The Recoil of Respiratory Illness

Fever, runny nose, cough, runny nose, cough, fever, pharmaceuticals, semi-runny nose, pointless cough.

That's my last two weeks in summary. Yuck.

Now I'm starting to feel better, and am trying to make up for lost time - this being the week before we go down to SoCal for the holidays and I was going to do all sorts of things to get ready for that... yeah, now I'm trying to narrow that down to just the most important things. ::sigh::

On the top of the list is my latest knitting project: I'm trying to finish the beautiful "Delphyne" thigh high socks pattern in time to wear for he holidays. We leave on Tuesday next week, so I've got just a few more days to make this happen. My goal was to get down to the point where I just need to make the feet (turn the heel, close the toe, and everything in between). If I'm diligent today (and I hope to feel well enough to go to my knitting group, so that will help) I will be able to achieve that goal and be one day ahead of the game. We'll see.

Aside from that, not much has happened. Being sick means that I've literally just been sitting on my butt and watching the grass grow. Yesterday, with the nicer weather, and pharmaceuticals helping me feel better, I managed to get the front and side lawn (the easiest part) mowed before pooping out.

I'm looking forward to feeling 100% again, as well as the upcoming holidays.

Until next time!

Storms

We've been having some strong weather lately. Check out this video I took after someone upwind kicked up a bunch of sand on the shore on Sunday.



In case you were wondering, yes, that's Jack's hat, and the video ends because I promptly took off running after it. Luckily it didn't get too far.

The irony of this all is that I finally have everything I need to go surfing - and now we've had a seemingly never-ending bout of bad weather. :P Naturally, bad weather = bad surf = no surfing for me. :( But at least now I'm ready to go when the waves are ready to have me! :)

I haven't minded the storms too much, actually. For one, I love weather like this, so that's fun. For another, although I don't feel sick, the fever I had last week seems to have left me with a runny nose and, starting yesterday, a bit of a cough. Yuck. So I have no problem cuddling up on the couch while the storms rage outside and I blow my brains out into every homemade hanky I can find.

It's crab season here, and Jack and I decided we ought to partake. We waited for the "fresh crab" sign to appear at the end of the street and then we bought ourselves a couple of crabs to take home and cook.

 Just kidding - they weren't actually alive, but they looked so much like they could be that it kinda creeped me out a little. I am definitely a novice when it comes to crab.  After cooking, it probably took me a good half hour or more to get all the meat out. One crab was definitely plenty to get full on, for me at least. Of course, I think I was a bit more in-depth on trying to get every last bit of meat out than Jack was.

Aside from that, I'm just taking it easy today, trying to get a good vitamin intake and drink plenty of water. I'd already had 64 oz. of water and two cups of tea before the halfway point. Now my goal is to drink another 64 oz. before bed tonight. I've taken myself off sugar as much as possible for the time being. This is tricky, as quite a bit of what I like to eat has added sugars. Especially chocolate. But I went so far as to use dried fig puree as a sweetener for my homemade granola yesterday, and it seemed to work out alright. I'm a little more concerned about how I'll handle cookies. Maybe I'll just make them with much less sugar. It's hard to make everything completely sugar free. And, of course, I have to wonder what people did before? I mean, really, have white people always had access to sugar cane? How did we sweeten things before then? Certainly not everyone was a beekeeper, so that's not it either. I have to think that either sweet was much more of a treat than it is today, or we had much more local ways of sweetening our foods.

Anyway, that's it for now. I submitted my first short story for small-time publication - we'll see if I hear anything back from them (they estimated mid-January). I'm trying to come up with a design idea for Knitty to publish (they pay well, plus it gets your other patterns a lot more traffic on Ravelry), and I've got a list of other freelance writer stuff to work on and try for and all that jazz. Plenty to keep me busy, that's for sure!

Until next time!

Crafty

I've been busy in the craft world lately. My little big project took place over the last couple days. I got this idea that I'd like to make some little runes. I was gonna do the common viking ones, but Jack suggested I make my own runes with my own meanings. I thought about it, and decided that this was a good idea. And that the piece of wood I had selected wouldn't make the 24-odd runes in the viking alphabet, so I may as well make up my own and make them fewer!

Jack bought an old saw with a base and angle settings which I used to cut up the driftwood I had selected into twelve lovely pieces. Just a little sanding with some very coarse paper, and I was in the clear. They were pretty, like little wooden pebbles, but I decided to have a little more fun.

A lot of people paint the symbols on, or carve and then paint, but I wanted to be different. So I set up a natural dye operation. Hibiscus tea, the same mixed with cocoa powder, some black rice, dill weed, turmeric mixed with the hibiscus cocoa, and turmeric mixed with hibiscus tea. Add a little vinegar and some boiling water and what you've got are nearly half a dozen little dye baths! I went about dipping and soaking and soon had 11 naturally dyed wood pieces. One I left un-dyed just for the heck of it. Sitting damp on the paper they looked like a bunch of little chocolates. Jack was about ready to eat one when I showed them to him! :)
The next day, all dried and ready to go, Jack dug up his trusty dremel tool and I set about the carving. A short time later, I had them all completed!

Weasel, river, tree, friendship, vulture, tulip, leaf, mountain, love, moon, sun, and wolf!
They turned out super cute, and I'm very pleased with them. I'll have to make or find some sort of case to keep them in. But they turned out so lovely! I just can't get over it. There was a little bit of muckiness in the design on a couple, but overall I am quite pleased.

Yep, I've been pretty busy with the crafts. My sourdough experiment is going superbly! Here's a photo of the rolls I made for Thanksgiving. I made them ONLY with my starter - NO commercial yeast added! We're all out of bread again, so I'll probably be making some again in the next few days.

As for other activities, I now have a wetsuit and - after last week - a beautiful 7'6" surfboard! Once I take it out, I'll have to decide on a name for it. But until I do, it'll remain anonymous. I spent a good measure of time waxing my new board, and it's all ready to roll. Hopefully I'll get my hood, booties, and gloves sooner rather than later, because on a cooler day like today I don't think I'd want to be out there without! For now, I'll just have to keep practicing my style on Jack's homemade sheet board. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a beautiful day. A cool breeze whipping up the skirts of the ladies as they walk out of church reminds us all that the rain we were supposed to get early this morning has not forgotten about us. The only church I could find this morning was the Catholic one, so I attended mass in English for the first time that I can remember ever doing so. The music is much less beautiful than what we sang in Botswana. Modimo ke re itsisi sela sa botshelo. Or something like that. At the end of the service they gave out loaves of bread, one per family. They had exactly enough - even for me. Everyone clapped. How perfect the provision of the Lord.

Back home the windows are open to let in the sun and light while we still can. The house smells delicious. Jack has been busy in the kitchen, preparing his parts of the meal. I was busy yesterday baking sourdough rolls and making ice cream; but I will still be throwing a couple small dishes together, like half a sugar dumpling squash worth of parmesan baked squash wedges. Jack reminded me yesterday that if I make anything today I should try to make it small enough that we won't have much for leftovers. I'll do my best.

The freezer is quite full, and the fridge is certainly not lacking. There's a lot to be thankful for on this beautiful day. I think I need to make a conscious effort in the days that follow to use up things that have been in there for awhile - like those two summer and two zucchini squashes that I bought at least a few weeks ago and still haven't used in anything.... I'm thankful that we have such a nice house to live in, and that our landlord and his son are going to put up a fence in the back in the near future so that we can have a more private back yard! I'm thankful that, for the first time in ages, I have a real mailbox from which to send and receive my mail. I'm grateful that my landline and my internet cost more than our cell phone bill did and that at least that's something we'll get to save money on this season. I'm grateful that I've got this amazing guy who is willing to put up with me in all my different moods and who always reminds me to move on and to focus on the good things in life instead of getting hung up on the bad. I'm grateful that the interior of our house is finally starting to feel like a home.

Most of all I'm grateful for love. The love that is all around me and within me, that I see and hear and feel in other people and in nature. We live in a beautiful, love-filled creation, and I am so grateful that I get to be a part of it.

Until next time!

It's raining...

... but my Amazon order came in early, so I had something to keep me busy tonight: a tuning hammer for the symbalei that Jack bought. That is, a zither/lap harp/autoharp... whatever you wanna call it. It says (in Cyrillic) "symbalei" on the box, so that's what I'm gonna call it. I guess cymbala is the more standard Americanization of the word. Anyhow, I tuned it up to the key of G, and two passes on all the strings later it sounded like a veritable musical scale. I played through all the sheet music that came with it - attempting to pronounce the titles before each one. What a fun little instrument!

Today was rather productive. I slept in, yes, but then I spent a couple hours looking for jobs, did a really intense yoga workout, showered, did the dishes, worked on tidying up the place (a never-ending battle, it would seem), went to a fiber crafts group at the Episcopal Church, tuned and practiced my cymbala, and now I updated my blog!

Still, time to make some supper for myself (Jack is going easy on the food while he's getting into the swing of exercising everyday at the gym again), do more dishes, bake granola (I've been meaning to for a couple days now), maybe make some homemade mascara (or at least try), read, start some bread dough with my sourdough starter that's about to overflow out of its container, and who knows what other fun things!

Tomorrow we're going to the Arcata farmers' market, followed by a visit to a friend's house to make them dinner while they recuperate after a surgery, and we'll probably spend the night there and head back the next morning. Should be a nice weekend. However, will probably get in the way of my church shopping... oh well. At least I found a church with an evening service that I might check out on Sunday!

Until next time!

A Bad Haircut

Today was a fairly relaxed day (aren't they all in the off-season?). Slept in a little, continued the church shopping (Pentecostal, Methodist, and Baptist so far!), watched a little internet-tele, and then Jack and I decided, come half past one, that it was time to get to work. Now, yesterday we (mostly Jack, I think) started to hardcore tackle that shack-in-the-back: sweeping, decobwebbing, vacuuming, and the like for a few hours until it looked significantly better and we lost our get-go. So today we decided to get back to it, only I had been in the shack about five minutes when I saw Jack standing at the back porch trying to get the blades to whorl on our reel mower.

That's right: we bought a new reel mower. Now, is a reel mower a real mower? you might ask. The jury is still out on that one. A lot of reviews I read said that the reel mowers don't work very well when the grass is wet. Well, up here we've got about a 1 in 50 chance of being able to mow truly dry grass, so that's out of the question. We had one dry day yesterday and another today, so he figured we may as well give it a go today. He made a few uncertain passes right in front of the back porch before I stole it and wheeled it around to the front yard, fixing to start mowing the lawn from the beginning. The grass was thick and damp, but I managed to get a few short rows mowed. More or less. Jack took over and told me I ought to run to the store real quick and buy us a rake for the clippings. When I came back, he'd switched to long rows and had managed a few passes. We started switching back and forth between the raking and the mowing, and eventually, just as it was getting to be time for the daily sunset, we had the whole thing mowed.

Or did we? Jack made a couple swipes over some rows I had already raked. "Didn't you get those already?" I asked. "I don't know, I think they maybe got missed the first time." Didn't they all? We look around at our pell-mell lawn. Damp clusters of clippings are piled up like little graves over our contoured, mushy lawn. The grass, weeds, and what looks like wild parsley that we plowed through are as unruly as ever. Maybe about 85% of it is shorter than it was. The mower, which was shiny metal and a few plastic do-dads when I put it together out of the box on Friday, looks like some sort of shaggy art piece, plastered from handle to hobnail with smearings of grass. Pelouse mâché. Jack took a hose to it. It'll be my job to remember to stow it in the shack before we go to bed.

Tomorrow, assuming it doesn't rain, we'll finish moving our clippings piles to the back of the lot (I've been chucking them over the prickly vines that are covering the ground back there) and give it another go. Maybe lower the cutting height a notch or two. For now, our lawn is mowed, by the sweat of our brows, but it sure is a bad haircut!

Until next time!

Catching up! part 3 of 3

Alright, I apologize for the little interlude there, but I'm back! I got busy with the growing pains of moving into a new community, but I've settled down once more and have started to put my feelers out, as it were, and am finding ways to occupy my time. The house continues to look a little better every day... or maybe every couple of days... and I am looking forward to the time when we can say it really feels as though we're all settled. Hopefully sooner, rather than later. I have definitely come to the conclusion that Jack has more stuff than I do. It's nice to know there's somebody else with more stuff than me. In fact, he may even have more stuff than I have with my stuff here and my stuff in Michigan combined! For my part, I've managed to find a place for most of my things, and without hogging the storage spaces (that was a trick!). There's only one box that I can think of that I still need to sort through and find places for its contents. Hooray! I completed a few to-do projects around the house today (screwing in hooks and under-cabinet counter lights), and am feeling pretty accomplished. Now if only I could find us a cheap-but-good bed on craigslist and get us up off the floor!

The church shopping has begun in earnest. Last week I made a list of every church in the phone book in Crescent City, then I called each one to ascertain what kind of a church it was. I narrowed it down to a handful, and I started with the Methodist Church. I'd never been to one before, but I discovered it was a quiet, small, liturgical church (very similar to Lutheran, but a little less traditional). The people were nice, and I got compliments on my singing voice and invited to the knitting group on Mondays. I went, too. That was alright, and I think I will go again. Right now they're making things for their craft bazaar booth, but the rest of the year they just do prayer shawls... I don't know how long I could "just do prayer shawls"... we'll see. Through that, though, I was able to find out about a community choir AND a community theater (which, according to their website, will be holding auditions for its spring musical in December), so I think I may try to find out more information about both of those.

I went to the municipal pool and bought a 10-visit pass, then went to swim laps for the first time today. It was a nice pool - some sort of chlorine and salt solution that I think my skin appreciated much better. I definitely smell much better than after some pools I've swum in! It was busy - when I arrived every lane already had two people in it, so I had to "circle swim" with a couple people in one lane. My least favorite thing, to be sure. But eventually I saw someone leave and was able to move over a couple lanes and have a half of a lane to myself. They're having a sale on their passes between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, so I'll be purchasing a 50-visit pass then, and I think that'll probably keep me for the rest of the season.

So, so far, so good. I really like Crescent City. It's beautiful, it's quiet, my home is a short walk away from the ocean, the library is a pretty decent size, and I have reliable phone and internet that I can get in my house (which I have to pay for, but hey!). I'm still waiting to see what my unemployment check is going to look like for the season, once they factor in my summer employment to the equation, but once I have that number I'll be able to calculate how much I need to get paid at a job to make it worthwhile. Otherwise, I think I may find a place to volunteer or just get involved in a bunch of different community things. We'll see!

Until next time!

Catching up! part 2 of 3

After the season wrapped up, we made a brief foray to the sea, and the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Fran. It was beautiful, albeit a bit warm, and we definitely got some great ocean views. One secret campsite in particular was full of good sights and we felt really blessed to be done with work and able to enjoy something like that.

San Simeon State Beach Seagulls

Sunset

Our secret campsite - absolutely stunning!

Looking towards a point.

Relaxing in the tent.

The sun starts to set! (Note the bear claw scratches in my tent screen...)

Through the golden sunset leaves...

The knocking bird tree.

Photographer at work.

Beautiful.

Golden evening glow - even in the beard!!!

The table is set... or otherwise covered.

A cider and a sunset.

Cars on the 1.

Kelp!

HSB was pretty chill this year. We didn't really have anyone we were dying to see, so we mostly found shady places to kick back and listen and people watch. Apparently onesie dress things are in style, though my friend Betty (who we got to hang out with for a couple hours the last day of HSB!) informed me that during their last reign in fashion she had one and they were not very comfortable and definitely NOT helpful in performing bodily functions with ease! I have no intention of jumping on this trend. After HSB it was back to the desert and Jack's folks' place to prepare and start looking for a place for the winter...

Catching up! part 1 of 3

Phew! I've fallen into a black hole of business this past month - endless hours and miles on the road, events, visits, house hunting, and now I'm finally settling in for the winter! Yippee! Jack and I got a cute little two-bedroom rental in Crescent City, a town I am fast falling in love with, and between unpacking and church shopping and looking for furniture on the craigslist free section, it's finally setting in that I'm home for the winter. And, oh, I haven't updated my blog in AGES. Sorry, faithful readers, for all the empty space this summer. I'll probably more than make up for it in the months to come! :) For now, I'm going to try to catch up over the next few days so we're all up to pace again...

The end of the season meant lots more buck sightings, and deer sightings in general.

This tiny mother and her two fawns were very interested in Jack's... uh... liquid salt deposit. ;)

Looking into the Mineral King Valley from Timber Gap

Moonrise over Mineral King Valley

I drove 80-year-old SNHA employee and adventurer Maxine up to Mineral King for a day, where she befriended the deer.

I don't think they saw her at all, but from my angle they appeared to be right next to her.

Autumn brought cool, damp clouds.

Those are just a few pictures from my last few weeks in Sequoia. My next post will be pictures from our visit to the ocean after the season wrapped up!

Almost Done.

I'm on the home stretch of the season. It's been an interesting summer - a beautiful place, not the greatest of jobs. A lot of it boils down to the scheduling. In a place with such a high volume of visitor contacts and such a high number of repeated questions, it's usually common knowledge that you need to schedule your people on and off the desk and break up the day so they don't fold under the pressure. But here, you could be on the desk for anywhere from 4 to 6 1/2 hours STRAIGHT in your 8-hour day. Yuck. I reached my limit sooner than I thought I ever would; I got burned out sooner than I have in any other visitor services position, and I'm ready to be out of here. Unless there can be some visible show of improvement/change (and maybe even then), I doubt I will come back to this position next year.

But there's been some good things. I've managed to see Jack about every 3 weeks on average, and often every 2 weeks. I'll be seeing him this weekend (he's hiking out to me for once!... now that he's only 7 miles away. ;) and I saw him the weekend before last. The weekend before last was a biggie: I hiked 50 miles in 4 days. The first day I met Jack at Hamilton Lakes (16 miles), then hiked with him to Big Arroyo trail camp (9 miles); we hung out with folks from a couple crews that night and the next day we hiked back to a little below Hamilton Lakes (10 miles), and I hiked back to Lodgepole (15 miles) the next day. Phew! I was really sore, but by the end of it I felt very strong, so that was pretty cool.

Now I'm back in Three Rivers, getting my car worked on (parking brake this time - gotta have that for SF and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival), and then I'll be picking up a couple things from the grocery store and driving up to Mineral King. I'm surprising Jack by planning/prepping meals this weekend. I made some turkey feta meatballs and some pasta sauce last night, and I'll be picking up a couple other things for meals for Saturday and Sunday before I head up the mountain.

So now for a few pictures from Jack and my little backpacking trip!

Spiderweb!

My man looking cute.

Precipice Lake - my new favorite.

Precipice Lake from further back.

Doe on an alpine meadow, above Precipice Lake.

Looking up toward Kaweah Gap (Mt. Stewart?).

Big Arroyo.

Camp shenanigans.

Our last camping spot - excellent sunset views.

Jack relaxing in the evening sun.

Scary chasm that I hiked over at night on the way out - I could only hear how deep it was then!

Looking back at the trail up and over Kaweah Gap (between two peaks left of center)... somewhere along there is a teeny tiny Jack, but I have no idea where... :)

So there you go - another beautiful adventure. This weekend we're going to take it easy, more, and hang out around Atwell/Mineral King. At least, I'm assuming that's what's going to go down, and it'd better, since I'm going through all the effort to get food stuffs prepared for the weekend! :) I managed to track down the mail truck for Lodgepole and get him to leave my package (containing a new sleeping pad that I wanted to use this weekend!) at the Three Rivers post office for me to pick up before I go up the mountain. Hooray! One little success for the day, and hopefully my parking brake being functional will be success number two before I head up for the weekend!

Until next time!

A little farther along...

Vista on Trail of the Sequoias

Dead Giant

Bici riding on the bus!

The trail to Sawtooth Pass

A lush drainage!

(Lower) Monarch Lake

Me at Monarch Lake

Almost up Sawtooth Pass! (feat. Frontcountry Jeff)

Empire Mountain - the most bizarre looking peak I've ever seen.

360* view from the top of Sawtooth Pass.

Columbine Lake - the most beautiful lake I've ever seen. :)

Columbine Lake from the shore.

Columbine Lake - with a fish! Can you find it?

Looking down Lost Canyon.

Looking down Lost Canyon - can you see the stock animals down there by the river?

Foxtail Pine - half-dead, half-alive.

Looking down Lost Canyon (again).

A cairn that Jack made. :)

Another cairn that Jack made.

Looking into Mineral King valley.

Looking back toward Sawtooth.

Guess what? Deer butt!

A beautiful buck on the trail.

Beautiful Peaks.

Done with the hike.