Out and About

It has been the best of times and the worst of times. I am messing with stuff here again (Life, career, meds, and diet) and as usual David and Grace and I are running around doing too many things.

On the weight front my weight is still exploding. I am now up to 180. I am now starting to feel quite sorry for myself because sure I figure I have earned 175 but not flipping 20 pounds of expansion. I am now squeezing into my clothes and mostly wearing ones that are comfortable. My size 12 jeans from Las Vegas are getting a lot of wear as are my yoga pants. The shirts that I debated getting rid of last summer are now coming out and going on me. Every morning I vow to call the doctor but I still have not. I will...soon. I am kind of hanging out seeing what will happen and really trying to concentrate on what I am doing differently. I am definitely not as active as I was last year at this time. I am now home most of the time and just walking to and from coffee and the grocery store. The new stables has a stall cleaner so I don't get to muck out stalls anymore. I have been off my bike and we have only fit in a short walk or two as a family. Nothing has been regular again (rain sucks really).

One of my friends asked me to train for a century ride with her in November. I think I am going to do it...eeek. It has been a goal of mine for a few years now but I wimped out. She rode at the ungodly hour of 7am on Sunday with a group but..there is no way I can do 7am. I need to get an hour in this week on my bike and then talk to her about when we can get onto our bikes and get cracking. I figure even if I can make it to 50 miles I will be ahead of the game.

Grace started a class this weekend on forensics. Universities around here offer classes for kids on interesting topics called Saturday Academy. She goes to the class in the afternoon at a college in north Portland. The pay off is David and I get to explore a part of Portland we have not really hung out in before. On Saturday while Grace was in class we went to a place called Scrap (a place that sells salvaged office, craft and art stuff ). I picked up some wire that I can knit for 2.50 for a big spool, some linen, an old style Pentel mechanical pencil and some really cool buckles. David got a reel of resistor arrays (like 5000 of them) and a house charger for our cell phone. We walked away with all of this about 10 bucks.

We then went to the rebuild it store. They sell used wood, windows, appliances, cabinets light fixtures, tiles etc. We didnt really find anything here but it was really fun to look at where the 1970's went to die :) People were all over the place getting excited about old things.

The street that the Rebuild it store was on is really nifty. They had other shops along the street, bars, brewpubs, restaurants and even and urban farm store that sold chickens! If you have seen an episode of Portlandia you will recognize this part of town. David and I both went..ohhhh this is the Portland they are talking about. :) It was quite fun! and as a bonus when we picked up Grace she was happy with her Saturday class and told us all about the stuff she learned.

On Saturday evening David and I packed up and shifted a bunch of stuff out of the garage and brought home more books to go on the living room shelves. We sorted about another couple of boxes to sell back to our local book store. I am also ready to send the book I talked about a few posts ago 'Habit' on to the next person who wants to read it (more on that in the next post so keep and eye out).

Ok...onto some pictures.

The week before Spring break we got snow!!!! Here are some pictures of the snow coming down in front of my house.





Pictures from the wine tasting event last Thursday.





North Portland on Mississippi Street from Saturday