Seedling Update

SOOO excited to share my garden news!! I have seedlings!!! :)

Tomatoes: 

Snap Peas:

Bush Beans:

Either summer squash or pumpkin... I can't remember!

Everything has sprouted now except for peppers, watermelon and cucumber. I think I used old seeds on all three so I might have to run back to the garden store for new pack of seeds or seedings! I'm super excited and looking forward to finding a new place for my garden boxes and starting a garden again this year!!

My two turns on Tuckermans

On Easter Sunday 2011, Nate and I decided that we would head up north and hit Mount Washington at least one more time before the season ended. We got to hojos and we didn't talk about where we were going next. We just ate some food, drank some water, made sure the dogs were accounted for... which they weren't before we got there... dang Oakley must have thought that I was behind Nate and went back to look for me. I ended up having to find her a good ways down the trail from hojos, but I found her so that was all that mattered. I asked Nate if he was ready to keep going and he said, "Yup" and led the way and there we went off to Tuckerman's Ravine. I was a bit clueless and actually was not aware that I was actually in Tuckerman's until we came down the bowl. Nate gave me a high five and said, "I knew you could ride Tucks"... "Really? That was Tuckerman's?" Sometimes being clueless is better than knowing!! :)

So, there we were. We came up onto the bowl, took our stuff off and got ready to hike up with our helmets on and our gear ready so that we didn't have to dig through our bags on the steep part.

This is the bowl from where we got our gear ready:

I guess the rocks in the middle of the screen are called Lunch Rocks. My goal was to make it above those, but then I saw a bunch of people with sleds coming down from those rocks and decided that I could top that. I then decided that the small rock below the big rock section above Lunch Rocks was my goal. So off we went...  

and up we went. I litterly took 20 steps, rested, 20 steps, rested... It's my approach when hiking up the intense stuff. Luckily, it was extremely warm out so it wasn't just straight up ice. I was able to kick in and I wasn't ever really worried about sliding back down. Also, there were a lot of people who had been hiking already so there was a lot of boot packs and it was a lot like climbing up a ladder.

The next picture was of me approaching my goal. When I got there, I realized there was NO where to put your stuff on. I looked back at Nate and was like, 'uh...!' and he was like, 'keep going up until you can find a place to stop to put your stuff on. The next rock should have a place.' So, I kept climbing.

And then we stopped. If you look at the first picture, we made it to the big rock group in the middle about 1/3 of the way from the lip... which is lame that I didn't try to keep going to the top... but since I did falling leaf 80% of the way, I'm going to accept my lameness and move on! :)

And from my little vantage point on the side of a steep mountain, this is what I saw... a STEEP A$$ section that I was going to have to figure out how to get down.

I made Nate lead the way and ventured a falling leaf style on the heal side most of the way down.

And then I connected my two turns:

That was it! I rode tuckermans!!!! Nate did too... but he was camera man as I was holding on to the mountain with everything I had!! :)

Then we got to do the fun part and ride down Sherburne trail. We first had to cross the creek!! :)

This is Nate ripping it on the Sherby. It seems sooo mellow after being in the bowl!!!

I survived!! No embarrassing youtube videos of me coming face first down past 100s of people. No tears! No whining. Just climbing a ladder and falling like a leaf!! Maybe next time I'll have the gonads to turn during the steep part!! :)

My take of the Boston Marathon

My good buddy, Kelli, qualified to run in the 115th Boston Marathon so I decided to celebrate with her, skip work and go watch her run! As my earlier post described, I made some lovely shirts for her husband, Doug, and I to wear to cheer her on.

This is Doug sporting his sweet shirt and leaving a message for Kelli to tell her that we were going to be between mile 6 and mile 8. 

The first thing we got to see were the mobile challenged riders!! These guys were going for it!!  

Then we got to see the fast girls. The girl in green closest to table 3 was the winner! Yes, I got a picture of the winner.

After the elite females ran by, we decided to ride up the road to see how close we could get to mile 8 where Doug said we would meet Kelli with some snacks. Doug saw the Wendy's and said it would be the perfect location because that would be where Kelli would expect to meet him. So we stood in front of the Wendy's and watched the beginning of the marathon.  

The elite males ran by...

This guy ran by us too and then stopped and retched right in front of us. It was hot. I got his number... :)

And then the 24,000 other runners ran by including Kelli who is in green fishing stuff out of her top to give to us.

This is Kelli around 16 or 17 and Doug's arm with gu!

Here is the finish line where we just missed Kelli finishing, but we did see a lot of other people finishing.

And finally, the 115th Boston Marathon qualifier and finisher, Kelli, who rocked out with a PR and a chance to run again next year!

Oh, you pesky hip!!!

I think I'm gonna use this medium to use as my own personal journal about my new stupid injury that is driving me BATTY!!! My dang right hip!!!

It all started about two years ago on some cold July morning and I stupidly took Oakley for a bike ride... So, I wasn't stupid about taking her for a bike ride, I was stupid because she was on a leash, I was on a road bike, and it had just rained so the roads were super wet. We were going down a hill, she stopped, my bike didn't, and I slammed the pavement HARD! If you want pictorial evidence, you can look up facebook and find the cute pink and purple splot on skin with plaid shorts. It hurt like all get out!!! I never got it checked out and because I could walk (very gingerly though), Nate was positive it wasn't fractured so they were going to tell me to rest. Since I can tell myself that, I decided to skip the whole doctor deal.

Then back in January, I had a lovely collision with a railroad and nailed the left side of my bum hard.

So about 4 weeks ago, I decided to push my running limits and ran 4 miles. I thought it went great. It felt fine. No minor aches or major aches. The next day, my friend, Anna and I had a girly day and went to Ikea. We sat in the car for 2.5 hours. I stood up and felt intense pain in my hip. I thought nothing of it because I didn't think sitting could hurt something. :) I kept running on it because that's what I do and now 4 weeks later, I'm still in pain and not too happy about it!!! I have stopped running for about 2 weeks now (I did cheat and ran once last week, and I paid for it so it doesn't count).

So, last night I talked with my chiropractor and we have sort of determined that that when I nailed my bum on the railroad, I knocked out my SI joint. He worked that out and once the pain stopped of that, I started running again. I must have been over compensating for the left side and probably have now tweaked the right side. I can tell that all of the major muscles that run into my hip are tighter than all get out so I have been trying to stretch those out. The annoying thing about the injury to me is that it ONLY really hurts when I run or sit for a long period of time. I really, really want to be able to run... and I would like to figure out a way to avoid sitting for long periods of time... but that whole desk job is ruining it for me. It doesn't hurt when I walk, unless I move a funky direction. It doesn't hurt when I bike. It feels awesome when I swim (I should probably consider doing that more). Oh, and the other thing that I figured out was that I have been heal striking with my right foot. I practiced (doesn't count) running yesterday more on the balls of my feet for a good hundred yards and it doesn't hurt.... so... I'm hoping that by next week, I'll be able to feel the wind in my hair and hear my feet hitting the pavement once again pain free and continue to be pain free with relearning how to run.

That's the long and short of it. If you have any other suggestions outside of resting, massage, yoga, and stop being an idiot, throw them my way... I am trying to do my best at resting. I have asked my massage therapist friend to schedule me in although I loathe massages. I will start doing yoga next week. I was going to start today, but I forgot my clothes and I was born this way, I can't just stop being me... :)

Me? Artsy?

On Sunday, April 17, I thought I would use my creative side and do a little art project...

I took two shirts, some blue and silver sparkly paint, and some paint brushes and painted some shirts to wear while Doug and I cheered Kelli on to her Boston Marathon finish.

The shirt:

The back of my shirt:

(I decided that Doug could be her number 1 fan)

The front of my shirt

The front of Doug's shirt:

Doug's shirt was super special!! I accidentally blobbed some paint under the I. Nate was like, "Add a little something special". So, I added, "That's my girl". It was a huge success!!

My other art project on Sunday was to start my seedlings. I'm super duper excited about my garden this year!!! Can't wait to see how everything turns out!!!

A Little Random Saturday

Saturday, April 16... It was the start of a very interesting but fun weekend...

Here are the pictures/videos from Saturday...

I made biscuits and gravy on Saturday morning! I was going to try and be like all those expert food bloggies, but this is the only picture I took. Once I prepared the dishes, they looked sooo good, that I dug right in and forgot to take a picture. This is the recipe I used. If you like biscuits and gravy, I highly recommend it. It was delish!!! 

After we ate breakfast, we loaded up the bikes and headed mountain biking. We haven't been very good about using the camera while biking, but Nate managed to sneak in a video of me. I think he was attempting to get a video of me falling into the creek as I have had a few close ones on the third bridge. But I let him down and was able to ride over all three bridges without incident!!

and the moment you've all been waiting for.... The infamous turkey!!!

and the bloody culprit!!!

We don't know exactly if Oakley and Scout made the first kill. They might have been the lucky finders of a freshly killed turkey. We do know that they ran away and were missing for a good 20 minutes. I thought they had followed some other riders on the trail. Nate saw them run into the woods near some water. They didn't respond to their normal calls and this really paniced me because if Oakley can't see me, she usually comes the moment I call her. Nate went one way down the trail and I went the other. After a couple of minutes, I rode back, Nate still didn't find them. I then rode back the same way and kept calling them. Again, after fearing that they followed other riders, I rode back towards Nate so that we could wait in the parking lot for the riders to come out. As I rode up to Nate, he was like "I found em". Scout came out of the woods and I could see a little blood on his chest, but then Oakley came out and my cute little white dog... she wasn't so white anymore!! I thought she was hurt, and Nate was like, "Nope. They killed a turkey and I got a picture!"

That was our wild Saturday... We did get to head down to Boston for dinner with our friends Kelli and Doug. They were in town for the Boston Marathon. More on that soon....

A few of my favorite things about our visit to Kentucky

I love the North East and everything it brings: the people, the mountains, the ocean, the sights, the proximity to everything, etc. However, I LOVE traveling back to the midwest and south. It reminds me of a simplier life without bills and work. Here are a few of my favorites from our past weekend in Lexington, KY  and Frankfurt, KY.

1) It reminds me that I, like my North East compadres, drive like lunatics! In the first 2 hours of driving on Friday, I got flicked off and someone did the whole slam on the brakes so you'll get off their tail act. And yes, being flicked off is a common occurance in these parts. So much so that I don't usually know that I'm being flicked off, but this was different. We were driving on highway 64 and I was in the right lane and I was coming up on a truck. There was enough space between the two cars in the left lane to sneak over so I turned on my blinker and moved in. Yes, the space was smaller than probably the recommended space, but I guarentee that the guy in the back did not have to slow down. Although, seeing how much the middle finger was flying around, he probably did have to slow down just so that he could get proper effect of middle finger fly time. Again, being flicked off is common so it was more commical then anything. Then, the speed limit in KY is 70, not the usual 55 or 65 around here. I was loving that! I was cruising down the left lane and came up to a group of cars. I stayed behind them waiting for them to pass the lonely little car in the right lane. We passed the car and then the car in front decided they didn't have to move over to the right lane. Since the were just going a measley 70mph, I decided that I wanted to go around them and might as well go around in the right lane. The car in front of me had the same idea. She moved into the right lane, and I followed behind her. She passed the car and then decided that I must be riding to close, so she slammed on her brakes. I was like, 'whoa, nelly, what was that all about?' I wasn't that close and took the time to move into the left lane and zoom on by! I do drive like a lunatic, but in the North East, it's called survival!

2) Biscuits and gravy...

at places were people have this on their car:

But those were some damn good biscuits and gravy!!!

3) Kentucky fans!!! I really wish I had taken a picture of this woman, but she was a riot! At half time, Nate & I went back to our hotel with our friends, Kristi and Chris, to watch the end of the UK basketball game. There are sports fans around here but most of the time, the Red Sox fans are cheering against the Yankees so I can never tell if they like the Red Sox or if they just despise the Yankees. :) Back to this lady... she was a FAN! She was yelling at the screen whenever they missed it, she was hooting and hollaring whenever they made a shot, and she was yelling at the people around her when they were talking and not paying attention to the game. The best thing she yelled was when Kentucky was down by 4 and there was a just a few seconds left in the game. One of the UConn players was attempting free throws. She litterly got down on her knees, got really close to the tv, and yelled, 'MISS IT, BITCH'. All four of us nearly fell out of our chairs. Oh, I forgot to mention that not 5 minutes before she yelled that her maybe 4 year old daughter was sitting on her lap and now was sitting on someone else's lap watching her mother act like that. It was awesome!

4) Last but definitely not least... watching my friend get married to the man she loves, a man that treats were well and definitely loves her back!

It was a beautiful wedding and it was awesome to be back in Kentucky to watch them tie the knot!! I'm so happy for you, Jen! Thank you so much for inviting us and letting us be a part of your special day!!!

Finally a good customer service experience!

Before I start my trip to Kentucky blog, I wanted to give a huge shout out to Enterprise rent-a-car! In the last few years, I have avoided traveling like the plague not because I don't like traveling b/c I LOVE to travel. However, the travel industry has lost all concept of customer service and could give two poos about making sure that their customers are satisfied... EXCEPT Enterprise rent-a-car, really stepped up last weekend and showed me that they really do care about customer service. Here's the story:

We wanted to fly somewhere near Lexington, KY. Thankfully, there are 5 options options to fly into within 4 hours of Lexington, so I did a whole project of finding the cheapest flight & rental car combination in the beginning of March. I got a good deal on the flight and a smoking deal on the rental car. I was pretty proud of myself. Mother Nature did a number on us and we ended driving to the airport in a snow storm on Friday morning. The first flight boarded on time but we ended up sitting on the tarmac forever waiting to be de-iced. We ended up missing our connection to Columbus, OH. So, we sat in the airport for an hour to see if we could get the next flight to Columbus. That flight was booked completely. Then we decided to get a flight to Cincinnati, OH. I called Enterprise as we were moving from one terminal to the next. I think is where I went wrong, by trying to do the right thing. The lady on the phone ended up cancelling my reservation from Columbus, OH and rebooked me from Cincinnati, OH. The reservation changed from $45 to $300 for the weekend. I knew my parents had a membership with Hertz so I called my mom desperate asking her to see if they could hook us up with something better than $300. She was like, 'uh, we can get something for $550.'... So, Nate looked at me and was like, 'we'll work something out with the actual people at Enterprise. You did the right thing. They should be considerate of that'. We flew into Cincinnati and went to Enterprise. We explained the situation and showed them the original email with the confirmation and the rate. They matched the rate and only ended up charging us extra for dropping off the car in Columbus instead of Cincinnati! Thank you Enterprise for renewing my spirit in customer service! You have a fan in me and the next time I need to rent a car, I will definite call you first!