Big Ole Trip

Getting jazzed to go to Argentina today! I will use this to track what we are up to and what we are seeing. They are three hours ahead of central time and right now it is the end of summer there. Not to mention the water should go around the other way in the toilet bowl...which I may or may not be super excited to see. Argentina is WAAAYYY down there, so I here's a map as I had no idea how big Brazil was until I figured out we had to fly over the whole thing.

We are going to be in Buenos Airies, Rosario, and Trenque Laquen. The last one I spelled totally wrong. We are going at an interesting time in Argentina. New President who is more progressive and allowing them the export the abundance of the agricultural products. We are going to see soybean processing, railroad, port and the cattle business as well. Going to be a big time full of learning. And drinking red wine. And eating beef. And apparently they do something really great with cheese. Stay tuned!

So Where Are We Exactly, And What Are We Doing Here?

I thought I would show off some of my new and fancy ways with the computer. Prepare to be impressed:

Yep, I downloaded a map AND put a star on Fort Collins where we are living. I know, it is awesome. Most 3 year olds could probably do this with their ipads, but this is pretty major for me. I think I will use this map for demonstrating where we are running around to inside the state. 

Jake is still working with Richard with Peak Solutions and it seems to really be working well to be in closer geography to him. They have been working together for about 6 years and are making the world a better place one front line manager at a time...and still earning extra money off of the clock when I get home from work. 

I am working at Poudre Valley Hospital and really enjoying it. I am the Manager of Outpatient Rehabilitation Service (Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy) and am working with a group of about 17 therapists. They are all great at their jobs and I am very lucky. Of course I managed to walk in the door in October right as they were staring to become part of the University of Colorado Health System which is a great move, but causes some crazy stuff to happen when three hospitals merge. We are now in the middle of switching our electronic medical record,changing policies and procedures my staff has known for years and now Healthcare reform and Medicare are switching around the rules around. Never a dull moment. It is a pretty neat situation. We are part of a Colorado owned, not for profit hospital system that stretches all along the front range from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. Once we get all the kinks worked out it I think it is going to be pretty amazing, that can take a while with an organization of this size. So check back with me in 2015 and we should have it all smoothed over!

We don't have any furniture yet as we are still waiting for our house in Bartlesville to sell so we are existing with a love seat and our bed is on the floor. We should have a guest bed and a real couch by the beginning of February, so we will be open for fun then!

Now where was I?

So I am getting back on the blog wagon...again. We are loving Colorado so much and doing so many things that I find super interesting and new that I can't keep everyone up on every little detail when we catch up on the phone or by e-mail. As in the past I am treating this blog like an online diary of my life/our lives, so if it seems self serving it is. It is to help me remember what the hell happened in my 30s when I am 80.. I think that when this blog stopped was when I started the Couch to 5K blog I wrote when we lived in Bartlesville. It was called "Bartlesville Move". I was/am really proud of that accomplishment especially since it was occurring at a time in my life when my work was otherwise very complicated and stressful. It is definitely the shining accomplishment of my time spent in Bartlesville as well as some of the super tight friendships that get formed in stressful situations. Enough about that whole mess. I hope that the blog is more entertaining now. I learned quite a bit about "blogging" while doing the other blog so now I can actually put in pictures without help and make it more fun. We will see though won't we...

Disgusting, terrible, wretched weather.

I am done with it all. It is the 7th gate to hell outside. Everything out of doors is D.O.A.A- Dead On Arrival of August. Yard, flowers, plants, crops, anything that depends on temps less than 100 degrees and more water than dew on the leaves first thing in the morning. Being outdoors is absolutely intolerable and borderline unsafe. Awesome that you can't work out after 7 in the morning because you wake up and it's 80 already. Too hot to ride my bike, too hot to run, can't swim in the lakes because they were too low on water and are all too full of algae that will freaking kill you if you touch it. Woof.

Oh yeah, it's only August 2nd. Today is 111 degrees, tomorrow is 114 degrees. I don't know how to deal with all of this. The chiller at work can't keep up and it is totally rank in the clinic. Yuck.

Worst. Summer. Ever.

Quick and Dirty Update

I thought I wrote a great big long post about my sister's wedding..but I didn't apparently. So instead there is just some updates.

1. We went to Napa. It was freaking magical. We stayed in a magical house, we visited magical wineries, we were with magical friends, we had magical times, and then it was magically over. Jake and I are lucky to have friends that are great enough to plan super events and then just let you come along. We just got on the plane and started having fun.

I would suggest many of the wineries we visited to anyone looking for an above the crowd experience. The valley floor gets super busy, so the most relaxing wineries were up in the mountains. My favorites were: Lava Vine, Cade, Sterling, and Neal.

I also had a great experience tasting olive oil. I had no idea that olive oil could have so many different properties based on how it was pressed and when it was pressed during the season. There is a distinctive grassy taste and heat in the back of your throat that is actually supposed to be there. I thought it just meant that the oil had gone bad.. I brought back two bottles, and it really is totally different. I guess it's the same thing with eating a steak, or any other experience that you are not educated about. Once you talk to someone who knows what they are talking about and gives you perspective it gives you a whole new appreciation for the experience. Pretty neat.

2. My sister got married. It was great, but we were totally worn out by the end. It was a ton of fun as my sisters were all bridemaids and there were all sorts of shenanigans. My parents totally remodeled our entire outside of our home, and it really looks wonderful. They hosted a hummer of a shindig the night before the blessed event and it won't soon be forgotten. There were more than 100 guests at the party and people were everywhere. Even using my father's garage bathroom..the grossest place on earth. It was hilarious.



3. Summer. Super freaking the hottest summer of all time. I had all sorts of grand plans for hiking and biking and running which have all gone by the wayside as it has been mainly 100 degrees since it stopped snowing.

We just walked back in the door from my cousin's wedding in Garden City. It pretty much hasn't rained there since it stopped snowing this winter. We had a great time, but the weather was dry and hotter than Hades. So much fun. Good dancing and great family time.

4. New program. A few work friends and I started a little program for community outreach. It is called "Bartlesville Move", and the idea is to start with a Couch to 5K program, then build up to sponsoring 5K races and bicycling event. We are going to provide community programs and education so that people can work on becoming fit with guidance on all aspects from running form to proper nutrition. We piloted this program with our own employees and really had some good results. I think it could work. Here Jake and I are at the first 5K for the program:




We have a Facebook page under "Bartlesville Move", and a blog. I am providing most of the content at this time, but I have some great people that will be playing a really big role once it is up and running. I couldn't be more excited.

So there is the update! I may even try to throw in some pics!

Ahhh Spring

Spring is such a wonderful time. Hope springs eternal. The days get longer, the sun shines warm upon your back, and then you look out in your back yard and realize it is a total mess. When it is covered in snow and leaves you don't realize that there is so much disaster hidden underneath.

We have got a project on our hands. Not as much of a project as it was a year ago, but still not an easy task. We have areas that don't drain, areas that wash out to the culvert on the other side of the fence, and so much of something called "henbit" that there is more of it than there is grass in our yard. We also have Bermuda grass instead of regular grass, so it greens up really late and makes it look like it is still January here instead of almost April.

I have a misguided desire to have a "real-life garden" with vegetables and the whole nine yards. Everyone I know likes to repeatedly tell me what a terrible idea this is. That does not make me particular optimistic about the whole project. Oh well. Apparently I love frustration so much in my life that I go around looking for new ways to find it!

Winter Hibernation

I haven't touched this thing in months. It's too bad. There is not a really good excuse, but when Jake is out of town I kind of shut down a bit. There was also a stretch of 6 weekends in a row where we were out of town through the beginning of January. There was also the 3 weekends in a row I was sick with either a cold or the worst stomach flu. Gross. So that brings us to last weekend. That was my sister's bachelorette party.

It ended up going very well, which was a real relief. There is a lot of pressure when you are an older sister throwing a party for younger sister. You really want to be cool and fun, but you don't actually know what they enjoy doing. You only remember the stories that she told about what she and her friends did. In that case, I was going to need insurance on the hotel room and a CSI clean up crew... They were a pretty crazy crew in college. They would show up to tailgates with Kool-Aid mustaches and covered in mud when it hadn't rained in weeks. Needless to say, they were a good time.

We had snacks and cocktails and headed out to Aggieville. We watched a brutal KSU game where we blew it, and then had a great time in Aggieville. It was apparently "Transvestite Saturday" in Aggieville that night, so that really made for some local color I hadn't seen before i the 'Ville. Quite exciting.

Let's see if I will come back to this before another 2 months...

A Hunting We Will Go.

Jake is not a hunter usually, but I was working at his computer last week and found a copy of a freshly printed hunting license. Hmmm. I sensed a new experience on the horizon. Jake even went out and bought a "work coat" because he doesn't have any stuff that can really get dirty in, like if you were say, out hunting.

So, in 32 years I have never been hunting. I have occasionally shot a gun at a tin can (and totally missed) but have never piled into the family truckster and headed out into the great wide open to try to explode nature's creations. Not until yesterday.

I really didn't get a lot of instruction as to how the whole thing worked,and I sure didn't ask a lot of questions. People had guns, and I assumed my only job was to stay out of the way. I also assumed the process would work like a well oiled machine with each person knowing exactly where they should be placed and their role in the activity. I should have asked more questions before the truck rolled to a stop and we all jumped out like we were chasing down a loose ten dollar bill blowing down the street. I didn't expect that. I thought we would wander up and down a field in a line and it would be pretty boring. Apparently though, Jake's dad and his buddy have it down to a science. They don't want to do a bunch of walking, they just want to jump out of the truck and shoot some birds.

So here is a shortened version of the rest of the events:

1. Sometimes there is no good spot to stand. Jake's sister Kelli is my hero. Her one good shot of the day was when a bird flew over my head as I was lying on the ground in a ball at the first place we stopped. She didn't take it. Therefore I am still speaking with her.

2. Something that is black and white and wiggly in the underbrush isn't always a skunk. A pheasant's neck ring is also black and white, and they wiggle around a bunch in the underbrush if they are kind of shot. What you shouldn't do is run the opposite direction screaming "skunk" at the top of your lungs. At that point I received the very important information that you have to chase down the birds after you shoot them super fast as they are quite the runners and it is inhumane if they are allowed to escape when they are wounded. I decided I could get on board with that train of thought.

3. About that train of thought. I was sitting in the truck at the last spot, messing around with my phone when I heard some serious gun fire. I look up just in time to see a bird go down 50 feet from the car in the higher grass. I thought about just pretending that I didn't see anything, but then I thought that Jake's dad would be disappointed in me if I didn't take his information seriously. So I run up the side of the brush, not planning to see anything, and then I stumble upon the bird that is supposed to be dead. But it isn't. It's trying to run away. Crap. Well, here we go. I do what any wildlife loving person would do, and I stand on it's head with my boot. So I am screaming obscenities, the pheasant is flapping it's wings, and then I fell over into some sort of bush full of stickers. At that point, the guy that shot the bird finally made it over to deliver the death blow to the pheasant.

So then we headed in with a bunch of birds(15 total)and we take the "hunting picture". I had never looked closely at a pheasant before that day. They are absolutely beautiful birds. The colors and patterns of each feather are unique and intricate, and would be difficult to reproduce accurately by even the world's bests artists. I was not expecting them to be so impressive. Let's face it, the only bird I have seen up close is a chicken, and they are nasty.

We now have pheasant for our freezer and will have to figure out what to do with it...

Adventure Cooking

So I am trying something new today. I am making pork green chili to attempt to replicate the great stuff we were eating in CO. I hope it's at least a little good because it's some work for sure. I don't think I have enough chilis so we will have to head back to the store, and I don't have any tomatillos, so I will have to find those as well. I really like to try and get outside my "cooking comfort zone" every now and then. I do tend to struggle with it because I really don't do well following recipes because I am a "dumper" at heart and am not much at measuring.

I am trying to get better at cooking mexican food and chinese food. I am sure you were all wondering... I think that it benefits me way more in my day to day cooking to try new things in other cuisine. I think I have learned how to add flavor in different ways with the influences from other cultures. Of course it doesn't always work out.

I am wanting to get another half marathon on the schedule. There is one in 3 weeks in Tulsa, but I can't decide if I want to try it. I haven't run in 2 weeks with recovering from the half marathon and now I have a nifty ingrown toenail I am having worked on Tuesday morning. Gross.

Last funny thing. Our neighborhood declared YESTERDAY Halloween. They posted signs and everything. It was weird. Apparently our neighborhood (actually the newer part) is a madhouse on Halloween, and I am not sure if that impacted the decision, and in what way. Just seems weird.

A Vacation and a "Half"

So, we had a "working" vacation earlier this month. We headed out to Colorado for a few days last week and had a great time. Luckily enough we got to spend some time with some great people we don't see often enough and do "touristy" things in Colorado. The initial motivation was to run the Rock in Roll half marathon with Jake's sister and Jake's friend Richard, but in the end it was a great vacation.

We have both been to Colorado frequently in the past, but it is always at a full run to get to the mountains to go skiing. While we were there we skied until we couldn't walk, and it was winter so the weather was always crappy. This time, we had a bunch of time and the weather couldn't have been any better.

As with most of my posts, this one will be primarily about food and exercising.. You do what you like, and I like to eat so I need to exercise. I love having stuff at restaurants that I wouldn't usually have. When I think of Denver, I think of awesome Southwestern type of food, especially green chili. It's a favorite of mine and not very common(or at least not any good).

We started out flying into Denver super early on Thursday morning. We are only a quick 1.5 hour flight from Tulsa, so that is pretty awesome. We jumped off the plane and headed to Downtown Denver for the day. We had breakfast at a place called "Snooze". Pineapple upside down pancakes were my first fun Denver food with an awesome amaretto latte... So then I needed a nap. But instead we headed to the museum of Science and Nature. It was great. The best part was the 3D Hubble Space Telescope IMAX show. It was awesome. I hate space and 3D (in general), but I loved it. The planetarium show was super boring, or at least the two of us thought it was because we both fell asleep. I guess that is what happens when you have a 7 a.m. flight. Luckily we rallied fantastically for the KSU/KU watch party in Colorado Springs with Jake's sister. That was the world's best football game ever. We watched every last minute.

The next day we got up and headed to the Air Force Academy for a tour. It was an amazing place. The chapel is amazing, and learning more about the academic and service requirements really brings to light the level of commitment these 18 year old kids make when they apply to the Air Force Academy. We then went back to Denver for the Expo for the Marathon and Half Marathon. It was a total fiasco with a million people and every woman participating brought at least 2 kids and a stroller. All the kids were running around nuts because they had been eating all of the energy blocks, energy shakes and whatever other "energy" foods they had for sample at the expo. Those people knew what sugar-rific energy crap those kids were loading up on and just stood by and let them do it. Ridiculous. Friday night ended with the greatest pizza of all time at a fun little place in Colorado Springs. It was outside, the wine was great, and it was perfect.

Saturday morning we headed downtown in Colorado Springs, had delicious green chili omelets that were awesome and then headed to the Garden of the Gods. It was super amazing and freaking freezing with a north wind at about 1,000 mph...and then I fell off of the sidewalk. Yep, it happened. I took my eye off the damn thing for one second and I catch the edge, twist my right ankle and skinned the crap out of the outside of my whole left leg. It was ridiculous. We then headed to Manitou Springs to look around. It's an awesome little town where the Pike's Peak train takes off from, and home to the stairs made of railway ties that ascend a full mile straight up. Yep, that's a full mile straight up. Luckily we had a race to run the next day, so we talked ourselves out of doing it for the sake of "conserving our energy". We will go back and conquer those stairs, we will... There was a super awesome dinner with steak with Jake's parents back in Denver, then back to the hotel for a nice restful night's sleep. Or a Mexican wedding reception one floor below us that went on until midnight. Not exactly a relaxing and rejuvanating way to spend the evening before you plan to run 13.1 miles.

So the next morning started at 5 in the morning. We got all ready and headed out. There was major traffic jam and Jake had to do some quick thinking, but got us there AWESOMELY. Jake's parents were super. We parked at their hotel, they held all of our junk during the race, and took us out for brunch after the race. They were real troopers. It really couldn't have been that interesting.

The race itself was really interesting. I hadn't ever run that far (I had made 11 miles before in good shape), but had been doing well with my runs. I hadn't run at a mile of altitude either. Putting those two things together made for a not great end of the run. The altitude factor was much worse than I thought it would be. I knew I was in trouble when I got winded climbing a flight of stairs the first day we were there! The worst part is that there really is no way to prepare for it either. I really thought I would run about a minute faster per mile, but there was no way I was going to be able to do that. But, not bad for the first one...and, I did beat Jake, so there's what really matters.

There were 16,000 people running the race and the atmosphere was amazing. It is a fantastic feat to put on an organized activity like that for that many people, not to mention all the people the bring along with them. All in all I am happy with the fact that I made it through it. I am all about doing another one.

There was a whole additional day and a half to this vacation, but I am too tired to write about it right now. Real quick though: Fort Collins, Iranian food, inability to walk right down any stairs, another awesome green chili breakfast, Estes Park drive, Estes Park Brewery, Boulder, Denver airport, home at midnight, trip over.. Whew. It was awesome, but explains why I am still a little tired.

Super Saturday

After about 6 weeks of running around crazy, we have a weekend with nothing scheduled. I love to go see folks and to have them come see us, but there is something to be said for having no reason to get out of bed on a Saturday! I am pumped to watch football, cook a bunch of fun food, and just mess around with a short "to-do" list. I am through my first beer of the afternoon, so it is going to be a beautiful day!

I just have some random ramblings if you have nothing better to do than read this!

Our lawn has multiple personalities. Sometimes I look at it and think that we are making awesome progress, then other times I look at it and think that we should just dig a moat around the house and just set the yard on fire. We have a combination of mushrooms from the wetness, dead grass (or "dormant" Jake keeps telling me) from the heat, patches where the grass is 6 inches high and places where the grass is really short.. Oh, and there are trees growing up through the bushes we are trying to kill. Luckily we have some constants, like the grass attempting to grow across the sidewalks and weeds everywhere. The weeds are really impressive. They are truly hardy and prolific. We had some that were 6 feet tall. No lie. PS: who decided they were "weeds"? Maybe since the "weeds" do so well, we should make them the primary part of the yard and kill off the finicky grass... Just a thought. Hopefully we can get out there and do something about it tomorrow as it is finally less than 100 degrees with 75% humidity every day.

I am still getting ready for our Half Marathon in October. My body no longer finds it entertaining that I am only running and no longer biking or doing core strengthening, so it decided to really make itself heard over the past two weeks. It's funny that even when I spend all day telling people what to do for stuff like this for a living, I am too lazy to do it right for myself. It was going too well. It is fun to be a "runner" though. I was always in awe of anyone who could just go out and run a few miles like it is no big deal. I realized the other day that I no longer see 3 miles as a "big deal", and I have done a 10 mile run and lived through it. Pretty cool to see something in yourself at 32 you couldn't have had the mental fortitude to do at 20...although my body would probably feel better if I were 20!

Work is super busy. I am glad to have a bunch of time this weekend becuase I have some performance appraisals to work on and my student's assessment to do as well. Being a student is the worst. You are taking out a loan so you can pay the school, so you can come to my clinic and work 40 hours a week. That is pretty dis-heartening for sure for him, but he is doing a great job and is a good guy. He laughs at my jokes and helps me get my work done without making me want to strangle him, so that is pretty top notch for a student!

Well, off to focus on football!

Really Great Weekend

This weekend (or whole month actually) was an example of how it is nice to be back close to home again. I got to spend the weekend with my family without catching a plane, missing any work, and I know I will get to do it again next month if not sooner. I miss many things about South Carolina, but what I get to do here far outweighs the lack of winter weather, beach proximity, and even the ease of oyster procurement!

KSU won, KU lost and honestly there is no better way to appreciate a Saturday. However, as a KSU fan you can never truly enjoy it as we spend out time waiting for the other shoe to drop when we will lose to some jackass team that we should beaten just because we are KSU and that is how it goes. I may purchase a NDSU t-shirt just in case we have it together this season and it would be my chance to wear it with pride.

We also got a ton of wedding planning done for Molly. We are trying to figure out where to have her bachelorette party. She lives in Memphis, friends in KC so she thinks she wants to be in KC...but we may try and squeeze a hometown shower in that weekend...and that is where it all gets dicey. I am the Matron of Honor..that word is weird. "Matron". Awesome. Time to buy a girdle...

So That's What I Dream When I Take Allergy Medicine

So I had this dream last week. It was bizarre. I dreamt that I had changed professions and was now a sanitation attendant (janitor) in a super classy subway bathroom (not classy at all). I was actually working in a men's bathroom, which doubled as a cafeteria, where all of the stalls had no doors. Yep, that's pretty bizarre.

Don't worry though, it was totally "G rated" because everyone was eating food off of their laps or reading the paper in their stalls...rank.

In that same dream, a very good friend of our had to go to jail for shooting a moose..with the gun behind his back. It apparently was not problematic that he shot the moose, only that he did it with the rifle behind his back.

Neat Benedryll, thanks.

Running in the Rain.

I used to LOVE running in the rain. Sprinkle, thunderstorm, whatever. It was something different, it cooled me off, it motivated me to speed up a little. It broke the routine that I am so used to.

I was out running in the rain in college on a day just like this when a huge storm kicked up. It didn't look like it would be much, but I got about a mile from ADPi and looked up to the sky to a boiling, black, angry mass. The lightning really kicked up in a hurry and I turned around the head home. It poured on me like I had never had in my life. The lightening seemed to be about 5 seconds apart and felt about 50 feet from my head. It really was scary for a little while because it escalated so quickly and there was no where to go to get away from it. I knew better than to stand under the trees, but I also didn't want to stand out exposed as that felt even less safe. I finally made it home and said a quick prayer of Thank You and went about my day of preparation for recruitment activities with all of my friends.

Only later that day did we hear that the new football coach's wife (Phil Bennett)had been out running in that same storm across town and had been struck by lightning. She had died. I had never really thought of the danger before. It hadn't ever crossed my mind as I headed out into the drops, unafraid of the thunder.

A cloudy day still puts a spring in my step, but I don't run in the rain anymore.

And then I had to carry my bike a mile....

Yep. I need more time to write than I have right now about my weekend biking adventure! It was definitely awesome.

Had a great bike ride this morning with Jake. It was beautiful. The roads here aren't nearly as scary as the one's in SC, so that makes it really nice. I would even consider going out by myself here. I would never have done that in SC. Our ride this morning was rolling hills, ranches, long horns and tall grass. Gorgeous. It was a great way to start the day.

We are going on a float trip this weekend and I am totally jazzed about it. Jake and I had a prior float trip experience that was not so good, so I am hoping this one redeems it, or Jake may never go again!

I can't believe summer is almost over. The kids and teachers I treat are talking about going back to class already. Unbelievable how fast this has gone. Work has been super hectic so I haven't gotten to enjoy my summer like I would have liked to. Hoping all this hard work I am doing laying a foundation pays off...because it's hard work...

What I don't understand is that sun is coming up later and going down earlier, but somehow it is still hotter than the face of the sun all the time. Explain that you crazy science folks!