Living the Dream

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible,

then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”- Christopher Reeve

I have been thinking about dreams, and dream fullfilment and achievement. I, as you know, am in the midst of pursuing a dream. In this process, I have decided that I don't really like the term "follow your dream". It seems passive.

I think we should change it to something like Create Your Dream or Inpsire Your Dream. Let's go with Inspire Your Dream, shall we? That seems appropriate!

Inspire Your Dream

I like that.

We all have within us a dream. Some dreams are huge and some are small and tiny. ALL of these dreams are valuable and worthwhile.

You are valuable and worthwhile.

Whatever dream is in your heart I encourage you to be inspired to live that inspired dream!

Take the first steps toward living the dream.  I ask it over and over, but what is it that you want?

Are you willing to say it outloud?

Are you strong enough to ask for it?

Are you inpsired enough to ignore the naysayers and the challenges and obstacles and simply figure out a way to make it an inevitable occurrence?

A seed does not become a sprout, which does not become a plant, which does not become a beautiful flower, by hiding its dream of flowering under the dirt of life.

Brush away the dirt of life from your dream; inspire yourself to move toward that dream; become a beautiful flower.

Don't wait. Start today. Look inside your soul and find the dream you have hidden there. Brush off the dirt. Expose the little seed of your dream to the light. Let it grow.

14 Years and Counting

TODAY is an even more important day than yesterday!

Today is my 14th wedding anniversary. 14 years ago today I got the privilege of marrying this guy:

Oh yes....this is my man.

Chris and I have actually been together for over 19 years, but married in 1997 after five years together. We met in high school and were NOT friends. It took a while, but he eventually realized how awesome I am, and he fell helplessly head over heels in love with me.

What?

It's my blog...I can write it however I want!

Actually, Chris and I were both friends with some of the same people, but WE were not friends. All of our friends went out of town during Spring Break and so we were "forced" to hang out with each other or have no social life for that week. This was probably a bigger hardship for me than him, but he graciously allowed me to hang out with him. Even then, he was such a nice boy. (That is what my mom has always said about him.)

After hanging out for a week, we got to know each other a little bit and became friends. It wasn't until a few months later that our friendship grew into something more. We started dating officially in the middle of July 1992. Five years later, on a somewhat drizzly and cool September evening, Chris and I pledged to love, honor and cherish each other, in good and bad, till death do us part.

And here we are now, 14 years later.

I have learned a lot being married. I have learned about selflessness, communication, understanding, sharing, patience and love. I have learned that my marriage is more important than any other relationship I have. I have learned that there is no "I" in us or we. I have learned that it is important for us to support each other in our dreams, even if that dream is not our own. I have learned that it is also important for us to have our own separate hobbies and interests, to keep our own identities. I have learned that not only do opposites attract, but they stick like glue.

I have learned that as long as we both agree to do something, it doesn't matter how new or big or scary or different it is from what we were doing before, as long as we are doing it together, everything will be okay.

Chris is my best friend and my forever life partner. I love him every single day and miss him when he isn't around.

I am BEYOND blessed to have him in my life and truly do not know what I would be without him.

Thank you, my love, for being my best friend and life partner, forever. I love you.

Back To School

As you all know, this blog is a way for me to share my inspiration to really live my life, to follow my dreams, pursue greatness, find my path, create myself and (hopefully) inspire you to do the same for yourself.

One of the ways in which I am creating myself, following my path and dreams is by going back to school to get a degree. When we moved to Southern Oregon from Portland the economy in general was not good, but the economy in our small community was extra not good. At that time there was essentially no job market. I could have gotten a job in my previous industry, but at a significant pay reduction. I decided instead to use this time as an opportunity to pursue a dream that had been started and stopped many times.

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In January 2010 I went back to college full time. In June of 2011 I graduated from a community college with my Associates of Arts in general studies degree. YAY! Part one of my goal accomplished! I can now say with pride that I do have *a* degree. But in today's world, an AA is not quite enough to really give the boost I am looking for.

I enrolled at Southern Oregon University and today I begin my pursuit of a Bachelors of Science in Communications. I am taking four classes: Advanced Public Speaking (<--lots of people fear this, but I enjoy it-crazy!), Intercultural Communications, Conflict Resolution and Psychology 202. I am excited and nervous. I hope to be finished in 18 months, but will have to see how it goes with university level classes, what the class load and homework is like. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and have asked the universe to help me out. I believe I can do it in 18 months.

I am telling you this today because this is a very real and concrete example of getting out there and living life! It doesn't always have to be about doing something physical. It is simply about doing something that makes you feel alive! It is about doing something that brings joy and emotion to your heart and soul.

This is why I say if you want to be an artist start creating art...whatever that art may be to YOU!

Getting a degree may not be anything that is important to you, and that is great! That begs the question: What IS important to you? To YOU? Not what do you think you should do.

Having a degree will complete a life long goal of mine. It inspires me to greatness. It will support me in a future career, or it will support me as an author or motivational speaker. But most importantly it is important to ME that I complete this process and feed my soul with the achievement of this goal.

With the beginning of Fall, a change of the season, back to school time, now is a great time to look around your life and think about what it is that will feed your soul and inspire you to greatness. What can you do to support a life long goal? What steps can you take? How can you fit it into your current life or what can you adjust to make room for it?

It is TIME to put your dreams and goals and wishes on the radar of your life. Stop brushing them to the side and saying "later". YOUR DREAMS are valuable and worthwhile things to spend your time on. In my opinion, they are much more valuable things to pursue than having a bigger car, or having a spotless house, or having more stuff, or whatever unimportant "things" get in the way of you pursuing your true dreams.

Today I begin the journey, I start on the path, in a very physical and tangible way, to achieving the second part of a life long dream.

You can begin today, too.

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What can you do TODAY to begin the pursuit of a dream?

Sunday Snippets

1. Question: Are you a female football fan? FFF?

I am. In fact, I am more the football fan in our house than Chris is. I am the one that was happy to have NFL Sunday Ticket, and I am the the one who pays attention to who is playing and when. I am currently enjoying the Steelers game against the Colts in Indiana.  Gooo Steelers!!  10 unanswered points so far. :-)

*well by the time I'm done typing this and eating dinner, we are down 13-10 with some crazy sack fumbles! Sheesh!


2. Is there anything you don't eat or drink because it gives you the hiccups?

I can hardly drink soda without getting the hiccups. If I add rum, I don't get the hiccups, but if I just have soda...hiccup city. Do you have weird food or drink side effects?

3. Did you read anything great this weekend?

 I read a great book this weekend! Friday actually. It is called "The Winter Sea" by Susanna Kearsley. It is a great book, historical, time travel-y, present day, love, romance, and dealing with one of my favorite themes: the Jacobite/Stewart Scottish attempts to regain the throne of Scotland. Not dry or boring. Fun and engaging throughout!

4. Not a question. Chris started working on my car finally. He spent the entire day today pulling the motor. Yikes!

5. What's on the dinner menu tonight?

Tonight we are having wild Alaskan salmon steaks, sesame cucumber salad, and baked potatoes (both cukes and potatoes from our garden). Pretty soon I will be switching things up and Sunday night/Football night dinner will be more like roasts, stews, chili's, and soups. Things that can cook all day in the oven or in the crockpot. I'll be sharing those recipes as we move through the fall.

Hope you all had an awesome weekend! Tomorrow is my first day of school! I'm nervous, but excited.

My posts might get a a bit less frequent as I get used to my new schedule. See you all soon!!

ABC's of Me

I have been reading a lot of blogs lately, and following blog links to other blogs, and I am finding the most awesome stuff, and people, and food, and stuff! I kinda feel bad about using the ideas, but it looks like everyone gets inspired by other bloggers posts and then re-create the idea on their own blog. I love this!

A blog I found recently was linked from a guest post on Brittany's A Healthy Slice of Life. Brittany recently had a baby, so she had Miss Smart over at The Smart Kitchen do a guest post. Let's just say that I super big heart Miss Smart. She has my kind of humor! You should definitely check it out. From her site I found Jennifer's blog Peas and Crayons. I just started reading Peas and Crayons, but there are two posts that I thought were awesome and am going to participate with!

The first one is the ABC's of Me, which I will do below. It will be fun, and maybe I will do one for Chris, too. Ha!

The other one is What I Ate Wednesday. That will be super fun, too! I like the idea of taking one day a week and showing off (or showing in shame) what I ate! I can't promise it will actually be Wednesday's food each week, but I will do a weekly "What I Ate" post. Several other bloggers participate in the WIAW posts, too, and link them up to the Peas and Crayons site. FUN! I love looking at what other people eat. It is sometimes so inspirational! Makes me want to run into the kitchen and start cooking!

Okay, so today I will do the ABC's of Me. You can do your own ABC's and post them in the comments!

My ABC's

A. Age: 35...I'm pretty sure, but when I turned 33 I thought I was turning 34 and my mom had to correct me.

B. Bed size: King-I need my space...AIR I need AIR!

C. Chore you hate: Vacuuming OBVI! It gave me a blister this week! Who gets a vacuuming blister?

D. Dogs: are too much responsibility and I can't leave them home alone for 4 days.

E. Essential start to your day: Coffee please! And quiet. No talky talky too early in the morning.
F. Favorite color: Purple. Purple clothes, toes, jewelry, shoes, purse, sunglasses, I had a purple car once, purple walls in my house..purple purple everywhere!

G. Gold or Silver: BOTH. I am an equal opportunity precious metals lover.

H. Height: 5' 4"

I. Instruments you play: I can play Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater on the piano. Thanks Grampa Ron.

J. Job title: Supreme Ruler of Casa Beebe? No? Uhm, Steller Student Extraordinaire?? No? Hmm...we'll come back to that.

K. Kids: Are great for people that really want them and go into having them with an understanding of what having kids is really all about. I have an understanding, and therefore choose to not have kids. Again, I can't leave them home alone for 4 days, so....no kids.

L. Live: Beautiful Southern Oregon

M. Mom’s name: Mom. Oh, her given name? Marjorie

N. Nickname: My mom ^ calls me Corinne Dianna, which is what she wanted to name me but my dad nixed that, and sometimes people call me Cor, which I dislike strongly. I really don't have a nickname.

O. Overnight hospital stays: Nope, despite being the clumsy queen, I have yet to seriously injure myself or require surgery or anything like that. Let's find some wood to knock on, shall we?


P. Pet peeve: Oh lord. I could post every week about a different pet peeve. People who don't take care of their kids, people who don't take care of their dogs, rude people, people who can't spell! My list is long.

Q. Quote from a movie: "But why is the Rum gone?" and many others.

R. Righty or Lefty: Righty

S. Siblings: I'll stick with bio siblings here so it is less confusing: one brother, Ken. 3 step siblings and many many in law siblings.

T. Time you wake up: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 7:30ish.

U. Underwear: Yes?

V. Vegetables you don’t like: This list is getting shorter. Still not a huge fan of rutabega or anything slimy/mushy.


W. What makes you run late: Not much, I hate to be late. Things that are beyond my control make me late, otherwise I am very on time.

X-rays you’ve had: Tail-bone (it's broken<--told you I was clumsy), teeth, thumb (slammed it in a car door), I think that's it.

Yummy food you make: Mediterranean Turkey Burgers, Enchiladas, meat loaf, soup, stews, desserts, breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner.....oh yah...pretty much everything.

Z. Favorite zoo animal: Not really a fan of zoo's. I think they should leave all those poor animals alone in the wild. I mean sure, we maybe need to do some saving/breeding of some animals, but most of them are doing just fine on their own. We should just butt out. I favor wild animals in their natural environment.



Okay...there ya go! A little more about me in an ABC format! 

Pick one (or all) of the ABC's and share more about yourself with me in the comments!!

A Woman Should Know

This is one of those things that appears suddenly in life that is so fitting and so true! Yet it appears with no one to attribute it to. If you know who wrote this originally, please point me in that direction. I would love to give the author credit for this beautiful piece of truth! 

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A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .. enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own, even if she never wants to or needs to…

 

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .. something perfect to wear if the employer, or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour…

 

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .. a youth she’s content to leave behind…. a past juicy enough that she’s looking forward to retelling it in her old age….

 

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ….. a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra…

 

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE . one friend who always makes her laugh… and one who lets her cry…

 

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …. a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family…

 

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE … eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal, that will make her guests feel honored…

 

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE … a feeling of control over her destiny.

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… how to fall in love without losing herself.

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without ruining the friendship…

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… when to try harder… and WHEN TO WALK AWAY…

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… that she can’t change the length of her calves, the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… that her childhood may not have been perfect…but its over…

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… what she would and wouldn’t do for love or more…

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… how to live alone… even if she doesn’t like it…

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW.. whom she can trust, whom she can’t, and why she shouldn’t take it personally…

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… where to go… be it to her best friend’s kitchen table… or a charming inn in the woods… when her soul needs soothing…

 

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… what she can and can’t accomplish in a day… a month…and a year…

 

 

What else should a woman know?

Gratitudes and Autumn

Happy First Day of Autumn!!

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The trees here don't look like that yet, but they will soon enough! We are forecast for another 90 degree day today. Though it is still getting hot during the day, our nights are cooling off nicely, which makes for better sleep. I love sleep.

Now that it is autumn I can officially start wearing jeans again, when it cools down, and I can officially start making FALL food! Chili, roasted root vegetables, pumpkin-cranberry muffins....oh yes! Color me happy. Don't get me wrong, I love summer time, it is my favorite season. And I love the food of summer, all of the fresh fruits and vegetables of summer make my heart and mouth sing! But, I also love the feeling of "starting over" that comes in the fall.

Since today is the first day of Autumn I can now do some fall decorating. I don't like to get ahead of myself. To each season I give their full time! Especially summer. :-) I will be putting my pumpkins and colored leaf decorations out, along with my scarecrow door wreath. I will be changing the scents in my Scentsy's to more autumnal cinnamon/apple spice scents from the fruity and lighter fragrences of summer. I might even get some mums and pansy's to replant my front door planters (they got too hot from neglectful watering in the heat of the summer and I had to yank the dead plants out).

I'm looking forward to fall. I start school monday (ack!!) and it feels good to be heading into a routine and making progress toward a goal again.

On to the gratitudes.

One year ago today, I received a phone call that my mother was in the hospital with abdominal pain. At that point, we were unaware of the problem or the severity. Initially the doctors felt that she had an intestinal blockage, and then they thought it was a kidney issue, and then they thought it was a blockage, and then she basically died.

She had been in the hospital for about a day and a half. They had been doing MRI's and CT scans and blood tests, but were having a hard time figuring out what the problem was. She was in SEVERE, extreme pain. They were not managing the pain. And then, Friday evening when they went to take her for another test, her blood pressure dropped. Her doctors and nurses scrambled to revive her blood pressure and once that had occurred they rushed her to emergency surgery.

In surgery they basically just cut her open to look around in the abdomen and see what the heck was going on. Her surgeon later told us what he saw was "an abdominal catastrophe". She had a perforated intestinal hernia. The bowel had split open and poisoned her blood and she had a large section of intestine that had died from lack of blood flow due to the hernia. In short, she was a mess! The surgeons did what they could, but much of the damage had already been done.

She was sent to the ICU and was given round the clock two-to-one nursing care, which meant that she had two nurses in her room at all times. She was never left alone. She had, I think, 5 of the medicine pump units attached to her with 3 or 4 bags of meds and IV's coming off of each pump. She was on a ventilator. She was filled up with fluids and was HUGEly puffy. She was on multiple blood pressure medications, drugs for pain, drugs to keep her sedated, drugs for infections, and I don't even remember all what else. She also, of course, had all the heart rate and blood pressure monitors attached to her.

Let's just say it was a teensy bit scary. When I asked the 15 year veteran nurse of critical care what my mom's chances of survival were on a scale of one to ten she responded "Maybe a two. Maybe." Not good. On Sunday morning the ICU doc came in and the first words out of his mouth were "Well, I'm surprised we are all still here this morning!" meaning he was surprised my mom was still alive.

What happened next was 6 weeks of stress, anxiety, worry, fear, sadness, worry, fear, stress, anxiety, worry, fear, stress, sadness..did I mention anxiety? And driving. See, mom lives 6 hours away from me by car. So yah, little stressful. Mom didn't recover quickly or easily. She did start to improve in some ways, but then she started having other problems. Her blood pressure would stabilize, but then her heart would stop. Her blood pressure then started skyrocketing. And then her heart would stop. She had several injections of adrenaline to restart her heart through those weeks.

After about 5 weeks she had improved and stabilized enough that they started weaning her off of the sedatives. She had been medically comatose for the preceeding 5 weeks. NO movement, no response to stimuli, nothing. Eerie. She had been off all sedatives for over 6 days before she started to wake up and respond at all. It was during that time that we had to have a family conversation about what would happen if she never regained consciousness. It wasn't a fun conversation, but it was necessary. Luckily, we didn't have to make those choices. She started to regain consciousness.

After 6 weeks in the ICU she was transferred to an Acute Long Term Care facility where they could continue to assist her in her recovery and weaning her off of the ventilator. She continued to improve and make great strides in her recovery. Four weeks later, around the beginning of December, she was released to go home. She had difficulty walking, was very weak, tired very easily, she still had open wounds on her abdomen from the major surgery, her trachotomy wound was still open and healing, but she was alive, breathing on her own, talking and eating, and was able to go home.

10 weeks of stress and worry.

It has been a long year of recovery. Mom has done quite well. She has been down to visit twice this year. She has started swimming as a form of recovery exercise and has been doing her physical therapy exercises. She has gained much strength and flexibility. She still deals with the aftereffects of such a major body trauma, her internist doctor says it could be a year or more before she is "healed" completely, but she is doing very well.

I am very grateful that mom survived, that she is a fighter and a little stubborn. I am very grateful for all of the doctors, nurses, surgeons, and care staff of every level, for their efforts in keeping her alive. I am very grateful that I am able to talk to her. That was one of my biggest fears, that I would never again get to speak to her.



Chris and mom Christmas 2010 - she had been out of the hospital for about 2 weeks or so.

 It isn't really appropriate to say "happy anniversary" but it is appropriate to say Welcome to Fall, mom! I'm glad you could make it.

Kitchen Gadgets

I used to be the queen of kitchen gadgets. If there was a gadget, I had it.

Now I would say that I am maybe the queen's half sister or something.

I figured out, after actually spending a lot of time cooking and preparing food, which kitchen gadgets were actually helpful and saved me time or agony and which ones were just fancy marketing.

A couple of gadgets that I really do use and love came in quite handy yesterday while I was getting ready to take care of the 10 lbs of apples that I bought. (This was the SECOND box of apples I bought because apple box numero uno didn't turn out.)

My mom was remarking to me sometime in the past that she loved Gravenstein apples and was sad that you really can't find them anymore. Well GUESS WHAT??  We have them here in the wonderful Rogue Valley. Yes. We. DO!

So, I told my mom (last year) that I would buy her some and send them to her. Well, when I went back to buy them they were all sold out. Serious.

SO this year I was bound and determined to get some dang Gravenstein apples.

Did you know that there are hundreds of apple varities, but in the US we eat only a handful of varieties? Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Gala, HoneyCrisp (<--the best!!), Pink Lady, and Jonagold, are the most popular. These varities are popular not necessarily for their taste but because they ship well and store well. We have lost many varities of very delicious and interesting apples, including a pink fleshed apple, because the orchards have been cut down to grow the more "marketable" apples. We are a sad, lost society.

Gravensteins are one of the apples that are a great baking apple and are pretty much only grown by heirloom apple growers. Which means that you have to really look for them. Go to an apple farm where people grow apple because they are fun and unique, not because they ship or store well. The Pippen is another great baking apple that used to have a whole restaurant chain named after them: Plush Pippen. Both the apple and the restaurant are a thing of the past.

I did find apples, obvi, and the first batch turned to mush when I follow the directions for canned apples for baking in my canning cookbook.

This time, after a chat with mom, I decided to just freeze them.

First, you have to wash, peel, core and slice the apples. For this, the best thing to have is an apple peeler. Now the one I have is actually called an apple peeler-coorer-slicer, because depending on how you configure the parts you can just peel, or peel, core and slice. The problem: too small of slices. The slices need to be a little more meaty for my purpose, which is ultimately, pies.

The apple peeler is a neato little contraption.

You put the apple on the end of the twisty handle and start twisting. When the apple touches the little arm thingy it peels the apples! You can peel anything that will fit on there, including potatoes! Awesome <---sing song voice.

Then you need to slice and core the apples, for which there is a handy dandy gadget! The apple corer-slicer!

That is so awesome.

After peeling, coring and slicing 10 lbs of apples, with the help of cool gadgets , you end up with something like this:

If you treat them with a little "Fruit Fresh" then they wont turn brown while you are going through this whole peeling, coring, slicing process.

I needed a larger container so I got out a big roasting pan. I added the apples, 2 cups of sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon and a 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg to the pan and mixed it all up.

YUM! Now they are ready to go into freezer bags and wait to be put into pies!!

I got 4 quart size freezer bags filled with about 20 cups of sliced apples. The average 9" apple pie calls for about 8 cups (Yes really...I was shocked!) of apples, so I have at least two pies worth of apples. It seems like I would get more for 10 pounds of apples...but whatever.

So now, when mom comes for Thanksgiving we can make heirloom Gravenstein apple pies! YAY! Success!

Do you have a favorite kitchen gadget? Is there something you bought thinking you would love but really don't?? What is your favorite kind of pie??

Weekend Review

My honey and I went on two drives this past weekend. The weather here has been GORGEOUS. We are still hitting 89 or 90 most days, sunny and just lovely.

Saturday we took off in the Samurai (after we went to the Growers Market). We headed up into the hills on the west side of the valley and went exploring. We found the logging site that we had stumbled upon earlier in the spring. They are all done logging now. The road was CRAYZAY! Ugh..I do NOT like cliffside roads. They make me anxious as all get out. I try to just breathe and pretend that I'm not like seconds from dying.

Chris always says he isn't going to hurt me and that he would feel really bad if he like killed me or something, but I gotta tell ya, that is just NOT that reassuring. Sorry Chris. :-)

Anyway, it was goregous! There was a slight chill in the breeze Saturday, so I had a light hoodie on, but it was so blissfully quiet and peaceful up there. 

We brought lunch.

I know...I know...CAFO chicken, trans fats...but it was DARN tasty! And it isn't about abstinance, it is about awareness and moderation. I don't eat at KFC (or fast food in general) every day. It is a pretty rare occurrence. Plus, I am *aware* of where that food comes from and that, to me, is half the battle.

Anyway, lunch was yummy and it was so quiet up there. We sat there for probably over an hour just visiting and watching the birds and the world go by. Chris said we were facing WEST. I didn't believe him so I had to get the gps thingy on my phone out and see. Sure enough...west! I thought for SURE we were facing North. I get so turned around.

Anyway, on our way back we ended up cresting this hill and seeing that we were now heading east and had a great view of the Table Rocks and the valley. We also could see Mt. McLoughlin way off in the distance. She is mostly naked of snow now; just in time to get a new snow outfit any day now!

Our second trip was also in the Samurai, but we headed up to our favorite lake, Lost Creek. Normally we take the boat up there, but the water level is SO low now, that we weren't even sure if we would be able to get it into the water.

Here are a couple of images to show the difference:

June water level

September water level:

We headed down an access road and came across this:

So, of course, we followed the road.

It DOES, indeed, end in water! At this point we are driving around on the lake bottom, which only 3 months ago was covered under hundreds of feet of water. See the tree line over there, across the lake? The water was at that level in June.

Here is another good couple of pictures:

Yup...pretty low. In fact, Chris and I found some fishing tackle in a tree at the top of this gully/wash. Now, this tree is normally UNDER water.

It was pretty crazy. It was HOT, too. We saw a sign on the way home that said 92 degrees. Yesh...the middle of September and over 90! I love it!

We had a super weekend, it was quiet, peaceful and fun.

How was your weekend? Did you have any adventures? Do you have any lakes or rivers that change this much, or some other fascinating natural phenomenon??

Musings

"I'm having a thought, here, Barbossa!"  ~Captain Jack Sparrow

Okay, I'm thinking that I don't really care for the new Facebook changes. Again. So annoying. As I said on Facebook, if I wanted Google + I would just sign up for Google +. These companies, like Facebook and Netflix, need to be careful about making their customers angry. Facebook is only awesome if it does what the users want! I don't want to see a bunch of stuff about people I don't know, friends of friends of friends, and I don't want them to see my stuff. That is why there are privacy settings, right? I mean, I know... I am posting for all and sundry to see here on the blog, but for some reason it is different. Corporations DO need to be careful, because people are willing to go elsewhere to get what they want. Just might want to think about that Zuckerberg!

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Enough of that let's talk about fun stuff!

Chris and I got to go out for breakfast this morning. That was unusual and nice. I had a waffle. Interesting part? I only ate 3/4 of it. Yay me!

I have been maintaining my weight the last several weeks. It is abnormal for me to maintain a weight. I either go up or down (mostly up), but lately I am feeling very peaceful toward food. Amazing progress for me and I am very much enjoying it.

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Do you find peace in the potatoes? I do. That is what I enjoy about gardening/harvesting. When I am picking blackberries, or picking bunches of basil, or cleaning the dirt off the freshly pulled potatoes, or any of those kind of mindless things where there is NO way to rush through it, it just takes the time that it takes, I have a great opportunity to let my mind just wander. I find that to be very peace-inducing. I think of all kinds of things. Sometimes I think about stuff to post, sometimes I think about people who have hurt me or abandoned me, sometimes I think about friends or fun things. It just depends, but it is a meditative time almost where I can just sit and think. How many opportunities do we get in life to just think? Not enough.

Here is (most of) the potato bounty:

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Does anyone remember Right Said Fred??  "I'm Too Sexy!"

It is on the 90's Hits station I am listening to right now. Ugh! This song was popular when I worked in retail in High School and it was on the repeat music video player we had in our store. I have to say, I eventually came to hate this song. HA!

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Is there a song that was super popular at one time that you learned to hate? Where do you find peace in your life? What do you think of companies like Netflix and Facebook changing things?