Curtains

I decided to make curtains for my bedroom, I began batiking today...it took a lot longer than I thought it would. About 3 hours for one curtain. I'm making 4. I decided to try and do one a day. What do you think for the main background color, avocado green or dark brown? The design will stay yellow.

Soon

Someday soon I will have internet...and be able to inform you all of what I've been up to. I have a video tour of my house that I've tried uploading on stolen internet several times, but it takes too long. I'm waiting for a wifi booster in the mail, and hopefully that will allow me to get my neighbor's signal in my house.

Spencer's Butte

This morning I got up and hiked Spencer's Butte, it's pretty close to my house, off the same road even. I'm told this is Eugene's most hiked trail. I could not believe how steep it was...half a mile up, half a mile down, half a mile back to the parking lot. I had to stop several times on the way up, partially from being out of shape, partially from a little knee pain, and partially just because it was so freaking steep.



The view was equivalent to a mountain peak, so I can see why it's so popular. But I did see several fairly young kids going up, which surprised me.


It was a bit dusty on the way down as you can see.


I met a nice 64 year old man at the top named Dean, we had a nice talk on the way down. I was a bit worried about him initially when I heard heavy panting (think large out of breath dog 5 feet from you) coming from 100 feet above me. Apparently he times himself on the way up, I guess it only took him 20 minutes to get to the top. I'm not sure what it took me, but more than that. I was thinking about my new face shield I got for doing CPR and how I was glad I just took that class in case a heart attack struck. Luckily he was in great shape, and had some interesting stories. Since the house is all put together, I get to do fun things now...like crafts and batik. Speaking of crafts I never posted the lightswitch plates I just made:

Walk

I went for a walk today. Well actually I went for two. This morning I went one direction and walked around residential areas and found an estate sale (mostly Victorian styled things). This evening I went the other way and was pleased at all I found so close...a good sized natural food store with reasonable prices, a book store, 4 pizza places, ice cream, bakeries, Great Harvest, an adult novelty store (finally one within walking distance!) (kidding), a bowling alley, a Mexican grocery store, an Indian grocery store, my bank, etc. etc. etc. I've never lived so close to everything, so it will be nice. If there was ever a time to go without a car again, it would be now. I am a 10 minute bus ride from campus.
I am getting a bit bored at times, not knowing my way around is keeping me in a bit. I think tomorrow I'll find a hike and get ready for a short camping trip this week. It's nice to be just an hour away from one of my favorite camping destinations, and Cougar Hot Springs! I'm also only 4 hours from the Redwoods...roadtrip anyone?
The house is very very nearly put together, I expect to post photos of the rest of the house in the next day or so.

Overdue post

A week ago I took my mom to a lunch cruise on the Portland Spirit. I was invited as a thank you for my peripheral blood stem cell donation just over two years ago from the National Marrow Donor Program. It was a nice gesture and I feel so lucky that I was a match with someone, it's not very common. I put in a request to allow the recipient/his family to contact me if they would like since I have no idea who they are.

The food was excellent, all of it. A wonderful salad, bread, cheesy pasta with fresh vegetables and cheesecake with strawberries.

The move went really well, here are some of my goofy helpers.


My little part of the big backyard. I don't even want to talk about the futon rotting out there. I have my dahlias, tomatoes, strawberries, and herbs.


My dining area

My favorite part of this house maybe? The perfect place to display my salt and pepper shakers.


The bathroom. I tried to take that toilet seat off, it stinks. But it is rusted on, so I need to ask the maintenance guy to take it off for me. I have a new one all ready to go.

The rest of the house is mostly there, but I have way too much stuff for this house, so I am in the process of getting rid of a lot of things so it's not so cluttered in here.
In other news I saw an orthopedist, he's not sure what's causing my pain, but thinks it may be a torn tendon. I had an MRI yesterday, I'll have results on Wed. By the way MRIs are not a fun treat. It's noisy, uncomfortable and you feel like you can't breathe or you'll move too much and mess up the scan. I guess I did good though, it only took 30 minutes and only one scan was unusable. Well I'm hopefully off to hike with some friends today and have lots of little projects around the house. I made lots of lightswitch covers! Pictures to come.

Moving

I don't have long...but I am mostly moved to Eugene now. I think I might even be out of the old house today, amazing! I'm about 70% settled at the new place. I can't believe how smoothly this move went. I chalk it up to lots of help and actually being organized! I can't wait to post pictures of my new place. I'm not sure when I will have internet there, may be a few days.

Anyone recognize this beetle? I found it in my backyard...and now that I look at the picture think it must be some kind of click beetle. Unfortunately I did not flip it over to see if it clicked. It was bigger than any click beetle I've ever seen, but that shape is so distinctive.


The sunset was soo pretty tonight. Not sure what the spots are...bugs, dust, shit on my lens...they are distracting for sure though. I will miss the open space at this house, it's nice to have a big private backyard.

Spam

As seen in a spam email headline:

"Britney's breasts break out in a fight"

Vermont

Megan and I had a great trip across the North East, everywhere we went was beautiful. We had good weather the first two days, but woke up to a torrential down pour the second morning. We were packed up and gone by 6:30 am! The mosquitoes were biting even with all the rain, luckily that was the only place we had a big problem with them, and the beauty of the site made up for it. We actually only spent a day and a half in Vermont, the weather was horrible and further north (where we hadn't been yet) was expecting flooding. Fortunately we had enough places to go that were indoors; cheese factories, Ben and Jerry's, etc. Vermont was pretty expensive, and even though we wanted to bring home pounds of cheese and bottles of maple syrup, we couldn't afford to. The worst place we went was the Vermont Country Store, it was a really fun place, but very expensive. They had a cheese I liked, and I thought I would buy a small sliver, until I realized it was $35/lb!!! We did make out with some fake teeth and some metal sparklers though.
After Vermont we headed back to New York to the Finger Lakes region which was really pretty. However it was raining there too if I remember correctly. After getting back to Ohio we hit up Kiedrowski's and Jeni's for snoogles and the best ice cream I think I've ever had. I just went to add some pictures to this and I think all of the ones I wanted must have been on Megan's camera, which I haven't transferred yet. Check out my pictures here, her blog here and her pictures here.

Relief and Chaos

The chaos that is moving:


My parents have been so so helpful lately and I'm so appreciative of it. I can't lift anything right now due to my elbow pain, and so they offered to help me move. My parents haven't helped me move in 7 years, that's 6 moves ago. It is hard for me to not be able to do things on my own, but they have been so great. I boxed most of my stuff up, my mom has done the rest, my dad loaded and moved everything, my mom cleaned both of my kitchens (the new house is not clean, mouse droppings, unmopped floors, etc), she scrubbed my floors on her hands and knees today. I could not have done this without them.
I had an appointment to see a orthopedic surgeon for my arm on Sept. 3 and I've seriously been counting down the days. They called today to tell me something came up and I will have to reschedule for either the 18th (in the middle of my trip to see Aaron, if I can't go then it will be 6 months between our visits) or on the 29th, my first day of school. I called around, everyone else was booked until October. I had a break down in the Winco parking lot, which continued until I got home. My parents showed up at my house when I was in the shower, still a wreck, I told my mom what had happened, and enough is enough they said and called a good friend of theirs in Salem who is an orthopedist. I have an appointment in a week. It is so ridiculous how long you have to wait to get in to see a doctor these days, and you shouldn't have to know someone to get good health care. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will all work out for the best.
I haven't forgotten about my trip, I just haven't had time to even look at my pictures yet.

Vermont to come...

Ok, I really really want to post about my super fun trip with Megan to Vermont...but I have to move tomorrow and my parents will be here at 9 am to help. I need to be organized and mostly packed by then. YIKES. It will have to wait a few days.

Made it

I made it to Ohio. Red eyes are hell hell hell. Some good things about it though:

I watched the sun set faint pink over Oregon in between layers of fluffy clouds

I flew into Vegas in the dark, it was impressive

I had the big dipper right outside my window for the entire flight to Ohio, and I saw 3 shooting stars

I saw the sun come up, sending out neon pink streamers across the clouds


Now we are off to the Ohio State Fair for funnel cake and people watching!!