A Few Books & Films

In the last few weeks, I've been on quite the reading kick. I found a few titles at REI that looked interesting, which I then came home and ordered for reduced pricing from Amazon. Although this first book listed here is one that I borrowed from my cousin.

EXERCISE TITLES:

Image taken from here.

This book was amazing. You all know that I started running routinely again in spring of 2010, but since our return to Oregon I've been running and hiking in Vibrams. Thus far, running "barefoot" in Vibrams has been great--no real overuse energies, no shin splints, etc. And my only real complaint has just been stinky feet and blisters from where the Vibrams rub on our long hikes. But since reading this book, I kid you not, I think of some piece of information from the book every single week. It offers me motivation to know that genetically humans are supposed to be capable of running incredibly long distances--in fact it makes me in awe of the capacity of the human body. The book also motivates me to run even if I've neglected myself nutritionally or via my beverage choices on any particular day. And since reading this book, I always try to remember to smile on my runs and hikes....in order to truly increase enjoyment of the activity. If you're into running or into learning about the capability of the human body due to evolution, I highly encourage you to check this book out.

Now these next two books actually are about the same thing---couples that traveled the Pacific Crest Trail. The first book listed has chapters written by both the male and female perspective along the trail, while the second book is only from the male perspective. The books both offered insight to the trail, to the difficulties, and made me laugh at some of the trials faced by the couples upon their time outdoors together. I'm not going to lie though, if you wanted to read one of these, you're much better off with the first book, as I found the author of the second book incredibly annoying and focused way too much on sex on the trail. The first novel however was much more rewarding, balanced, and insightful.

Image taken from here.

Image taken from here.

SUSTAINABLE LIVING TITLE:

Image taken from here.

This book was one that I saw mentioned somewhere although I have no recollection of where I first read about it. I ordered it on a long shot and sure enough I loved it. Kimball was a NYC journalist/hipster out to interview an organic farmer--they surprisingly fell in love and moved onto a piece of land to start their own full-service CSA. Humorous, insightful, and fulfilling, as you read about their adventures in horse drawn tilling, pig and chicken raising, maple sugaring, cow rearing and milking, and the attempting of a relationship leading to marriage.

Recently I've also watched three great documentaries or clips of news.

The first is from a National Geographic Series:

Stress: Portrait of a Killer

It can be found both on YouTube and on Netflix Instant and it's about an hour in length. Incredibly insightful on how stress impacts us biologically.

The second is a 20 minute Frontline Video found here, which is about for-profit colleges taking advantage of veterans and their education benefits/GI Bills. I'm not a huge fan of for-profit educational institutions anyway but this just annoys me even more.

And the third is a documentary: God Grew Tired of Us which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006. Incredibly heart-warming and heart-breaking it provides the story of the Lost Boys of Sudan who were forced to flee Sudan during Civil War or be killed. They traveled by foot with limited water and food, basically starving, to Ethiopia where they lived in a refugee camp for three years. At the conclusion of the three years they were forced to relocate again to a refugee camp in Kenya, walking again. At the time of the film, the boys had been in exile for 10 years. From there the film follows a handful of boys (now young men) who are relocated to the United States and discusses the hope and trials they face as they integrate into our country. It'll warm your heart, it'll make you cry. It was available via Netflix DVD or a rental, but you can watch the trailer here:

PS If you are interested in either of the hiking books or The Dirty Life, let me know and I'm willing to pass on. Drop me a comment and I'll send you an email for your mailing address. Born to Run is not up for grabs however as it belongs to my cousin.

Gratitudes...

It's been a while since I've listed some of the great things making me all-around happy, so it's about time that I do so. ;)

1) Granny volunteered hub's and my place to have a family BBQ last evening. She's missed preparing food for the family and since my parents were coming up, she decided that we ALL should get together. It was seriously awesome and wonderful to have the aunties and several cousins here along with a couple uncles, mom & dad, and the mighty matriarch Granny. House was awfully quiet after they all left. Hopefully we'll be able to do it again soon.

2) There is a potential wine & book club in the works that I am incredibly excited about. It'd just be a monthly, rotating gathering but I've really been wanting & needing to expand my social circle and this might be just the thing. Here's hoping it all works out! With books, wine, and gal gab time, I don't know that life could get much better.

3) I'm in the process of changing banks and have been waiting on checks from my new account. Now I'm not going to list on the internet who I'm switching to but many of you can probably take a guess and those that want to know can ask.....because right now I am singing their praises. They messed up and never put my check order in. I've been needing them to arrive this week for various reasons, and I called yesterday to see what was going on and to encourage them to fix their error on their dime. Imagine my happiness and surprise when today (less than 24 hrs after my phone call....) my newly printed checks arrived by UPS. Now THAT is customer service. Here's hoping they truly do reverse the rush check charge... ;)

4) Our landlords are fabulous. Really there's almost no way around it. I know we've only been in this house a little under four months but they're so positive and encouraging. It's my hope that our relationship with them stays this way, as they too continue to let us know how blessed they feel to have us as renters. To top it off our landlady even sent us a hike she thinks we would enjoy---now how awesome is that?!

5) I'm not the greatest always at knowing my role of maid of honor for my gal's upcoming wedding. When I was trying to figure out which invites would be the best for the shower, etc I sent out an inquiry to some of my much more in the know gal pals.....which led me to the discovery of this great site: Vista Print. Pretty well priced and fairly quick shipping for personalized invites! Definitely would encourage you to check it out if you need something provided by the site and in case you're like me and not too crafty these days....

And now we're down to some of the little things:
--Hub going out with his bud & cousin's boyfriend shooting
--Tasting Granny's blueberry and apple pies for the first time in 2 years
--Harvesting lettuce out of the garden
--Hub's soft spot for Lady even when he hates to admit it
--Tingling skin kissed by the sun's rays and warmth
--Running round the corner to a breeze and mist across sweaty skin
--Dogs following in footpaths
--Blooming roses from Poppa's garden
--The daily arrival of the mail
--Lazy mornings in bed followed by great coffee
--Homemade garlic toast
--Coconut...anything

Hope you all are having moments of happiness and gratitude wherever you are currently. Know that I'm grateful for each one of you, too!

Confessional: The Telephone Has Been a #1 Hate Relationship

While I've hinted at this numerous other times, tonight I'm just coming out and saying it: Talking ON the phone has been an awkward and difficult event for me throughout the last ten years. Now hear this: I'm attempting a goal to work on this hate relationship.

Ironically, back in the days of ol' high school, the phone was forever attached to my ear. I'd yak at whatever long term boyfriend I had at the time for hours on end and then I might yak at a gal pal or two to discuss just what was said between the boyfriend and me. Oh the days.....and what a waste of time and youthful energy!

I'm pretty sure it comes down to two things that established my hate relationship with the phone. 1) Pay usage. 2) The rise of the internet. And okay, I lied...there's a third, the rise of the unlimited text message....but this came much later.

My first experience with real pay usage occurred during a year spent studying abroad in Argentina. It cost per minute for me to make local calls and it was an arm & leg on both ends for me to talk to my family at home in the United States. Since I didn't want to pay to use the phone, I instead relied on the internet and rise of email (two thumbs up to internet cafes!) to keep in touch with family and friends back in the States. In all truth, I talked to my parents three times on the phone that year and I made one other call to a good buddy of mine as well.

My use of the internet as my main means of connection continued when I was in college, as that's how I continued to check in with family and friends. My freshman college roommate talked to her mom daily on the phone, but I still just checked in with Dad via email for the most part. By this point, I had my first cell phone, but even when I had a long-distance college boyfriend I was incredibly vigilant of how many minutes I had available and how many had been used.  And I also remember late night conversations staying on the phone even though I really didn't want to---somehow my year abroad had erased any desire to "waste time" chatting. The beauty of the internet is that you can say what you need to say (and sometimes what you can't say in person or via the phone) and allow the person to respond when it's convenient for them.

So I suppose I should also call this my ode to two people: my gal Nancy (who is also an avid blog reader but just never comments!) and Granny, as they've put up with my phone awkwardness and left me with the reality that a phone call can be a positive relationship builder. I should also give a shout-out to hub at this point in my confessional as well, although hopefully this will be one post he overlooks in his reading. ;) Anyone that knows hub and I knows that the first 6 months of our relationship/marriage we were constantly attached to our phones as we weren't located in the same state. You generally could find us either engaging in non-stop texting (hence my introduction to the need for unlimited texting and here I offer a big shout out of apology to my dearest friends who put up with this at the time....) and/or a nightly phone call when hub wasn't working. Hub always liked to check in before we went to sleep and even though talking on the phone wasn't always my favorite, I went along with it to keep our communication and connection going. (Although much in his favor, he did also introduce me to the webcam which I liked much better than the phone, but now always find awkward to use with most other people.....)

But anyway...back to my gal and granny. During my 1.5-2 years in Louisiana, my gal and granny were my most regular phone communicators back home and whether any of us realized it at the time, the consistent communication that I had with both of them got me through some pretty hard and lonely moments. Now I'm not going to say that it was always easy for them to get me on the phone, but what I will say is that more than anyone else they both made sure that phone communication happened. My gal always checked in via text to see when I might be available but the monthly-to-every-six-weeks phone conversation forced me to talk about my reality honestly while also brought me back into the other world that I'd left behind of a good friend, professional development, and conversations about incredibly serious subjects. Even though our conversations were about the beauty and frustrations of our daily realities, she got me through and focused on something else in more way than one. With Granny, not talking to her on the phone was never an option, as she wouldn't have had it any other way. My move to the south was difficult for her as she'd gotten used to my steady visits and companionship, so throughout my time in Louisiana I knew the expectation existed that I would talk to her on the phone every week or at least twice a month. Even now when I argue that she gets to see me at least every other week, she gives me a hard time that now that I live in Oregon she technically hears from me less. ;)

But throughout this week and last...I've been thinking of how important those phone conversations were to me. As much as I like the fact that I can quickly find out what I need to know via a text message rather a conversation, there is something to be said for the importance in actually letting someone know that you care by making an actual call. And I actually might argue that in some ways my relationships were more meaningful with many of my friends before text messaging and facebook, when we only had phone calls or a real email to maintain communication. So I'm hoping to bring back the phone call. Now don't worry, I'm not going to get all crazy and call all of y'all up all the time, but I AM going to make it a goal to actually a) communicate more by phone calls and b) to check in more with people to actually let them know that I care. I find myself missing the real details of people's lives.

I don't expect to ever love talking on the phone again, but I also can say that in the last week I've chatted on the phone twice with my gal and seriously got more out of it than I ever would have via text message. Although my apologies to her and all others as I do have serious awkwardness with starting and ending phone calls ie a) I never give a proper introduction but instead launch into my string of thoughts that led me to calling without the proper how are you? etc and b) I have a horrible habit of just deciding I'm done talking and ending the conversation. Case in point: today I suddenly realized late conversation that I stunk from my evening run with the hub so instead of appropriately getting to a goodbye point with my gal, I just interjected "Hey, I smell, I need to shower." Great right? Even hub laughed and told me I'm horribly awkward at getting off the phone.

So what do you say though? Care to actually use those monthly cell phone minutes with me and let people know that you care? :)

Weekend Camping

 A weekend camping trip with the "baby" cousin and her boyfriend. The site was perfect--in the Tillamook Forest.

 A sunny afternoon on the Wilson River....hub eventually got Anna to cross the river but Roxi was all about swimming through the tiny rapids.

 Walking across you could see all the little larva in their wrappings....

 ....and Roxi kept on swimming.....

Hub and the cousin's boyfriend jumped into the river.....

....and Anna enjoyed being our pre-clean washing cycle for the camp dishes.

Lots of smores were made, lots of washers & bean bags played. One evening spent uno-ing until the camp lantern wasn't even enough to light our cards. Naps in the hammock while cuz and boyfriend took off on a trek to the Forest Muesum. Hub spent more time reading than I've ever seen him read before but still made sure we all were fed and warmed by the awesome camp fires. We also talked a lot of Army shop talk as cousin's boyfriend is heading off to basic training following the same path that hub had in his Army career--hopefully he'll stress less and enjoy a bit more of his last summer of freedom ;) Lots of time remembering what it was like to be a teen, and lots of gratitude and appreciation for life as it is now.

How Thy Garden Doth Grow

The 2011 Trial & Error Garden:

This wood raised bed: 3 tomatoes, 3 peppers, 3 strawberries, 2 mini rows of bush beans, 6 parsnips, 2 mini rows of turnips, 6 lettuce plants, and an artichoke.

Second wood raised bed not pictured: yellow squash, zucchini, cucumber

Cinder block bed in background: (what actually came up) two mini rows of red and yellow onions, two mini rows of carrots, and a small row of snap peas. Two blueberry bushes and two melons.

4 of our five (small) bushes have blueberries and are growing!

Looks like we'll have raspberries and under the raspberries is a whole ton of mint....

Some things are seeding....no idea what this is but there is a large area of it. The asparagus is going to seed also which I'm hoping will lead to an even larger area of it next year.

The kiwi came back after the hacking the landlords gave it. The grape is just starting up the other corner of that trellis, and the bird feeders from Mom & Dad's are hanging up.

Potential kiwis: think these will develop into blossoms.

Asian pear.

The old faithful watering can even more in use now. He leaks along the bottom a bit from rust, but he still does just fine ;) After we got our first water bill since starting the garden, I'm monitoring a bit more how frequently I'm watering and only intend to water using the can to limit how much extra flow we have.....hopefully it will help some.

And a beautiful sunset this week as well!

What's growing in your backyard?!

Camp Lessons & Products

There were a few great items that got us by while on our travels, and the lack of facilities and light packing taught me some great lessons along the way too.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am a shower-every-night type of gal. I hate going to bed without being clean. I "put my face on" almost every single day, even if I'm not going anywhere. I floss every.single.night. And much to my husband's dismay, I totally use "face stuff" aka a layer of protective zit cream before bed each night. BUT when you're camping in the woods with no mirror, no running water, a lack of desire to carry extra weight, not wanting to use products that might damage the environment, and in locations where it's luck to have an established hole in the ground to do one's business.....then you sort of throw your "normal" tendencies out the window.

I packed a small ziploc that stayed in the truck and contained the following: two bobby pins, a small bottle of face lotion, a small bottle of Burts Bees outdoor body & hair wash, a tiny packet of foundation and a foundation brush, a tube of chap stick, a tube of fix-all ointment, black eyeliner, floss, and my leftover nub of a cover-up stick. I also had a stick of deodorant and my Burts Bees facewash in my bag. However, in my hiking pack, I had more bobby pins, "natural" bug repellent, my toothbrush, and another tube of lip balm that I figured could be used for a couple functions.

So here's the irony, I packed almost nothing for this trip.....and it was rare that I even used what I brought. In fact, on the backpacking part I used basically none of it. I rinsed my face with running water from the stream morning and night and I washed my feet in the stream before bed. I did run my toothbrush over my teeth, but without paste because I didn't want to leave the paste behind in the woods.

Once we got to the second camp site and were camping out of the truck, I still didn't use anything extra, except this time I did floss and I did use toothpaste since I could deposit them into one of those holes in the ground (aka an established outhouse....).

In fact, thanks to the magnificence of baby wipes (again only deposited into the outhouse) used just to clean (TMI) my swimming suit region, I didn't even mind not showering for three days. Yea I was dirty and I'm pretty sure sweating into the same shorts for three days put off an odor, but it really wasn't all that bad. THANK GOD FOR BABY WIPES though! ;)

Even once we could shower again and were back in civilization, I only put on the little amount of make-up I had when we met friends and the dry mountain air actually seemed to be great for my skin.

The second irony of our trip is that I had only intended to not be camping for one day---meaning I packed all hiking clothes/shoes and only one pair of jeans, one regular wear Tshirt, and one pair of light-weight flip flops....so I ended up wearing the same jeans, shirt, and flops for three and a half days in a row. We washed our hiking clothes while at my parents, but somehow I actually didn't mind wearing the same outfit---definitely made choosing what to wear a whole lot easier...

Beyond the clothes and personal care products, I did get introduced to some great hiking and camping gear. (You have to understand that I didn't really grow up camping, before this I'm pretty sure I'd only legit tent camped maybe, maybe 5x.) Since hub spent the last two years pretty much camping and running around in the woods half of every month thanks to the Army, he's got some pretty neat stuff:

This is the Jetboil pot. Great for heating up water in a flash and great for backpacking since its small and lighter weight. Image found here. We used this to heat water for cocoa, to fill our kanteens for warmth in the foot of our sleeping bags at night, and to cook our meals. We did decide that we need to get a legit camp stove however for when we're cooking & camping out of the car.

Hub recently found a water purifying device apparently called the SteriPEN. It uses UV light to kill bacteria and viruses. Its light weight and is similar to a lighted wand you stir like a stick in a stream-filled water container. His bud and he used it on their longer backpacking trip without any illness, and we used it on this trip too. You can read about it here and the image was taken from here.

I had my first introduction to freeze dried food from a PNW company called MountainHouse. We ate the Macaroni & Cheese, which hub thought was amazing for freeze dried food and which tasted almost exactly like box mac n cheese. The more I thought about it, I'm pretty sure box mac n cheese must already be some sort of freeze dried. We also had the freeze dried ice cream sandwich which was A-MA-ZING! Image from here.

Two days before leaving on our trip we found a sleeping pad for me. We settled on a Thermarest Trail Scout that was on sale at our local Sports Authority. It was definitely comfortable (much more comfortable than hub's Ridgerest basic light weight!) and with enough padding to separate me from the cold ground. Image from here.

One item that we used at the second camp site which we also string up in our backyard is hub's camp hammock. It actually can be used for sleeping and its incredibly simple to hang up and take down. The whole thing stuffs into a tiny little sack and its also light weight. It's the ENO Doublenest Hammock and the image is from here.

Some of the other camping and hiking gear was stuff hub had from the Army, including a sleeping bag and backpack. As usual our Klean Kanteens were awesome, although hub did also use one of his old Nalgenes (hello BPA exposure.....).

One thing I do have to rave about were the Eddie Bauer shorts I recently found on sale that were fabulous. I'm not a huge shorts person, but these seemed great for hiking and have proved to be quick to dry and easy to move around in. They have great pockets on the sides to hold IDs, chapstick, and a thin camera without being weighed down. I'm pretty sure they are these, although they seem to hit me shorter than they appear in the picture.

Hub and I also snack along the trail when we need a burst of energy and while most of our snacks consist of apples or dried fruit & nuts (cranberries & almonds are a fav, but we've recently added another lil bag of dried apricots and cherries), we discovered Nature Valley's new Oats N Dark Chocolate granola bars on our last Costco trip. They were delicious, made the fastest breakfast possible, and provided great energy to get me through a few more miles. Hub also made white chocolate chip-cranberry-coconut oatmeal cookies that we ate while camping. Unfortunately I left our other great Costco hiking grub at home---peanut butter filled pretzel bites!

Some great gear, snacks, and camp lessons!