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Did I mention we had an awesome trip? Wow. Fantastic. One of the best overall Montana trips I’ve ever had. We always had something to do, someone to see, and somewhere to go, and good things happened to us the entire time. Good things like:

• Craig’s camera was sitting at our table when we returned to the wedding reception praying it wasn’t long gone.
• We sat and watched a fantastic thunder/lightning storm race across the Montana sky one night for at least 45 minutes.
• We got 2 of 3 items (a disc golf disc and a baseball bat) out of the tree we got them stuck in in Pioneer Park in Billings.
• We ran into the friend we forgot to get ahold of before we left.
• We saw Old Faithful erupt at sunset.
• We set off about $350 worth of fireworks after an awesome Rumble in the Vally 100th Anniversary display without incident.
• We saw the moon rise over Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone Park.
• George’s surgery went well, and he has recovered quicker and better than anyone expected.
• We got the last campsite at Mammoth Hot Springs.
• We saw either 2 wolves, 2 coyotes, or one of each.
• I saw a bighorn sheep ram in the Columbia Gorge.
• Yellowstone National Park was absolutely beautiful – lush and green and full of wildflowers – because it has been so rainy this year.
• We pulled into Jiffy Lube just before 4 other cars, so we were done in 25 minutes instead of 45.

There’s so much more…but I’ll leave it for another post.

Busy. Summer is busy. Last summer we were caught up in home improvements; this year, going places, and much via Prius power. This month we went to Nevada and I to California. Next month: Montana, *wince* Wyoming (but only for Thermopolis and Yellowstone National Park), and probably back again to Montana. August: Nevada again. September: If I’m lucky, Chicago.

In between all of this, there’s the normal stuff like keeping the house clean as well as ‘returning home’ stuff like cleaning up the car and the camping gear. And softball. And gardening. And exercise. And video games! And going to the movies. And creating websites. And my real job.

I enjoy all of these things, but they’ve all hit me hard simultaneously and I’m feeling a bit winded from this whirlwind of activity. My free time interferes with my productivity and my productivity with my ‘me-time.’ Mostly I need more hours in the day!

The last week-week and a half has been mid to upper 80s without a cloud in the sky followed by torrential rain & wind and (normal) rainy drizzle in the 60s. From that basking in 10 hours of sun per day to 48 hours of rain, the garden has exploded. Seriously, I haven’t been out there for 2 days and I thought I walked into someone else’s patch of earth. The tomatoes got blown over by the high winds, but luckily they just bent (no breaking). I hurried down to the local hardware store this morning to purchase cages and got them mostly straightened out. (Note to self: Cage early! Putting tomato cages on when they’re bigger is 20 minutes of bending and weaving and hoping to god that you don’t lop the top half of the plant off by bending too far.)

The peas have baby peas. The peppers have baby peppers. The onions and scallion are looking good. The tomatoes have lots of flowers. The rain barrel is full-to-bursting again! The strawberries are spreading and have lots of white starter-strawberries. Life is abundant!

PS – The yellow roses bloomed as a group this year and look absolutely fabulous! The reds, pinks, and whites are not far behind. Hopefully the transplanted ones have a good growing year so that next year I might enjoy their blooms again.

Yesterday we had one hell of a thunderstorm, and I got stuck in the middle of it. I don’t often get scared in weather, but this had me stressed and worried.

On my way home from work the rain started coming down so hard it sounded like hail. Big, fat drops falling fast. The wind blew it sideways against the car and it was difficult to see even with the windshield wipers going as fast as possible. Lightning chanced about ever 2-3 minutes. I had to turn around two times for fallen trees, and in the air were branches and twigs and raining leaves as well.

By the time I got to NE Salem (I live in far west Salem) the street lights weren’t working and the water was so high that the curbs disappeared. Many of the streets were reduced to one lane either way, and in some spots cars were driving through water about midway up their bumpers. Since I have a partially electric vehicle (a Prius – see my flickr photos), I was considerably more nervous than the average car-owner about partially submersing my underbelly in water. On top of that, there was a 3-car accident in which none of the vehicles were drivable spread across about a block that all the traffic was snaking through. Buckets of water still falling from the sky. I spent 1/2 hour on roughly 1/2 mile of road as rush hour traffic tried to get home as quickly as possible. By the time I got further south to east Salem, the street lights were working and the rain and gathering water had subsided enough not to fear drowning via flash flood, and I made reasonable time back to my house that at the time I was very thankful was at the top of the hill.

Stressed and tired, I walked into my house about 2 hours after the end of my workday.

As many of my facebook loyalists know, I’ve been eating veggies lately, which is really weird for me. For several years now, I’ve been on a “at least 1 serving of fruit or veggies per day” diet (hey, you gotta start somewhere) and I have been very good at keeping or beating it…but mostly with fruit(s). I’ve come to really enjoy my apple, pear, banana, pineapple, cherries, strawberries, or orange juice every day, but I still rarely eat vegetables, mostly because I don’t like many of them. Like, rarely; think of the last time you ate vegetables. Now add at least one week. I started adding onion to my hamburgers, though (I don’t count corn or iceberg lettuce as any nutritional value). Rarely veggies…I think you get it.

So, the big news is that in the last two days I’ve had a bowl of salad. With our garden I have plenty of spinach and lettuce but nothing (yet) to put on them, so I went to the store and bought cauliflower, snap peas, a carrot, a cucumber, and dried cranberries (the ones without added sugar) to make my leaves more interesting. And that they were. I can’t say salad holds a candle to pot roast or pizza in the taste department, but calorie-wise and nutritionally they are off the charts. For me anyway.

Oh, and I must add: thanks to all my supporters (Jen, Jas, Tara, Linds, Paco Taco)!!! They have all been pushing me (gently) toward better health through a more nutritious diet and a wider variety of foods, and without them I still wouldn’t know what garbanzo beans are! Love and hugs to all of you, and a big round of applause!

Now for the more random bits: Earlier this week I also ate tomatoes in Tara’s pasta sauce instead of delicately pushing them aside. I ate my first home-grown strawberry – it was delish! I also cut my first few scallion out of the garden…it is soooo fragrant! Mmmmm!

to a garage! (almost.)

Handsome and I spent hours in the garage today – cleaning, rearranging, tossing, and taking pictures for craigslist posts. Note: This is AFTER we took 3 Prius-loads of stuff to Goodwill. We started in the back, and when we stopped for lunch you could hardly tell (from the entrance to the house) that we’d made a dent! Mind you we have ex- and current roommates’ stuff to contend with, as well as a bunch of old furniture, tools, holiday crap, painting supplies, camping gear, skis, board games, etc. etc. etc. Did I mention a ping-pong table? Yeah, tons of shit.

We slowly worked our way toward the house, though, and now there’s a walkway from one corner to the other without having to squeeze by that box, step over that chair, and avoid kicking the old monitor on your way. The organization part is left; everything is sorted into like groups, but they need to be organized on the shelves we just freed up. Oh, and the selling part; we have about 20 sq. ft. of stuff we hope to rid ourselves of in the near future. For cash, of course!

Today This weekend has been fabulous. Yesterday Handsome and I went to Vancouver to fix ChickenSox’s Xbox 360 and followed it up with a visit to our new glass-blowing friend’s house in Portland. We saw his cute 15 week-old pit bull terrier puppy, Willow, and chatted for awhile before coming home to see Terminator, which was awesome. (Lots of explosions and action.) Today I did a bunch of cleaning and yardwork in the sunshine – it was loverly, and George joined me and happily barked and everything and nothing in the neighborhood – followed by a trip to Goodwill to deliver some unwanteds and then food at the Mongolian grill and then, of course, UFC PPV! A bunch of friends wound up over here, and it was lots of fun to chat and root and cheer with them on a variety of topics. So far, what a wonderful 4-day Memorial Day Weekend!

You’ve got to be promising something pretty enticing to voluntarily get me out of bed at 7am on a Saturday, especially after a Friday night party.

As it turns out, french toast, eggs, and bacon with a glass of apple juice will do it.

I don’t get impressed easily by technology; rather, I’m in the habit of expecting “more” flawlessly, seamlessly, and instantaneously. Wolfram|Alpha impresses me and I can’t wait to use it.