Lizards, Coyotes and Hummingbirds, Oh My!te

Despite living in Minnesota and having a ton of wildlife around us, there is something about being up here that brings out the Mutual Life of Omaha in all of us...

Jager had been stalking a planter out by the pool for two days. Both Don and I had moved it, rattled it, lifted it up to show her there was nothing there. Yesterday morning, she was back at it -- pawing at the planter, licking the side, snuffing under it -- and I went to move it so she would relax. I tilted it up so she could get a good sniff, and lo-and-behold, there was a small lizard. I didn't know this until I turned around and she is there with a lizard tail hanging out of her mouth and Baja trying to get at it!

I was calling at her to drop it, trying to get Baja away from her when Don came out to help. Between the two of us, we got Baja inside and Jager to release the poor lizard and got them both inside the house. We figured the lizard was dead and I went to go get a bag, but much to our surprise, he was alive. We started to nudge it off the stairs, down the deck to the field behind the house. Of course, nothing could be THAT easy since it had to scamper by the pool... Yes, he fell in... I had to go into the pool with a plastic grocery bag and fish him out so Don could continue nudging him into the field.

Once that ordeal was over, I called my dad to tell him the story. While I was on the phone, I saw a coyote crossing across the field. The dogs did too, and raise holy hell. It's a good thing I knew that coyotes were around, otherwise I might have thought it was a stray dog.

Anyway, we had a uneventful rest of the day with a walk on the beach and some pool time with our anniversary dinner last night. I thought the drama was over... Oh, so wrong...

This morning, Don went to get a newspaper and I took the dogs outside for a morning patrol. My dad has a bunch of flowers in his garden up here that attract various birds. There was a hummingbird hovering around one of the planters. Jager was waling by and the bird's movement caught her eye -- she pounced and CAUGHT the hummingbird!! She released it immediately -- I think more out of shock than anything else -- before she did any harm.

Needless to say, it's been an adventure up here... We hit the road tomorrow before 7:00 AM so we can get to Denver by midnight. I am not looking forward to the long haul but I will be happy to get home. At least Jager won't be bringing down a deer or duck....

Santa Barbara!

We arrived as expected on Sunday and spent a few great days here before heading to LA, where we had another several wonderful days. The best part of the trip so far was that my mom and her new partner, Elaine, surprised us on Wednesday at a local SB Mexican eatery. Don said he hadn't seen me so happy in a long time...

There is the Goleta (aka The Gap) fire burning nearby, but it's 25 miles to the north of us and other than increased air traffic, you'd never know.

While in LA, we did visit our old haunt, the Baja Cantina (whom after our Baja is named) although we did not partake of Jager's namesake. What a great place to people-watch -- especially on the 4th of July. A bunch of land-lubbers heading toward surf and sand only to return sunburned. And the outfits!!! I was very snarky, but funny (at least to me) about what people were wearing. Trust me, white men should not wear baseball caps sideways or over-sized sunglasses. And "diamond grills" don't work any anyone other than rap stars.

Now my main goal is to try and read as many books as possible while getting a bit of vitamin D. Oh, and trying to eat as much good Mexican food as possible, even if that means El Pollo Loco!.

Aloha! Means Hello & Good-Bye

I can't believe I'm off to Hawaii in 5 days! It still seems so far off, but it's really right around the corner. I have this weekend and then 3 days of work and then off to the islands. Then, the real mind bend -- home for 3 days and then off to California. I'm not even counting those 3 days at home, although I will go in to work (mostly to show off my tan...) since we're leaving super early on Saturday, June 28. We'll return home on Saturday, July 12 giving me a day to recoup before going back to work on July 14.

My time in Hawaii will be great -- I have a luau the day I get there, a helicopter ride & dinner Friday, the wedding & dinner Saturday and then a brunch on Sunday. There will only be the bride & groom, their parents and 3 friends (2 work friends and me). I finally have my dress, purse and shoes together with a tentative palette of accessories (not real sure of the necklace). I've even been tanning -- something I haven't done in years -- just to make sure I'm not Minnesota-white when I get there.

I still have a few things to try and get done -- a manicure, waxing (not the fun kind) and general packing. The good thing is that I got out of work early on Thursday and did some shopping, which included a new bathing suit, cover-up, some capri pants and some new books. I know -- I still have a ton of unread books but none were really "beach reads" so I needed to get a few to tide me over.

With this trip pending, I haven't even been able to get excited about my (now) annual trip to California. We hemmed and hawed about this, especially with the price of gas, but decided it was too important. Usually, it's a good break for Don before he's off to cover the start of Viking training camp, but he got thrown a curve 2 weeks ago. The powers that be at his paper decided to move him from the Viking beat to the Timberwolves beat. He's never covered the NBA before, and it was all politics, but I'm sure he'll do a good job. The tough part will be the travel. For the NFL, it was 1 pre-season game and 8 regular-season games on the road which meant 2 nights away. The NBA is much different -- there could be as many as 6 nights away at a time, and there are 41 road games to cover. Ugh.

The trip to California will be different, too. We have driven the 4th of July weekend, but with the timing, we're actually going the week before. That means, we'll be in Santa Barbara Sunday - Thursday AM, in Los Angeles Thursday - Sunday afternoon and then back in SB from Sunday PM until Friday AM before we head back to Minnesota. I'm hoping to get appointments with my chiropractor & nutritionist on Thursday, July 3 plus I'll get to see my mom at least once while I'm in LA. I'll see Dad & Dean on Wednesday, July 2 for a bit plus dinner that night.

It's a lot of logistics, but as long as I get a few good days by the pool (for me) and a few long walks on the beach (for the dogs), I should be good until next year.

Work is going very well. I'm loving my new boss and his leadership. I wasn't sure about it when it was announced, but he's really proven himself to me and my team. I still have a lot on my plate, but it seems so much easier than when I was doing my job plus my former boss's job. I'm actually getting home at a decent hour and even got back into the gym on weekdays last week.

I'll try and post a few more times before I leave for Hawaii since won't have my computer there, but I will have computer access when I'm in California.

Anyway, I'm going to try and catch up on what everyone else is doing. I've been a bad blogger from both a posting and commenting stand-point. I want to do better in these areas!!!

Happy Memorial Day!

Hope everyone is having a nice, relaxing weekend. We've had really wacky weather. It was beautiful Friday & Saturday, humid/overcast/hot yesterday and then sunny/cool this morning and now overcast/cool/windy this afternoon. There were tornado touches about 30 miles northeast of us in Hugo, MN. The one person I know from that town was a mile away from the destruction, but he still needs to re-side the western part of his house (which was just re-sided last spring after his house was hit by lightening) and his camper and truck had hail damage.

The photos of the hail were pretty amazing - some were golf-ball sized and some were 3" across. During the whole time this was happening, we had partly sunny skies and no rain. The temps hit 83 degrees - the first time we got to 80 since last fall. We're back down to the upper 60s today. The rest of the week may only get to the mid-70s. I've decided to hit the tanning salon to make sure I have a good base before I leave for Hawaii.

It's only 3 1/2 weeks away - I'm very excited. I finally found shoes and a purse, although I'm still trying to figure out what to do about accessories. I started making my packing list I want to limit it to a carry-on so I don't have to worry about checking a bag, especially since I'm changing planes in Phoenix. I don't think there is much formally planned other than the wedding & dinner and a helicopter ride. I'd like to spend some time just being warm!! I get in on Thursday afternoon, the ride is on Friday morning and the wedding is Saturday evening. Other than that, it's pretty much beach/pool time for me!

The tough part will be the return. I leave Hawaii Monday night at 10:30 and get into Minneapolis at 2:00 Tuesday afternoon. I'll go to work Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and then we leave for Santa Barbara early Saturday morning. We waffled on going or not for several weeks because of the gas prices, but decided to bite the bullet and head west. I'm really looking forward to the trip, especially because it's become tradition for us, and something we enjoy. It's a haul - two full days of driving each way, plus the added stress of only having 3 days at work between trips - but I know it will be worth it in the long run.

Off to make dinner - BBQ tri-tip, baked beans and salad. Yum!

Temporary Fix

I don't know what is wrong with my wolf template but I found a temporary fix while I figure it out. I'll have to wait until I'm home to get all my links back, so bear with me.

Phoenix has been great - of course, part of if is just seeing and feeling the sun! The temps have been in the mid-60s and a little cool in the morning, but overall really pleasant. I've been able to spend some good time with Don plus do a little shopping. Today's plans are still up in the air - maybe a museum, maybe some more window shopping - typical tourist stuff.

The dogs are doing great at the new kennel. The staff seems very informed of what my dogs have been up to. In fact, when I called today to schedule an exit grooming for the two, when I gave the woman their names, she was all, "Oh, Baja and Jager! We are having such fun with them. They are really great dogs."

Anyway, just wanted to see if I could fix the template. If anyone is good with Blogger and HTML code, let me know if you could take a look at my old template to see what is broken!

And, Yet, Another Day

I could retire here. The endless days of beach walks, reading, swims in the pool, trying new restaurants. It's all good.

The best was seeing some long-time friends of my parents who were "missing" for a bit. This was a woman who arranged my brother's baby shower, who helped my parents adjust to having a new baby in the house (ME!!), whom my mom was her maid of honor... For whatever reason they fell out of touch and recently reconnected via Google. We had a wonderful lunch catching up - and I'd love to see them again. Their oldest son, Willie, was someone I got into a lot of trouble with (although I deny it) and I'd love to see him again...

Meanwhile, Don and I are getting ready for our anniversary dinner at the Wine Cask in Santa Barbara. They catered our wedding, so we always go back there for our anniversary dinner. It will be nice, but somewhat bittersweet as we get ready to head back to Minnesota. We have our reservation at a Holiday Inn Express outside of Denver for Thursday which will make our final leg easier....

Off to get ready for dinner...

Another Day in Paradise

The sun has finally come out of hiding. We've had back-to-back days of full sun, which has been nice. I have now read 3 books - "The Red Tent," "The Thirteenth Tale," and "Eat.Pray.Love." I would highly recommend all three. They are all coming-of-age stories in their own way, and I will be taking wisdom from each going forward.

My mom is here now. We've been hanging out, reading and catching up. We have found a new game for the dogs - fetch the stick on the beach. Don and I took Baja & Jager to the beach on Tuesday. It was so overcast and early and the beach was deserted. We decided to let them off-leash, which isn't something we normally do since I know not everyone loves dogs and ours can be a little hard to control when they see new people. Anyway, since there was no one on the beach, we let them off leash and Baja found a driftwood stick, about the length of your forearm. We must have tossed the stick 50 times (OK, not that many, but close) into the ocean, and they both ran after it again, and again, and again.

Both the dogs ran into the ocean, including letting waves crash over their heads. There was also a pod of dolphins about 20 yards (if that) off the shoreline that they noticed. On Thursday when we took them, we didn't see and dolphins, but Jager chased several flocks of birds, and we saw dead squid, dead lobster, and dead stingray. Luckily, they haven't tried to roll around in them!

Off to have dinner, and maybe play a game of UNO!

Safe Arrival

We arrived in Santa Barbara, safe & sound, no worse for wear. We drove from Eden Prairie, MN to Grand Junction, CO (1175 miles, 17.5 hours) the first day. The next leg - from Grand Junction to Las Vegas (511 miles, 7.5 hours) was pretty easy. Don drove that leg, and we had very little traffic and just a little road construction. The last leg, Las Vegas to Santa Barbara (364 miles, 5.75 hours) was the worst. Of course, that's the leg I drove. The traffic was horrible - bumper-to-bumper going anywhere from 10 MPH to 85 MPH. People were weaving in and out, cutting in front of cars with inches to spare, using the slow traffic/truck only lane as a passing lane. It was a very stressful drive. Between LV and Barstow, we'd be traveling at a pretty good pace and then all of a sudden, we'd have to slam on the brakes and creep along at 20 MPH for a few miles and then floor it when the traffic cleared. I'm know part of the reason it was so crazy is it was the Sunday after the 4th of July, so there was a lot of holiday traffic.

The dogs did really well. They stay in the back of the CRV and remain pretty quiet. They did get excited when we got off in Santa Barbara. I opened up the sunroof and the back windows and they were sniffing up a storm. I'd like to think they knew where they were. They had a bit of a rough patch the second day since it was so hot and the blacktop and dried out grass hurt their paws so neither of them wanted to get out and "mark."

We arrived in Santa Barbara around 5:30 PM local time. We unpacked, ordered BBQ to go (yum!) and vegged out. Both Don and I were a little testy because of the stressful last leg. A few glasses of wine and a good night's sleep seemed to remedy that. I went to Trader Joe's in the morning to stock up and then spent the rest of the day out by the pool reading and relaxing. It was overcast until around 2:30 PM, which was fine with us.

I read an entire book yesterday - "The Red Tent." If you haven't read this, you really should. It's the fictionalized story of Dinah, daughter of Joseph, from the Bible. It was a great read, and I was drawn in immediately to the story. I brought a total of 11 books (9 for me, 2 for Don).

We don't really have formal plans for today. It's overcast this morning but it's supposed to burn off earlier than it did yesterday. We will take the dogs for a beach walk early this morning and then hang by the pool again. I know, a rough job, but somebody has to do it!

I'm So Excited!

OK, first things first, the plastic surgery consultation went very well. Both Don and I really liked the doctor and thought he did a great job explaining everything. The good news is that insurance will cover some, it's done as an outpatient procedure, I'd be off of work 2-4 weeks. The bad news is insurance doesn't cover everything, so it will be about $17,000 out of pocket. I would look at getting a full lower body lift (LBL), a breast lift (BL) with breast augmentation (BA). The one surgery won't address all my issues - I would need a second operation if I decided to get my inner thighs and arms done. I plan on checking out 2 other surgeons, but at least I know a ball-park and can start saving money.

I am leaving the office at noon today to finish up getting ready to leave tomorrow. I need to get a mani/pedi, get the car washed, pack, walk the dogs, etc. I'd love to be on the road by 6 AM, but I think it will probably be closer to 7 AM. The hotel we wanted to stay in (Grand Junction Holiday Inn Express) is sold out so we will have to travel another hour and stay at the HIE in Parachute, CO. That means it will be an 1100 mile drive tomorrow (about 16 - 17 hours with stops) but it will be a much shorter trip on Sunday - about 900 miles and 11 hours. Long days, but so worth it. We have our routine down pretty well to keep the stops short - I run to the bathroom while Don gives the dogs a potty break. When I get back, we get the dogs back in the car and I pull up to the pump for gas while Don runs to the bathroom. We can keep our stops to about 10 minutes. We do a little longer one when we feed the dogs dinner, but we even try to eat in the car so we can keep moving forward.

I am so hepped up right now - I probably didn't need the second large coffee. I can barely concentrate. It's a good thing I only have 3 more hours, because I am as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof! Let's Roll!!

Back to Work

It was a sad day at our house on Sunday as both Don and I wrapped up our week of vacation. He's back monitioring Vikings news and I'm back in the office. It was tough getting up at 5:30 AM yesterday, but I'm feeling pretty good today and back in the swing of things.

I had a great week - we got a lot accomplished. We met with our financial advisor and worked out a plan to consolidate the debt with a much lower monthly payment and know about tracking every penny that passes through our hands and making neccesary cuts. I know it's just for the short term until we get things squared away, so no yoga, but continuing our gym membership; getting manicures but no pedicures; cutting out wine clubs and the housecleaning services. I feel a lot less anxious about the financial stuff now that Don and I are working on it together.

My follow-up meeting with my PCP went well. She has me on Celexa (anti-depressant) and Ativan (anti-anxiety, taken as needed). I'm not sure if it's just the Celexa, but I do feel calmer and less anxious. It's almost like I'm more focused. I'm still working on sleeping through the night. One of the side effects is either causing drowsiness or hyper-activity, so I started out taking my daily dose at night but I seem to wake up around midnight and toss and turn for a few hours, although last night didn't seem as bad. I didn't want to start taking it in the morning and falling asleep at my desk. I'll continue with taking it at night for another week and see how I do.

I did weigh in on Sunday and saw my lowest weight to date - 162.8. I have now lost more weight (178.3 pounds) than what I currently weigh. I'm still working on just maintaining my weight, and I haven't really skipped a lot of meals, so I guess my body is still shedding a few more pounds on its own. I did do a lot of walking while I was off - we took the dogs for a hike or a walk almost every day. Now that I'm back to work, though, I am going to try and get into a better gym routine - 4 days a week in addition to walks with the dogs.

One of my big To Dos over the week was to get a new driver's license photo. I was getting tired of the double-takes and questions. The guy taking my photo was very nice - he even let me do my first one over since I looked startled. Now if I can just convince work security to let me take a new one I might actually wear my ID badge in the office (I usually stuff it in my desk even though we're supposed to wear it).

Other than that, I finished the first two books of the Fantasy Challenge (see below) and started the third. I had coffee with some friends on Saturday and then went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art which was a lot of fun. I can't believe I've been here 2.5 years and this was my first museum trip in the city. Sunday was spent mostly complaining about the weather (rainy and gloomy) and going back to work.

Speaking of weather - last Monday we were at 81 and yesterday it barely made it to 50. Supposedly we're getting 1-3 inches of snow (!!) today, and some lows will dip into the teens over the next few days. What happened to spring? We even broke out the deck chairs!!

Off to get this day started.

Feels A Lot Like Summer!

We broke a temp record yesterday here in Minneapolis - 83 degrees! It was wonderful. Don and I spend some time out on the deck. We have a busy schedule today - hike with the dogs, gym, yoga, Wild hockey game. I just love vacation! It's not scheduled to be as warm today - more like the mid-60s, which is typical for March here. It's hard to believe when I woke up this morning it was 43 - a 40 degree drop in just a few hours. I hope my friends to the east of Minneapolis are enjoying the fine weather!

Besides doing some reading, I also got my teeth cleaned and had a partial yearly exam. I still have to go in for my pap, but that's a few months off. I also saw my psych and we decided I need to go back to my PCP to discuss the depression/anxiety to see if there is a medical (e.g., drugs) remedy I can use to get me through this stage. She's also retesting my thyroid to see if my levels are off which may be causing my sweatiness (yeah, TMI, I know).

Don and I are meeting with our financial planner tomorrow and we have some good ideas for how we are going to deal with debt, savings and budgets. Thanks to Jen, I also found a lot of
helpful tools at Oprah's Debt Diet. I will be playing around with some of the downloads today.

I did a good portion of the spring cleaning over the weekend - all of the upstairs is done with the exception of laundering the guest bathroom towels. Don vacuumed the downstairs and swept the garage and basement. I need to tackle the laundry room, clean the stove and fridge. One of the best parts of going from winter to spring is changing the flannel sheets for cool, cotton ones. I love sleeping in fresh, crisp sheets and the windows open (even if it did get into the 40s last night!).

Off to take the frisky pups (actually they are lying on the grass in the sun) on our lake hike. When we took them on Saturday, the part of the lake shore we let the dogs romp around was still frozen, but I think after yesterday's "heat wave" we might have some more meltage so the dogs can wade a little bit.

In case I haven't said it, I love vacation!