Tag Archives: Gym

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on Thursday November 24th, 2011 by | Comments Off on Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone is having a great day of family and food.  As I start this, hubby has the turkey in the oven and we have football in.  Been way too long since my last actual blog, doing our normal of gym, errands and work.  =)

I have finally got what family info I have and put it on ancestry.com  So far a few of my cousins have added info, which is cool.  Just would love to get even more.  I have all of my great-grandparents names and only one set of great-great grandparent’s names.  I lucked out on the great-great grandpa, he had lots of kids and descents who have put info on ancestry.com and I’ve got as far back as the 1500s in Germany….so that was really, really cool.  But for everyone else, I haven’t been able to get across the pond back to the old country.  =(  Doesn’t help that I can’t read German…..lol  If I can get back to the 1500’s on all of the direct lines, I’d be very pleased.

I just want to establish where the bloodlines are from and then what I really would like, it is find the distant and current relatives that are still in Europe.  I know that my maternalgrandfather’s side was still in, what was then East Germany, in the 1970s.

After getting tied into it for week, I’m taking a break.  When I start back up, I think I’m going to start on uploading pics so maybe it will enjoy other family members to  add to it.  Then I want to start something on my hubby’s side……there is so much to do, that my head spins on where to start.

**Just had our turkey dinner…..tummy is stuffed….grin  He made a great meal.  I think I just love having all the different types of food together…..and look forward to the leftovers.

I’m hoping that I’ll be able and go and visit my folks this coming June.  It has been too long.  And I would love to time it with their 40th wedding anniversary.  =)

This year has just flown by, I think not having an actual summer didn’t help.  It was so wet/damp at the beginning and so short.

We did get one more camping trip in and totally lucked out and got awesome weather!  We went to Mt Rainier National Park back in Sept.  It was sunny and in the 80s.  We took off the jeep t-tops once we got into the park.  It was so beautiful, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We camped at Cougar Rock, it was so peacefully….helps to wait until after school is back in session….grin

Camp

On the drive around the park, we stopped at a glacier river, that showed it’s history of how it has moved through the years.  Meet a couple that lives just across the river in Washington from PDX, that has been going to Mt Rainier for years and has seen all the changes.  They must have been in theirs 80s, they were so neat to talk to.  Would’ve loved to talk some more, but we were out in the open without any shade…..very hot.  Putting our hands into the glacier river felt so good.

Glacier River

 

This year's bridge, until it gets wiped out. =)

 

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On the drive up.

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And we drove up to Paradise so we can do a small trail and see Nisqually Glacier.  Since last winter was heavier then usual for snow and our summer started later, parts of the trail still had snow.  But the small hike had such an elevation increase at times that it took 3hrs round trip.

 

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Start of the hike.

 

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Wildflowers and snow.  =)

 

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A waterfall off of the glacier in the distant.

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Marmot!

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The range, with Mt Adams way in the back round.

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A very icy, but refreshing feeling stream.  We put it on our necks and face, didn’t drink….not recommended unless filtered.

 

Have a great turkey day!

 

 

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My December Update

Posted on Saturday December 18th, 2010 by | Comments Off on My December Update

Alright….what I have I been up do?  Work, work and work…..gym, gym and gym….lol

Well today I didn’t do either of those today, does that count?  =)  I did make some cookies.  The refrigerator kind that my mom use to make for the holidays.  I think it is the correct receipt, it tastes like I remember…..I could ask mom to verify…..grin  Need to do that next time I talked to her.  =)

Frustrated, got one more of my items delivered…I’m 2 away from having my holiday shopping delivered.  But the one that I really want I won’t get until Monday.  Then I need to turn around and get to the post office that day to get it shipped out.

In between work and gym, I did get all our holiday cards out.  That was a project.  =)  Hubby laughs because I’m the only person he knows that still talks to people from my first job/HS and exchange cards with them….grin

Holiday Cards 2010

I even got my nails done for the holidays…grin  A little blurry, but cute. =)

Holiday Nails 2010

I also took about 4hrs to get our tree decorated…..lol  It is the biggest tree we have ever had, I even had to use a chair to reach the top….never done that before and I have never had to use all my garland and extra lights before….so cool…lol  I need to get more beads and bows for next year, want to add more silver…..I have a lot of burgundy and gold, which was my theme when I started this years ago.

Holiday Tree 2010 Grand Fie

I love the fact that we live with a bunch of tree farms near us.  We get them fresh.  =)

Our Alaska Ornament

I did take time out from decorating our tree to attend our local tree lighting.  It was cold and windy, but it got a nice size little crowd and I got free hot cocoa….grin….can’t turn that down.

Troutdale Tree Lighting 2010

As usual, if you follow my babble on my tweets, I’ve been going nuts on politics….my normal.  =)

Today history was made with the repeal of DADT!!!  So that was one good thing. That is the Civil Rights of our generation.  Now we need to get rid of DOMA.  That is horrible law…..I’m so hoping the courts overturn, totally don’t trust congress.

But I’m totally displeased about the Dream Act failing and how the senate has not passed the 9/11 Responders Bill.  Which is totally sad that it took The Daily Show on Comedy Central for other news networks to start reporting on it…..totally messed up.

Any day now I’m going to be great-aunt to a new niece……wow does that make me feel old….lol  My 19yr god daughter Cassie is due Xmas day, but is so wanting for it to happen now….lol  I so can’t wait to see the pictures of the Gracie when she is born and she’ll be close to sharing my horrible date for a birthday….grin

Got Heather to add me to her chat, the good thing is that she likes to talk to me and hit me up.  Which I’m grateful for, since I even if I’m not there in person I want to help guide her as much as possible.  Very proud that when Heather wasn’t happy with me yesterday and I had to smack her down telling her that I won’t be disrespected (even through chat) that she apologized the next day.  Even though I have to admit that I didn’t handle it very well.  A boyfriend of hers was totally flashing red flags to me……icks  I’m very pleased that she dumped him.  =)

The family says that she reminds them of me, I see it but I also don’t see it.  There is a lot of things that she does that I would never do, but then I grew up on Army Posts moving around, not in the middle of farmland Indiana….huge difference.

Gym wise…..did my 1st full week in over a month.  Been going to the gym, but skipping about one day a week.  This week I did all 5 days and got 75-90min workouts in.  Only left one day early due to issues with treadmills that messed me up…..ggrrrr

Which leads me to this.  We’ve been going to Bally’s for 3yrs this coming Feb…..we are canceling our membership when our contract is up.  The staff is good, they do what they can.  But the corporation bites.  We need new treadmills badly, they have decreased their speed suddenly, almost messing up Harold knees.  They have stopped on me, telling me that user not deducted…..I’m no pixie, it can’t miss me.  Tues I went to 4 DIFFERENT treadmills and they all did it to me.  I was so pissed.

I know their maintenance doesn’t sit on their asses when they are there.  They are always working on them.  The treadmills are just old and we need new ones.  Of course, our response from corp when we tell them this has been a blow off.  So we’ve had it and going to take our money elsewhere.

A new gym just opened up down the road, no contract needed, cheaper month to month.  And there is new location going in where we are looking to move to when our lease is up in over a year.  We’ve heard good things about them.

I do admit, that I will miss the staff at our gym and the regulars there.  They have seen us there for almost 3 yrs and say hi, friendly small talk, and have been encouraging in my weight lost…..shedding 50#…..but I’m not going to miss the treadmills.

I had mom ask me what I want for the holidays…I’m like, I really don’t need anything.  Yes, there is always stuff that I would like….books and pricey apple stuff…..but we are much better off then others.  We are too the point in our lives that we don’t really need/want presents.  We usually get what we want when we can.  Now, I do admit, I love giving presents…..grin  But really don’t need anything.

When hubby asks what I want, I don’t know what to tell him, other then a large list of books.  But while watching a show tonight, it reminded me what we can tell our folks….you want to get us anything…make a donation, we love the humane society, red cross, salvation army, ACLU, goodwill, food banks and organizations for helping people pay for heat/energy during the winter.

So folks, when you don’t know what to tell people what to get for you, have them do a donation instead.  In this economy, there are so many organizations that need even more help then ever.  And that is my service announcement for the day.  =)

Well, this took a lot longer then expected……lol….per usual.  But that is what is going on right now.

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Summer Time

Posted on Saturday July 3rd, 2010 by | Comments Off on Summer Time

I hope everyone has had a good summer beginning.  Ours has been below average on temps and way over on rain…icks….still waiting for summer weather…dry and comfortable.  We were in the 60s this pass Wed/Thurs and we are suppose to be hitting the 90s this upcoming Wed/Thurs.  Lets just say I’ll believe it when I see it.  I really don’t want it to hit the 90s…I want mid 80s, that is perfect.  Then our house doesn’t have that chill and we can wear shorts and tank tops.  =)

I did finally vacuum out my poor truck in about a year today.  Those spiders get into everything and left cobwebs everywhere….lol

We haven’t been up to much other then work and the normal.  We do need to get a hike in, that I would like.  Not sure where, at this time of the year the mountains and Crater Lake still have a bit of snow.  If it melting you have higher rivers/creeks to deal with when crossing.  So we have to balance that.

We will be heading up to Canada sometime this month for a bbq with our sister-in-law  Eliza and our nephews.  It will be to in remembrance of Diesel, since it has been a year that we lost him.  But it will be great to see how our nephews have grown, they are so young that they grow so fast.  I miss seeing them.

We are still doing the gym.  I know it sounds annoyingly repetitive, but considering it is so easy to fall into bad habits the fact that we are still doing a good one….I’m grateful and proud of.  It has been over 2yrs and I’ll take it.  I will say that I didn’t end the week on a good note.  I did good Mon-Wed, but Thurs and Fri I was not mentally in it at all.  I did get my cardio and weights in, but didn’t get my 20mins on abs.  It didn’t help that I didn’t do very well on my eating habits this past week.  Went over my normal daily 2k a day, so I need to do better this week. My sweet tooth and munch urges just kicked in big time….drove me nuts.

I spent the week doing my normal….working, what else?  LOL  Which is partly why I died at the gym Thurs and Fri, my brain was on that and won’t stop.

Last weekend I couldn’t get a hold of my extra sister, Sandi.  Her dad isn’t doing very well at all and is in hospice and I knew that she would be visiting and dealing with the drama that is her siblings.  I knew that they would be totally, totally stressing her out and a few of siblings are good for tearing her down……and totally negate the ones that are supportive of her..ggrrr  So I was totally stressing about getting a hold of her and checking in.  Anything to make her feel better and let her vent.

Well, that didn’t happen, so I sent her encouraging texts and my sister Melinda actually got lucky and got a hold of her.  Since I wasn’t doing to good on making contact to her, I googled her parents and got their number and made a call.  She wasn’t there, but I was able to find out what was going on and let Ma vent some.  Between me trying to get a hold of her, texting and Melinda actually making contact, it was a help to her and made her feel better.

I was not happy to hear what her siblings was putting Ma though and I knew if Ma was going through hell, then Sandi wasn’t doing too well.  =(  I let mom know that I was in her corner and whenever she needed to talk, she can vent at me.

Sandi’s siblings were totally surprised to hear that I even called Ma just to make contact, that I wasn’t too happy about what Ma was going through and then turn around and my little sister called her.  Sad, that we give her more emotional support then her some of own drama selfish siblings.  If her husband Ed wasn’t there for support, she would’ve totally lost it…no idea how he puts up with her family sometimes.  Tries and keeps peace just for her and her parents sake.

Sandi is finally back home (a state away…which is a good thing when dealing with them) and eating, trying to get a sense of her self back, I spent 3 hours on the phone with her last night.  She couldn’t hold anything down while dealing with them.  I’m going to try and give Ma a call tomorrow to check in.  I just suck at it due to the 3hr difference.  I wish I could be there to help Ma and her, those are the 2 that I really care and worry about.

My god daughter Cassie has made me feel old.  She graduated from HS, turned 19 and is now expecting her baby in Dec….wow.  I remember when Sandi was pregnant with her at my HS graduation.  I was so totally afraid that she was going to have her right there…..lol  Ended up having her a few weeks later.  I was looking at some pictures that were just taken barely 10yrs ago….damn, she has grown.

I found some paper where I can make my own postcards.  If you didn’t know, when we travel I love getting postcards and sending it to my family.  =)  So now, unless we are doing a bunch of traveling and I want to get them postmarked from that location, I can just use the pictures that we take for them.  I totally love that.  Especially when we are doing hiking around here in OR.  I spent time figuring out how to the line up everything and even printing out the addresses and messages on the back.  With my horrible handwriting I’m doing the post office a favor…..lol  I already sent out postcards from our visit to the coast in May…..grin

Our kitties are doing good. Drew and Sakura are now 2yrs old.  Drew is such a long cat and is still in the over energetic teen stage that drives his sister Sakura nuts.  Sakura has become a chunk bugger that is addicted to brushing…..grin  She is such a spoiled daddy’s girl and Drew is very much a momma boy when it comes to bedtime.  Alexis is going to be 16 this coming Oct and tries her best to ignore Drew and Sakura….lol

I’m currently half way through President Bill Clinton autobiography, My Life.  It is huge with a lot of policy thoughts and stories on where they came from.  You can tell that he likes to show where an idea came from.  It is interesting.  I have Audition by Barbara Walters and My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House by Lillian Rogers Parks that I would love to get into next.

It is amazing how long it takes to right just a few things…..lol….but that is what is going on so far around here.  =)

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Flying Cat, Police & SCOTUS

Posted on Saturday April 10th, 2010 by | Comments Off on Flying Cat, Police & SCOTUS

Well, this time I remembered to put subjects down when I thought of them to remind myself of what I wanted to write about.  =)

Today we actually got a few things done, hubby got the place vacuumed of all the cat fur…not a fun job. We did some outside work.  Hubby got it done much faster then I thought it would take. I got #8 of strawberries cleaned and frozen, shortcake made, laundry done & a blog post.  Tomorrow, debating on making up some egg salad and need to finalize our taxes….fun, fun….  I really need to get back focused on our project….need to get that done.  What I need to do, is put on my ipod to my classical music and just tunnel vision myself.

I finished the Secret Lives of the Supreme Court last week. That was a very interest for a SCOTUS geek like me….grin I’m now reading True Compass by Edward M. Kennedy.  I’m really enjoying how he wrote it.  It is filled with humor, personal insight…..telling a story without it being dry.  So far you get to know people like he knew them….  I have been trying to give myself reading time…it really helps for chilling out and keeping my sanity.  =)

I so can’t wait for more hiking weather…just to get out of the house more.  The gym is getting ho-hum…I think I’m getting restless with it.  I don’t want stop it, just want to get more drive again and less boredom.  Changing between the treadmill & elliptical is helping.  But by the time I get my abs in, I don’t feel like getting my weights in….not good.  But as long as I’m maintaining for now, it is a good thing.  Once we get out more, it won’t be so bad.

We discovered that our other cat, Sakura, can fly….grin  But unlike her brother, she didn’t care that we saw her.  We have a black leather chair that spins with a foot stool about 5-6ft away from the end table.  As we were watching a Ron White stand up, I saw out of the corner of my eye a chunky furry body flying through the air from the end table to the chair….she landed on the top of the chair and it went spinning around in circles.  LMAO  She just looked at us like “What? I do this all the time”  Holy cow…..we just lost it…  I don’t get these 2 cats….we’ve never had cats act like they don’t give a rats ass about us correcting them and don’t care if they do things in front us that they are not allowed to do.  They are something else…we have never had cats fly before….LOL

There is one thing that I find very different to me here in Portland.  I guess there is a history of police brutality from the PDX police.  And from the news reports it sounds like they have taken a lot of steps to correct the actions of the past.  But there have been a few deaths from police shootings in the last year or so.  One of the shooting, sounds like the cop totally screwed up, but unfortunately we had one a few weeks ago and there has been protests….but this one doesn’t sound like a screw up.

This last shooting, the guy was covered in blood, had a knife and was acting crazy.  A knife is a deadly weapon, I would prefer and would hope that they could find another way to disarmed them….but a knife is not something that you play with when it comes to the public and your safety.  So with the info that has been released, at this time I feel it was more like a justified shooting….but I like to hear the all the info.

I hate the arm chair “cops” that act like they know what should’ve been done without being in that situation and knowing all the facts.

Now yes, I know that there are cops that abuse their authority….ever dealt with a small town cop on a power trip?  Not fun.

But now a days, in most places (there are some cites that are nothing but corruption…..not going to name the ones I won’t trust) most cops are just doing their job, trying to keep the public safe.

Maybe I just have been lucky with my dealing with cops, especially the county and state cops in IN, even when I’ve gotten pulled a lot when I was younger and dumber (very well deserved pull overs, 90% of the time). I’ve only had one bad experience, it was in FL and that was due his attitude and talking to others…this cop was known for being an ass….so I don’t actually count him.  Every other cop I’ve dealt with has always been professional.  I treated them with respect and it has always been returned.

My first two jobs were in food service and when cops and emergency responders came in they got 50% off. There are two main reasons for that.  One you know their jobs don’t pay…..so two, if you take care of them and they keep coming back they keep even a better eye on your place.  One of places I worked, it was the only location in all of Lake Country that hadn’t been robbed, because we had cops there all the time. And when they saw cars that they didn’t recognized in our parking lot after hours, they called us to check on us to make sure that everything was ok.  So it is a win-win situation.

So, even though I know that PDX police’s history has been spotty, I’m very uncomfortable with how quickly that they “burned at the stake” no matter what the info is….like the knife and the threats.  It so ties the hands of the good cops that are putting their lives on the line to do a thankless job.

Well, if you follow my tweets with all the links, you know that I’ve totally tied up in the retirement of Justice Stevens.  When you are addicted to politics, history and social issues you know that the Supreme Court is a huge part of our advancement in society, ie Civil Rights…women being allowed to control their own bodies.  What is really sad about Justice Stevens retirement is that he is seen as the force on the liberal side when he is actually old republican moderate.  It is the court that has changed.

The right-wing-nuts rally against “activist judges” (which is code for liberal judges) but their hypocrisy shows because the actual activist judges on the bench are the conservatives.  They are always rolling back our rights…..I feel as if they are going to throw us back to segregation and back alley abortions.  Screw our rights as long as corporations are allowed to do what they want and the white men keeps their power…..ggrrrr No ONE tells me what I can or can’t do with my body, my husband respects that.

Time to do a little bit of reading.  =)

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My Happenings for the Month

Posted on Friday March 26th, 2010 by | Comments Off on My Happenings for the Month

Been a while since an update. Same old same old….I have thoughts about what I want to blog about and then when I go and do it, my brain goes blank….so sad.

What I need to do, is do a draft post with just thoughts/subjects. So when I go and write one up, I have a reminder for myself.

I’ve been maintaining at the gym. Nothing earth shattering. After using the treadmill for about 18months straight, I’m getting a little annoyed on it. So I’ve been using the elliptical machine the last 2 days. I like that it is easier on my knees, feet & hands (I death grip the treadmill, no matter what speed). I also like that it working totally different muscles and so far, when I get off of it my legs feel jelly like. What I don’t like, is that it doesn’t force you keep the speed so I’m getting a good sweat but not the soaking, down pouring sweat that means I’ve burned more calories. According to the machine, I’m burning about 200 calories less and about 2 miles less then I’m use to. But I know that the speed I put on the treadmill is nothing that I would ever be capable of doing naturally without it forcing me and my death grip. So I just need to get my routine on it and with there being 2 versions of that machine at the gym, learn how to make them work the best for me.

Our kitties are still cute and ornery……grin Drew almost acts like a dog when you call him and loves to play with hubby on the cat tree. You try to correct either Drew or Sakura about something and they look at you like to say “what?” Heck, when hubby has pointed his finger at Sakura to scold her she turns around and rubs her face against it…..LOL Totally makes us laugh…..grin

Alexis is still hard at hearing, meowing (yelling/screaming) at us, because she can’t hear herself. Wondering if she is going senile, since she’ll do it in the middle of the night for no apparent reason.  She never use to make this kind of noise until she ended up sick over a year ago. Not she just hasn’t stopped…..drives us batty. I keep wondering if those 4 days at the vet for the thyroid treatment gave her separation anxiety. She hadn’t been overnight since she was fixed as a kitten 14yrs before. She is use to us traveling and leaving for a few days, but that is when she is left home with everything she is use to.  I just wish she would stop being so loud….

We had some friends come down for a visit a few weeks ago.  We took them to see Crown Point Observatory and Multnomah Falls, everyone has to see that when they visit.  =)

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We finally did some Portland things and went to Voodoo Donuts & Powell’s Books.  Wow….those donuts were awesome….grin  And a bookstore, 3 floors and a whole city block…..I loved it!  Ironically my favor subjects (politics, history, social issues)  were under my favorite color (purple).  Need to go back down there and go to the Chinese Garden and visit more of the shops.

We have had a really mild winter.  According to the news we are about 6ft below the average snow pack on Mt Hood.  That is not a good thing….that is our summer water when we go into our dry season.  Part of Oregon are under drought warnings.  It is from the El Nino….all the wet weather is going either north or south of us….California and it flooding….that is our normal winter rain. So on one hand, concerned about possible drought conditions for the summer, but it really has been nice for winter.  Everything started budding in Feb, about 5 weeks earlier then normal.

With the nicer weather, I’ve been wanting to get out on one of the nice days.  So hubby found a nice hike in central Oregon, about  2 & 1/2 hours SE of here.  It is what they call the high desert.  Boy, once you are going down 26 on the east side of Hood, huge difference in the vegetation. You get use to all the green wooded area on this side of Hood and the Gorge that it is hard to imagine it being anything else until you see it.

We also really got to see Mt Jefferson better then we see from this side.  Normally we just barely see the tip of it on a clear day from high points.

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Those smaller peaks to the south (left) of Mt Jefferson are the Three Sisters.

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Closer look at the Three Sisters.  Hope, Charity, & Faith.

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That “small” peak is Mt Hood.  So not use to seeing it look so small.  =)

We went to Smith Rock State Park for our hike (this was our trail http://www.nwhiker.com/SmithRockHike.html ).  It was only 4miles….which was nice distance wise……but it had heck of a climb up and down.  That 1st miles was a witch.  No matter how much you do at the gym, it never prepares you for climbs like that.  It just totally wipes out your stamina.  We did the hike in about 3hrs.  According to wiki, they have shot several westerns there and it is “generally considered the birthplace of modern American sport climbing”

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I’ve already posted all our of pics from this hike in my facebook, just need to make a gallery to post them all here.

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I actually got a good pic of hubby.

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Our traditional self-portrait.  =)

It was really great to get out of the house and our routine for a change.  I never like long drives, but we did get to see the snow on Mt Hood.  =)  With not getting our average the snow line was much higher then normal and melting.  Wasn’t even required to have chains on. We really want to explore all the different parts of Oregon for hiking.  So we are leaning towards the coast for our next day hike, since we haven’t done that yet.  We would love to get to Crater Lake for camping and hiking this year.

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