•bike commuting
•fruits & veggies
•straight hair
•box fans
•library books
It's been a crazy week. Work was hectic until Wednesday, and I was still trying to get the house and everything in order. Last night, Aaron's mom and aunts made it into town. So I guess we're signed up for a weekend of family fun. I'll let you know.
Working backwards....
We moved this weekend. Into a new house in the town I work in. Actually our house is 1.5 miles from my office. It was previously rented by a coworker of mine, and a former member of my department before that. We like to keep things in the family, I suppose.
It has a big, fenced back yard with a garden. It has a finished, connected garage where laundry will be done and video games will be played. It has a big(ish) kitchen, a living room with tons of light, the perfect-sized bedroom and an extra room ...for me. A room of my own. So far "my" room has a desk (no chair) and my closet. Maybe I will put more there soon. I envision it being my "office/yoga studio".
I biked to work for the first time today. This was a feat considering I'm not the most confident cyclist in the world. I know I'll get better. I'm exhausted from the stress of it (silly, I know). But I'm also residually exhausted from the weekend. Because said previous renter/coworker is busy moving into a new house & becoming a father & other life-changing events, we hadn't actually seen the place before we got the keys. We took everyone's word for what a great space and what a great deal it is. And it is.
I dropped by on Friday after work, gawked at the emptiness and decided which rooms and closets would hold which things. That night, we drove back down for dinner and for Aaron to see the place and to drop off the three boxes worth of books, DVDs and CDs we'd actually packed ahead of time.
Nothing else was packed. Nothing. But, we don't have too many things at this point. We had just enough to fit into our last 600-square-foot studio apartment, so we weren't too worried about the packing side of things.
We were fully packed by about 1 p.m. on Saturday, and just about had everything under one roof by 9 p.m. that evening. I tried to unpack a bit, but my feet weren't having it. Aaron had to work on Sunday morning and early afternoon, so I unpacked most of the house by myself and at noon made my way back to the old place for cleaning duty. It wasn't a tough job since the apartment was teeny and essentially brand new. Aaron joined me at 1:30 or so. We took a break and grabbed lunch and made a Target trip before we finished up cleaning the kitchen, taking out the last bit of trash & cramming the cleaning supplies into the back of my PT Cruiser.
I headed into our moving experience physically tired and sore from a day - Friday - of canyoneering. I'm writing an outdoorsy story for work, and the director of the school's "Adventure Leadership Institute" invited me on a trip with a group of kids training to teach a canyon leadership class. It was their second time to run this particular canyon, and it was my first time running any canyon...
After a two hour drive in a van, we stopped on the side of the road and suited up: wet suits, dry jackets, booties, helmets, PFDs and canyoneering harnesses, which are different from climbing harnesses in that they have rubber bottoms. Yup. You're essentially wearing a rubber diaper.
Wearing all of this gear, we bushwhacked through a forest to get to the canyon. We started out wading through the creek, which was actually the most difficult part of the entire trip for me. I'm always careful when I'm walking over rocks. I go slow. And, it turns out, I go even slower in water. But, the water got deeper and the rocks got bigger, and the walking part got easier after awhile. There were several slides down rushing water and jumps into deep water off high rocks and tree trunks - fun.
And there were two repels. Before this, I had only repelled off of vertical or slightly overhung (or slightly slabby) surfaces after sport climbing. Repelling down a waterfall into shallow water is different. Your life is in your own hands, sure. That part doesn't bother me. The part that did bother me was the sliding-down the rocks part. My leg got stuck and my hip popped on the first one... And also the whole water part. Before I started, they told me that climbers have a tendency to stop repelling and wait for a moment if they feel uncomfortable, but when you're repelling down a waterfall you shouldn't stop because the water will just keep hitting you and building up. I understood this and was sure I wouldn't have a problem during the first, short repel. I was wrong. The first thing I did when I felt a little freaked was STOP, and the next thing I knew, the whole team was yelling at me to "keep going". Hilarious. I did better the second time.
And I made it out of the canyon alive. Tired, but alive. It was an awesome experience, and I think it will make my story stand out. I just have to finish writing it...
I was also tired starting out on the canyon trip because we'd been out late two nights before seeing The Postal Service at the Rose Garden in Portland. The show was amazing. I'd never been to a concert at a venue that big before. And Jenny Lewis was amazing. She was, of course, my favorite part. Before the show we went over to Dave & Rebekah's and had salad and pizza and beer and wine and cider and the rest of my marion berry pie. It was a great night and totally worth the exhaustion that followed.
So see, it's all building on itself. Last night we were back in the climbing gym. And after that we finished laundry and cleaning the new house. We're having our first guests in the next day or so: Aaron's mom and two Aunts are coming. Yup, I'm gonna need a nap after my ride home from work.
Yesterday, I stumbled upon this New York Times article about how hip chopped salads are, which of course meant that I needed a salad – chopped or not – immediately.
I Pinterest’d (is that a thing?) chopped salads. Most of them have beans and things. I only put beans in my salad when I want to be extra healthy and get that extra protein. But yesterday, I just wanted THE perfect salad …because I didn’t have any ingredients at home and knew that a special grocery trip would have to be made to acquire them, so why not get exactly what I wanted?
(this is what I wanted. sorry not sorry about the the phone shot. too busy eating)
After a lot of thought, I reverted to what I am now calling the Callie Standard Ingredients. Seriously, throw these things on a pizza, in a pasta, salad, wherever, I will eat them (all). They are, in order of importance:
•canned artichoke hearts: CANNED. Not jarred/marinated. Unlike most Americans, my first exposure to the artichoke was NOT in a cream-heavy spinach/artichoke dip, and it was not the heart(s) alone. It was a whole, steamed artichoke that my grandmother made for me, which is still one of my favorite foods ever.
•mushrooms: any kind. I do not discriminate here. I generally head toward button white, but last night we ended up with some crimini.
•tomatoes: I’ll opt for sun-dried if I have them on hand or chop up whatever I have otherwise. I like roma & vine ripe just because they’re smaller and easier for me to work with. Last night I halved some of the best cherry tomatoes I’ve ever eaten.
•black olives: Another food I adopted early. I used to “sneak” these off the counter while my mom was chopping veggies up for tacos or homemade pizza. Pretty sure she saw me do it every single time, and let me. Because hey, it’s an olive. I think I was at least 10 before I figured out that olives came in green.
Red onions get an honorary mention here, as do onions in general. I’ve never been a fan of them until recently when I realized every recipe I ever make calls for them, and it’s kind of boring to leave them out because they do have a really good FLAVOR. I’m just not a fan of the slimy white guys hanging out in the middle of stuff. But, recently, I have been using them. Usually the yellow ones. I really, honestly like caramelized onions now! But, I was feeling brave about it, so I slipped a handful of chopped red onion into this salad. I know. I know.
Anyway. Last night’s salad ended up being all of the ingredients above atop a romaine bed with some crumbled gorgonzola cheese, garlic croutons and pepper. Dressing? Store-bought. I know, I could have tried harder, but I was hungry! And we got Annie’s , which is a brand I love. Aaron and I devoured it, and Aaron has probably only ever eaten salad as an entre a handful of times since I’ve known him. Luckily, there’s just enough left for lunch today. Along with most of the rest of the onion and a couple handful of cherry tomatoes, which I might just snack on during our move this weekend. Yup. Crazy days. See you guys soon!
Yes, yes. I accidentally booked a teepee on the edge of a giant canyon for my overnight work trip. Doesn't that happen to you all the time?
So you've seen a million pictures of Crater Lake, right? That's a thing, isn't it? ...Well, I went there for the first time on Saturday. I was blown away and took a million of my own.
Besides all the delicious food we ate, this weekend was...
Friday Night Lights. I've never watched the show before, but it's great to have on in the background. I let it play while I read and cooked and relaxed all weekend. Julie & Matt are my favorite...
Mud. We went to see the film on Saturday at our local indie movie theater - our first time there. It reminded me of the OLD Ragtag in Columbia, Mo., my college town. There weren't any couches in our theater, but I wouldn't put it past this place to have them hiding in another one.
Mud was filmed in the east Arkansas delta. It was beautiful and perfect and, yes, "coming of age". I liked it a lot. I thought the kid actors were fantastic, and it was fun to see a friend's name in the credits as a "location assistant". Also funny to see local, Arkansas things like Larry's Pizza in movies. God, I miss their loaded baked potato pizza.....
There was also lots of reading... I finished these books:
One I liked, one I hated. Guess which. Heh. The Lost Girls was probably the worst piece of travel trash that I'e ever read. It was written by three stuck up New York City women, but it sounds like it was just written by ONE stuck up, New York City woman. Anyway....
The Tin Drum was, of course, fantastic, as I expected it to be. I love Grass' voice. So unique. So perfect.
And we went on an almost 10-mile bike ride! Holy crap! Aaron finally got a bike last week, and we went on our first ride together on Wednesday. It was my first time out on the "street" ...the rural highway that starts just a mile from our house, past the adorable park... On Wednesday I was so nervous! I'm still not fully confident in my cycling abilities. We went six miles that day, and my legs didn't get sore, just my wrists and forearms from gripping my handlebars to death.
Our ride late Sunday morning was much, much better! Since nothing terrible happened to me on our first ride (And by that, I mean I didn't spontaneously fall over or get hit by a car), I decided to set out with a much more confident mindset. I did a much better job steering and staying inside the bike lane line, which feels tiny sometimes, even though it isn't. I didn't break going down big hills (mostly), and I even picked my left hand up a few times to signal.
These sound like silly little tiny victories, but I'm proud of myself. I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of bicycles, but I want to like them! And now I'm on the road - literally. Heh.
That's all folks.
