but in my usual morning daze had not even noticed him missing. So first thing, check under all couches, tv consoles, tables, puppy beds, etc. This though search of the downstairs, led to nothing. Occasionally they'll hide under furniture, but for the most part they like darker smaller hiding spots.

This of course leaves under the stove and dishwasher int he kitchen. Like most cabinets ours were placed with some space between the wall and actual cabinet also with a few inches underneath to lift them a bit off the floor. All accessable from under the stove or dishwasher. I do believe the hamsters have a nest already prepared. Based on last night's observations, they must have stocked it with provisions too. The usual method is to wait until dark and then shake the food bowl near their hideout. It works for all kinds of animals.

This had no effect on Hammy at all. I didn't hear a peep. OK fine. I left a bit of food on the floor, just in case he came out. I also transferred his cage to the floor in case he decided to return to his home. Wishful thinking on my part. This morning there was no food on the floor, and no Hammy in his cage still. Well at least I know he's around. I set up a hamster trap for him. A little hook and bait thing hopefully he'll fall for sometime today. I'll post a picture if it's successful. Zoey is also posted to keep an eye out. In the picture you can see them bonding. It was hard to get a picture where they weren't moving, but right after this Hammy places his little paws around her nose. So cute. She didn't even try to lick him.

Zoey being cute

Amanda pointed out a good fact to me yesterday. Despite my love for the puppy, all you ever hear about is her eating my sill and flip-flops, etc. So the theme for today is my adorable puppy, with lots of photos as evidence.

So here we have photos of my puppy being cute. Since these are when she's sleeping one might still be tempted to think that my puppy is only good when unconscious. Not true! It's just the only time I can take a picture where she's not moving. She moves constantly and even more so when I'm trying to take pictures.(I swear) Moving and ripping open toys to pull out the stuffing are here favorite activities.(Besides sleeping, eating, and barking, she has a very full schedule) Right now Sheep and Cookie Monster from the pictures are due for some major surgery. For once it's not her favorite squeaky toy hedgehog. I've sewed up his side, including reinserting an arm, and his back. Tonight it'll be Sheep's back and CM's lip. She's also decided that pulling the squirrels out of their tree is boring, and she would rather eat the tree trunk part. (picture to follow)

Everyone has heard and seen the window sill incidence, so you might be surprised that I have once more placed Zoey alone in both the kitchen and dining room. I'm a bit surprised myself, but considering she can't really do much damage that will matter on her tasty windowsill anymore, and that she's now 7 months old, we thought we'd try again. I sprayed the windowsill with bitters again. Amanda left me this wonderful note about how someone else had tried Vick's Vapor rub and it worked great. The smell and taste kept the dog from eating the area. So I got some, and I let her sniff it and she licked it. Ewwww! So, I thought, well the smell doesn't bother here, but the taste probably does, I bet she will go away this time. But NO! She licked it again! My weird dog likes Vick's. That just can't be good.

Spiders

I'm all creepy crawly the last few days. I found a beautiful spider in my garden. These are called Writing or Garden Spiders. Garden because that's where they live, Writing because of the pattern on their webs. They have a normal web shape, but with an additional thick scribbley type pattern down the middle of it. You can't really tell in the photo, but if you look below her you can kind see it. I got too close after this and she jumped off. Yes she, in spiders girls are usually large and pretty and boys are little and drab.

We used to have one of these in my classroom. Actually we had a couple. Once they lay eggs they die and we had to get a new one. (I could contain a large spider, but a bunch of small ones might escape, they had to be put back outside.) Certain class days we would head out and hunt bugs. Crickets were an especially easy target. The kids would catch the bugs and we would choose one to feed to the spider. Every time she built a web, we'd throw a bug in it. The kids loved to watch how she'd move to grab the bug and immobilize it, then roll it up in webbing. Well, of course, there were as many ewwws as cools, but they were all watching.

I have decided to name her Zola. I showed her to Brad, but he was not impressed, he was also very concerned that she was poisonous. I assured him she wasn't poisonous, to him anyway. The large dead moth she had at the time didn't help much. However, since she's outside and easily avoidable(he never goes near the landscaping, that's my area) he's decided not to put out a death decree. Lucky Zola. Now as long as the puppy doesn't find her we're in good shape.