Date Night

We went out for a nice dinner and to the chamber orchestra. The orchestra wasn't that great...well let me rephrase that, the musicians were great, we just weren't very into Stravinsky, so we took off at intermission and got some wonderful dessert at Pazzaluna. Rich, you would have loved the pianist tonight, he was definitely animated.

On the bus ride home. It was nice to get home earlier tonight and relax. We got home pretty late last night.

St. Paul

I made it Minnesota pretty painlessly. Well, sort of, my arms are still bothering me, but the flights were short and easy.
Last night we saw They Might Be Giants and a really good band called Ra Ra Riot. Check their stuff out, it's upbeat, melodic and they incorporate their electric violin and cello beautifully. They were a lot of fun to see live. Today we are off to run some school errands and just hang out together. Tonight we are going to the St. Paul chamber orchestra for a nice date.

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.