Category Archives: Pics

I’m A Klutz

Posted on Sunday March 7th, 2021 by | Comments Off on I’m A Klutz

So earlier last week I lost access to the treadmill that I’ve been using. Totally unhappy about that…..but I had access longer then expected.

I’m back to taking walks, with sprints worked in….I hate those.

Thursday, as I’m on my walk there is a section of sidewalk where I know it comes up. Now, I’m rusty on my walks so I wasn’t sure exactly where it was.

I was making good time (I decided to no longer surf on my walks and focus on time), my fitbit just told me that I had hit the 2 mile mark and I started to calculate what I needed to do to get to 3 mile when I hit the spot in the sidewalk.

Well, I knew I was going down, no matter what. So I did everything I could to hit the small grassy incline instead of face first into the concrete.

I hit the my side and the side of my head. I got my bell rung good….I’m pretty sure that I gave myself a slight concussion. I was shaken, feeling it in my head and not sure if I should/could continue.

Even though I scared myself, I was more pissed and determined then anything. I was pissed that I was missing up my time and wanted to get going as soon as possible.

I was even able to get another mile in before I got home…I know, not the brightest….but with my generation and my upbringing….use to “walking it off” lol

My hoodies were covered in mud, I had grass on the side of my forehead….my arms were aching due to bracing myself as much as I could. They still ache, my temple is still tender and I have a bruise on the side of my eye from my glasses hitting.

Good thing that Friday was my day off from working out.

Before all of this, I’ve been feeling pain in my right shin for the last few days…..starting to suspect that I’ve given myself shin splints.

Yesterday, I made the best time I’ve ever done….but at the end of the day, I was really feeling it. Did some googling, yup…..pretty sure it is shin splints.

And as a result, today’s walk was no where as good as yesterday. I’ve added almost 3 min to my time per mile…I’m so f’ng annoyed by it….ggrr

Everytime I hit the next plane of working out I get hurt! I did that last year with my ankle……I’m so tired of it.

I know that I’m overweight and I really need to work on my eating, right now that is not going to happen, so I put my focus on working out. So when that gets interfered with, it pisses me off.

Working out is my stress reliever and normally the one area that I have control of in my life. Hate not having my treadmill.

That fact that I now have to hold back so I don’t do even worst damage and can’t get my calorie burn in, ticks me off.

Hopefully, they will have the apartment gym back open again soon, even in limited form, and I won’t have these damn shin splints anymore.

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Our Baby Girl Sakura

Posted on Saturday December 5th, 2020 by | Comments Off on Our Baby Girl Sakura

Our “Monster”, our baby girl, our pretty girl is gone.

I can’t believe it…..

We’ve been trying to will it that it wasn’t going to happen…we took hope that other’s kitties lasted longer with kidney disease.

She was at stage 4 and last 3-4 weeks we’ve been syringe feeding her the kidney food and giving her fluids. But the last 2 – 3 weeks, she wasn’t even going for her favorite non-vet food. She would lick the juices and that was it…..last 2-3 days, won’t even do that. She was occasionally drinking water, but no where near enough and we don’t remember the last time she was in litter box. She use to up to #12, she was down to #7.5 ?

Vets don’t try and tell you what to do when it comes to this…..they question you to make sure that you’ve thought it through. And when you are telling them what you saw and know, you know that you are making the right decision, even though you are 2nd guessing yourself because you don’t want it to be true, you want the vet to say they help get them through it. The questions were very annoying, but the vet we were seeing had to take a medical and this one didn’t know us or the case, otherwise I don’t think she would’ve questioned so much.

I believe the feedings helped keep her going, it helped to keep her personality. She still growled and swiped at the other kitties if they got to close, still demanded to be held in ToRn‘s arms at night after staring at the back of his head him to turn over or nose him in the middle of the night…….she got more cuddle time with him then I did. ? She was very much a daddy’s girl….very spoiled, never got in trouble doing the same thing Drew got in trouble for.

She growled and swiped at Gimli one last time before we left, we had her purring while we waited, her tail was even puffed up when we held her to say good bye.

She was a very unique cat.

When we first got her, we used to use clay litter and the 1st week I went to change it, I found poo in the open new bags of litter…..baby girl had found the fresh stuff.

The timing of when we got Sakura and Drew couldn’t have been better in 2008. We lost Reggie (our part Maine Coon former barn cat of Mom & Dad’s) a few months later, we lost ToRn’s brother Diesel the following summer and then we lost Alexis (the 1st kitty we got together) within a year of that….if it wasn’t for Sakura and Drew getting into things and making us laugh, we won’t have made it through it with our sanity intake.

She never liked her brother Drew….she would start a fight with him and then run to ToRn because she knew that he would keep Drew from getting back at her. Even last week, she was laying on me in bed and Drew won’t lay near me because she was there and she had growled at him.

Never seen a cat puff up for no reason….you just look at her and her tail would be as fluffy as a raccoon’s. Her eyes looked almost crossed eyed when she would go nose to nose with you. When she laid on her back, looked like a baby seal. She would purr so loud, it sounded as if she would blow a gasket. I’ve never seen a kitty that had coloring like that…..so black on the top coat and white underneath.

After she got out of the house for 24hrs when she was about 9 months, any time she looked out a window and saw humans she would growl at them. ToRn loved that. She got better since we did the RV thing for a few years….learn to get use to seeing people outside of the windows.

She killed 1, possibly 2 mice when living in Troutdale….1 confirmed kill, the other could be Drew’s…..but that is debate between us on that one. I woke up to the first one…..went to the bathroom at 0600, saw her laying on the carpet, purring as loud as could be….looking proud, saw that mouse, thought it was one the toys, went back to bed, laid there for about 5 mins thinking and realizing, that was no damn toy. Sure enough, when I moved the carpet it had a white belly with blood down it…..lol

She corned 3 mice in the RV that I had to catch. She couldn’t make my life easier and just kill them….eye roll.

I’ve been losing it on and off, missing the hell out of her…..and until we get her ashes back, I won’t get any sense of closure and be filled with anxiety that she isn’t back at home.

Love you Sakura, you will be greatly missed.

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The Happenings & Random Pictures

Posted on Saturday April 5th, 2014 by | 1 comment

It has been overcast with some wind today, but felt pretty nice….even if we didn’t take advantage of it….lol Planning on doing so tomorrow, need to break in my new hiking boots. =)

Coast Guard Cutter with the mountain background from earlier last week

Coast Guard Cutter with the mountain background from earlier last week

I did get some small things done off of my to do list today, so that was something. We got a walking jacket for the cats. We wanted got it for Drew first because he is the skinniest of the two so we knew it would fit him. Then we would try it on Sakura, so we know what size to order hers (it’ll be purple). He seemed to do ok outside, nervous, but excited….keep purring and looking towards hubby to make sure that he was still there. Now her, she didn’t care for it all….but when she was a kitten she got out for about 22hrs and was never happy with the outside or people since. Use to growl at them out the window at our house.

She isn't liking it very well at all. =("

She isn’t liking it very well at all. =(“

Drew in his walking jacket eating the grass.

Drew in his walking jacket eating the grass.

I spent Friday trying to contact a consignment store and the third party delivery service so we can empty our storage of our beloved bedroom set, dinning room set, living room table set. We really don’t want to give up our beloved king storage bed set, but why pay for it in storage if we aren’t going to use it for the next 10yrs? That is more then it is worth. =(

Beautiful Morning

Beautiful Morning

In process of phone calls, I looked down and saw that I was missing one of my accent diamonds on my wedding band part of my wedding/engagement ring set (I have them welded together). So not cool! =( I just had the prongs checked just over 2yrs ago, but this is not uncommon. Lucky I have my jewelry insured, so if there is any costs it is covered. And I have a jeweler that we totally trust. They are very reasonable and take very good care of us. We’ve gotten nearly all of my jewelry from them and they do my appraisals. The negative is that I had to ship my ring out to them since they are in Indiana. But it is worth it. They should get it Monday and hopefully, I’ll have it back by the end of next week. The other thing that drives me nuts is that I would have no ring on my finger, well, I solved that. Hubby gave me the blue topaz ring I wanted for our 10th, so I put that where my wedding/engagement ring goes. That is a HUGE help…..other wise I would lose it, not having something there.

Picked up a TV for the bedroom last week, now need to get another apple tv and figure out how we are going to set it up. Our rv is a 2002, so it was made with square box tvs in mind. But no matter what, it is one step closer where we can use our bed for cuddling late at night in front of the tv. We don’t like to spend that much time in bed, it actually hurts our bodies, but we miss the cuddling on our movie nights. So I’m looking forward to us getting it set up, once we figure it out. Friday night over the last few years have become our movie night after we watch Real Time with Bill Mahr.

Out birding a few weeks ago

Out birding a few weeks ago

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Cats & Cattle

Posted on Saturday May 25th, 2013 by | Comments Off on Cats & Cattle

We are totally enjoying ourselves here at the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve.

I’ve been going on morning walks about 6:30am, because I really, really want to see a bobcat. I finally got my wish on the 16th. I saw an animal jumping away over the trail in front of me. It didn’t have a long hairy tail and sure didn’t move like a coyote, it moved like a cat! I was so psyched!! But after a few days I felt like I dreamt it because it moved so fast and I just got a glance at it, not a good long look. So I’ve been determined that I was going to see another one, so taking my early morning and sunset walks when critters are the most active.

On the 22nd I got to see two bobcats on my morning walk. I was looking across a clearing and I saw two “short” animals, at first I was thinking of javelina, but then they ran towards each other to greet and circle each other. They didn’t move like either javelina or coyote….it was a cat movement. I got to see two bobcats!!! Of course, I had no camera or binoculars…..lol After they greeted each other one started walking in one direction along the tree line and the other in the opposite way, more in my direction. The one in my direction stopped a few times, looked as if he was sunning himself and looked as if he was rolling around like our kitties do…..LOL

Well…with no camera or binoculars I’ve been more determined to see them again. Not sure if I’ll carry a camera, because it would need to be one the SLRs and on my morning walks, I’m really trying to move fast to get my heart rate up. But I can carry the small binoculars of the preserve (we’ll be getting our own soon). Now with my luck I won’t see them again since I was prepared, but I was lucky today! I saw a critter sitting in the clearing, not too far where I saw them last time. It was kind of hard, even with the binoculars, to see it because the grass is so high. I could see that the nose was short, so not a coyote and the ears weren’t that big, so not a deer. It was a cat!

Now the question was what kind of cat. I texted ToRn and he stated it he was on his way. I was on one side of the clearing and ToRn ended up on the other. With the camera, ToRn was able to get a few pictures and clean them up enough to get some good looks at him….and it was a bobcat….grin

ToRn headed back to the trail to try and outflank him so he could get a better shot and as he is heading down a trail he looks up and about literally runs into a mountain lion! The lion just looked at him like “I’m not afraid of you” They just looked at each other, ToRn texted me a pic and then took more pictures until the lion decides to walk off.

I’m so jealous! The ironies of this is that I just laminated and posted an article in the visitor center’s office about the last sighting from Dec, the preserves motion camera got a blurred rear-end and tail of one a couple of weeks ago and yesterday a couple saw the lion just walking along the trail yesterday.

The really funny part is later this morning ToRn was doing dishes and Drew decided to jump on his back. He was not wearing his normal hoodie and ended up with a lot of cat scratches. Who knew that he was safer outside with the wild cats? LOL

We really had an exciting beginning of the day today and we are very please by that. To see the pictures that ToRn got you have to check out his post : http://wherethehellarewe.com/2013/05/25/day-of-the-cats/

A few days ago, ToRn looked out the bedroom window and says “We have cows out there” with surprise. We had a small herd of 7 cattle including a big bull just out there eating the grass. They left their ranch through the creek. The preserve manager Matt has a couple of cattle dogs and he came over to herd them out. ToRn and I have never seen dogs work herding in person. That was really cool.

Ever since then we’ve been finding fresh cow pies…rolling eyes. Matt thinks we have a bull that has claimed this as his territory and is pushing his way through the now enforce “T” fence on the creek to make his rounds. We have over 300 wooded acres in this part of the preserve and so far we haven’t found him yet to drive him out. But I keep finding fresh tracks and scat in the morning.

Now I just learned today that in AZ you are responsible for fencing them OUT…the owners are not responsible for fencing them IN! That makes no sense and lets just say I totally DISAGREE with that…ggeezz.

I have a few more critters to talk about, but this post is long enough…..grin

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15th Anniversary : John Day, OR

Posted on Sunday July 22nd, 2012 by | Comments Off on 15th Anniversary : John Day, OR

The last few years we have made it kind of a tradition to go somewhere for our anniversary. Usually not on our anniversary, since it sometimes lands on Memorial Day and crowds…yuck….lol Since we’ve been living in OR, we done the Red Woods in CA, taken a portion of the OR coast a couple of years until we got it covered and we’ve done Mt St. Helens.

This year we decided on John National Monuments and we didn’t want to take 26 since we’ve already done that a few times. We took 84 to 97 to 206…..wow. It was so different and so beautiful.

Got to one viewing area and got to see all the peaks including Mt Rainier, which we totally didn’t expect. Saw a bunch of wind farms…that was cool.

Since we have gotten our Wrangler, when you take it out on a nice day, other Wrangler owners will wave at you. Just like bikers do, they acknowledge each other. So we’ve been getting use to that, it is pretty cool When we turned off of 84 to go south, there were so few people on the winding roads, very in the middle of no where feeling….really neat. Well, people out there wave at you also as you drive by, I felt like I was back in Germany, where everyone said “Guten Tag” when you passed them

Didn’t do it like we originally planned…..it never does work that way….lol But it worked out for the best. We decided to change from the campground we thought we were going to head to the 1st night, because it was an hour & half from each of the 3 John Day Units. We really wanted and needed to hit 2 of the units Tues if we were going to all of them in, because at the 3rd unit, we wanted to do the 4mile hike.

We hit the Clarno Unit around noon Tues, did the small .5 mile hike, saw some really cool plant fossils.

We decided to camp at the Wildcat

It was nice and quiet…..didn’t get to enjoy it to the fullest, since when we go there, we set up a portion of the camp and then headed back out to see The Painted Hills Unit. We thought it would be only about 20min away….nope, more like 50…..lol But we found it and hiked the small .25 mile trail around the very colorful and stunning hills.

Didn’t get back to our campsite until about 7 and only had a few hrs of day light to left, we quickly finished setting up camp and get us some dinner.

The next day we headed to The Sheep Rock Unit. They have a really neat museum with all sorts of fossils. Now when most people think of fossils they think of from the dinosaur age, these are from the age of mammals. The John Day Monuments are considered the best in the world for the age of mammals. People have been researching them for over a hundred years and are still making new discoveries.

Now a weather observation, we live outside of Portland and 75 degrees is very nice. So when you see it on the weather that John Day is 75, you think comfortable. Big mistake….lol It is desert and with direct sun, it is hot. Wow…..lol

We did the small hike of the fossils, then headed for the 3mile loop. (Blue Basin Hike) We’ve found that we like getting the switchbacks up out of the way, instead of using them to come down. To us it’s the hardest part of the hike and we like to get it out of the way first. When we finished the hike, we were happy with that decision.

It was also our first hike with our camelbak packs. They were so much easier then our all day hike packs with camelbak water bottles. They held 100ml and the weight was spread out so much better on our backs. Which really helped with the climb up.

Really enjoyed the hike, like all climbs up….feel like I’m going to die and I curse the gym because that is suppose to help with it and it doesn’t seem to…lol Seriously, I use a climbing treadmill at the gym to help with the up and downs like a hike, I do about 4-5miles of that 5 days a week. Go on a hike and 1/4 mile up about kills me by stealing my breath…ggeezz..

Instead of going home the way we came, we wanted to continue on 26 to 7 and jump on 84 in Baker City. On the way there we found out last camp site of the trip….called Middle Fork Campground

This was the most awesome of sites we’ve ever had….there was 10 campsites and we were the ONLY ones there.  We had the whole campground to ourselves, only one or two vehicles went by on the road, we had a small, very chilly river, that we used to rinse the hike off and the big bonus, a nice pile of chopped firewood.  It was a great way to end our last night of camping for our anniversary.

The reason for taking that route home was I’ve never seen that part of Oregon and hubby wanted me to really see the high desert plateau…..where you go from 2k-3k feet in elevation down to 200ft. That was really neat. They had a lot of spots for run away trucks to go off the road. I highly recommend checking it out….unfortunately, wasn’t able to find any links to it.

[EasyGallery id=’johndaynationalmoumentandcampi’]

**I’m trying to get the gallery to work.  They are posted in my Facebook :

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3351445627670.2127103.1314756288&type=3&l=8dc7d9ed5a

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