Protected: My job: the past two years

Posted by rachel on June 13th, 2008 in and · Enter your password to view comments

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Lucky Dog!

Posted by micah on June 11th, 2008 in · 3 Comments

Such a Lucky pup pup!
Rachel and I are puppy parents!

You can check out more pictures of our Lucky puppy in the gallery! At 5 months with no rules he was a bit of a handful, but he is a fast learner and he can sleep through the night so everybody is keeping their sanity, including him.

Our time with Lucky started off a little rocky, but the pack is adjusting and we’re all getting along really well. Right now doggo is sleeping in his kennel and we’re settling down for a quiet evening. The cats, though tentative about the new guy, seem to still love us, so I think we’re in the clear.

Lucky is a Labrador, Rottweiler and Sharpei mix, he went to the vet today for his first check-up and he has a clean bill of health, and he is full of curiosity. At 5 months and 35 pounds we know he still has a lot of growing ahead of him.

And all other nights

Posted by rachel on June 1st, 2008 in and · 2 Comments

Micah and I returned from a weekend spent at a fire lookout near Mt. Hood, approximately near my old stompin’ grounds in Hood River. We stayed in a 40 foot tower with stunning views of Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams with a group of Llamas and you can assume that a good amount of Tom Foolery was had by all.

It was a weekend full of emotional ups and downs for me. In retrospect, feel thankful that I have friends and a husband who will put up with my current cranky, depresso self. At the beginning of the weekend it looked as though our trip would not happen and I actually felt relieved, thinking that I might have a chance to stay home and get some work done before the last week of the term. I have a lot going on at work, which is adversely affecting my feelings of self-worth, my abilities to interact with the people I love, and enjoy spending time with. I felt bad, as though I was a distracted, withdrawn, wet blanket all weekend in an incredibly beautiful location with equally wonderful friends.

I am happy to report that after some forced interaction time with fresh air, stunning views, and great hikes, I am feeling less shitty.

I got to play tour guide and show off a good amount of the beautiful place where I grew up. I firmly hold the (somewhat biased) opinion that the Hood River Valley is one of the most awe-inspiring, mountainous, and breath-taking places  in the world and I’m sticking to it. Driving around, seeing old sites, people and places brought back nostalgic thoughts, which served to mark as an unexpected marking of the passage of time. So many things have changed since I was growing up there.

Smashing Pumpkins has magically made it back into my weekly repertoire of music. Micah being the wonderful feller that he is, is blasting it loud, just how I like it, so that I can focus on my grading while he cleans up from the delicious penne chicken pasta gourmet meal that he whipped up for a Sunday meal for us.  Tonight, Tonight came on and the lyrics and the melodic harmonies of the song are amazingly appropriate for how I’m feeling at the moment. God damn, that is an amazing album.  If you have Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, I suggest you go dust it off and turn it up.

Tonight, Tonight

Time is never time at all
You can never ever leave without
leaving a piece of youth
And our lives are forever changed
We will never be the same
The more you change the less you feel
Believe, believe in me, believe
That life can change, that you’re not stuck in vain
We’re not the same, we’re different tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight
And you know you’re never sure
But your sure you could be right
If you held yourself up to the light
And the embers never fade in your city by the lake
The place where you were born
Believe, believe in me, believe
In the resolute urgency of now
And if you believe there’s not a chance tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight
We’ll crucify the insincere tonight
We’ll make things right, we’ll feel it all tonight
We’ll find a way to offer up the night tonight
The indescribable moments of your life tonight
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight

Beautiful daaaaaay

Posted by rachel on May 17th, 2008 in · 2 Comments

Even though the temperature for the past few days here has been oppresively hot in high 80s and 90s, I’m still happy that spring / summer has sprung.  Just when I think the world will remain drab, wet, and cold for the rest of eternity, the sun comes out, the trees sprout leaves, and everything is visably alive.

We’re going to spend most of today putting another layer of gravel down for our ongoing (and going and going…) paver walkway project, dig out some more flower beds in the front, and top dress the vegetable and flower bed.  Tomorrow we will plant vegetables in our newly dug vegetable garden in the back, where we hope the heat and good soil will give us the kind of prolific produce yield that we used to be blessed with every summer in the Llama D.

In case we don’t get a good yield or if we do, to better indulge in the summer’s bounty, I sent in our first check today for our harvest share from Wintergreen Farm.  Tasty produce delivered locally each week for 5 months… that’s what I’m talkin’ about.  We’re trying a new farm this year and we’re one step away from being freezer people… that one step being that we don’t have a gigantic freezer.  We’ll have to eat and share a lot instead.  Nom nom!

Half the distance = more the fun

Posted by rachel on May 4th, 2008 in · 0 Comments

Susan and I walked and ran the last mile of the Eugene 1/2 Marathon today with a time of 3:40.

Both of us registered to run the half back in January.  Then she got injured.  I completed the training up to the penultimate training run of 9 miles and decided to discontinue training for a few reasons.  I didn’t have a good base level of fitness when I began the training runs and I wasn’t running in between the weekend runs.   Micah and I were traveling during the time when the longer training runs were to be completed.  I had no training partner; a feat which proved to be more difficult than I had originally anticipated.  Also, I wanted to focus on overall fitness and be able to play soccer and without burning myself out on one race.

Thusly, Susan and I had resigned ourselves to not “running” the race, and thus not participating either.  As the race got closer, we were both feeling bummed about registering for a race, paying the steep entry fee, and being quitters.  After training for two marathons together, this situation did not sit well with us, so rather than do nothing at all, we walked and finished the event.

Even though we both acknowledged that it felt like a serious “step down” for us to walk it, we were so happy to have participated.  At the end of the race, we finished and felt so happy for having covered the distance and participating in the fun event.  Having Kat and Joe see and congratulate us on finishing the race made it doubly awesome, even if we had “just walked it”.

I really enjoyed the half marathon distance and the course.  I could potentially see myself participating in the half as an annual community event each year.  13.1 miles is a comfortable, attainable distance.  It’s still a challenge, but not so like the marathon, which takes an incredible amount of mental and physical preparation before, during, and after.  I was ready to be finished with the course when it finished.

Right now my brain is mushy, my legs are /very/ sore, and I am useless physically and mentally right now.  However, I know that I can recover, that I can accompany Micah on a bike tomorrow during our newly scheduled bi-weekly runs together, and that all will heal itself in my body in good time; in faster time than a post-marathon recovery would allow for.

I wanna give a shout out to Kat, her friend Craig, and Patrick for finishing with great times today.  Also, kudos are due to Erin, who trained up for and so much so wanted to join us for the 1/2 marathon, but could not due to injury.  There will be future races Erin, and we know that you’ll be right there with us in preparing for and running them!

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